Monday, June 24, 2013

Embracing the sweatiness

I've been working on embracing the fact that I spend so much of the day sweaty. Hunter really has not come around yet. After arriving home from a run, I'll pick him up like he requests, and then he realizes how slick I am from melted sunscreen all over me and holds on with his legs, but he WILL NOT touch me with his hands. He pulls them back as far away as possible, like, whoa there mommy!

My garmin hasn't come around either. He still starts acting up after about 2 miles of running, so I've given in, shunned this century's running fashion, and surrounded him in sweatbands. It looks like I'm running with a broken arm, but he made it with only a small complaint for 40 sweaty minutes like this.


Have I mentioned I'm a heavy sweater? I'd forgotten this little detail in the last 3 years. I had hoped for just a fine tuned acclimation to heat from running in extreme temps (it's really the scorching sun at 4500ft that's the killer), but no. It was just evaporating like its supposed to do. So I dug up my cycling sweat band with the cute TdF logo in honor of the race start next week, and wow, does it help do what my eyebrows cannot.

It's super nice to have this reprieve from the humidity that is commonly called air conditioner, a luxury we didn't have in NM (swamp coolers just suck when you exercise). We are also enjoying the pool just down the street. Hunter frequents it in his adorable little baby speedo swim diaper. I just can't put him in bid kid swim trunks this year. When else in his life will tiny swim shorts be so cute?


Besides Jeremy doing big manual labor type jobs in the house and yard, we are slowly working on decorating. Here's the buffet of my great aunt Bea's that I just had to refinish. It was a nice but boring maple color with scrolly pulls and I thought a little paint, some stain marker detailing, and new pulls might update it a bit. Nice bulbless lamp too, huh?



Hunter, not missing a beat, added some color detailing to his table and chairs as soon as Jeremy put them together. Eventually we will start selling his work to galleries I suppose. Although they seem to still be works in progress, added to daily.



Happy official summer!

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Making it "home"

You'd think that having Jeremy home on "vacation" for 6 weeks would make it easy for me to find blogging time. I can't seem to. For one thing, unpacking what the packing crew boxed and labeled, while seemingly simple, and surprisingly amusing, is not easy.


Bases drumps = drums with a silent p?
Baby stabs = baby changing table and swing...huh? Still don't get it.


Don't ask what we found in here. Eek.

Moving from a house where we crammed things in every corner possible to one where we even have attic and basement space requires some planning and storing and sorting and Goodwill-ing. But I'm not complaining.

Training-wise, I was set to do two-a-days for the whole six weeks, since this vacation from J working culminates with a half ironman the weekend before he starts at his new place. It hasn't been happening quite as planned. My lungs seem to be doing fine, but the muscles, not so much. We apparently live on the highest point in the city--- no no wait, one lot up from us, at the corner, is higher. This requires my bike rides to begin in the smallest gear from the start of the driveway. Coming home, especially running in from the west, is a brutal, endless hill.

There's so much exploring to do here. There are trails to ride and run, zoos to visit, woods with a creek and chiggers (who have found a new love --> me) to explore, real restaurants to eat at, baseball games to watch, the pool down the street to swim in, and cousins to play with.

Oh, and neighbors' weeds to pull.

I've been cooking my Heifer Intl CSA produce and learning that I love kohlrabi and fennel bulbs and rainbow chard, one cabbage head can feed a few families for days, I love lettuce even after eating my weight in it, and Hunter will still eat anything. There was very appropriately named series on Huffington Post called "WTF CSA?" that helped me find some recipes for those less common veggies (kohlrabi??) one might find in her weekly basket, and I recommend it for CSAers.

Since we have a new house, we've decided to do a few things with it, like add a screened porch, stain the deck, get plantation shutters, and put furniture in every room. I, of course, just had to make over an old buffet of my great aunt's immediately, and Jeremy is taking care of the rest, with Hunter's help, of course. 


So far, so good, in our new climate, state, city, neighborhood, and house. (p.s. those are not the new shutters in the front windows, but do you like them? It was that or sheets)