The sky was large and in charge all week long, with gorgeous sunrises and sunsets, and a variety of colors and clouds during the day. My posterior tibialis tendinitis was also a big factor. I hit the PT hard all week and started feeling pretty good. With sky-high hopes, I ran on Friday to reward myself annnnd... re-learned that tendinitis doesn't go away in one week.
Journal excerpts, interspersed with pictures:
We had an "off week" wherein we had zero cross country meets. Yesterday was our first meet-free Saturday in five weeks! I was expecting to get more done around the house and yard and feel more rested by the end of the week and then do more yardwork on Saturday, but instead I barely managed the minimum functional at-home-work and felt tired all week. Why did our off week feel like more of an off week than a rest week? When I was puzzling over this question, it occurred to me that I forgot to account for the attrition of the past five busy weeks. So instead of a catch-up and get-ahead week, it ended up being a rest and recover week...with 11 hours coaching at six cross country practices for Jeff and me, a full week of teaching for Jeff, and a full week of early morning seminary for Jay and Rose, with an orchestra concert and youth activities in the mix too. Hmmm the illusion of a rest week is fading away...
My parents flew in for a weekend visit to watch Jay, Rose, and Amber race at the Max Jensen Cross Country Invitational on Saturday, October 10th. Just now, as I started writing, I realized that that this was the last cross country meet where all three of my kids ran a race at the same meet. Woah. We all tried to make the most of the day: enjoying our visitors while doing business as usual at a cross country meet.
Each day this week had one Main Project that took most of my day. Monday was Rose Day: she had her first iron infusion and we also picked up her one year supply of contact lenses from the eye doctor. Tuesday was Mow Everything Day wherein I mowed 3+ acres in about 3.5 brutal bouncy hours. Wednesday was Fingerprinting Day for me, another step in the surprisingly complicated process of becoming a substitute teacher (my motivation wanes the longer the certification process drags on). Thursday was the cross country meet at The Gorge Amphitheatre, requiring me to leave my house by 10:15am to help get everything ready. Friday was Housecleaning Catch-up Day, since it was the first day I had time to clean all week. And Saturday was another cross country meet: the Max Jensen Invitational in Richland. Whew! As usual, lots of other things happened in and around these big daily projects, which filled the week to bursting!
Last Sunday evening (Sept 27th), Grampa Dan brought his two dogs over to visit. Amber threw a tennis ball for them and our puppies watched the bigger dogs play fetch. It was a rather idyllic backyard scene with the sunset melting in the background:
On Saturday, September 26th, Jeff and I took our varsity cross country runners to Spokane, WA to the Nike Bob Firman Invitational. The meet was held on The Course, a brand new this year purpose-built cross country course in scenic Spokane Valley. That means this course is ONLY a cross country course. It is not at a park that is used for other sports. It is not in playing fields full of divots from cleats and pivots. It's not even a golf course. It is a wide path of velvety grass that was planted and cultivated especially for running. It was the smoothest natural grown grass that I have ever experienced. The smoothness was noticeable even in the short time my feet were on the course-- I only jogged across the course a few times while watching the races. The Course just barely opened up in the past year, and this was our first time there!
We heard back from Nissan! When the factory recall procedure bricked and ruined Jeff's electric car six weeks ago, Nissan promised to pay us Kelley Blue Book value plus 40% to replace the car. Jeff estimated it would be about $14,000, which was not quite enough for an electric car with more than 120 miles of range, but still better than nothing. The replacement car he bought was $20,000. Once Nissan's payment came through, it would take us another uncomfortable year to pay off that last $6k, when we had just finished paying off the original car a few weeks before it was ruined! It was such an annoying financial setback, but what could we do? All month it was in the back of my mind, wondering how we would save any money over the next year while paying for such an expensive car. Nissan took its sweet time getting all of the information and paperwork together, and this week, nearly six weeks after the car died, they finally told us the amount they deemed sufficient to replace it. In a rare twist of fate, the replacement payout was more than we expected! On Friday, Jeff texted me one number with no explanation:
We are in the dog days of cross country season: putting in the work over and over and over. Yesterday we traveled nearly 4 hours by school bus to the Tacoma area for the Fort Steilacoom Invitational. This coming Thursday, we will be hosting a league meet on our home course. Two days later on the following Saturday, we are traveling 3 hours to Spokane for another big cross country meet. It's not the 17 hour days or the crowded busy meets that get me; it's those endless skeleton-wrecking hours jolting along in the school bus. I need to start doing yoga again or something!
We hosted our home cross country meet, The 4th Annual Sunburn Cross Country Invitational, on Saturday, September 12th. As usual, it was a lot of work! But at the end of the day, Jeff and I looked at each other and agreed that it all went smoothly--usually we have at least one big snag, but we didn't this year! Come to think of it, maybe this year's snag happened the day before the meet while we were measuring the course. We had a list of distances between landmarks on the course from last year, so we walked the measuring wheel between each landmark to make sure it was accurate. The numbers were not adding up! We were so confused, because we have hosted meets at this course four times (the annual Sunburn Invite meet three times, plus one league meet) and the distance has always been perfect. Why was it different this time??
Jay is a high school senior, and I am trying to keep up with all of the necessary traditions. I used to take pictures of my little kids with a real camera all the time. It was a self-taught hobby that reached a natural conclusion when the kids got older and weren't home as much. Since we still have the big Pentax K-5 DSLR camera that we bought on eBay 15 years ago, I decided to dust off my photography skills to take some senior pictures of our boy. First I did some online research to find some good photo poses for boys. Then I asked my sister Em (the professional photographer) for advice.
All of a sudden, we have two dogs! They showed up in our yard a week ago and we couldn't resist. They adopted us, so we adopted them. Nobody has claimed them, so we are keeping them. We didn't really have plans to get pets, but we have always told Amber that if another stray came along, we would feed it. These puppies are more than just gross traumatized strays; they are sweet energetic trusting youngsters who need a family. Sooooo we named them Sherlock and Watson and started feeding them everyday.
