Saturday, November 6th: The girls participated in the Sunn Valley Piano Teachers Association Ribbon Festival at the church this afternoon. Amber played one song, and Rose played three, and they were given one ribbon per song. They also each entered a music-themed piece of artwork to earn an extra ribbon apiece, and Amber played a rhythm game at the festival to get her third ribbon. They were both quite proud of their ribbons. I was happy to catch up with an old friend from our previous ward while we sat through the long list of hesitant young musicians.
Monday, November 8th: My day was full of all the little tasks that keep a home and family afloat. Tidying up, grocery shopping, returning library books and finding new ones, getting air put in the van tires, exercise, scriptures, 3 loads of laundry, cooking, dishes, and family game night. I even stood in an asparagus field on my way home from Walmart to sketch my weekly family art club picture. The only time I sat down today was to pee, eat, and drive. And play piano. And at the very end of the day, I sat to play a game for family game night. Whew! I did make a large pot of some super nourishing delicious soup for dinner. That felt good. I cranked that laundry through and rescued a large clump of escaped dryer lint from the lint screen hatch (there was a burning smell while the dryer was on, and it went away when I found the extra lint--yikes.)
This week I have vowed to coddle my sore hamstring so it can heal up. I plan to do that by running slower and running less total miles. It's hard coming off of such a great training cycle, down to this dull feeble rehab routine! But my hammy needs the help.
Tuesday, November 9th: After the girls got on the school bus this morning, I realized that I had a dentist appointment at 10am. Ugh. I love my dentist, but I hate going to the dentist. Dental cleanings reside in their own fiery circle of the inferno, with all the poking and prodding tender gums. I had just enough time to go running before my appointment, and the wind picked up early and blew so hard my eyes watered. Cold strong wind is the worst for running. The wind got stronger all day. My hair was a wispy wreck that got progressively worse all day. Ugh.
After surviving the dentist, I had to go to Walmart for the second day in a row, to get snacks for the cross country runners who are participating in the 24 hour relay fundraiser tomorrow. I despise Walmart. I was also hungry but I didn't want to eat right after the dentist because my mouth always feels sore with a strange chemical taste in it after a dentist visit and eating seemed gross. By the time I got out of Walmart I was SO HUNGRY.
Family art club zoom meeting tonight! I drew a frothy golden asparagus field gone to seed. After the harvesting is done, I love watching the green asparagus fields first grow waist high and branch out in lacy bushes, then turn golden as the weather gets cold. Eventually they will be boring brown brush, but for a few weeks in autumn, they are a unique textured gold. While I was drawing the asparagus, I noticed that the stalks have red berries on them. Google told me they aren't berries, they are seed pods, which must be dried and planted to grow more asparagus. Asparagus is such a mysterious weird plant and my outing in the asparagus field was quite educational.
Asparagus seed pods
I had a trio of irritating yippy visitors at the asparagus field.
My windblown hair. I have more than my fair share of wisps that will not grow, and wind wreaks ridiculous havoc on them.
Cow in cornfield. At this time of year, many farmers let herds of cows into their cornfields to graze and fertilize the field. This lady was wandering far from her herd and stared at me warily when I ran past.
Wednesday, November 10th: Tired tired tired. We're doing the Grizzlython XC team fundraiser tonight, and this year it's a 24 hour relay (groan). But we only have three high school seniors to do the running, with a few others who will drop-in and run one leg (state rules declare that only seniors can run the relay since it's happening after the end of our season). I wasn't planning on participating in the relay as a full time member of the all night rotation, but when I arrived at the track for the start of the relay at 3pm and saw the tiny number of kids running, I committed to the full schedule, sore hammy notwithstanding. That equals out to six 45 minute legs per person, including Jeff and me. I have only done one leg so far and I'm already feeling tired. I hate missing sleep unnecessarily! And I was making such progress with healing my hamstring. Hopefully it can hold up to all of the running I'll be doing in the next 17 hours!
Today I prioritized caring for myself, so I could recover from the intensity of Monday and Tuesday. It helped. My next Grizzlython leg is at 11:30pm, so I have to bundle up and leave my warm house at 11:10. Too soon! Too sleepy! I don't like leaving my kids at home at night, but I will only be gone an hour, maybe an hour and ten minutes. And then again at 3am. And again at 7am. And so on...
Jay: "Rose, do you want to know a way to lose consciousness? Smell my feet."
Last night in their room after bedtime, Amber and Rose came up with their own version of Once There Was a Snowman, Star wars style. Amber sang it this morning:
Once there was a Grogu, Grogu, Grogu,
Once there was a Grogu, so, so, cute!
Then the Mandalorian, -orian, -orian,
Then the Mandalorian saved the day!
KIDS and their joyful randomness!
The beginning. That sky did not stay blue for long. At least it wasn't windy! The runners were supposed to get either pledges per mile or flat donations. We will find out if they did and how much money our fundraiser earned when they (hopefully) collect their pledges next week.
Crazy coaches, slightly damp, cold, and very sleep deprived. I'm learning that if you want to work with teenagers, the #1 sacrifice you have to make is SLEEP.
Amber said "Coach Winger, do you want to play frisbee with me?" He kindly agreed and Rose joined in on their game of frisbee. Just a former pro runner playing frisbee with my kids.
Thursday, November 11th: Starting at 3pm yesterday, we did a 24 hour relay run as a fundraiser for our cross country team. (Runners took donations or pledges per mile.) Only seniors and coaches could run in the relay, due to state HS coaching regulations post season. We ended up with a skeleton crew of just five people rotating to run a 45 minute leg every 3 hours. (Jeff and I were two of the five.) It was utterly exhausting, staying up all night minus a few short naps and running 5 legs (23.5 miles total for me, 27.75 miles for Jeff) with plenty of cold rain. But we did it! Our group completed a collective 145 miles total in 24 hours! Now to hope the kids collect their pledge money so we can buy uniform shorts and peanut butter for our next season. Time to eat and sleep and sleep and eat. And sleep.
Running laps around the track in the pouring rain 43 degree air was pretty miserable. After each of my relay legs, I drove home to check on my sleeping kids, eat a snack, change my wet clothes, and take a nap. That ended up translating to a mere two one-hour naps throughout the whole night.
I brought our three kids to the track for a few hours on Thursday (no school due to Veteran's Day), and Amber ran a mile! She took breaks between laps, but she wanted her name on our board, so she did it.
Rose liked sitting by the board and keeping track of laps. Jay went on a run of his own around the track, but since he's in 7th grade and on the middle school cross country team, his miles couldn't count towards our total.
Our butcher paper lap tracker. Amber and Rose started drawing pictures at the bottom by the end.
The fearless five relay runners. It was a brutal night, but they all said they had fun and would do it again! I was impressed, because I could not concur with either one of those statements, haha. It's not like I was unhappy while we were there, but I can't in good conscience classify midnight running in the cold steady rain as "fun." Haha. These kids are awesome. The worst part about coaching is saying goodbye to the stellar seniors.
Saturday, November 13th: So tired. This morning the sun actually came out, so I went on a lovely leisurely walk along the drained canal to soak it up. This afternoon I took Rose and Amber to the tri cities to watch the Gibbons cousins in a set of BMX races. Before the race, we went to Costco and then walked around the temple grounds, just like the old days. In the car, we snacked on hummus and carrots and Costco popcorn. I accidentally got a blob of hand sanitizer into the hummus when I was trying to squirt it into Rose's hand! I had to perform careful surgery on the top layer of the hummus to skim the hand sanitizer off.
The BMX race started an hour later than we were told, and it went 45 minutes longer than expected. The Gibbons kids all did well and it was cool to watch them fly around the course. I ended up getting hungry and raiding our Costco purchases: half a pumpkin muffin, and a chunk of rotisserie chicken, and it held me over to the end. Barely. It was cold and dark and I was so tired (from staying up all night at the relay Wednesday night) and ready to be in my warm house at the end! The things we do for family, haha. It was good to support the cousins in their racing. Having spent many many hours at cross country races, Rose and Amber were arguably the best cheer-ers at the whole BMX event. A mom on the next bleacher block over looked at us and said "wow, I love their cheering!"
We had to drive 50 minutes home (in the dark--my least favorite) and then unload the Costco stuff before I could finally heat up a bowl of leftover soup to warm myself from the inside out. Thankfully Jeff helped unload the food when we finally got home (he stayed home to drive Jay to a friend's birthday party).
Evidence of this week's rainfall: the large puddles all along the canal road.
The brown hills and reddish brown grape vines in the background, with mostly empty canal and puddles in the foreground. I love the texture and variety of a good canal road excursion in the countryside of our valley.
I didn't manage to take any pictures of the cousins actually racing, but here are the kids watching another race under the lights.
Grampa and Grama trying to stay warm with their seven grandkids at the BMX course. Amber stuck a leaf in her hair and felt very unique, "autumnal," and pretty.
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