What the heck?

We had a pretty good weekend, except what the heck kind of weather was that? I drove to the store yesterday and my car said it was 91 degrees outside. Now, I don't consider the thermostat on my car to be as reliable as the national weather service...but when I drive past banks and places that have the temperature lit up all over a sign they are usually pretty close. We were painting all day and I can attest it felt like it was really that hot. But what the heck, it's not even May yet...and where are my April Showers? I think it only rained twice this month...hardly enough to fight off the brown spots that are already starting to develop in my lawn. And one last what the heck...What the heck is up with the Yankees? I thought they were supposed to be viable competition or something. HA! They stink!! GO SOX!

Random thoughts

So here we are, another weekend on the horizon. Time for another session of Chris's random thoughts!

Random thought #1 - Today I swam 2000 yards straight through no stopping. I learned a few things doing this. It gets so repetitive doing this that I had a difficult time keeping track of laps. So for example I'd be swimming along and think "is this 250 or 300 yards?" I kept myself honest and always went with the lower figure. But it is hard to keep focused on that and keep you mind entertained since there is no music or scenery to look at like when you are running.

Random thought #2 - Bridget traded some of her shifts and did some sort of crazy finagling and now she has from tomorrow through Wednesday completely off! What does this mean? Lots of painting. I've been trying to put it off cause it is really no fun to paint by yourself, so now we have the next several days together to get it done. Will post pics when it is all finished. I still dislike painting though!

Random thought #3 - For the second weekend in a row the Red Sox and Yankees meet, this time in New York. Hopefully this weekend goes as well as last weekend did! Good luck Sox.

Random thought #4 - Saturday is my first long run in my marathon training, at 8 miles. I ran 8 miles about 4 weeks ago and it went very well so I am optimistic that tomorrow will go well too! I am going to hide a water bottle on the path I'm going to take and try eating some GU on the way. Should be fun. Oh yeah, I'm also going to run it at 6:30 AM so that I can start conditioning my body to work out at that hour of the morning since that's what time my marathon starts! Yuck!!!

Random thought #5 - The compost heap is fully constructed and ready to go. Today I am going to add my first few components as I mow the lawn, and deadhead a few tulips. I also have 2 giant bags of last fall's leaves ready to go in there too! going to be fun.

Have a great weekend!

craigslist is cool!

So I'm really getting into this craigslist thing. Yesterday I bought some landscaping bricks for a couple of my flowerbeds. I paid $25 for 55 bricks that sell for $1.75 each at Home Depot. It was a great deal! The VW looked a little overwhelmed with all of that weight and I bottomed out pulling into the driveway, but it was worth it! As soon as my flowers take off I'll send some pictures! I was excited because I;ve been frying to get some cheap bricks on craigslist and they usually go so fast. By the time I call they were always gone. One guy even told me his bricks would be there for me to pick up, and by the time I drove 40 minutes to get them...he gave them to somebody else!

I also posted 2 ads on craigslist! One for our baby tub and toddler swing (kind that hangs from a doorway inside the house) and another ad for an activity mat for newborns. I'm trying to sell the tub and swing for $15 and the mat for $15. We even got the mat for free from some neighbors in Rochester, so that would be all profit. If these two sales work I may "thin out" the toy heard in or playroom. As I just cleaned it all today and it took me forever to get all of those toys back on the shelves!

Wednesday's news and notes

I really don't have anything exciting to report so I'm just going to ramble for a bit. I have been working and painting the house...that's about it. Boring I know. The good news is that the first coat of primer is almost totally done on the entire house. It is the slowest cause I have to scrape the old peeling paint off, then sand it with a wire brush, then paint. Very time consuming, but the next coat of primer should go much faster. Then we will be ready for color!

I have started my marathon training. Yesterday I ran 3 miles at 9:16/mile pace. It felt good, but the downside is I had to push the kids in the stroller....it's been a while since I have tried that with a serious run and it really sucked the energy right out of me. Could be a good training method for me, sort of like running with a 60 pound backpack on. If I did that for the next 17 weeks I'd run like a gazelle!

Rest easy, we recycle now. My goal for earth day was to establish some sort of recycling plan for our house. If that meant sorting our own recycle stuff and taking it to a facility somewhere or signing up through the trash company. We chose the latter after having checked out the closest 2 recycling centers which were nothing more than dumpsters filled with a ton of other trash (not recyclables). The downside is that it costs $48 a year to use the trash company's recycling service. Something tells me that a large majority of people are not willing to pay that price, it seems hard enough to get people to just put recyclable stuff in a separate bin...let alone pay $4 a month to do it! They need to find some lower cost alternative!

My other hair brained idea for earth day was to create a compost pile. A typical family disposes of over 500 pounds of scrap food each year (I just made that up to make this post look official) of which most of that can be turned into compost. So this morning I raided a trash heap outside someone's house in the neighborhood for 1 and a half wooden pallets. Those are going to be the walls of my compost heap, the 1/2 one will be the door and then I need to acquire 2 more pallets for the other walls. I hope to find those pallets by the middle of next week so I can start my own compost recipe!

What a weekend!

It was a good weekend for us out here in SLC. On Saturday we went to the Children's Museum and bought out 1 year membership, now we can go anytime we want and it's free! We had fun playing in the farm area and feeding the fake horse carrots. I saw a cool construction play area with cranes and bulldozers and stuff, but Sydney didn't want to go play. I was bummed cause it looked fun! Then we went to the Salt Lake Running Company and bought new running shoes for me. It was an involved process that involved me running on the treadmill while they video taped my stride and analyzed it in super slow motion. They decided that my right foot over pronates a little bit so they found several shoes that had added support to help with that. My new shoes feel great, it was surprising how much of a difference they made when I wore them on our run Saturday night! Bridget wanted to spend less money on her shoes, so we went to Dick's and she found a pair that she liked...they are white with HOT PINK accents. Very not Bridget, but she says they are really comfortable so she bought 'em. Then we used our Red Lobster gift card and had a nice dinner for free!

Sunday was Earth Day of course. We spent the morning researching better recycling programs. We currently don't have a good recycling program in place at our house. And as Bridget put it the other day "you are willing to pay $8 a month for wind power, but not pay for recycling!" So we had to fix that issue. So we scouted out 2 recycle drop off areas, and were sadly disappointed. The large dumpsters were filled with regular trash and not labeled at all. So my mission today is to call the garbage company and pay the extra fee to use their recycling program. We also went to an earth day festival in the city. It was kind of goofy, a LOT of hippies and a lot of booths selling "glass sculptures" or "tobacco smoking pipes" or bongs to the rest of the world. Then there were the religious people handing out fliers about how God was going to strike me down or something, I don't know I didn't read it. The actual number of environmental tents and booths were probably only in the 50% neighborhood, not to good for an EARTH DAY celebration! Then we went and had dinner with some friends at their house, which was very nice.

And who could forget the Red Sox SWEEP of the Yankees! Awesome weekend for them, especially Sunday nights game when the Sox hit back to back to back to back home runs...4 in a row on 10 pitches! That helped ease the pain of the Colorado Mammoth's playoff loss in overtime on Saturday night. The Mammoth were the #1 seed in the west and lost in the first round to the #4 seed and blew a 5 goal lead in the process. I guess there is always next year!

Nice job CSU Alumni Association

The CSU alumni association sent me an e-mail this morning stating that they were accepting donations for the victims, students, and faculty at Virginia Tech. They are planning on sending finals week care packages to the VT alumni association to distribute to the students. What a great idea! I love creative ideas that are a little different than just sending them a check for X amount of dollars. They also sent a link to a very large guestbook that you can sign and leave a message. In a way it felt good to type a little message, so I thought I would pass along the link...Click here.

Random thoughts

Random thought #1: This Sunday, April 22nd, is EARTH DAY! Get your hippie on and get out and do something good for the planet. A few simple suggestions, take a neighborhood walk and pick up garbage that you see, go to the store and buy some CFL bulbs and replace those old incandescents, try a day with no car (walk or bike instead), take an hour on the net and search environmental topics...inform yourself. The possibilities are endless!

Random thought #2: Big weekend for the Boston Red Sox as they face off against the evil empire, the loathed Yankees. Go sox (in a thick Boston accent so it sounds like this: sawks)!

Random thought #3: Besides Sunday being Earth Day it is also the day that I begin Marathon training! 484 miles and counting!

Random thought #4: Yesterday I found myself intrigued by the video clips form the Virginia Tech killer Cho Seung-Hui. This morning I saw a new video clip on CNN.com, it loaded up and began to play when I thought to myself "this is just what he wanted, he wanted people to watch this and draw attention to himself, maybe to make him less of a monster by casting off what he did as a result of continual hazing and other torments by the rich kids." I shut off that clip before it finished, and vowed not to give my attention to the killer anymore, but rather focus it on the victims and their families. Don't give him the satisfaction he craved, ignore him and focus on what is really important.

Random thought #5: I dislike painting so much that I don't want to do it anymore. Any volunteers willing to come over and help?! Have a great weekend!

The mother of all swim workouts!

I went to the Rec Center today and swam 2000 yards. It was a good workout and a nice change of pace from running or elliptical machines. While I was swimming I was thinking about what I would blog about today. Seems like I've been talking about exercise a lot lately, don't really want to talk about the news, it is snowing and raining today...but still not very exciting. Then one of my best friends, Nick, sent me this e-mail. It makes the connection I must have been looking for, my great swim today and a little humor. In order for your chuckle of the day you'll need to do this:
1. go to google.com
2. click on "maps"
3. click on the "get directions" box near the top then
4. type "
New York " in the first
box
5. type " London " in the second box
6. click on "get directions"
7. Go to step #23

Run, Run, Run as fast as you can

Today I ran 3 miles at the rec center. I did it first thing, so my legs were fresh. I finished the first mile in 7:45, mile 2 in 8 minutes, and mile 3 in 8:10...for a grand total of 23:55. Not too bad huh?! When I run in the Race for a Cure on May 12th I hope to be under that 24 minute mark, that's my goal anyway. After the run I finished my workout with 22 minutes on the elliptical runner. The elliptical was fine, but they face a row of tv's and everyone seemed to have stuff about the shootings in Virginia. Makes it a little depressing to workout to that stuff. I managed to get into my music which helped push me through.

Speaking about music, my current favorite album and artist to listen to are the ARCTIC MONKEYS and their album Whatever people say, that's what I'm Not It is a great album, and I actually have to tell myself that I can't listen to it every time I go to the rec center! I think in a past life I was some sort of British rocker like these guys, for some reason I seem to identify with them...weird! But the album is great, give it a listen.

Keeping busy

We started painting the house over the weekend, so today while Aiden was taking a nap Sydney and I spend time in the backyard....her playing, me painting. Today I covered about 2/3 of the backyard, hopefully I can finish the back tomorrow. Painting is really not a bunch of fun though, I guess it is nice to be in the fresh air though. I thin I would rather be doing yard work of gardening rather than climbing up and down a ladder.

Of course this is all in addition to our regular daily activities. Like today for example, we went to the rec center in the morning and had some cleaning to do. After my triathlon I am trying very hard to work on my "triathlon run." This is the run that one would do after they are already tired from working out. So today I rode the elliptical trainer for 33 minutes then hopped on the treadmill and I killed it! I ran 2.15 miles in 20 minutes, or about 9 minute 18 second miles. Not too bad after 33 minutes of strenuous exercise. It was great! I have another triathlon to run in June, and the marathon in August, got lots to train for and a house to paint....better get going!

It's official, I've lost it!

Well It's official, I'm all signed up to race in my very first MARATHON! As my loyal reader (only 1 that I know of!) can attest to, I have lost a lot of weight recently and have generally improved my overall health and activity levels. This will be the crowning achievement in what has been an awesome year for me! I also figured this was a good way to finish out my 29th year, kind of a "see I'm not an old 30 year old yet, I can run a marathon" sort of a thing. I will be starting a marathon training routine starting on the 22nd of this month which will last 18 weeks and cover 484 miles! That will take me to August 25th, when I will do the Park City marathon here in Utah. The race is supposed to be over some gorgeous terrain and the last 8 miles are downhill which I hope will help a little bit....can't hurt! I also just bought this cool GPS training gadget, hopefully that will help me with pacing myself and keeping track of the 100's of other things it tracks. Really a cool little toy, most runners would really like it if you are married to a runner and looking for a gift (Katy, my loyal reader mentioned above).

Am I nuts? Why did I just do this to myself? Do you know how far 484 miles is to run (I could nearly run from my home in Utah to Broomfield, CO!...530 miles)? And to top it off you have to PAY to do this to yourself! Just kidding, I am really excited!

Plastic grocery bags

I hope that most of you have at least thought about the problem of plastic grocery bags and the environment, if not taken some action already. This weeks issue of Time magazine says that it takes 1000 years for a plastic bag to breakdown in a landfill and 100 BILLION plastic grocery bags enter the market every year. Recently San Francisco became the first major city to ban all plastic bags from grocery stores. I have been reluctant to make the switch to reusable canvas bags because I thought it would be embarrassing to take my own bags in, but last week I just grew so disgusted at the sight of another 13 plastic bags joining the 100's I already have under the kitchen sink. I did a little shopping and found a great deal that I wanted to pass on to each of you. I found grocery size canvas bags for .99 cents each! What a deal, check out cheaptotes.com they have a large selection of various size bags....but these .99 centers can't be beat! I bought 15 of them, and with shipping I spent a little more than $20. And now each time I use the canvas bags I get 5 cents taken off per bag used. In a few months these bags will be free, and then even start to save me money!

If you are keeping track, that is CFL light bulbs, wind power, and now canvas grocery bags! All in the last month or so, I'd say I am taking big steps to reducing my footprint.....how about you?

Countdown clock

Check out my new countdown clock on the lower right hand side of this page. This company, www.backwardsbush.com, has been in the press a lot lately. I saw them on CNN.com and they have also had their countdown clocks featured on the Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert (one of my favorite shows). They have given their clocks to both Hillary and Bill Clinton, Barack Obama talked about his clock on the David Letterman show, and said that the clocks were handed out one day on the floor of congress! You can get your own physical clock or key chain clock or t-shirt from their website, or you can get their code to put the clock on your own website or blog for free like I did!

Ahhhhhh, glorious exercise!

I have really enjoyed my recent visitors to our house here in Utah. Part of the reason I think I enjoyed it so much was the fact that when people are here it seems that diet and exercise rules don't apply. Is that a universal rule?? Anyway, I was feeling a little burned out before the visits, and now I feel inspired and dedicated.....of course today was day #1! I took the kids to the rec center and worked over the elliptical runner for 35 minutes and then I held a meeting or the running club and I ran 3 - 1.5 mile laps (4.5 miles total). It felt great to get out in the fresh air, and now I look forward to tomorrow and the next day! I even checked out some races on Active.com,
which is a great site to see local races in your area, but couldn't find much I was really interested in. I am still kicking around the idea of doing a marathon, but I can't really make up my mind for sure.

Things Daddy's do

Sometimes Daddy's have to do some pretty tough work. We went to the Great Salt Lake again with our friends Justin and Jacqueline over the weekend. We had a good time, had an interesting grilling experience, and we brought our kites out.....but unfortunately no wind! Anyway, we went on a walk out to a sandbar in the lake. Right at the waters edge Bridget got a page from work that she needed to go answer. I took both kids and we continued our walk. As could be almost predicted Aiden got fussy and couldn't stand to be in any body's arms but daddy's. Then a minute later Sydney dunked her head in the water which is as high as 25% salt (compared to the oceans waters which are 3%) and started screaming cause it was stinging her eyes! She was soaked from head to toe and I didn't want to make my guests carry her and get them soaked, so daddy stepped up. I carried these two little monkeys out of the lake and 90% of the way back to the pavilion where we ate lunch. I think Sydney is close to 35 pounds and Aiden is 23 pounds, that's a lot of kid to carry 10 minutes or so! I guess a dads work is never done!

Finally, wind power that doesn't come from my BUTT!

Today I joined nearly 52,000 other customers of Rocky Mountain Power (my current power utility company) who purchase renewable energy credits. The Blue Sky program works like this - Rocky Mountain Power buys renewable energy on your behalf in the amount that you specify. Your purchase increases the demand for electricity generated through renewable resources rather than traditional forms - such as coal and natural gas. You can purchase the renewable energy in 100-kilowatt-hours (kwh) blocks to offset your monthly energy uses. Last month we used 400 kwh, so I decided to start there by purchasing 4 blocks. Here are some cool clips about the Blue Sky program and wind energy. In 2006 the program sold over 300,000 megawatt hours of renewable energy, which was enough power to offset the power used by 25,000 homes for a year! That also offsets some 300,000 TONS of carbon dioxide from coal plants, which is equivalent to removing 51,368 cars from the roads for a year. Awesome stuff!

The main reason I put stuff like this up on my blog is to show you how easy it is to make small changes that have big impacts. It took less than 5 minutes and $7.80 a month out of my pocket to help save the planet. Next up is plastic grocery bags......but that is another post for another day.

Running with the Bulls

This post doesn't actually have anything to do with the running of the bulls in Spain, I just thought it was a catchy title! We have been super busy! Yesterday we attached 80 feet of top rail to our chain link fence. The neighbors told us that the owner who lived there 2 owners ago had just built this fence and then a few weeks later the bank repossessed his house. So what did he do? Yep, he tore down his new chain link fence to take with him to his new house! Well he must have got bored or tired with it cause he only actually removed 1/2 of the fence, and the top rail along the back. The people who bought the house next built a wooden fence along the side and just left the back chain link all saggy. We finally got it fixed up right, but it was sort of intense. We had to use a 2 ton car jack to lift the fence up to the top (that was my brilliant idea, pretty smart huh?) then attach it with the fence wire.

We also mulched out the front flowerbeds with new red ceder mulch. Then today I planted to Emerald Evergreen trees in the front yard. I told you we were busy little workers! Oh yeah, I also added top soil and compost to a new flower bed in the front yard and tonight we are going to plant seeds in it so we will have some awesome flowers. I'll keep you posted with some pictures when that happens.

Birthday's and Busyness

Over the weekend we celebrated Aiden's first birthday, I can't believe he is already 1! Time to have another kiddo I guess. I think it is a good thing I took a lot of pictures of my kids when they were babies, this way whenever I get the itch to have another baby around the house I can refer to those pictures and remember the "baby days." I do love kids, especially mine, maybe I should go into a line of work where I see a lot of kids all day long...maybe a pediatrician? Hmmmm, let me think about that one.....Um, no.

We were really busy today, I added a ton of new stuff to my website. As well as making trips to the Rec Center, the post office, and a running club meeting. Busy, Busy, Busy bees we are! Earlier I blogged about a vacation, now I really need one. Tomorrow is yard work day and more rec center trips, should be fun!