In My World This Week...

Waiting a whole week between blog posts leaves me with so much to say, though really none of it is very important. But whatever! Here's what's been going on in my world and between my ears...

~Parenting has become ever so slightly a ton easier since we moved into this neighborhood. Primarily because we are now in a neighborhood with other kids and Moana is old enough to play with them. Specifically, there are 3 other little blond girls who live within walking distance and the 4 have become best buds. This morning one of them came over, grabbed Moana and said "Let's go play with Lexie and Macy!" And off they went! Bye bye Sweetie! Have fun! They mostly just play dress up and pretend they are princesses, which is appropriate since the neighborhood we live in is called Castle Hills. Anyway, besides the fact that for much of the weekend my house is quiet (unless the Princess Posse chooses our castle for the tea party), it's gratifying as a parent to be able to provide an experience like this for your kid. I love how social Moana is... making friends is exceptionally easy for her and my hope is that it stays that way... at least until she becomes a teenager and the girls all get bitchy.

~Speaking of the house and neighborhood, my first banana tree is planted. Likely won't get any fruit off of it for like a year but hey, gotta start somewhere! My old neighbor told me that banana trees are hard to kill, which I think he meant as a negative thing (like once you plant them you can't get rid of them) but I took that as an excellent sign that maybe I won't accidentally kill it. Most of my baby papaya trees have died. I think I didn't plant them deep enough because the wind pretty much blew them over. :( Live and learn. Next time Mark gives me little budding papaya plants I'll dig deeper holes for them. In good news, I do have a solid amount of herbs and greenery out there... enough that I was able to spice up/flavor the cauliflower 'rice' I made last night 100% from our yard!

~New addition to our animal house coming on Thursday... I found a 'Feed Supply' store here in town that sells baby chicks for $4/each... they expect new ones to hatch soon so I reserved 3 and we pick them up on Thursday! Not to be Debbie Downer or anything but since this is our first attempt at raising chickens, I'm sort of assuming at least one might not make it so that's why I opted to get 3 (hoping at least 2 will live?) It wasn't really so each cat could have one. Scott's job this afternoon is to create a little home with a heat lamp for them for their first few weeks. Then we'll have a few weeks to work on building a coop for them in our backyard- ideally something that repels cats- and then what is it, like 18 weeks before I can go out back to get my eggs for breakfast? Something like that I think. Will let you know how it goes!

~It's been super wet/soggy here the last 2 weeks or so and I have (almost) completely failed at making myself go ride my bike in these conditions. I rode once this week and ended up a complete mess and it was not fun.

~In good news, I don't mind running in the rain. My 'training plan' this year so far has gone something like this: Wake up, look out the window. Is it raining? >Go run. Is it dry? >Go ride. Let's just say this week I have run quite a few more miles than I've ridden. At some point I'll probably start freaking out about how far behind I am when it comes to bike fitness, but for now I'm enjoying running in these conditions.

~I just said I'm enjoying running, and for the most part I am, but the last few miles yesterday I would NOT have expressed it that way. I bonked hard and it was ugly. I kinda of thought it might happen as I knew I was taking a risk going out to run for 2+ hours with no fuel... But I haven't bonked on my 90-100 minute runs and I can ride 2.5 hours without fuel now no problem so thought maybe I could do that on the run now too... I thought I'd try anyway, knowing full well that I was at risk of walking home... Not sure if it was just the combo of all the miles I've been running recently or what, but yikes. I breifly broke my 'no sugar' thing after that run and made myself an Osmo Recovery shake which was absolutely fantastic by the way. More on Osmo coming in another post (after I have more experience with it), but I'm psyched to say that the Coeur Team is sponsored by Osmo this year so I'll be using that exclusively as my hydration strategy going forward and I am seriously looking forward to experimenting further with it once this no sugar challenge thing is over.