Mission accomplished, I crossed the finish line!  It was an INCREDIBLE experience.  I’m so glad I did it although I cursed myself throughout the entire course of the race…;)  It was hard, but I did it and I’m totally looking forward to the next one!  Everything about the weekend and my trip was just fabulous.  We all had a super fun time!  Details to follow soon, but for now they’ll have to wait.  I’ve got a lot of catching up to do here at home and at work, so stay tuned for another update soon!  Many thanks to all of you who encouraged, advised, and wished me luck.  You’re very much appreciated!

Until next time, these are the days of my life…

Be great!

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”

~ Theodore Roosevelt

Well blog people, I am fixin’ to head out of the office for an extended weekend to do some last minute running around.  Belle and I will head out for Tybee Island tomorrow around noon!  I’m making her go to school for half a day since she’ll be missing school on Monday.  It has worked out so that H and the boys will meet us at the beach either Saturday afternoon or late, late Saturday night.  It depends on their Friday night baseball game and whether they win or lose.  At least I know H will be there for the event Sunday so Belle will be taken care of.  I’m very glad they’re coming ~ I really want all the kids to be there for this!  They’ve watched me train over the past 2 months and they think it’s *so* cool that Mom is doing a “race”.  It’s sure to be a fun time!  Updates to come!!

It’s been a crazy week with work and play…  It never fails, as soon as I decide to go out of town, all hell seems to break loose at work.  Not to worry though, I’ve been able to knock all the important stuff out, so it’s all good. J  Aside from that, it seems like we’ve had stuff going on every evening this week as well.  Some, just the typical running around kind of stuff like haircuts, boy scouts, grocery shopping, cricket shopping ~ you know, the usual…;)  Also, my friend T’s sister was in town visiting from Texas this week so the family and I went over to T’s house last night for an awesome dinner and a mini-party that lasted (as usual) way past our bedtimes.  Ah well, it was a special occasion so it was worth it.  T’s sister is the only family she has and she is such an important person in her life, it was so well worth spending the time with them and getting to know T’s big sis.  We had a fantastic time!  We always do with T’s crew.  Also, my Texas friend K was back in town for a few days.  He’s still traveling around the country, pretty much trying to “find himself” and trying to decide where he wants to settle down.  It really is a cool thing he’s doing.  He’s recently divorced from a 10 year marriage, no kids, and he’s financially set so he doesn’t have to work for the time being.  One day he woke up and decided he wanted to do some traveling and soul-searching, which included reconnecting with old friends (like Val and I), so he quit his job and off he went!  So anyway, he was back in town and I was able to go to lunch with him today before he headed out once again.  As I type this, he’s on his way back to Myrtle Beach to visit his dad.  He says he’ll be back though, so I suppose we will see him again soon!  Neat guy, a bit of drama, but still a fun time reconnecting with an old friend. 

Okay, I’m heading out folks!  Tonight is sure to be a crazy night with me insisting on busting my ass to clean my house to perfection (why do I always choose to do this while packing for a trip…?), doing laundry and packing for myself and all of the kiddos.  Yep, it will be crazy!  I am so looking forward to my one-on-one time with Belle tomorrow and Saturday.  We will have a blast!!  I foresee lots of playtime in the sand, walks on the beach, bike rides around the island, cuddling up at night with a movie, swimming, shopping, yummy seafood and other tasty treats, and maybe even a new pair of shoes.  Or two.  J  Life is good…

Think of me on Sunday…9:30am…and wish me a little bit of luck! 

Until next time, these are the days of my life…be great!

Georgia, OUT         

Did I mention that we found another barn and riding instructor for Belle?  Well, we did.  Actually, we found two of them.  I called the first one and set up a lesson for Sunday (Sunday before last).  Belle and I made the 20+ minute drive to the new barn and when we were maybe a mile away from the place, the instructor had the nerve to call me to tell me she was sick and had to cancel.  Come again?  Did she not know she was sick that morning or even a few hours before our scheduled lesson??  Needless to say, I was not happy and neither was Belle.  Poor girl…  She waited all week for this lesson and she was all puffed up on our way there talking my ears off about this and that.  I felt *so* bad for her.  Instead we ended up taking a drive, looking at barns and horses.  Then we did what all frustrated girls like to do.  We went shoe shopping. J  I had already made up my mind that we would NOT be returning to the new found barn for lessons.  So that evening, Belle and I got on the computer and did some more searching…  We ended up finding a barn that is practically right down the road from us so I called the lady and left a message.  Before I was even done doing so, she was ringing in on my other line.  I spoke to her and she set up a lesson for Belle for the following Wednesday.  The lesson went wonderfully ~ Belle rode beautifully and the instructor decided to place her in an advanced class.  She also told Belle that she could work at the barn over the summer and earn her lessons.  How awesome is that?!  Belle is thrilled!!  Even more good news about our find…I was talking to one of my cheer moms on Saturday and we got to talking about Belle’s riding lessons.  Come to find out, this cheer mom’s younger sister took lessons from Belle’s new instructor for years and is now on a full college scholarship in Equestrian.  I am so happy with where we have her placed.  It is such a good feeling to know we’re in good hands…J

So another busy weekend has come and gone and I’m quite the tired girl!  Games Saturday and Sunday, a cookout with friends Sat night, and another one last night with T and her family.  T’s hubby turned forty today so we celebrated last night with good food, cake…and wine.  Lotssssss of wine…J  T and I are a hot mess when we get together!  Always a fun time with that girl.  Stayed up too late and had a bit of a hard time getting out of bed this morning, but I feel recovered.  Needless to say, I wasn’t up for my morning bike ride and had to put it off until this evening.  Which is cool ~ the boys have ball practice, so it will just be Belle and I.  We’ll head to the park, ride a few miles, and I’ll let her stop along the way on our last loop to scope out creatures and creepy-crawlies.  The park where we ride is fabulous…the riding path takes you through the prettiest scenery ~ lots of trees, thick woods, sprawling lakes…it’s beautiful.  I love being there.

On the agenda for the week ~ school and work, of course.  I also plan on knocking out some major cleaning at the house.  Every time I go out of town I get the major urge to CLEAN.  And organize.  In a seriously big way.  Go fish.  Can’t help it, so I’ll get started with all of that tonight as well!  Training this week will be pretty low-key.  I will probably bike twice, run twice and swim two times as well.  I always swim and run at or above the distance I’ll be doing in my race, but I don’t usually bike a full 16 miles every time.   I need to get at least one more 16 mile bike ride in before leaving on Friday!  Speaking of which, it’s looking more and more probable that H and the boys won’t make the trip to Savannah with me.  I’m taking Belle out of school early on Friday and she and I are driving down alone.  H was planning on joining us sometime on Saturday provided the boys’ baseball team looses their playoff game.  Well…it seems the playoffs aren’t going to start until Saturday whereas they usually start much earlier in the week.  Good thing is, it’s single elimination so if we lose, the boys are completely done and H can make the trip with them.  We just don’t know and won’t know.  At this point, we’re just hoping they can all 3 be there for my race on Sunday!  In the meantime, I’ve got to make arrangements to have someone come along with me in case H doesn’t make it down, to keep up with Belle during my race.  So I’ve asked my niece, who is a college student at Valdosta, and also T.  Because it’s totally last minute, I couldn’t afford to put all my eggs in one basket so I felt like I had to make multiple requests.  If T comes with, she will bring her daughter and leave her son with H.  T’s hubby works crazy hours, so she’ll need H’s assistance with her little guy.  She’s also got an older son, but he’s fine without around the clock supervision.  I told H that if he’s able to come down with the boys to bring T’s son with him as well.  The boys are best friends with T’s little guy so they will love that.  Oh, I also told my niece that she could bring her boyfriend too.  You know what will end up happening…EVERYONE will be able to make the trip and there will be 50 of us all holed up in my sweet little beach cottage…hahahahahaaa…  I will totally love it if that happens.  The more the merrier!  I shall keep you posted on the details of my trip.  I can’t believe I’m leaving in 4 days…I’m both excited and nervous.  Can’t wait til I can see that finish line…J

Not much else to report here.  All is well in the “H” household.  My cheerleading season is over and the boys are winding down with baseball.  Belle is getting ready to sign up for lacrosse.  This will be the first year that our rec league will have lacrosse, so it should definitely be interesting!  ALL of my cheerleaders are signing up for it as well…how fun will it be to have everyone on the same team?!?!  I’m looking forward to it!  Meanwhile, the boys will be able to spend more time with cub scouts.  This will be an interesting change for us.  Hopefully they’ll have fun with it! 

Well folks, I guess that’s about all I have for this entry.  I hope everyone out in blogland is doing splendid!  Thanks for visiting and reading!!  Before I go, I will leave you with this conversation that took place between Noah and Ross on Saturday morning….enjoy…J

[Allow me to preface the commentary below by saying that the boys LOVE watching ESPN or any other “sport” channel for that matter.  Saturday mornings are not filled with the typical cartoon-watching.  Not if the boys get to the tv first, that is!  They prefer to tune into their sports stuff and get a heads-up on all of the upcoming games.  Saturday morning they were downstairs watching said tv when this conversation took place…]

Noah:  Ross, turn it back!

Ross:  In a minute…

Noah: No!  Turn it back!! 

Ross:  Hold on!

Noah: TURN IT BACK…TURN IT BACK!  The BOOBIE COMMERCIAL is on!!

Ross: okay, OKAY!

Noah: Darn it, Ross!  Now we missed the BOOBIE commercial.  Why didn’t you turn it back when I said?!?  You’re dumb.

At this point I woke H up and told him the boys were talking about a freaking “boobie commercial.”  This disturbed me.  Profusely.  What do they know about boobies?  And what kind of boobie commercial were they talking about anyway??  H just laughed at me…he knew what commercial I was referring to…something about a lady…and peanuts…and her rubbing a peanut all over her body, including a boobie-rub of some sort…???   WTH?  I’ve got to tune in and catch this dang commercial…

Until next time, these are the days of my life…

Be great!          

This one will be all over the place.  I apologize in advance, but this is how my brain seems to be working at the moment.  J

I have a confession to make.  Uh-oh…;)  I have a bad case of potty-mouth ~ that is when I’m on the road.  Not road rage.  I don’t get crazy angry on the road.  Moderately pissed off is more like it.  So yesterday when I left work for my wonderful drive home, I decided to pay attention to and take note of my potty-mouth…  I did not even pull out of my work parking lot when I committed my first offense.  Ooooops!  This is just a peek into what I’m talking about.  I am about 2 miles max from the interstate that I take on my drive home everyday.  Before I even got on the dang highway, here is some of what came out of my mouth…

“Nice blinker, asshole!”

“You better keep your big-ass green tank out of my way!”

“I know that f’er is not taking up 2 lanes!”

“I need to get over, ass!”

Nice, I know.  What to do, what to do.  As long as I don’t start chasing people down on the road, or rolling down my window screaming profanities at other drivers while using very expressive hand language, I guess it’s all good.  If these damn people would just learn how to drive, none of this would even be an issue in the first place!  Assholes… J

Tonight is my last night of cheer practice, yay!  As much as I love these little darlings, I am so ready to kiss them all good-bye until next season.  Man I’m burned out!  We did, however, have a very successful photography session on Tuesday.  I took pictures of all of my girls including some group shots and am giving these to some of my parents as gifts at our end of the season banquet.  My parents knew we were doing something other than practice, but we kept our “photo-session” a secret as to not ruin the surprise. 

Oh yeah, since we met up for our little photo session at my family’s favorite park (the one where we ride our bikes), Belle decided to come with.  Girlfriend stayed busy the entire hour and a half that we were there.  Right off the bat she found a stray dog.  She was so proud of herself…  The thing ended up having tags on it so we called the owners and they came to the park to get their dog.  We found out that they actually had lost both of their dogs that afternoon, so one was still on the loose.  Belle made it her priority to find that dog and she searched and searched and searched for it.  Half the time I didn’t know where she was, but when I’d holler for her, she’d answer from somewhere deep in the woods.  Apparently she had a few sightings of the missing mutt, but she was unable to make the capture.  She was so distressed when I told her it was time to leave…“But what’s going to happen to Josie? (lost dog’s name…ugh…) She’s just a puppy!  She probably won’t be able to find her way home!  She’s lost in those woods and it’s so confusing, even for a person…how is a dog…a PUPPY gonna find it’s way out of there???”  She pleaded with me, but it was dark already and honestly, do I really have time to find other people’s lost dogs?!  She was sulking with arms crossed, walking really slow and trailing behind me.  All of a sudden I hear her in a really perky voice.  I think I hear the word “frog” and sure enough, she runs up to me, totally excited, and shows me her latest find.  A big ass disgusting frog.  Or toad, whatever.  She named it Pickle because apparently that’s what its skin looked and felt like.  Gross!  I didn’t get close enough to it to confirm that, but I did see that the sucker was so big that its nasty parts were hanging all out of her little hands.  The thing was huge!  So what do I do?  I let her bring it home with her.  Not to keep as a pet (I’m smarter than that ;), but to let it go in the yard so she could keep tabs on it and feed it flies.  That’s my girl!  But when we got home and showed it to H, he was all up in arms saying that it was going to get eaten by something at our house.  The dogs, or cats…it wouldn’t be able to find food at our house like it would at the park…  Geezus!  He had me so worked up!!  Belle and I in a panic, decided to take it back to the park and release it in its familiar territory, poor frog.  I mean toad.  Then Belle had an idea ~ she’s great friends with this empty-nester couple who lives in our cul-de-sac, and they have lots of woods in their back yard AND a pond.  She thought it would be a good idea to let Pickle go there so he would be safe and she could still “visit” him.  So that’s what she did.  I made her ask permission first so she knocked on their door and disappeared for 20 minutes only to return sans frog, but with a pocketful of candy.  Mission-Pickle, successful.  Thank God.

So my triathlon is in 10 days.  I am still training, but not as hard as I should be.  I can’t with the condition of my knee.  It is extremely painful and the only thing that helps is complete rest.  Since that is not possible, it’s not healing.  Swimming is not an issue, thankfully.  But I’m only running and biking at half the distances I should be at this point in the game.  I don’t know what else to do though, so I’ll keep training as hard as I can and just hope for the best on the 26^th! 

Speaking of which, I just booked the *cutest* little cottage for my 4-day stay in Savannah!  Actually, I’m staying on Tybee Island, which is about a 20 minute drive from Savannah.  My event is in Savannah, but I thought it would be fun to take in a beach-vaca while we’re there.  Savannah is the coolest city ever, but I’m thinking it’s a little more geared towards adults than kiddos, not to mention accommodations in Savannah are outrageous!  I paid less for a 2 bedroom cottage with its own private pool and a hop skip and a jump away from the beach than I would have for a regular old hotel room in Savannah.  I’m so excited!  The boys will likely have baseball games (playoffs) next weekend, so H and the boys will have to drive down Saturday after baseball and meet up with Belle and I.  Meanwhile, I’m taking Belle out of school early on Friday so we can drive down early and have girl-time on the beach Friday and Saturday.  The race is on Sunday and afterwards, I plan on partying like a rock-star.  H has already been warned.  J  I’m really looking forward to this little getaway!

And I guess with that I will close it out here.  I have some other *things* percolating in this crazy head of mine…perhaps I’ll get around to writing about it…then again, maybe not.  We’ll see.  I hope everyone out in blogland is doing great!  As always, stay tuned for more days of my life…

Be great!   

Life continues to move at break-neck speed, which is why I continue to be a slacker in the blog-department… J

I am happy to announce that my cheerleaders did in fact win FIRST PLACE in our cheerleading competition last weekend!  Can you say back-to-back-to-back?!  They did awesome and if I’m being honest here, they clearly out-performed their competitors in their division.  We have 2 remaining games this season, a pep-rally and a banquet.  I have loved every second of coaching this season as in all seasons past, however, I am happy to see it come to a close.  This will free up my time from practices 3 evenings a week and games on the weekends.  I’ll take it! 

Another exciting announcement ~ Belle won FIRST PLACE in the Reflections project she did at her school for 5^th grade photography!!!  If you recall, the Reflections contest is one the school holds every year where they give a special theme and the students can choose whether to enter a project in one of several categories; photography being one of them.  This year’s theme was “WOW” and Belle took a really neat picture of a hummingbird in flight.  With her first place award at the school level, her project will now move to the county level.  I will keep you posted on the Reflections updates!

Training….continues…  I’ve not made mention up to this point, but I have sustained a dang knee injury somehow and it continues to be a problem.  A big-ass problem, and I am not a happy camper about it.  I’ve toned down a bit with my biking and running.  I’ve really had no choice considering it pains me to even walk on it!  A few days of rest seem to do some good so I plan on picking up again with some biking and running over the weekend.  My swimming, however, hasn’t slowed up and my speed (surprisingly!) continues to increase in that area!  I also plan on taking my broke bike to the bike shop sometime soon for minor repairs and a tune up to make sure it’s in tip-top shape for the 26^th, the date of my event.  It’s ON, bitches.  Injured knee and all.  There is no turning back at this point…I will keep you posted!

Last weekend was good!  Nothing of importance to report Friday night.  My girlfriend T, her daughter ended up in the hospital the week before last with complications due to asthma and was in the PICU for 4 nights.  Scary, I know!  Because I had strep, I waited until I was way into my antibiotics before going over to visit the little one so the family and I headed over Saturday evening and brought her a little *goodie* and hung out with them for awhile.  Fun times as always when we hang with that crew... J  My cheer-off competition took up the entire day on Sunday and we were all pretty exhausted by the time we finally got home, so we chilled out and had some quiet family time for the rest of the evening.

So tomorrow we have my football game and the boys’ baseball game.  Then we’re getting together tomorrow night with a bunch of friends to watch the Penn State, Wisconsin game.  GO NITTANY LIONS!  H and I have some good friends (the ones who have the new baby that I photographed 2 weekends ago!) who are raging Wisconsin fans, so this is a HUGE game for us every year.  We always have a good time with it so I’m expecting lots of fun Saturday night!!  Other than that, I just plan on catching up on some cleaning and possibly putting out some Halloween decorations.  I don’t know though…it seems that our neighborhood has been the target of Halloween decoration snatchers this year.  Report after report of stuff stolen…things taken right off of people’s front porches…one person reported a 7-foot casket stolen out of their front yard…lights, pumpkins, etc…  It seems nothing is safe.  So I hesitate just a bit to put my stuff out right now.  Then again, I don’t see how anyone could get past Tiffany-Suzanne.  Although she’s only 7 pounds, she’s got quite a yapper on her…J 

And I think this wraps it up for this update!  Nothing else to report, so I will sign off on that note.  As always, stay tuned for more days of my life…

Until next time, be great! 

I had a dream last night

a dream about him

a sandy beach

the sun

hot

the ocean

and it’s breezes

waves crashing

crawling

sprawling on the sand

we walked

hand in hand

ran

chased

splashed

swam

played

laughed uncontrollably

a piggy-back ride

arms wrapped

around his neck

he dunks me

under water

only to lift me

to safety

again

taking me in his arms

kissing me on the cheek

as if to say

i’m sorry

i would never hurt you

you are safe with me

always

i squirm away

from him

again

out of the protection

of his arms

and promises

i run

run

run

he chases

and captures me

i surrender

this time

and allow myself

to be wrapped up

in him

wrapped up

in each other’s arms

we move

as one

a dance

of our own

eye to eye

turning

spinning

twirling

he whispers ever so lightly

my ballerina

and for a moment

the world is ours

we exist

only

for each other

hearts content

fulfilled

happy

beyond words

happy

the only word to describe this moment

happy

a dream

of happiness

of us

together

happy

day turns to night

darkness abounds

exhausted

i lay down

to rest

he

across from me

does the same

i reach out

for him

my hand

searching

a wanting sigh

escapes my lips

he sits

upright

i cannot see him

only his shadow

i cannot see

his face

his eyes

as from the darkness

he speaks

we dare not

do this

for what if

what if

we fall in love

with each other

all over

again

still reaching

searching

for him

for anything

other than his empty shadow

i cannot see

his face

his eyes

my heart

grows heavy

i feel

lost

lost

so lost

i awaken

to quick

shallow breaths

shaking

heart beating

too fast

tears

on the brink

of escape

lost

lost

lost

in my reality

i turn

to find a baby

lost and scared himself

reaching

searching

mommy

i had

a bad dream

he says in a

scared

sleepy voice

found

and with purpose

i scoop him up

safely wrap my arms

around his small body

and hold him

close

so he can see me

my face

my eyes

as i speak

mommy had

a bad dream

too

baby boy

its okay

you are safe

now

bad dreams

are not real

cannot hurt you

sleep

sleep

sleep

and a tear

silently

escaped

as i prayed

for only happy dreams......

I have totally been M.I.A. this week!!!  It’s been a bit of a hectic time.  Let me see if I can add a quick update here….

Last weekend

Screen on the Green Friday night ~ this was a fabulous time!  This was the event put on by my neighborhood where they put up an inflatable movie screen and had a family movie-night on the soccer field.  Live D.J. before the movie and lots of goodies for the kids.  We went with two other families and met up with our neighbor friends as well, so we had a big crew!  They showed Shrek III.  Ever seen it?  It was hysterical!  Definitely a fun time for all!!

Saturday ~ went for a bike ride with the boys in the morning.  They were actually able to do over 6 ½ miles this time!  It was a good ride ~ fewer stops along the way than the week before when I had a group of scouts under my wing.  The boys had a baseball game later on Saturday, which I missed (again…) because I had my football game.   After the games, we all met up at our local Mexican hangout and ate dinner and had a few margaritas.  Later, I headed over to my girlfriend T’s house with the boys while H went off with my brother and his wife to watch college football at a local bar.  Belle spent the night out.  Again.  Social butterfly, I swear…;)  Later on that night, H and my brother and sister-in-law ended up with us over at T’s house.  We stayed up too late (what else is new) and hit the sack around 2am.  Fun times and another busy weekend…

Sunday ~ easy day….  Went over to bestie Val’s house and our good friend L came over.  She just had her first baby about 10 weeks ago and she’s been wanting me to photograph her, so I was able to take her pictures at Val’s on Sunday.  Precious little thing, and my girlfriend is settling wonderfully into motherhood.  I’m telling ya, if you’ve never experienced the blessing of being a parent, it’s a whooooooooole new world.  If you ARE  a parent, then you totally know what I’m talking about.  We pretty much chillaxed the rest of Sunday and went out to dinner again Sunday night with all the kiddos.  I’m thinking we go out to dinner way too much...geez, how lazy am I that I can’t cook dinner for my family every now and again?!?  J

Onto the work week!  Joy!!  The kiddos are all doing great ~ nothing new to report on the school-front.  I had a little *incident* on Tuesday, however…  I decided last week that I would work from home two days this week because of the ridiculous gas crisis we’ve had here lately.  So I was home on Tuesday and worked very productively until about lunchtime.  Instead of doing the usual and going out and grabbing something and bringing it back to the office to eat, I decided to take a bike ride instead!  I need more long-distance training on the bike and Tuesday was the perfect day for it.  Beautiful day outside…and no little “scouts” to keep up with…  So instead of a “lunch break,” I went for a bike ride.  I loaded up my shiny new bike, grabbed my water and helmet, and off I went.  Until I came to a 4-way stop at which point I heard quite a loud “thump” upon my accelerating after coming to a complete stop.  I looked around and saw a fellow driver frantically waving his arms at me.  Okay, I get it.  My bike must have readjusted itself…  I did a quick rearview mirror check and thankfully didn’t see it lying in the street.  Obviously it was still “attached” ~ just not securely, I was guessing…  So onward I went until I could pull over safely and fix my bike.  As I continued on this short journey, I had 2 more drivers try to flag me down in an effort to alert me to my shifted bike on the back of my truck.  Got it, thanks!  Imagine my surprise when I finally got out of the car and saw my brand new bike HANGING off the back of the truck, completely injured with the handlebars resting on the street…  UGH!!!  I flipped out!  Almost started crying, I was *so* upset!!  But since there were passerbyers, I didn’t think that was a good thing to do.  Instead, I reloaded it onto the back of my truck and made my way to the park.  When I finally had a chance to look at my poor bike, I could see where the cement had completely ripped off the black taping around my left handle bar and another part of the handle bars, which is metal, had been like shaved down creating sort of a slanted edge instead of a rounded one.  The handle bars were also completely out of alignment, but surprisingly I was able to adjust those suckers back into place and line everything back up just so.  Seriously, when I climbed on and took off I was just PRAYING that it wouldn’t fall apart into pieces.  And it didn’t!  It rode good as new!!  Yay me and my new…broke bike!!!  I decided that I didn’t mind a few scratches and dings here and there.  There’s something to be said for a little wear and tear ~ tells a story about where you’ve been…hopefully a happier story than being violently dragged behind a big scary truck, but you get my point…;)  My ride turned out to be awesome!  Except that when I went to take a sip of my water, it wasn’t there.  My dang water bottle must have fallen out of it’s holder at some point during my ride.  What are the odds?  It was pretty warm that day and I did not hydrate very well before my ride.  I was dying about halfway through my ride and even contemplated stopping and drinking from the lake at one point, but decided I’d rather thirst to death than drink nasty lake water.  Through it all, however, I rode for 16.4 miles in about an hour’s time so I accomplished what I set out to accomplish, dry mouth and all.  Just call me Speed-Racer!  Oh, I ate 2 bugs along the way too.  Accidentally, of course.  Pretty gross, I know.  Little suckers just flew right in my mouth and about choked the hell out of me.  Before I knew it, I guess I swallowed them.  That's what they get.  Nice… 

What else to report…well, remember that sore ear I had a few weeks ago?  Well my earache returned ~ this time with a vengeance and accompanied by a sore throat and sinus issues.  Bleck!  It was bad enough that I dragged myself to the doctor yesterday.  I have strep throat and what he guesses is fluid behind my inner ear, because he didn’t detect an ear infection.  Anyway, I’m on day 2 of my meds so hopefully I’m on the mend.  I don’t have time to be sick!!    

I’m looking at what I hope will be a pretty laid back weekend.  Nothing planned for tonight.  Tomorrow, we have games…I’m psyched that I’ll get to watch the boys play baseball!  Our schedules don’t always work that way, so I’m totally excited about that!!  Sunday is the BIG day.  My girls are competing in their cheerleading competition…BIG doings ‘round here…;)  I absolutely love coaching and its times like this where it totally pays off.  I’ve arranged to have an SUV stretch limo pick them up at the ball park ~ a complete surprise for them.  It should be lots of fun.  Here’s to hoping they totally kick ass when it’s their turn to perform!  They’ve worked so hard on their routine.  I just hope it all goes off without a hitch! 

I will attempt to be more diligent in writing in my blog next week.  I just couldn’t seem to find the time this week!  I also hope to download some pics when I get a chance.  So stay tuned, folks!  Until next time, these are the days of my life….

Be great!