Sunday was our Cantada at Church. Interesting morning to say the least. The electricity went off around 3 a.m. (My fan in the bedroom went off or I never would have realized it until morning.) I got up and husband was frantically looking for the lantern. This was about 6:30 or so and still no electricity. He was having a meltdown of some sort...here we go again it's getting close to Christmas better have a fight or something.

Anyway, I managed to get ready for the service in by lantern & I needed to be there about 1 1/2 hours early. Everything on schedule. I leave in plenty of time (I procrastinate frequently, especially if I have extra time to start with & then I get distracted and end up late) But not today. It had been very windy all night and lots of small branches down. I'm headed toward church down winding country roads & I see a tree down ahead. I initially thought it was in someone's yard, so I crept forward and of course it was in the road. Sigh...I have to turn around (I briefly thought, for a fraction of a second, I should drive in the field...but sanity prevailed). I went back about 4 miles to the nearest crossroad, I ended up 5 minutes late for "practice" which is really their way of making sure everyone is there in plenty of time.

We run through the program quickly. I have to say, it amazes me that such a crew of unprofessional (and in my case, completely untalented), disorganized, unmotivated individuals can come together to sound so beautiful and complete. I don't know if it's the Christmas season or what, but we were brilliant. It was moving & eerie & deep.

Feeling much less melancholy today. We had Cantata Practice after church today and that's always good for a laugh. It's progressing quite well, but seeing how the performance is in two weeks it's still in the rough stages.

Ignoring cookies today. I will mail some to Scott and Sarah tomorrow, hopefully as I am waiting for Scott's Veggie Tale Ornament which should arrive sometime before 6 p.m.

A couple of random thoughts.

I have reached into the depths of my soul looking for something. The problem is, I have no idea what.

Crescent moon in the evening sky. Sun setting. Breathtaking.

Why do I care so much about stupid things? I pride myself on being detached & aloof. That is possibly contrary to my general persona, but mostly I don't really care much about most things..why this. I guess I do care what certain people think about me. I need to get over that quickly.

On an up note, scale is being kind lately. Cheri and I baked cookies ALL DAY today and I only ate one. I also had a very small glass of wine. A Cranberry from Round Barn. It was very good.

Snowing, blowing, cold and dark. The soltice is just around the corner. I hope to turn a corner then myself.

I had forgotten how to get into this blog, but I am back now & I suppose I will post here again. I've been posting quite a bit on my yahoo blog, but I think I will post here too. I seem to have alot of pent up energy lately & I have been trying to run it off. I have been sick for a couple of weeks & next Thursday (Thanksgiving) I am going to run a 5k....no promises on how it will go...just going to do it.

Life is a cabaret...or perhaps a cabernet.

Hello to all. I am going to run a test of my race report here before posting it elsewhere. I was always taught if you can't say somethingnice, don't say anything...so this will be shorter that usual.
( Idon't ALWAYS follow this advice however)
Steve's Run July 29, 2006.

My 2nd 10k ever.

I decided to do this race on a whim, so I wouldn't say I was trainingfor it. I am however training for Chicago...We all know I am notspeedy & I can live with that. It was hot hot hot...triple digits bymidday. 100% humidity...we all know, the whole U.S. has been gripped
in this heatwave.The race started at 9 a.m. I guess the reasoning behind this is thatmany schools from another time zone participate. Personally, I don't think this is a good reason. It should have started at 8 a.m.My friend Cheri and I arrived at 8 a.m. picked up our race numbers and headed for the port a pottie. Cheri was very tentative about running this race. She doesnt do the heat well anyway & I had strong armed her into this. There were 4 races. a 5k racewalk, a 5k a 10k and a 1 mile fun run.They all started at 9:00. Cheri & went to the back of the crowd andstood by the 11 minute pace sign. The only people behind us wererunning the fun run. They looked to be in about 1st grade with theirparents.We started out slow. I was fairly hot and decided just to take iteasy. at the one mile mark 12 min. 2 mile mark 24...I stayed right on 12 min. until about 4 1/2 miles. At that point I started taking walk breaks. Unknown to me Cheri decided to just run the 5k. Alotof people did this or just plain dropped out during the race. I didn't know where she was & I'm sure the look on my face was priceless when I came around the last bend and saw her standing there.Believe it or not, I passed lots of people who looked worse off than I did. Also, the ambulance came and took someone away right aroundthe 5k mark. I never heard what it was all about.My finishing time was 1 hour 20 min. and some seconds. I didnt carry a watch and only found my time online today as I forgot to look at the finish line. My other 10k was 1:05:47...a year ago at Sunburst.We stuck around afterwards for awhile. A friend from school won the 5k racewalk with a time of 26 something.I think I need to do something different with training. I just don'tknow what it might be.

Looks like I am behind here and everywhere! It's all good though. Work..check...Husband...check....family, children..check check....Vacation...wonderful! check. running...errr...check. I am behind, sort of anyway. I was trying to keep up with the intermediate Hal Higdon marathon program, but am doing the beginners by default. I'm not going to worry about it right now though. Tomorrow I am planning on running 9 miles along the river with my very favorite Cheri! We need to get an early start if possible. Right now it is storming & I just heard the scariest thunder clap! I do hope we get some decent rain out of it. So far the flooding has went south of us, but we really haven't gotten much rain. About 8/10ths I think. We are still in a drought. The garden is coming along quite nicely though only due to hubby diligently watering and tending to it. So far pea pods, zuccini squash and green beans. Yummy. I love the garden I love the summer too.

Yesterday Gail and I went to Wabash, IN and she judged goats at the county fair. I rode down with her as she needed to leave at 5 a.m. and was afraid of falling asleep on the road. An added benefit of my summer schedule of work is that I can do things like that. It was pretty much in the middle of nowhere & dang was it teensy. The Ludington fair is even bigger than this one. I ran 5 miles last night when we got back. It was so hot and humid!

More later.

Oh hooray, I posted another picture of me from Sunburst. Much thanks to Marty for sending these to me!

I'm hoping that this will get me motivated to train better for Chicago!