Here's something inspiring for us all.

My sweet mother has spent the past 18 months or so learning to read for the second time, having lost that ability to a stroke in Feb '07. 

 

Well.....night before last, at my dining room table, she read the first paragraph of William Faulkner's  As I Lay Dying  aloud to 13 members of our bookclub.

It was just beautiful.  Everybody in the room has followed her progress, so it was really sweet for everyone who was present. 

Today would have been her mother's 109th birthday, and Mom spent the day remembering the most minute details of her mother's life.  Amazing.

June one......a freezing cold day in Toronto

In case there's anybody left checking this blog, I'm stopping in to give a progress report.

I've finished a few more books, and they are in bold in the list in the margin down below.

There is a posted schedule on my kitchen wall, in case you want to come have a gander, and I'm following it to train for the marathon, marking each run off when I come home.  I have an 11 mile run scheduled for Saturday, and it seems that the long runs are becoming more and more of a looming feature in the week.   I'm starting to do funny little things, like adjusting my coffee intake and social calendar based upon the running schedule.

Life has been really really full, as it tends to be in the spring.

School is winding up, all the "end of the year" stuff happens all at once.

My mom is staying with us for a few weeks.

The garden is calling.

I want to be outside because this is my favorite time of year.

Keeping things in perspective, maintaining balance, and never ever actually telling my kids to get their own meal because I am reading or running keeps me creative.  I have been tempted though.

I would like to say that if there's any mom out there with two or more kids and  a full schedule, and you think you might like to add one more thing to it......

like for instance running a whole lot and reading more books than you need to or building a canoe in your basement, or turning your backyard into a horticultural masterpiece, or learning Italian,  please go for it and then write me and tell me how you are making it work.

 

I didn't plan to back away from blogging, but I couldn't think of a thing to say for a month.  I dond't know if I am back to the old pace of almost daily posts, but I am back today.  

I am still living...

It has been nine days since I have posted here.

We had a little hiccup with our internet connection.  

And when it was over, and our primary computer was dead from some kind of bad virus, and then we all got hooked up again and now I am working off a whole new computer and ...(insert uninteresting blather about switching computers around)...

then I found that I was LOCKED OUT of my own blog.

My indignation at this disgrace was pretty entertaining to my family, otherwise I am certain I would have gotten better assistance right away from the three men here who are ultra-experts with my Mac.

Finally, last night Jon figured out my problem.  This is a little embarrassing...

I had not set the clock on this computer...and it had defaulted to a setting of some time and date in 1970.  So the blog refused to recognize me, as I was prehistoric to its conception of time.

Anyway, I am back.  Still reading, and I have a few books to click off the list.  Still running, though I have picked up a killer chest cold which makes the going a bit slow.

Sons and daughters....under the same roof

Here is a little snapshot of my day.
First, I must announce that our regular dog-sitter is on a Mediterranean cruise. And we are leaving town on Friday for the very important wedding of our beloved Cokie in Vermont to her beloved Adam.
So I had to get Bordatella shots for two dogs because I must kennel them.
Also, in order for all the ladies in our house to look their best for Cokie's big day, we had to get our hair done.
So Audrey, Helen, and I went to the salon together.

Meanwhile I am trying to set up a Web-site/data base doohickey thing for the School Year of 2009/10. It's distracting, because I really feel obsessed with it.

On top of these there was the added diversion that David's non-stop growth requires that we find a new dress shirt for him....and pants as well.
So there was a wee bit of shopping.....

There was also a full day of school, featuring the declining years of the Roman Republic, another stab at long division for one of my darlings, and a first attempt at essay test taking for another, among other things.
And, it turns out, Michael was just swimming in cash and wanted to open his own checking (chequing?) account... so there was a stop at the bank. Which, by the way, was swarming with policemen, as a crime had just been committed in the bank parking lot.....

There were also three meals, a pile of shirts to iron, two flats of pansies to plant, four loads of laundry, and one missing white Sunday shoe of Maggie's which must be located before the wedding.
So it was just your basic normal day.

And then I went for a run, just at the time I expected Jon to get home for the evening.
But he was held up in a meeting with medical students.

And when I arrived home..... feeling like Rambo,
I found Maggie screaming in acute pain because Daniel's remote control helicopter had landed on her,
and the rear propeller was eating all the hair on the crown of her little blond head.
We got the helicopter prop turned OFF....and then Maggie got a little emergency haircut, as that was the only way to remove the aircraft.

When it quiets down here, I am going to just read and read and read until I fall asleep. That is the really lovely part of this 100 books and a marathon. They are a pressure, but they also offer me an escape.

A little warning about getting old

I mentioned below that I am uber-exhausted because I upped my weekly running by too much, too fast.
And since this is a "warts and all" kind of blog, where being real is the objective, I will share yet another bump in the road, hoping to save someone else the pain in which I now find myself.

There is this rule for runners which says that we are only supposed to increase our total running exertion by 10% a week or "you invite illness and injury..."

But, back in the 80's and 90's, (in my twenties) I could up my mileage by 20% once in a while with no bad result. So I decided that I would give it a try now that I'm older and wiser.
Not only did I add 15% to each daily run, I added an extra day, going from 4 runs a week to 5. Any observer could have told me that this was pretty stupid.

What Ho! I find that I am no longer a young puppy....six children, twenty some pounds and twenty some more years have taken some kind of toll.

For my long run of the week on Saturday, feeling dead tired and sore before I even started,
I ran for almost an hour.
Then, when I should have stopped, I capped it off with a sprint up the very long hill just a block south of us..... a good uphill climb for about a half mile.

Yesterday in church, I could just barely stay awake and upright on my chair.
I certainly did not run.
Just today, I'm trying to scrape myself off the floor with a spatula, having missed my morning run due to my inability to stand upright or cope emotionally with the task of locating matching socks..

I'll give it another try tomorrow.

Oh Yeah, those pesky books

A quick update on where I am today:
I am still slogging through The Making of the Atomic Bomb....I think I have just under 180 pages to go.
I finished Liberal Fascism last week, finally.

The very prodigious Atomic bomb book, the arrival of spring, the celebration of Easter and a birthday, the impending end of the school year, and some kind of mountain of exhaustion caused by my suddenly "upping" my weekly running mileage have all combined to cause a significant slow down on the reading.

In a reading sprint, I stayed up until 2am this morning reading My Antonia by Willa Cather, what a breath of fresh air that was after the atomic bomb! It's well written, sweet and sad. A welcome change from the dark apocolyptic study of the making of weapons of mass destruction.
Jon is reading Pilgrim's Progress aloud to all of us , and I'll check it off my list when he's finished.
I'm reading The Little Prince to Daniel, and that'll be done by Monday.

And as for running, now that weather is good, I have four to six kids along with me for some of my short runs.
This is pretty much fun, pretty much mayhem, pretty much a clown show getting us all out the door with dogs (on leashes), running stroller, matching shoes on six pair of feet, who's riding bikes? where are the water bottles....and where are the house keys????

I miss running with my inspirational husband. I'm praying for that perfect R.A. medication to get him feeling well enough to hit the road again.

Happy Birthday David!

Today David is 15!

He is such a blessing to us all, and we are so thankful for him.

He's a hard working, hard playing, very entertaining, laughing out loud fun son and brother.

David has a great enthusiasm for school, and it's really delightful to be his teacher. He is so responsible in all his work, and he has the respect of everyone he works for, and he is the most outstanding big brother. I can see in him the makings of a great husband and father and leader.

I am so proud of him....and so much looking forward to seeing all the great things ahead in his life, because he is just packed full of great promise.