Corn Fested

Yesterday was a big, giant, exhausting day. Matt & I hauled the boys into town and took part in that great tradition of rural America: the agricultural festival.

Here in Edina, we have the Knox County Corn Festival. And though yields are down and aflatoxin is up, the festivities seemed more festive than ever.

My day started early, as I walked in the annual Jerry Gudehus Memorial 5K. Thanks to the discovery of support hose, a couple weeks ago I decided I was up to running part of the race, perhaps 1/3 of it, even though I hadn't run for a few months. I've still continued a moderate exercise regimen, combined with my normal daily child-packing-and-chasing, so I figured I was up to it. But, a few days ago, I determined that something had changed and I feared running was not a great idea. My hint was the sharp stabbing pains in my lower abdomen that came on after less than two minutes of running. My goal was to start labor, not start a placental abruption.

So, I walked the entire 3.2 miles. Well, all but the last few yards. I ran those when I saw my mother-in-law standing at the finish line with her camera. I thought if I ran at the end and it got captured on camera, I might fool our child someday into thinking Mommy ran a 5K the morning of his or her birth. I did not, however, have a baby yesterday, or even come close. I wasn't really expecting it would happen, but, hey, a girl can dream of spontaneous labor, even after two non-eventfully-induced-labors.

Anyway, the "race" was fun, though not as much fun as running it, but there is next year for that. Plus, I got a t-shirt. The turnout for the race was awesome. It was great to see so many friends and neighbors have engaged in such a healthy habit.

Next was the world's longest parade with about a thousand antique tractors. My boys see tractors, antique and otherwise, everyday, but you wouldn't have known it by their reaction to the parade, particularly that of my younger one. They were impressed, to say the least. The parade was so long that my boys and pretty much all the other kids lost interest in picking up candy. I would have never thought I'd witness such a thing. John told me "Mom, I think I have enough candy now." And Patrick, who has the world's most insatiable sweet tooth decided his bag was full enough too.

I have always kept the existence of carnivals a secret from my boys. But this year, they noticed, as the carnival started setting up on Wednesday night, and we had to walk through it Wednesday and Friday to get into the Fitness Center. John quickly figured out that you could "ride in the machines", so that's what I heard about for three days. So, I told him we'd have to see how many ride tickets we could afford in our Carnival ride budget. Turns out for the bargain price of $25, you can buy 10 tickets, which is just enough to completely wear out 2 little boys (plus their cousin Levi, who had 5 tickets of his own), thanks to generous carnival operators that often let them ride twice for one ticket, and one entirely unsupervised maze/ball pit/tunnel slide attraction that required no tickets whatsoever.

John and Levi had been waiting all morning to ride the swings, but that ride hadn't been in operation, and I was hoping we would run out of tickets before it did because I really didn't think that my Patrick, at just two years of age, really needed to ride it, but I knew I wouldn't convince him otherwise if the big boys rode it. But, sure enough, just in time to use our last ticket, it was ready to go.

The two older boys were standing outside the fence dancing in fever-pitch anticipation of the ride on the "swing machine". I asked PW if he wanted to ride it too. He gave me that emphatic "is-the-Pope-Catholic?" type of yes that he does with a nod, completely nixing the idea of instead taking another turn on the previously-cool-but-suddenly-super-lame fire truck ride. (he uses this sort of "yes" to answer questions like "Do you want to go with Daddy?"; "Do you want a sucker?" "Do you want to read Family Reunion for Old Tractors for the eighteenth time today?")

So, against my better judgment, I relinquished my baby to the care of the carnival operator, who had just told me he didn't actually work for the carnival, was a local and was just filling in, as they were short-handed. (what I heard was he maybe was or maybe wasn't fully up-to-speed on the safety guidelines of the ride). He just asked me, "well, can he hold on?" And I was like, "He's two! Yes, he can, but I don't know if he will." The operator, who really was very, very nice assured me he'd stop the ride if Patrick started crying.

Ok, then, I said, and the ride started. It seemed like the longest 30 minutes of my life. I've never been so concerned for the safety of one of my children as I was then, and remember, I've willingly, even eagerly, consented to having my firstborn operated on surgically and later infused with multiple chemotherapeutic poisons. I suppose it was more like only 3-5 minutes, but it seemed like an eternity to me. But he held on with white knuckles and handled it just fine. When the ride was over, I picked him up and couldn't tell if he was exhausted from the carnival and relaxed from the swinging, or nauseous. We went to the shade of the 4-H pavilion to sit down, and he immediately insisted in laying down in the cool dirt under the table, just like the hogs that wallowed in that same spot during the fair earlier this summer.

After the 5K, the marathon parade, and two hours of carnival, I was ready to do the same thing. Though my feet and legs were swollen and exhausted, my uterus was completely oblivious to the stress, and there was no indication that this baby will ever willingly evacuate my body. Oh, well, the weather was perfect, and we all had a great time. The carnival wasn't nearly as miserable for the parents as I feared it might be, and the lemonade and caramel apples were delicious.

The afternoon ended perfectly when we took the boys to evening Mass and they were really, really good, which doesn't necessarily always happen.

We went back into the festival for supper, and things went south fast. Turns out, we found out just what their level of festival-tolerance is. A scraped elbow was our cue to leave, and we fled before anyone had to make yet another trip to the port-a-potty. It turns out the port-a-potty is a thrill to rival the carnival itself when you are two, four, or five, and I'm terribly afraid we've all contracted hepatitis as a result.

Happy Sunday!

A Goal-Setting Resolution

Reflect and resolve. It’s the annual exercise we all know so well.

I’m not sure the process is ever very useful for me. I repeat the same vicious cycle each year:

      

1. Enumerate the areas of my life in which I’m guilty of failure.

2. Identify an action to address each failure. Maybe ponder a vague plan of attack.

3. Fail to keep up the effort of improvement in each identified failure area, or fail to even   initiate the improvement effort at all.

4. Feel guilty until the following January.

Some resolutions, though I’ve made them over and over for years, have yielded some improvement:

1.       Get up earlier. (makes a fabulous difference in my day when it happens)

2.       Keep better financial records. (still room for further improvement here)

3.       Spend time daily in prayer (only successful at this during Lent).

Other resolutions, I’ve actually done pretty well at sticking to:

1.       Exercise multiple times per week. I started running last summer, but then fell off the wagon after my second 5K.

2.       Cook more.

3.       Make my bed daily. I chose this one because my mom made her bed every single day.

4.       Buy only expensive shoes.

Overall, I think I estimate I’ve had a 50% success rate where resolutions are concerned. We all know what 50% is. An F. Failure.

Actual paper, actual pen, actual goals.  I decided this year I wouldn’t make New Year’s Resolutions. Instead, I have made a list of written goals on actual paper with an actual pen. The difference is subtle, but it’s a powerful difference nonetheless. There is something about the process of writing that seems to make goal-setting work for me. Remember last fall when I decided to implement a cash envelope system for grocery shopping? I’ve actually been 80-90% successful at this. And when I haven’t used actual green cash, I’ve used a debit card, as opposed to my trusty blue Discover card. It’s so nice to not have to pay off our grocery bill at the end of every month, but I digress.

Most importantly, the writing process actually makes me think. For example, I never write a post directly onto my blogger page. I write, think, delete, add, undelete, rearrange, edit, add, delete, think, write some more before I finish the post. It takes an hour at a minimum, and that doesn’t even count the time I spend “pre-thinking” about it before I even sit down at the keyboard. (Sadly, most of my blog posts never make it past the “pre-thinking” stage.)

I’m sure you’re all just waiting with bated breath (yes, that’s the correct spelling; I looked it up) to find out what these life-changing, earth-shattering written goals are. You’re practically screaming at your monitor, “Tell me, Bobbi! Tell me! What are your goals?” You may have already skimmed ahead to find out. If you have, shame on you! (or not, there’s really no wrong way to read a blog, is there?)

Before you read my written goals, I want to point out something else that’s special about this approach. With each written goal, there is also (1) plan of implementation, and (2) an accountability system. These two additional elements are designed to contribute to the success of the goal-setting process.

Bobbi D. Clark’s Written Goals for 2012

1.      Read more books. Specifically, read more thought-provoking books, but most importantly, just read more books. I am an avid reader. One wouldn’t know it to observe the stacks of magazines in each bathroom, but I really am. Or rather, I was an avid reader. But even at the height of my voracious reading, I tended to read a lot of brain bubble gum: novels (mostly mysteries,  I will confess, even a few cheesy romance novels), an occasional memoir, and less-than-challenging books from the “inspirational” category. I’ll accomplish this by my participation in the NGBC (nerdy girl book club). Well, it’s called a club for lack of a better term, it’s more of an agreement between myself, a cousin, and a sister-in-law to allow each of us to share good books we’ve read and most importantly read good books we might not have otherwise chosen or discovered on our own. We’ve done this for a little more than a year, and if my calculation is correct, we’re on our fifth book. Each of us gets to pick every third book. We’re currently reading The Republic, by Plato. Yes, that’s right Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher. Plato. See why this book club is so cool? Do you think I would have ever chosen this one on my own? No. Nope. Negative. Not a chance. But when it was proposed by one member, I found out that it was actually on the reading list of another (the other, since there are just three of us) member of the club. So, the plan part is I have two other readers to make good reading suggestions, and the accountability part is, I have to finish the book before we can move on to the next selection. See the sidebar if you’re interested in following what we’ve read or joining us in our current selection. I’ve also posted books I’ve read on my own lately that I feel are worthwhile.

2.      Regular blog maintenance. Not because you really want to read it (though I do hope you want to read it), but because I really want to write it. Maybe it makes you laugh. Maybe it makes you think. I really hope so, but it makes me laugh, makes me think, and that’s why I do it.  So my plan is to start a new post every Saturday morning and have it posted at least by Monday. And the accountability part? Well, I can tell when people read it because blogger tells me how many page views I’ve had. I like to see page views, so if I know you’re reading, that, in theory, will make me more inclined to stick to my schedule. As an extra incentive for you, I think I’ll try to post more pictures entertain you. Maybe.

3.      Menu planning. This is a kind of “step 2” to one of last year’s resolutions which was to “cook more.” I’ve compiled a great selection of kid-friendly, man-friendly entrees, potato choices, and non-boring fruit/vegetable side dishes (mostly, the secrets to fruit and vegetable cooking are sugar, salt, and butter). Eventually, I’d like to get to the point of planning a whole month’s worth of dinners at a time, but to start with, I’ll tackle one week at a time. Lunch is probably going to be leftovers or ham sandwiches. Sorry, Matt. The accountability element here is I get to tell you about new stuff I’ve cooked and how well I’ve stuck to the plan. Otherwise, I’ll be forced to admit my failure. This is the approach I’ll take through the end of tax season, at least. I’m sure I’ll be forced to cook more than one meal per day when the boys are home with me all day, every day.

4.      Regular exercise. As I mentioned, I implemented this one last summer and was pretty successful. I attribute that success, in part, to the fact that my new running hobby allowed me to justify the purchase of a pair of really cute safety-cone-orange running shoes. I ran about 3 days a week and participated in 2 5Ks, one in September and one in October. And when I say “participated”, I mean I actually ran the whole 3.1 miles. Don’t misunderstand: I did not run them fast, but I did run them in their entireties. One race was in a warm late-summer rain, and the other, just a month later, was in early morning frost-on-the-pumpkin temperatures. With the commencement of harvest and the end of daylight savings time, my running routine was out the window. I look to resume a regular exercise schedule in the new year, and to keep me accountable here, I plan to compete with my husband. Hopefully, our competitive natures will keep both of us on track, and on treadmill until spring springs here in the greater Edina area.

Now, I challenge each of you to go write your own list of goals, complete with plans of execution and accountability for the New Year.

Good Luck!

Do I get a t-shirt for that?

So, last weekend was a busy one.

I really dislike starting a new sentence/paragraph/topic of discussion with "so". That's why I did it here; to make this point. I guess to me it feels like jumping to a conclusion or stating a consequence without first developing the argument. It's as if the speaker/writer has been having thoughts going on in his or her head and then all of a sudden, mid-thought, decides to include the audience. (I'll admit I'm guilty of both). I've noticed this lately, as in over the past few years. It's become part of our vernacular, like "if you will" and "per se". Seriously, how many people correctly use "per se"? I don't really even know what it means, but, trusting that my audience probably doesn't either, I throw it in every now and then.

If I were comfortable using "LOL", this is where I would insert it, as your clue that the preceding was intended to amuse. Don't be offended. Just be amused.

Last weekend was in fact busy. Once again, the powers that be scheduled the Knox County Corn Fest for the same weekend as John's birthday party. Between party-planning, party-preparations, parading, and actual partying, last weekend was, to say the least busy.

I think I'm finally recovered. Pretty close anyway.

Friday night, I regained custody of my sewing machine, which was fortunate, because I had to sew Thomas the Train flag pennant banners (modeled by Elijah in the previous blog post). I wasn't up too late, but I found it really hard to sleep because I was so nervous about the race the next morning. That's right, I ran in the Jerry Gudehus 5K at the Corn Fest Saturday morning.

Saturday morning dawned gray and rainy, but hey, I wasn't complaining, because we need the rain. Matt informed me that running in the rain was a sacrifice I should be more than happy to make for his bean crop. Anyway, this meant that I had to rethink my running wardrobe. I had planned on shorts. But, in the interest of not freezing, I decided to go with leggings, against my better fashion judgment. You see, I think leggings look great on other ladies, but I think they just tend to accentuate the length of my size 10 running shoes, which are, in fact necessary, for my size 10 feet.

I was very nervous; I ate a doughnut and half a banana, swigged some coffee, and chugged quite a bit of water, the breakfast of champions meets breakfast of tired mamas. I was pretty sure I was going to throw up. I know, I know, silly to be so nervous, but I was anyway. I was afraid I would come it dead last, which I knew was not logically possible as the event was a "run/walk" and I knew I would be able to run the whole thing. I kept reminding myself it would in fact be physically impossible for me to be dead last.

It did rain (gently, just sprinkles) the entire duration of the race, but I finished. I was careful not to go too fast at the start, because that's what all the running-advice websites caution against. This unfortunately resulted in over-caution and therefore over-slowness. I did not meet my time goal, but I came very close. My strategy for my next 5K?

Run faster.

A great strategy, right? Considering I haven't even run at all this week, due to exhaustion and the commencement of harvest, this strategy may not prove viable.

My sister-in-law and brother-in-law ran with me.

"Do we get a t-shirt," she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Sweet! Sign us up!" she replied.

And by "ran with me", I mean M.A. finished nearly 10 minutes ahead of me, and Greg was pretty close to me. I probably would never have been brave enough to attempt this without them being my partners in pain. And my boys were waiting there at the finish line, cheering for me. Matt reported that they were very impressed with their mama. At least John was, anyway, Patrick was just clapping because that's what Patrick does, especially if someone else is clapping.

And here is something else for your amusement: I medaled!

Done laughing yet? Yes, that's right, I got second in my age division.

In my age division. That phrase is key.

The competition is much tougher in the 30-39 age division than in the 20-29 age division. That means I've probably won my first and last racing medal, as I'm nearly no longer 29.

I was just thrilled that I was able to stick with my training regimen all summer (it was hot, and I had some pretty intense ankle/knee/hip pain from time to time). Plus, I acquired some sweet safety-cone-orange running shoes, and fashion is always fun.

I had decided at the beginning of the summer that I needed to do something to get out of the house, something to get some "me time". I decided I would either take up smoking or take up running. I decided running would be cheaper and healthier. I thought I might even lose a pound or two or ten.

And, while I haven't lost a single pound, I certainly feel healthier. I went from struggling to run for 60 seconds at a time (that was the beginning of my Couch-to-5K training protocol) to running for 30+ minutes at a time, so I'm pretty proud of that.

Saturday afternoon, I returned home, on jello legs to continue the party prep. But, since I could barely move, mostly I just rested until church that evening. By the time Mass had ended, I was at least regaining consciousness.

Back at home, staring glassy-eyed at my filthy kitchen floor, I twitched my nose and waved my magic wand, but nothing happened. Finally, Sunday morning I found my supermom cape and by noon, we were ready to party, Thomas style. Choo-choo!

P.S. I haven't managed to run even once this week, which is not good, as I'm running in a 5K to benefit Alex's Lemonade Stand 10.2.11. I've blamed it on the fact that we've been busy with harvest, but I'm really, just.still.plain.worn.out. I'd like to sleep for a week. Or maybe, if PW would just sleep at night, I'd settle for that.