How high can you count

It has come to my attention that I do not always motivate those who hear of my exercise adventures into exercising themselves. So, let me inspire you with this latest installment of my learning to swim. I can NOT count. I usual swim with my friend Jeanne who is very good at counting and will tell me when we are done. Today I swam alone. As I swam back and forth I decided to try to swim a mile. That is 73 lengths. I should have known better. It should have taken me 50-55 minutes. I hadn't really thought that through. That is a really long time to swim and keep track of lengths. When I finished what I thought was my 73 time I stopped and looked at the clock. I don't get swim clocks, why can't they put the hour hand on them? The clock said 5 minutes to something. I'm thinking it better be 10, other wise I have been swimming a really long time. Oh, by the way, I am the only one left in the pool at this point. I get out of the pool and figure out it is 11:00! I swam for 1 hour and 20 minutes! I won't tell you that I am worried about being able to lift my arms tomorrow morning because that might make you not want to try swimming.

I think I can still smell pool water.

sounds of fall

Well, the leaves are turning, the nights are cool and the homework is piling up, that can only mean one thing...Marching band season is here. Last night was parent preview and wouldn't you know it, I forgot the camera. I guess it really doesn't matter since they all look alike and I can rarely find Ethan in the mix (what kind of mother am I). He has several more performances and we will try really hard to get a shot of him in his band outfit this year.

Jacob brought home "the farting bed post" this week. Some of you might know what that is, I certainly did not. It is the Bassoon. His band teacher apparently is desperate and begged Jacob to give it a try. He is excited to try something new, and as long as I don't have to pay for him to play it, we're all good. I guess I'll take his oboe in and get it tuned up in the mean time.

School marches on. Cameron has made it 2, count them 2 days (just this week) with out crying before, during or after I drop him off at school. I am absolutely sure he is a payback child with a little bit of "mothers curse" added just for good measure. The other night he woke me up twice just to make sure I was still there. Hmmm, where else would I be at 12:15 am and 3:39 am!

On another note, meaning lets talk about me, I have successfully learned to flip turn in the pool with having minimal water up my nose. Of course when I do take on water I am sure I am causing brain damage. At least that's what the pain in my forehead would lead me to believe.

What's for dinner?

So, I need to tell you about my new found friend. I don't really know her. She posts everyday and I love it. Her blog is crockpot365.blogspot.com If you are wondering what to have for dinner check her site out. Of course I don't really make the meals she does, but I could if I wanted to. She made buffalo wing soup today. Sounds good, I have the ingredients, and I have children who would not even try it. So if you are needing a daily blog fix or an idea for dinner you to can have a new friend you don't even know.

I can TRI, but I might fail!

So, Saturday was the triathlon. I could say it went well, but that would be a lie. I pretty much spent my whole summer learning to swim the front crawl so I could do the back stroke for the swim! I don't know if there is really a good reason for what happened, but here is my version of it anyway. We, my friend Jeanne and myself, stood in line to swim the 400 meters in the 9-10 minute section. As we stood there a fellow competitor asked the life guard if the pool was chlorine. WHAT!!! I have been learning in salt/ UV filtered pools all summer. Okay, I tell myself no big deal. WELL, apparently it was a big deal. I jumped into the pool when my turn came and I made it about 10-15 feet before I couldn't breath out my nose at all. I couldn't figure out what was going on. I pulled off to the side, let some swimmers pass and tried again, still, No air. Even worse, it felt like I was taking water in. At this point I have made it about 50 meters. I do the next two lengthens with my head out of the water. I can't believe what is happening, not to mention this kind of swimming is killing me. At 150 meters a girl close to me flips on her back and I say to myself, I can do that. 13+ minutes later I hit the last wall and climbed out of the pool. I am never amazed at how life teaches me these little lessons. I never even considered that I wouldn't be able to do the swim, I just figured I would be slow or it would be hard.
The rest of the triathlon went as I thought it would. The bike was a challenge. It had a big hill that we had to go up twice. I am clearly a social rider and this was not a social ride. When I finally hit the run I was so happy to be doing something I knew I could do! My total time was 1hour 21 minutes. Will I do another one? Probably, but right now a 1/2 marathon looks pretty nice.

So in seminary they had us talk about what we did during the summer. About half of the class said that they had gone on trek. I said "I spent 17 days camping on the Hill cumorah, sharing the book of mormon with 38,000 people, my summer trumps all yours". Ok, not really that last part, but it would have been funny.

Day of Firsts

It was a day of firsts at our house today. First day of Wesley's last year in high school. Jacob's first day of 9th grade. Robin's first day of 6th grade, last year in elementary school. Ethan and Cameron also had firsts. First day of 11 grade and 2nd grade. Cameron told me today when I woke him up that he did not want to go to school and then tried unsuccessfully to convince me he was going to throw up. Ethan on the other hand announced that he was dressed for the first day of school and immediately said probably no one would remember what he wore in two weeks anyway. I informed him they probably wont remember after school.
Another first, I swam 1050 meters today. This is HUGE for me. I have only been swimming 500 and today I thought I am just going to keep going and see how long I can go. I think I can finally count swimming as exercise now. The bike thing.... whole different story. It currently has a flat tire. Triathlon is in 12 days.

two weeks and counting

It is not cool to have your mother taking pictures as you head off to scout camp at the age of 14,15 or 17 for that matter. So, there is no proof that they actually left. All the boys are gone this week except Cameron. Clark leaves tomorrow and will come home on Thursday night with Ethan (Band Camp Friday). Hopefully they come back happy (and tired).

As per my usual, I said this morning to Robin and Cameron, "School starts in 2 weeks (yes, I got it right) how about we look at those summer reading programs." This was met with lots of groaning as you can imagine. Robin did show me that she had been working on hers before the summer trip. Cameron needs to read 10 hours before school starts. Hmmm, this might prove to be a challenge since he reads about 10-15 minutes at a time.

The triathlon is in 3 1/2 weeks. I am amazed at how often I feel out of shape while training for this thing. Today we biked for 10 miles (I fell over on my bike while clipped into the pedals) then ran 4 miles. The whole time I keep telling myself that 10 pounds would really make a difference. Then I come home and eat. Tomorrow the plan is to swim for an hour. It sounds like a long time, but when you take breaks as often as I do I am not sure it even counts as exercise.