My man, the marathoner

I'm a little late getting this report out. I wanted to post pictures of DH at the finish line, but then the camera battery went dead. Oh, such is life.

Anyway, DH did awesome. He finished the race, all 26.2 miles of it. That still boggles my mind. He didn't finish it in the time he had hoped to, but still impressive to me. I think we'll be doing a few more marathons before it's all said and done. The hard part isn't the race, it's the training required.

So, if this is going to be a regular thing...me being a spectator of men/boys doing things, I need to get better at it. A few observations I had while trying to get to the cheering spots along the route. It's difficult to do, especially if you're trying to follow a speedy runner. It's a mad dash to get mile 20 and then the next mile when you and 5,000 other dedicated family and friends are attempting to do the same. So, next race I'm going to add an army of cheerers to cheer along the way. The person with the camera needs to be finish line, to catch the big finish --- and that gets to be me.

Driving around yesterday it was pretty clear that all of us drivers with our phones texting or coordinating were heading to the same blocked off streets and hoping to make it there on time. I gave up on mile 20 after catching DH at mile 14. Good thing we've got great friends who didn't mind walking and cheering on the blur as he passed.

And for future races, I'm going to use a tailgating philosophy. We watch you run, we cheer you on all morning. You're high on endorphins and we're hungry. You're getting a free cheeseburger and a massage, we're patiently waiting to hear the details of the race and eat lunch. You're trading stories and war wounds with your fellow runners, we're looking at the clock and getting sunburned.

So...next time, I'm packing a cooler. Adult beverages too. We'll go back to the car, sit at the parking lot. Eat a snack, have a cold beverage and then I don't care how long the runner takes to get his after race swag.

Para acabar la raza...

You will never find time for anything. If you want the time, you must make it.

- Charles Buxton

My DH is running the OKC Memorial marathon this weekend. A marathon...you read that correct, 26 grueling miles of running, because he likes it. I think there's more to it than that. He's going to turn 35 this year. He's going to finish his first year of nursing school in a few weeks, and he's going to finish his first year of being an awesome father.

Why not run a marathon? Why not battle thyself, it's an age-old plot line. I give him a hard time, but I'm really proud of him.

As for me, there are many things I'd rather do than run for five hours. Paint, drive, watch television, shoot...even walking would be better. He jokes about the signs people made in previous years to cheer on the runners. My personal favorite, "It's easier than labor and delivery." After our 30-hour wait to meet our son, I can say, yes, yes it is.

So el nino and I will be at mile 13, mile 20 and the finish line reminding that husband of mine that we're on his team -- win or lose.

And then...I will apply BenGay and remind him he's no spring chick anymore.

Comedy Central is comedic

Methinks Comedy Central is a little cowardly. But at the same time the censoring is ironic and sort of making a joke of itself. Censorship is never a good thing.

Free Range parenting

As an anecdote to take your children to work, this blogger is proposing leaving them at the playground.

Apparently in our quest to make the lives of children safer we have begun to be afraid of our own shadows. My parents divorced when I was in the third grade. My mother commuted an hour and half each way to her government job. My brother and I had to get ourselves ready for school. We had to get to school and we got ourselves home each night. By 5:30 p.m. my mom would be pulling into our lengthy gravel driveway and then it would be time for dinner. I will admit, I was grateful for that driveway that you could see out the front windows of our ramshackle farm house. Plenty of time to stop whatever nonsense you were doing and tidy up the living room.

I'm not sure how she felt about that commute or the safety of her children in a bucolic Southern Indiana town. Truth is, we always had adults around us. Our neighbors were retired and lived at the other end of the gravel driveway. My fourth grade teacher lived next door to them. I guess if we had a real problem, we had adults we could go to. I wonder how I would feel now as a parent not having a cell phone. From the time she left her office until she got home, we had no way of contacting her. No cell phones. No texting. Seems weird now.

Each morning I walked about 20 minutes to the nearest bus stop. I remember spending mornings dwaddling with my other neighbor's horses. Poking around at businesses while waiting for the bus. Some mornings me and my good friend Jenny would purposefully miss the bus. We would show up at the house where the bus stop was, ask if the bus had come and then take a ride from the mom at the house, who didn't want two girls sitting on her porch all day. The kindness of strangers.

At 8 years old, I rode my bike into "town," and got the mail or rented a movie. Maybe if I was feeling up to it, I'd climb on the tank outside the courthouse, or pop by the library, or maybe ride around the town square a few times. Would I allow my child to do that today? Would my mother allowed me to do that if she knew?

I guess she trusted that we had good judgement. That the parenting we got was solid and stuck with us. We had two barns and a pond near our home. I spent hours after school climbing around in those barns full of rusty nails or shoddy floor boards.

We had forts in the woods. I chased cats across the corn fields, and never once jumped in that pond without parental supervision. There were a lot of things that could have gone wrong, but they didn't. I survived. I marvel now at the freedom I had as a child and wonder if I could allow my child the same risks.

I can update frm my phone.

Resume living

I'm back. It's been awhile. Life has changed a little since December 2008. I've learned what it means to be a parent. What it means to make life and share life. I've learned that I've got a lot to learn.

I've also learned that writing is essential. A lot like breathing to me. It needs to happen. It needs to be daily and it needs to be organic. That's why I'm here again. I have a lot of blogs, social networking, other forms of self promotion. I realize this blog is more of an outlet with no expected return. The rest have been monetized and branded. This, for the few who read, is who I am in the word. I hope to be back here with more frequency. And the best perk of being expected to write from your world more than once in a blue moon...you are forced to live actively. To pay attention to the world around you and to pay attention to what inspires you and what strikes you.

So here I am. Come along.