Home for the Holiday

Well you can see by my workout log below that I've been a bit pre-occupied by the holidays. It really is more important this time of year to spend time with folks you love rather than exercise. I've fit in a few good, quality workouts and got lots of family time so all-in-all it was a good Christmas.

Christmas 2008 was extra special for the Jackson clan. We had a new addition, the first of a new generation born about 2 weeks before Christmas. My niece, Jessie, had a little boy, Matthew Madden on Dec 8th. Lovable is his Godmother, so she's pretty excited. This new generation was especially significant because we now have 5 living generatins in our family. My 89 year-old grandmother is now a Great-Great-Grandmother....WOW. I sure hope I get to see my great-great grandchildren.



Workout Log

Tuesday, Dec 16
Weights with Hawaiian Christine
5.25 mile run in Sugar Land with Canadian Debbie

Wednesday, Dec 17
Nothing!!!! Was a bad girl...

Thursday, Dec 18
5.25 mile run in Sugar Land with Harvest Moon Angie

Friday, Dec 19
NOTHING AGAIN! But then Friday is supposed to be my rest day.

Saturday, Dec 20
10 miles by myself in horribly, hot, muggy weather. Was happy with my 10:00/mile pace

Sunday, Dec 21
Two parties - does that count as a workout...oh and got a massage.

Monday, Dec 22
Wonderful Christmas Light Run led by Dandy Don Ruggles. Did 6.1 miles and enjoyed all the decorations of Brightwater

Tuesday, Dec 23
Weights with Hawaiian Christin
Does present wrapping count for cardio?

Wednesday, Dec 24
How about driving home to New Orleans? I flexed my ankle on the gas peddle!

Thursday, Dec 25
I promise I'll get back to working out

Friday, Dec 26
How about driving home?

Saturday, Dec 27
FINALLY - ran 10.5 miles in Sugar Land

Sleep, Exercise, Shop

That's how I spent my summer...oopps....winter vaction. Rounded out the rest of the week with this pattern. Sleep until 8:30 - didn't even hear Sweetie leave for work each morning. Wake up. Eat breakfast and catch a little of the Today Show. Who knew Hoda Kotbe (a former New Orleans reporter back in the day) and Kathy Lee Gifford now host the Today Show later in the morning? What the working girl misses these days. Afer that I would do a workout of some sort and then hit the malls of Raleigh/Durham area. I still seemed to not be able to finish Christmas shopping though.

Since I missed the 30K Race in the Land of Sugar, Sweetie and I did 30k through Durham and Duke University. He tells me I pretty much saw all of Durham! Hey that's what happens when you have to do that much mileage. We took it fairly easy but for some reason at mile 15, I got a burst of energy and started running a sub-9 pace. Well that didn't last for long. The last half mile seemed to go on FOR-EVVAAAAA.

Here's a little pre and post run view for ya:

BEFORE




AFTER





Workout Log

Friday, Dec 12
Rest Day

Saturday, Dec 13
18.6 miles at 10:45 pace. Would like to have been faster, but I did this with Sweetie and it was about covering the distance, not the pace.

Sunday, Dec 14
Rest Day (lots of those lately!)

Tuesday, Dec 15
Travel Day - back to Houston

Snow in the Land of Sugar

So I'm on a week of vacation being a Lady of Leisure in Sweetie's home town while he works. It's unusually warm here for December and has rained for the last 2 days. Sweetie and I go to see Australia on Wednesday evening and Mr Smarty Pants calls during the movie. It's unusual for him to call so I step out of the movie.

It's SNOWING in Sugar Land, Texas. No REALLY!!! It's 70 degrees in Raleigh and it's freakin snowing in Sugar Land while I'm not there!!!!!! What's up with that?





Workout Log

Thursday, Dec 4
Weights with Christine (and I was sore until Monday!)
5 mile Christmas Lights run in Sugar Land followed by Vineyard on the Square

Friday, Dec 5
Weights with Christine

Saturday, Dec 6
10 miles with Coach Bob (my original running mentor) and Alia. Had a great time catching up with Coach Bob. It's been a long time since I've run with him!

Sunday, Dec 7
Rest Day

Monday, Dec 8
1800m swim in Raleigh. Timed a 400, 300, 200 and 100. Did all in sub 2:00 (ranged from 1:45 to 1:53)/hundred. This is a big improvement since the last time I timed myself. Yay for me!

Tuesday, Dec 9
6 mile run in Sweetie's neighborhood

Wednesday, Dec 10
Rest Day (went shopping...isn't that exercies?)

Thursday, Dec 11
3.2 mile fast run in Sweetie's neighborhood in the rain!

Construction Project

After 12 years of living with old fashioned white laminate counter tops and what seems like 6 months of trying to pick out granite, construction finally started in the kitchen project. Granite is installed, lights are mostly there, but somehow I don't have a faucet! Oh well, guess that means dinner out. (Like I need an excuse!)

I'll post the "after pix when it's all done. It may be a while cuz I still gotta pick out the backsplash!

Workout Log

Saturday
Rest Day

Sunday
Computrainer 65 min

Monday
Computrainer lesson with Coach Sam so did more listening than exercising

Tuesday
NOTHING - one day biz trip to Tulsa

Wednesday
Yoga

It's Christmas Time in the City

My favorite time of year so of course I had to decorate my blog.

Now, first there was Thanksgiving. I was driving to my hometown, "The City that Care Forgot". I don't normally go home for Thanksgiving, but my niece is having a baby in mid-December and Lovable is the godmother. So we're hosting a baby shower on Saturday in New Orleans. I left the Land of Sugar at 1:25 on Wednesday afternoon. By 3:30 I had driven a whopping 35 miles and was stopped on I-10 at Baytown. Since I was driving by myself, I was just not prepared to be on the road for what would be a 10 hour trip at this rate. So I called Mom and Dad and turned around and went back to Sugar Land and bought an airline ticket to fly home after Thanksgiving instead.

So, not having planned to be home for Turkey Day, I volunteered instead of running the Turkey Trot. Walked 2 miles in the process since I was assigned to work the aid station at mile 4 of the 5 miles race.

Canadian Debbie invited me over to give thanks. It was very yummy! She's an awesome cook.

The good thing about staying home was that I didn't have to run the 14 mile long run by myself in New Orleans. Canadian Debbie and Alia ran with me on Friday morning. We started later than normal and with temps in the 70's and 100% humidity it was quite a mental challenge.

Now off to start Christmas!


Workout Log

Wednesday
100 crunches

THANKSGIVING Thursday
Walked 2 miles
Trainer 1 hour
100 crunches

Friday
Ran 14 miles at 10:24 pace on VERY hot and humid day!

Battle of the Scale

Why does the scale go down at the most inopportune times? Here I've been watching what I eat and exercising very regularly (see log below) and the SCALE HAS NOT BUDGED!!!!! The only weight I've lost since August has been from the surgical removal of tissue from a certain site. And that was only two pounds.

So now we approach the Thanksgiving holiday. Time for o'caroling and o'gourging. I've already told myself, "OK Self. You can eat what you want during the holiday. You've been good and the scale hasn't moved so go ahead and have fun."

Well wouldn't you know....I get on the scale this morning, the day before the start of Gorge Fest and the scale has finally budged!!!. So now what am I to do? If I eat what I want I'll be back to square one and very frustrated. If I watch what I eat and gain back the couple of pounds I'll be REALLY FRUSTRATED.

Oh the problems of being a girl.....

Workout Log

Monday
Cycled on Trainer for 1 hour (and watched my fave show Lipstick Jungle)

Tuesday
Gruelly hour of weights with my trainer, Hawaiian Girl, at the gym in the a.m.
52 minutes of running hills in the evening

I Love My Kids

Sweetie left this morning after a wonderful, but all too short weekend. Late afternoon decided to go see the movie, The Changeling, with Angelina Jolie. I only go to the movies about 4 times a year and am not sure what motivated me today. I think I just wanted to justify popcorn!

The movie was really good. It's the story of a single mom in the late 1920's in Los Angeles. After her 9 year old son is kidnapped, the LAPD return a boy who she says is not her son, while the police insist it is. If you're a mother, you know there's no way anyone could subsitute another child for your little one. The police try to blow her off and basically portray her as a crazy woman. You know, Sweetie sometimes asks me the question "If you could come back during any time period, which would it be?" My answer is always the 20's but if this is how women are treated, I think I'm going to have to rethink this.

I won't give away the full story, but highly recommend you see it. Made me come home and hug my kids. Had to just call Lovable since she doesn't live at home.

The movie is based on a true story which makes it even more wrenching.



Workout Log

Tuesday
Hills for 52 minutes - warm-up, 5 laps, cool-down

Wednesday
Rest Day (was supposed to ride but was lazy)

Thursday
5 miles at 9:50 pace (and no walk breaks)

Friday
Rest Day

Saturday
16 miles with Sweetie, Canadian Debbie and Chris. 10:34 pace overall

Sunday
Cycling 1.5 hours - rode by myself from the house and discovered a new route

ANTICIPATION

For those who are of my vintage (very young and beautiful of course) you may remember the ketchup commercial that was on TV when we were kids. It showed a little boy fixing his burger and just waiting for the ketchup to come out of the bottle. You could almost see the kid drooling. In the background they played the song "Anticipation" by Carly Simon. You know the one....Anticipation...it's keeping me way-yay-yay-ting.

Well this week I feel like that little boy! Sweetie is coming to Houston on Friday. I can't wait. His trips to H-Town have been few this year since he came to Houston all the time in 2007 while I was training for Ironman. BTW this won't be the case for my Ironman Canada training since I now have a bike at his house and I'll probably get better training when I'm with him in Raleigh since they have REAL hills there. And the last time he was here was for my surgery so it doesn't really count. He'll only be here for a quick Friday evening - Sunday afternoon. The TriPsy end-of-season party is Saturday night and I'm thinking about getting tickets for the Body World 2 at the museum for Saturday afternoon. Of course with a 16 mile run on the agenda for Saturday morning, we may skip the museum in favor of a NAP!

Friday can't come soon enough. This has to be the slowest week at work ever! I'm having a hard time getting motivated to do my workouts but I keep telling myself before every workout that if I don't do xxx (ride the trainer, go to the gym to swim instead of hitting snooze, etc) then Sweetie won't come on Friday.

Only 3 more days!!!!


Workout Log

Sunday
Rest Day - Cleaned my closet and gave lots of clothes to Goodwill

Monday
Cycled - 50 min
Ran - 30 min
First brick workout I've done since before Vineman!

It's another Makeover

After running 15 miles this morning, I'm getting rather comfortable horizontal on the sofa with the laptop and did a little research on bloggy stuff. Found www.thecutestblogontheblock.com. What a jackpot! Cutest backgrounds on the web and even learned how to create my own signature.

So why "Tri Chick" you ask? Well for years Lovable and Mr Smarty Pants have wanted me to get a personalized license plate on the car. I finally did it earlier this year. Since I was limited to only 6 characters by the big, bad state of Texas, I went for "TRI CHK". So, my bloggy signature is the same...well almost!

What do you think?

What's all the hype about YOGA?

With the 6 weeks "rest" from working out I seemed to be really tight and inflexible now. So, I joined Canadian Debbie in a yoga class this week. Gotta tell you that I've tried yoga twice before and hated it. I get B-O-R-E-D. When I exercise I'm looking for action, sweat and most of all socializing with my buddies. In yoga you are quiet, relax and I didn't sweat a drop. Can that really be exercise? Doesn't seem like it.

Now all the Hollywood stars do yoga and claim it's what they do to keep in shape. I'm not so sure I believe them. I think they are secretly running and doing crunches when nobody is looking and then claim they're doing cool Pilates and Yoga.

But, I'm going to give it at least a few more weeks and see if it helps me before being a yogie drop out with ADD who can't sit still!

Workout Log
Tuesday
Hills - 5 loops/52 min

Wednesday
Yoga Class

Thursday
Swimming 45 min
5 miles at Memorial Park

Friday
Rest Day

Saturday
15.3 miles with Canadian Debbie

PD'ing

It was an adventurous weekend. About 15 of my gal pals and I ventured into the 'Big City' near the Galleria and had a private pole dancing class at a place called Sheila Kelly's S-Factor. What a hoot! Now before your thoughts get too racey, we only learned one 'trick' on the pole. Mostly it was a fun GNO! The majority of the class was spent doing yoga-like stretching. Only difference was there were lots of hip swings in between! Then we did some killa abs. My stomach is still hurting 3 days later. Finally we learned a pole trick where we wrapped our legs around the pole, hung on and spun around. I was pretty spastic and have a purple shin and knee to prove it. After about 5 tries I finally got it and even eventually could do it and look pretty sexy...as per the girls! Most fun was had trying on the shoes that you wear at the "advanced" class. I think we're ready for that one already!

The rest of the weekend was spent in Austin with Lovable. We have a tradition of having one Mom/Daughter weekend every sememster since she started college. I just love these weekends! We shopped, ate, ran, shopped some more and ate some more. We made our usual trek to Nordstrom's but were actually more successful this time at Banana Republic. Gotta love the new purple for the season. New purple sweater and scarf for me, new boots and dress for Lovable. On Sunday morning we ventured out to Town Lake. Love that soft trail around the lake. Lovable ran 5 miles with me and then I did another 7 miles by myself.

Finally, I spent a little time doing some serious run calendar planning today. I have until Nov 19 to decide if I'll be doing the Houston Marathon/Half Marathon. Right now, I'm favoring the option of doing the full in Austin and either spectating or doing the half in Houston. I think I've even got Sweetie considering pacing/running with me. It would be awesome to do a full marathon with him by my side. He's an incredible runner and is such a great coach/encourager. I always run better/faster with him. We've done several half marathons together but never a full --- so this would be a first. More on that later. I have a little convincing to do yet!

Workout Log
Friday
Rest Day

Saturday
Rest Day

Sunday
12 miles around Austin's Town Lake

Monday
Cycling on Computrainer 45 min

Guilty Tracking

I'm gonna copy Augie's idea and start recording my workouts in my blog. Just putting it out to the public will keep me more honest.

So here it goes:
Weights - 1 hour with personal trainer
Running - 4 miles at Memorial Park loop with Jen and Kathleen

My legs are sore!

Happy News All Around

Well it was quite a weekend for some of my "younger" friends.

Zeenie and Wes got married. It was a beautiful wedding! Only the second "Houston" wedding I've been to. Bride was absolutely beautiful. Groom was quite handsome. Food was DELISS!!! Good thing I watched my calories at lunch time!

While the wedding was going on, fellow TriPsy member and swim coach extroidinaire, Markell, finished the Florida Ironman in a time of 12:28:08! Wow - I can't even imagine that. Of course Markell is young enough to be my daughter ;-) Congrats to Markell.

Augie, Shannon, Michelle, Chad, Sandy, Coach Bob, Trevor, Cory G and Darwin are now officially committed....Ironman Florida 2009. Although my race will be a few months ahead of them, it will be nice to have a larger crowd doing long distance training over the summer.

Splish Splash

So I did my longest post-surgery run this morning. Honestly I wasn't sure I could do it and it wasn't my fastest. But I ran 11 miles at 10:50 pace and I'm happy. It started out much faster due to pacing with Canadian Debbie. But at about mile 5.5, nature called. So I peeled off and thankfully St Laurence church was open before 7:00am this morning and had a bathroom. I ran the next 4 miles by myself and I'm sure that's where the pace slowed. At about 9.5 I ran into Canadian Debbie, Alia and Sam. (They did 11.5 so sinced I cut off the Plantation Colony loop, I was now up with them.) Ran the last 1.5 miles with them. at 10 min pace. Made my goal for the day. Hoo-Yah!

Now for the real topic of the day. Yesterday, I received my order from Splish. If you don't know them, they make the cutest swimsuits. They even make custom suits. So Patty and I partnered to have them make TriPsyclone team suits. OMG, they are the cutest. I also splurged and ordered a custom Christmas suit. Nothing like getting into the holidays. Hey, based on the decorations at the malls, I can start wearing my Christmas swimsuit now. OK - I'll wait until after Thanksgiving. It's just the bomb. Everyone at the pool is going to be sooooooo jealous!!!

Boo

So I'm sitting here in my Halloween finest - Black yoga pants, orange trick-or-treat shirt, jack-o-lantern on the front porch, lights on, Halloween flags-a-flyin. So why have I only had 3 small groups of trick-or-treaters? Somebody save me!!! I'm about to have to dig right into the candy bowl. I allocated myself 5 pieces of candy. I'm up to 7. Oh wait, there's a knock at the door.

Ok - I'm back. Make that 4 groups. These guys just really made out. I think I gave them half the bowl. OK I can have 7 pieces of candy cuz tomorrow I'm gonna do my longest run since Vineman. Here's hopin my new shoes are nice to my right foot. Don't tell anyone, but it's been bothering me since the half marathon relay on Sunday.

See ya on the roads tomorrow!!!

Roll the Dice, It's Bunco Time in Texas

Bunco - I think in Webster's it's defined as a Texas phenemenon better known as an excuse for women to get together, eat, drink and gossip thinly disguised as a mindless dice game. I'd never heard of this until I moved to Texas. I've been part of my bunco group for about 10 years now. It's a group of special girls most of whom I worked with at Texaco many years ago. Tonight was my turn to host.



Being allergic to cooking as I am, I ordered dinner from Pappasitos for the girlz. Well, if there's one thing my Mamma taught me, it's never run out of food for your guests. I ordered 5 pounds of fajita meat. When I got home, for some reason it just didn't look like it was enough. So I went to Lupe Tortillas and got another two hunks of beef. Ahh, now I felt better. Well, needless to say, I have about 4 pounds of meat and fixins left over.



In past years when I hosted, the chef of the family, Mr. Smarty Pants always cooked. This year, he decided to focus on dessert only. What a hit! He kept to the Fall/Halloween theme and made pumpkin pie and the most delicious caramel apples (drizzled in white chocolate) you have ever tasted. Man that boy can create some tasty vittles.



Sunday is the big Houston Half Marathon that June and I will be relaying. It will be my longest run since surgery. I'll do the first leg and then hand off to June at mile 6.5. Since it's another 2 miles back to the car, I'm going to run alongside June for the first 2 miles of her leg. I'm pretty excited about this since this will get me closer to the mileage required to do the full marathon in January.



So, who's up for a fajita leftovers celebration lunch on Sunday after the race?

Junk Food Carbs

It was my last night with Sweetie so what did we do? NO I'm not gonna blog about that! We went to the North Carolina State Fair. Seems the best thing to do at the North Carolina State Fair is eat junk food. So that is what we did! Over and over again! Just one little pointer....Bloomin onion, kettle corn and cotton candy do not make for good pre-run food the next morning! Suffered through what should have been a beautiful 5 mile run around the Duke campus in 45 degree weather. Unfortunately the carbs from the cotton candy were long gone! Maybe they should make Cotton Candy flavored gels!

Amongst These Hills

Did my first hilly bike ride since Vineman yesterday. Since Sweetie is now living in Raleigh along with my rode bike, we spent our vacation day on Monday doing our first North Carolina ride yesterday. Perfect weather, perfect route, perfect company, not perfect bike. Well the ride started out really nice through the country side outside of Chappell Hill. (No not the Houston area Chappell Hill, the REAL one in North Carolina....although the terrain is about the same.) Sweetie had even mapped out a 25 mile ride that had a dairy farm about 16 miles into it that served homemade ice cream. We thanked the cows as we rode past them and stopped at their ice cream store.

Now with a sugar rush we took off. But seems my Trek didn't quite like the move and suddenly for some reason it would randomly change gears about every 5 rotations. Never knew if it would go to a harder or easier gear.

No worries, Sweetie is gonna take care of it for me and bring the baby into the doc for a tune-up before my next trip here. I foresee lots of hill riding in North Carolina during Ironman Canada training!

Fly the Friendly Skies

Remember when you thought flying on an airplane was fun - an adventure? Those days are O-V-E-R. I've decided to run for president of the FAA (or whatever organization controls the rules of the airports and airlines) and institute some new rules.

First the security lines. I declare that when I am head of the FAA, the rule will be "if you have not flown within 30 days you are required to watch a mandatory video on how to check in your luggage and go through security." How frustrating it is to stand in line at Southwest for 20 minutes only to have the person in front of you get to the check-in stand and realize that they have to fill out a luggage ID tag to attach to their luggage. What the heck have they been doing for the last 20 minutes??? Or in the security line for them to discover that they have their favorite perfurme and shampoo in the check in luggage, change in their pockets and refuse to take their shoes off? Come on people. It's just not that complicated.

Next it's the boarding process. OK we all learned how to count in kindergarten. Your boarding pass has a number on it and you line up in numerical order. Again....it's not that hard. You don't need to line up 30 minutes before boarding and you also don't gather near where you're supposed to be in line. If I'm number 58 and you're 61, I get to be ahead of you so get out of my way.

Finally, go to the bathroom BEFORE you get on the plane. Yesterday I was flying out of IAH to visit Sweetie. I woke up at 4:45am to catch a flight departing at 7:25am. I got to the airport only to find out that bad weather the previous night had screwed up all the flights coming in on Wednesday night. So, because of "crew mandatory rest" (an FAA rule that I will keep in place when I'm president of the FAA cuz I want to make sure my pilot isn't asleep at the wheel), my flight was now delayed until 9:15am. Of course that meant I would miss my connection in Atlanta, but Delta had already taken care of that and rebooked me to the 1:10pm connector. Finally at 9:00 they boarded us. We all got on the plane and pulled away from the terminal only for the pilot to tell us that the runway was being inspected (why at 9:15am I can't tell you) and all of the planes were having to move to a new runway and it would be a while. "Stay in your seats though because when they tell us it's our turn we will take off immediately" he added. Well about 30 minutes later the pilot comes on and tells us that we had our turn but that because everyone was not in their seat, we now had to wait another 10 minutes. When that guy walked out of the bathroom back to his seat I had to contain myself not to trip him from my aisle seat. WHAT A JERK!!!!! Of course when we landed in Atlanta, I ran to the gate of my connecting flight and the person at the gate said I missed the flight by about 3 minutes. THANKS MR "I GOTTA GO PEE"!!!!! I had the pleasure of waiting another hour in an airport before I got to my Sweetie. I think that man should be banned from flying for life.

Back in the Saddle Again

After 6 long weeks of recovering from surgery, I am finally able to run again. Doc says I can pretty much do anything I feel up to doing. So Saturday I went out for my first run. Of course Friday night was quite an adventure of shopping for a new running bra. After about 3 stops, I finally found one that I thought would work.

While my regular training group was starting at 5am to do 15 miles, I decided that I would rather finish with them than start with them - My Momma didn't raise no dummy! I started in teh dark at about 6:40 am. Recognized my Vineman partner June leaving the parking lot about the same time. (She's just starting back after injury too.) We started together but quickly seperated. Brought good ole IPOD along for company.

All I will say is WOW - what a difference a little surgery makes. I felt like a kid running around the playground at recess. I had planned on starting at 3 miles but felt so good I went for 4. So, I'm back in the saddle again!

Granite and Panties?

My house is 12 years old. It's time for some updates. I'm starting in the kitchen - upgraded the light fixtures and now replacing laminate counter tops with granite. Now most women would relish the idea of picking out a new kitchen, but in case you didn't notice in my "About Me", cooking and decorating are definately NOT in the list of things I like to do. I'm much better at take-out and eating.

Tomorrow I go to the granite warehouse to pick out the slabs of granite. Now I'm usually pretty calm and collected about things, but this has me very stressed out. This will be trip#4 and every time it gets more confusing and over-whelming. I thought I had it down to 3 colors and hated all of them once they pulled them out so I could look at them. So now I'm back to square one, but I'm not leaving there tomorrow until I have selected something. ARGGGGHHHH!!!!!!

As Jannelle told me tonight, "put on your big girl panties and just do it!"

Mr Smarty Pants Really Is Smart

My baby started college this semester. Yeah I can hardly believe it. He's living at home commuting to the local college. I'm fine with this as he's very independent and it's almost like we each have our own "half" of the house. He lives upstairs and I live downstairs. He's just completed his first round of tests. He took these much more seriously than I expected. I think he was even nervous. I'm happy to report that he made an A in math, an A in English, the second highest grade in the class in sociolgy and the 18th highest grade (with over 100 kids in the class) in geology. The sociology teacher told them he would curve the grades and the geology teach as well. I'm very proud of him - Mr. Smarty Pants.

So, why do teachers do this? Why do they give impossible exams? Why do they post scores for the test in the order of best to worst? I had a math professor in college who used to do this. He would hand out the tests in the order you scored. So if you got your test first, you had the highest grade and if you got yours last, you had the worst grade. Now while that motivated the anal retentive, type A, competitive personalities like me (I always wanted to be first!), it certainly did nothing but embarrass the lower scorers. I always tried to distract myself after he got about halfway through handing out the tests (of course I had already received mine) because I didn't want to embarrass anyone.

Well back to Mr. Smarty Pants....We went to the Galleria on Saturday to celebrate his grades. A man close to his mom's heart...we went shopping! He didn't find what he was looking for, but Mom bought several pieces of costume jewelry from my favorite accessory place, Charming Charlie. Oh don't feel sorry for Mr. Smarty Pants - he got home and ordered what he wanted online. Oh the modern methods of shopping!

Go Away IKE - You don't scare me!

Well I think I've become a Weather Channel junkie. I never thought I'd see the day when every day I'd wake up early before my alarm to watch The Weather Channel. But that's what Ike has done to me. Being a Southern girl, I'm used to the idea of hurricanes. I always said that I'd rather live in the world of hurricanes than the world of tornados. At least you know they're coming and can plan for them. But this year it seems like we're planning the the possibility of the next storm every week. To make things worse, it seems like landfall only happens on holidays (like Labor Day) and weekends. Give a girl a break. So here I am with my hurricane kit all ready, flashlights out, stash of batteries, candles, matches, radio, water and last but not least, junk food. If we have to sit around in the dark, at least I'm going to enjoy it in some way.