Summer Memories

This week's Listicles topic is Summer Memories.  I love summer and I don't think this topic will be too hard to complete.  Check out Northwest Mommy and join us!

1.  I have an early memory of going to a small town near Bar Harbor with my mom and her best friend and her kids.  We stayed in a little cabin for a week and I could walk down the road to the tiny little library.  I loved to read (still do!) so being near a library was a good thing.  The librarian there suggested I read James and the Giant Peach.  I thought he was nuts but he promised me I would like it.  I did and he was right.  We walked on the rocks so much my feet got callouses.

One small aside--one of the boys of my mom's best friend is now famous for his visual effects work on multiple movies such as Avatar, King Kong, Lord of the Ring series and X-Men.  Eric Saindon.  Yah, I knew him when he was 10.

2.  Catching fireflies in big mason jars and watching them blink.  Then letting them go.

3.  Going fishing with my best friend (around age 10) and her dad way up north and in the middle of nowhere.  We would take a canoe down all these tiny streams and catch trout.  One day I saw a frog on the shore.  Her dad saw me and knew what I was thinking.  I'll never forget this.  He told me, "if you catch that frog, I'm not helping you take it off the hook".  I caught it anyway and spent the next 20 minutes trying to take the hook out while not ripping out his entire digestive system.  Which is what happened.  I never caught a frog with a fishing pole again.  Good life lessons.

4.  Working for 3 summers in Bar Harbor at the Bar Harbor Inn.  I lived right above the restaurant for $25/week.  I was 19, had no bills, no cares and waitressed and made a bunch of money.  It was one of the best times in my life.

5.  When Hurricane Bob came to Maine in 1991, all the restaurants closed in Bar Harbor where I waitressed.  So what did a bunch of 20 year olds do?  We bought wine and cheese and drove to Thunder Hole and watched the hurricane.  Smart.  It was awesome though.  How we didn't die, is a major mystery to me.

We could not get down to this part of the park because it was covered with water.

6.  Rides on our boat home from the harbor on a full moon night.  Glorious.

7.  The joyous faces of my kids while on the boat. 

8.  Relaxing at my parent's camp.

9.  Ice cream every night.  Just because.

10.  Going to the beach every day before work (as a waitress) and getting the most bad ass tan ever.  And probably skin cancer to boot.



One Lovely Blog

I just got the nod for One Lovely Blog by my fellow Mainer and running friend, Jen, at Running with the Girls.  One of these days I will actually be one of those girls that she is running with, but it has not worked out just yet....    I hope to see her at the Rail Trail 1/2 Marathon in later this month, where I will start out with the girls, but probably not actaully run with the girls as they are much younger and faster than I. 

The One Lovely Blog is a way to recognize your favorite blogs in a 'pay it forward' sorta way. 

Here are the rules:

1. Post the award logo and and picture on your blog and link back to the person who nominated you.

2. Tell seven things about yourself.

3. Nominate up to 15 additional bloggers who you think deserve the award.

4. Post a comment on the blog of each nominee to tell them him/her they have been nominated.

Here are my seven things:

1.  I am getting my hair cut and colored today.  Finally!!  I have greys and roots everywhere.  I am planning on getting a somewhat different hairstyle.  The put-your-hair-up-in-a-clip-everyday-style is getting old.  And making me look old.  I still want to have it kinda long but I need to be able to style it as well.  I never wear it down anymore.

2.  I pick my cuticles and hangnails.  For some reason, it is not as much in the past few years.  I do think that running/exercising helps curtail it as I tend to do it more when I'm stressed or bored.  Gross habit I know, but I can't stop.  So if you see bandaids on my fingers, it is to stop me from picking already sore cuticles.

3.  Even though they are so bad for you, I love McDonald's french fries.  Unfortunately, there is a McD just down the road from work and it's the only fast food around so in a pinch, guess what I'm eating?

4.  My one, very best sporting moment in high school was not credited to me.  It was in a soccer playoff and we had a corner kick.  I can't tell you how many times we practiced taking corner kicks, where the person kicking tries to get it high enough to reach the striker in the middle.  I (the striker) would come running from the top of the penalty box and try to one-touch it, in the air, into the goal.  Well, this was the one time that it actually worked.  It was like something out of the World Cup and it made the evening news.  The only bad part was that it was credited to my teammate, even though you could clearly see my number on my back as I was making that Pele-like goal.  Of course, back in the dark ages, there wasn't any You Tube so I can't play it for you.

5.  My baby is going to be 7 soon.  Did you hear that?  My BABY is going to be SEVEN!  As in years old!  Seven.  My baby.  I can't believe it.  Not my oldest, but my youngest. 

6.  My oldest beat me in a hill sprint the other day.  She is 12 and last time we sprinted I beat her.  This time she decided that she wanted to run with me but she didn't think she could do 6 miles so we just did 3.  As we got the the turn around she decided to wait at the bottom of the hill for me and rest.  I decided to do some hill repeats to make my workout a little harder.  I sprinted the hill up and down then rested.  Then I did it again and rested.  The third time she wanted to race me.  I couldn't catch her.  To my credit, I had just done the hill twice already while she was resting the whole time, but still she beat me.  It won't be too long and she'll have to do hill repeats while I'm taking a rest.

7.  I just won another Running Skirt on ebay.  So that makes 2 this past week and 4 total.  I might be addicted.....  I do need to pay closer attention to the description though, as the last one I bought arrived and it didn't have the shorties underneath.  It was just the skirt.  Bummer.

Do you have any bad habits?

What was your best sport moment in high school?

My nominees for One Lovely Blog are:

Carrie @ Maine Mom on the Run
Christy @ My Dirt Road Anthem
Terzah@ BQby40
Trinity @ Running Mother
That Pink Girl
Toni @ Running, Living, Loving
Kara @ It's a Dog Lick Baby World
Lisa @ Getting it Done on the Run
Marcia @ The Healthy Slice

May Review

It's that time again--time to review the previous month's exercise efforts.  Due to the longer days and the much improved weather, I did much better with exercise this past month.  Of course, living in Maine we have to pay the price for good weather and that price is shitty weather.  So as I sit here writing this blog, we are getting pounded with rain and I am considering building an ark....  I suppose I would get bored of 80 degrees day in and day out.  #onecanonlydream

Miles Run--49.2  That is up from 31.5 for April.  I guess if I'd have known that I was that close to 50 I probably would have squeaked out another mile.  Overall, a good month for running for me.

Spin Bike--305 minutes on spin bike.  That is just about double from last month.  I don't think that even includes a single class--it's all me, just spinning alone in the bike room.  Totally boring but I did mange to do a good job.

Swim--8000 yds.  I continue to be pretty consistent with swimming.  That puts me at 25.6 miles for the year and 38.1 miles since 11/1/11.  I still have quite a ways to go to make the 100 mile club, but I will do it!  Maybe I'll tack on another 500 yards per swim session this summer.....

Tennis--4 hours

Weight--50 minutes

Races--none.  There were not any races nearby that I wanted to do that didn't conflict with the kid's activities.  I have a few coming up in June so I can make up for it then.

Current Excitement--I'm still enjoying my new phone and the swype feature has solved the problem of the  'no keys' issue I was not liking.  If you don't have swype, then you are missing out.

Another exciting thing here in our household is that school is almost out for the summer.  The kids are staying home with a sitter (who drives) and that makes my life soooo much easier.  I cannot wait to get up and just worry about getting ME ready for work.  No packing lunches, backpacks, yelling for kids to get out of bed.  Ahh... bliss!  Just 10 more days.

Oohh!  I almost forgot!  I just won a pair of Aspareis compression shorts from Michelle at blogitness!  I cannot wait to try them out.  I was considering buying a pair, but it's so much better to try them without having to purchase them!  I'll let you know how I like them.

Current Music--I'm enjoying Payphone by Maroon 5, and despite that it is totally cheesy, I can't keep Call Me Maybe out of my head.

Current Books--I just bought two books at Target that looked interesting to me:  Dreams of Joy which is the sequel to Shanghai Girls (which I really enjoyed), and One Thousand White Women.  I've also joined an online book club hosted by Jen at Just a Mom Giving it A Tri.  Our first book is Karen Goucher's Running for Women.  It's on it's way from our online library system which is the coolest thing ever.  I don't know if all libraries offer this or not, but ours is hooked in with all others in Maine via Minerva.  You can go online and search for whatever book you want and if any of the libraries in the system have the book, you can request it and it will be sent to your local library for you to borrow!

In addition, my bloggy friend Terzah who is a librarian, has given me quite a few suggestions of books that I might enjoy.  It will take me awhile to get through all these books!

Current Bummer--today is a big bummer because of all the freakin' rain!  It has just been nonstop for two days now.  My sprint tri was postponed today because of all this rain and roads are flooded everywhere.  It just sucks.  I really hate rain more than anything.  Especially multiple days of it.  On a weekend.  ugh.

I hope June continues to be a good month for totals!  Have a great one!

sheltered kids?

I was reading another blog this morning and it occurred to me the many things I did as a kid (that were never a big deal then), that I would never let my kid do now.  Then I wonder if what we did was really as bad as it seems or are we just too protective of our kids now.  Let me name a few:

1.  I stayed home with my brother after school starting at age 10 1/2.  He was 8.  We came home on the bus and stayed there until my mom got home around 5.  I started dinner and did laundry and we watched a lot of tv. 

Just this year we have let my oldest daughter stay home after school by herself.  She was 12 in November.  It was a big deal.  She does not start dinner but will do laundry if I remind her.  There is no way in hell I would let the other two come home with her. 

2.  At age 11 ish I would ride to the store on my bike, with my dog, to get soda or whatever for my mother.  The store was 2 miles away and I had to ride down a very busy road that actually had a Route number vs. just a street name.  I have no idea how I didn't get killed or how my dog didn't get run over.  No helmet, of course.  I would also ride to school (same distance) and to a local pool to swim all day.  (with no parent and no lifeguard)

Strangely, this is the same parent who wouldn't let me ride to a different store on a safer route to watch the kids play a video game.  Go figure.

My kids would never bike to school which is about the same distance as what I used to bike.  And there aren't even any major routes to travel on, they are all roads--but people drive like jackasses and there isn't any shoulder to speak of.  Biking to school is unheard of these days.  No wonder everyone is overweight and unhealthy.....

3.  I climbed Mt. Katahdin with a friend of mine when we were sophomores in high school.  I know we were this age because she had just gotten her license and could drive.  We packed a lunch with soda and water in a back pack and off we went. 

Go ahead.  Google Mt. Katahdin and see what you come up with.  See how really crazy this actually was.  We had no cell phones, (they didn't exist), no GPS, no means of staying overnight if we got lost, no real plan--nothing.  Just hopped in the car and went.  Turns out we went up the trail you are supposed to come down and thus went down the trail you are supposed to go up.  How we didn't fall on the way down and break an ankle, I have no idea.  And a Mt. Katahdin climb is an all day affair.  Like from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.  People die up there.  No way in hell would I let my high school aged kid do that now without some adult present.  Crazy.  Yet we were fine.

4.  I played sports every season and living out in the middle of nowhere, we often had away games that were 2 hours away.  During basketball season, this would mean that we wouldn't get home until 11:00 at night sometimes.  Sometimes the bus would drive by my house and drop me off, but mostly the bus brought us all to the high school.  I would then walk home, at night, in the dark, often alone.  Granted, we lived 4 blocks from the high school, but still!  11:00 at night??  Alone?  Yet, it really was no big deal as we all were doing it unless you had a car.  Which I did not.

5.  I remember one or two times during Christmas season that my mother would drop us off at a movie (again aged 11ish) to watch while she went shopping for our presents.  An 11 and a 9 year old.  At the movies.  Alone.  Unheard of in this day.  In fact, someone would probably call the police on you.

6.  Again, around age 11 or 12 (this all happened before I moved to another school during 7th grade so I remember the age pretty well), during days off--I'm guessing a teacher service day--we would walk the mile to the bus stop, take the city bus into Bangor (which is a pretty big city in Maine), go to the Bangor Public Library, visit at the library for a couple of hours and then take the bus back home.  Again.  Alone.  C. R. A. Z. Y.

I swear, we were perfect bait for child predators.  Perfect.

Which brings me to my next question--are we too over protective of our kids these days?  Or have times really changed and we need to be this way?  It's hard to know when to let kids have freedom and when to keep them nearby.

Do you have any crazy stories from when you were a kid that you would never let your kid do now?


Follow me on twitter!   @ltlindian

Nice balls!

This actually happened tonight in the 10 items or fewer checkout lane at our local grocery store.

Man in front of us waiting to check out with two large plastic balls that are in those bins in the front of the store.

My husband:  Nice balls.

Man:  <half smile on his face>  Thanks.

Me:  <starting to giggle>  Those are some big balls.  *snort, snort*

Man:  Yes.  Yes, they are.

Husband:  At least they aren't blue.

Full out laughing at this point.

Man to the checkout woman:  They are for my nieces.

Checkout woman:  Would you like a bag for your balls?

No joke.  Really.  This is what she said.  I am seriously busting a gut now.  Out loud laughing.  Unable to stop.

Man:  No thanks.  I'll just carry them.

Checkout woman:  How about a basket then?

All three (me, husband and man)  still laughing uncontrollably at this point.

Man as he's leaving:  They are so soft and squishy!

Husband:  Enjoy those balls!


I know.  We are totally classy like that.

I don't know what it is about balls that makes grown men and women giggle like teenagers whenever you say it, but I seriously, could not stop laughing.

Oh yeah, all three kids were with us too.  Laughing as well, but totally embarrassed that we were laughing.

Good times.  Totally worth stopping in to Hannaford tonight.

tweet?

I'm trying out twitter now.  Trying to figure it out, that is.  It might be more fun if I had some followers so go ahead and follow me.

@ltlindian

Some of you I have already found on twitter, but if I'm not following you, let me know your name and I will.

Happy Friday!  Excellent day, not weather wise, but other wise.  Great 2000 yd. swim.  It is really getting so easy now.  I should probably try to go faster but I'm pretty pleased with 500 yds every 8-9 minutes.

Did I mention that I have a sprint tri next weekend?  No?  Well, I do.  I think I might kill it.  Really.

I'm looking forward to the 80 deg day that we have coming tomorrow.  6 mile run in the morning planned and then beach and fun with the family.  #ifreakinlovesummer  (see, I'm already good at this twitter thing...)

OH, and the long weekend!  What can I say about that?  Three Day Weekend.... I love you.

One last surprising good thing about today.  We didn't go out for dinner like usual, but there was some chaos and we just decided to eat at home.  What to eat.  What to eat.  I found those croissant roll things in a tube, chicken and had an idea.  I rolled out the rolls to be like a pizza dough.  Then put on BBQ sauce, cheese, chicken and red onion.  Voila!  Instant, free dinner!  In case you were wondering, it was delicious.

How's that for saving $100?  As I much as I love eating out, I wish we could do it without spending a benny every time.

Are you tweeting?  Am I the last to arrive at this party?

Do you have any plans for the long weekend?

How do you feed a family of 5 without spending $100 each time?

WTF Wednesday

I had to bring WTF Wednesday back this week.  I had a few things that I've come across that really require a WTF.

1.  I hate insurance companies for more reasons than I care to go into right now but the latest annoying thing they are doing is to stop covering all prescription allergy eye drops.  Or at least the ones that are effective and easy to use.  For years they have paid for eye drops such as Patanol, Pataday, Bepreve and Lastacaft.  People have used these drops with great success to control their allergy symptoms. 

So now either people pay for them out of pocket ($100 ish) or are forced to try to find some other inadequate OTC drop. 

Oh, and you drug companies are just as much to blame too.  If you didn't charge such ridiculous amounts for said eye drops to begin with, maybe the insurance companies would continue to provide that as a benefit. 

This is all you can afford.  BTW it sucks.

You both get a WTF.

2.  Lululemon skirts.  Seriously.  What is the big hoopla about these skirts?  Are they made of gold?  Do they promise a BQ?   Because I cannot seem to find even one on ebay that is priced below $60.  And some of them were priced at $100!!  For a skirt.  On Ebay!  I wasn't looking to buy one, I actually wanted a Running Skirt skirt but all these Lululemon ones showed up on my search. 

I'm not sure who deserves the WTF, Lululemon or the women that buy them.

 C'mon.  You know you want this.  It's only $105.

3.  Bristol Palin has a reality tv show that will debut next week.  It is called, "Life's a Tripp" (haha, oh, you are so clever, Bristol...) and is about her life as a single mom.  Super.  I guess she's also describing herself as an activist against teen pregnancy.  Ooops!  That ship has sailed.

Yes, let's advocate for the prevention of teen pregnancy via a reality show that she got only because she is a teen parent.  And of course, we won't glamorize it...   Excellent message. 

WTF.

Ever have any conflicts with insurance companies?

Do you own a Lululemon skirt? 

If so, what is wrong with you?  do you have a sugar daddy?  Independently weathly?  Trust fund?