Fat Biscuit

Random Friday Facts

1. I love stationary, pens, pencils, little notebooks, and pretty postcards.

 

2. I have some strange, irrational fears: Whenever I turn the oven light on after the oven has already heated up, I'm afraid that it will make the whole thing blow up in my face.

 

3. I have fond memories of the delicious food packages that my Mum would hand deliver to me during college: pasties, Welsh cakes, jam tarts, etc. Usually I'd get this special treatment around a birthday or exam time, and I'd always be slightly pained when I  had to share this food with friends.

 

4. The first time I ever tried running was during my fourth year at college. I was talked into it by a friend who also managed to talk me into joining the women's intramural rugby team because he was on the men's. He would meet me at my house and then run me up Observatory Hill and then to Rugby Road. I think the most we ever ran was about 40 minutes. Then we'd go immediately to Baskin Robbins for a huge vanilla milkshake. It would be years before I'd try running again.

 

5. Every time I unroll my yoga mat and attempt to do some stretching, Reese the cat dashes over and starts getting in the way, often shoving her bum right in my face. Not pleasant.

 

6. Last week Owen saw a commerical on tv for tampons. For the first time ever, he actually asked what it was all about. We used diversionary tactics to avoid giving an explanation. I figure, they start Family Life at school next year; we'll get to it later. The kid already thinks girls are weird enough, wait till he finds out about the menstrual cycle!

 

7. Every time Owen gets out of the bath, he insists on using my Turbie Twist. A few times he's even fallen asleep with it still wrapped around his head. He finds it "cozy."

 

8. Last weekend I had the first of six laser hair removal treatments. I've been dreaming of this since college. I will NOT be posting before and after photos.

 

9. Leaving the post office yesterday, a middle-aged man stopped me and said, "Are you a runner? My wife saw your shoes and said you must be a runner? Are you a runner?" It was strange.

 

10. Finally mailed my Christmas thank you notes. See above. I really hate going to the post office.

 

11. My calves are sore today from having to walk down the long escalator at Dupont Circle South. Clearly, my commuter muscles are underused.

 

12. Movies watched: Take the Money and Run and Frozen River

 

13. Beers consumed: Port City Porter, Allagash White, and Blue Moon Winter Abbey Ale. All have now been ranked on Beer Advocate.

 

 

Three Things Thursday

1. Yesterday I registered for the Irish Sprint 10 K, which takes place on March 17. This race is part of the MC race series, but more importantly, will provide my golden ticket into the MC Marathon. All I have to do is finish the Irish Sprint, and I am guaranteed entry into my "First-Ever Marathon." I've never even been to Prince William Park, so I'm not sure how much of this race will be on an actual trail. I do know, however, that 10 K is probably my least favorite race distance. (I still remember how pukey I felt at the end of the Monument Ave. 10 K in Richmond.) What I'm really most scared of is that my Mum will get pissed when she finds out I'm participating in an Irish-themed event. 

 

2. Owen brought home two bad grades yesterday, and the former perfectionist in me felt physically ill. I think it's hard for me to separate his school experience from my school experience, the result being that I become a psycho-Mom who hovers around my son while he does his homework, who spends way too much time worrying about how he'll get his Book Talk done, and who exudes stress and anxiety every day around dinner time. I'm pretty sure that this is not the type of Mom that Owen wants. I want to be the laid-back Mom who stays "positive" and keeps things "in perspective." Is there a workshop for that?

 

3. I've got book club tonight, which means dinner out and girl talk (all book related, of course). I've got next month's book selection all ready to go. I've chosen a male author, again, but have tempered this by choosing a book with "Aunt' in the title. Can anyone guess the book?

Tidbits

This post was supposed to be "Tuesday Tidbits," but I got distracted.

 

1. My fitness goals (yup, I know, I actually typed that) at the moment center around maintaining a decent base to carry me through till late Spring when I start training for my first marathon. I want to stay comfortable with a weekend long run of about an hour, without burning out or getting injured before shit gets really intense; i.e., when I start week 1 of Hal Higdon's Novice marathon training schedule. I'm trying to throw some spinning and yoga into the mix as well, but every week is different for me, so this is not always possible: sick kid, PTA obligations, menstrual cycle, . . . you know the drill. The next race I'm doing is (hopefully) going to be the Irish Sprint 10K in mid-March. If I complete this race, I'm guaranteed entry into the Marine Corps Marathon.

 

2. The other morning, while Taylor and I drank coffee in bed, we began filling out a book together: Listography. In it, you record important lists that provide good insight into your personality. Taylor guessed correctly that the number 1 item on my "Biggest Regrets" list was "not going to grad school." It was fun to do together and confirmed for me that, yes, we really do know each other pretty well. 

 

3. Better late than never, I present the Richards-Fleet goals for 2012:

Ceri = run first marathon

Owen = earn Junior Black belt

Taylor = do more kayaking

Nana = retire 

Jim = make it to 2013

Sian = undetermined 

Random Friday Facts

It's been a while  . . .  

 

1. I love my name: Ceri. I can't thank my parents enough for choosing it. Good job!

 

2. Both Tay and Owen have a touch of synesthesia, specifically, color-graphemic synesthesia. This means that they see letters and numbers and days of the week as inherently colored. For instance, Owen said that Friday for him is a brown color.  Taylor's Fridays are warm colors, like orange or yellow. Taylor also experiences spatial-sequence synesthesia, so that the months of the year appear as a ribbon, or sine curve, contracting in the distance. Neither Taylor nor Owen can comprehend that when I think of, for instance, the number eight or a Sunday, I see no color whatsoever.

 

3. On my bedside table, I have a small stuffed sheep that I bought at Worm's Head in Rhossili, Wales. I was 3 months pregnant at the time, so I bought it with a baby in mind. I ended up keeping it for myself.

 

4. My Nana lived through the 3-day Swansea blitz during World War II; her parents' home was hit, and she was the only one there to survive.

 

5. My favorite director is Mike Leigh. 

 

6. I do not like sugar cookies. 

 

7. I have a 20% off Pacer's coupon stuck to my fridge, just waiting for the next time I need to buy running shoes. I'll get the Mizuno Wave Rider 15s to use for marathon training: I hope they have some good colors.

 

8. One of the best things in life is falling in love with new things and experiences: this helps to balance out the grey hairs and the squishy mid-section.

 

9. I find it very hard to relax while running on a treadmill that isn't perfectly aligned. It needs to be parallel with the treadmills on either side and run perpendicular to the line of hanging televisions. 

 

10. I recently tried reading a Famous Five book to Owen to see if he would like it. I remember loving these books when I was a kid. However, I quickly realized that for Owen, these books were too old-fashioned and too British. 

 

11. I am angered by people who insinuate that deliberately having only one child amounts to child abuse and cruelty. Get a life, people!

 

12. I can't wait till Owen is older so that we can watch Zombieland together. 

 

13. Beers recently consumed: Mephistopheles' Stout and Kona Brewing's Pipeline Porter. 

 

14. Last film watched: Horrible Bosses, watched last night in bed on laptop. 

Book Report and Bagel

Spontaneous Ceri took over this morning and contacted a few friends to meet for coffee and bagels. Usually, we do this type of blatant consumerism and carb-loading on Friday mornings; see how wacky I am today!

All of us have third-graders in the same class this year, so we were able to compare notes and share a collective groan regarding the upcoming biography project. Ideally, our children would come home from school every day and sit down to read their carefully selected resource materials and then spend time writing key facts on notecards. 

Then there's the more realistic method of getting through "reportaggedon": It's called constant vigilance and entails having to nag our children to do a little bit of this assignment every day, . . . for many days.

Overall, though, I'm happy with Owen's experience this year. His teacher challenges the class, and as a result, Owen is getting more comfortbable with writing and with oral presentations. I love the fact that one of the rubrics (worth 25 points) for the oral presentation is "In-class presentation: eye contact, volume, pronunciation, charisma."

 

 

Mediocre Update

I've been out of blogland for a few weeks, enjoying (?) the holidays and generally ignoring the computer.  We've had our Christmas I (with in-laws) and Christmas II (with my Mum), and now Owen is back in school and Tay and I are back at our dueling desktops, keeping each other cozy in teleworker-land. 

But what about the month of pushups?

Done and dominated.

I did pushups every day in December: In the beginning I was struggling to get past 5. On New Year's Eve, I did 20 of those bad boys. Since then, I've been unable to get my photographer-in-residence to snap an "After" photo. This doesn't matter much, however, because my eyeballs tell me that my biceps are darn near the same size. So, . . . no big guns, but I am much better at cranking out pushups. 

No races scheduled at the moment. My left knee is a bit cranky, which gives me panicky flashbacks to the shitty tendonitis I had a year or so ago. I'm taking it easy with the running and instead taking advantage of my Golds Gym membership: mostly power yoga and spinning. 

I really just want to hunker down and make it through the winter. My plan is to stay cozy with good books and Netflix. I'm also waiting for my first issue of Beer Advocate to arrive in the mail. So much beer to try, . . .and then log and rate on Beeradvocate.com.  

Here's to 2012

May it be filled with happiness and yummy beer.

 

Mostly It's Been About Sickness

This week has been rough.

Some odd combination of mildly irritating circumstances (my son being home sick for 3 days, the darkness, my lack of exercise, the miserable shopping trips) have conspired to bring me down. 

But, tomorrow begins our Christmas break, and I'm going running with friends in the morning. 

And, despite my grumpiness, I've still been doing my nightly pushups. In fact, Owen yelled at me from upstairs not too long ago to remind me to do them. (He likes to actually witness me doing them so that he can make sure I'm not cheating.)

I'm not cheating, but I'm also not getting no guns either. Maybe next month, I up it to two sets a day?

Owen's sickness has made him strangely contemplative . . . 

Owen: Mommy, what do they do if you're sick in jail?

Me: Oh, they have a clinic.

Owen: That's good to hear.