Holding steady

Whew! Long time, no post....

What do I have to say for myself? Still running. So that's good. And still enjoying life. January and February are always crazy months here at our house. Four birthdays fall between January 7th and February 7th. And robotics season kicks into high gear.

Brian, is the head of the robotics team at the high school where he teaches physics. In theory, this is a very cool team. They build a robot to do a specific task (this year the robot is supposed to play soccer on a "field" laden with speed bumps and other robot opponents), and then take it to competitions around the state. It's a national program (First Robotics started by Dean Kamen) for high school kids and adult mentors. Lots of scholarship money involved for the kids. Lots of creative opportunities for adults of a certain engineering-computer programming-building-type mindset.

They have six weeks to build the robot. This means that Brian is gone most nights for six weeks. And oh, how I hate this. I am not much of a whiner generally, but if not here, WHERE?? After long days of homeschooling three little kids (which I absolutely and wholeheartedly love), the evenings can get a bit hectic. Dinner, dishes, baths, bedtimes, practices, classes: YIKES! Two more weeks......

We did get up to Boston with Nell a few weeks ago for a long weekend with my parents. Brians' parents took the boys. This was a lovely interlude. Kind of a calm-before-the-storm moment in time.

I had a fabulous run early Sunday morning in the dark smack down the middle of Newberry Street. I mean I ran right down the middle of the road and nary a car appeared. Hello Dior, Hello Kate Spade, hello Chanel, hello Life is Good. You all look very spiffy in your expensive finery, but right now this street is all mine!



I ran back the very aptly named Commonwealth Avenue. Houses and apartments gleamed with affluent cool. I tried to imagine myself living in one of these stately places, walking out onto this scene every day. A lovely fantasy.



How easy and delightful it was to walk around the city with just one child. And a perfectly reasonable and enthusiastic child at that. We walked all day. Perfect!

Train to the Museum of Fine Arts. We spent lots of time with the mummies!

We also walked through the North End where Brian and Nell ate delicious slices of authentic Italian pizza. I am off wheat and dairy, so no pizza for me. But my stomach feels way better, so I sat and watched them with very little envy in my heart.


This bar is on the edge of the North End. Nell wasn't thrilled about standing in front of it, but I couldn't resist.....


Our second day in town we went to the famous Museum of Science. By this time we were all a bit worn out. Here is Nell looking very tired in the Butterfly House.


We ended up buying a membership to the museum. It's good for a year of free admission, as well as admission to the Peabody Museum (Yale's natural history museum, about an hour from us) and the Roger Williams Zoo in Providence, as well as lots of museums and zoos around the country.

Just yesterday, in fact, the kids and I bundled up and went to the zoo. We literally had the place to ourselves. There was one other car in the parking lot, but we never saw its occupants. The animals were thrilled to see us. We hadn't been to the zoo in many moons. This was our first trip with no stroller. And more to the point, no tantrums! (Ben has thrown some doozies outside the elephant house.) I have arrived!

And running is going great. All seems to be well with my ankle as long as I keep to a two-hour limit most of the time. My little governor. Susan and I had an adventurous night run on the trails a few weeks ago. Five hours I think it was. The starlight and moonlight on the snow was all the light we needed. It was enchanting. (Except that one moment when Susan got dove-bombed by a vampire bat or something -- that was decidedly spooky.)

Susan is still running Umstead in March and I am doing my best stay with her on her long training runs. I am not going to run any 100s this year. They don't agree with me. Too hard on my tender tendons. But I am planning some 50s. UltraSteve is planning a 50K right here in Connecticut on April 3rd. The Traprock 50K in West Hartford. Hooray!! And I'll probably do the 42-mile option at Wapack in May and Pittsfield Peaks (the course that kicked my ass last year) in June in VT. So here's hoping my body holds together for all of that.

It's blizzarding outside as I write this. I could not be more thrilled!

And yes, we have been skating most weekends. Nature's Bounty...