Spring in February

After a gloomy wet Monday and Tuesday, we had the best February weather ever this week! It felt like such a treat to enjoy sunshine without wind at the end of February. It was a nice little gift during the one and only week between swim season and track season. Here are some journal excerpts:

Monday, February 23rd: It was such a rainy gloomy day today. It was pouring buckets when I went to the track this afternoon for a pre-season Winger workout with the HS track conditioning crew. We got soaked doing a ladder workout, but I had fun running with Kennedy. I described my heated blanket to her in detail and she loved it, haha. We were so cold and wet! It was 40 degrees, and there was a stiff headwind along with the driving dumping rain. My running jacket held up better than expected in those wet conditions, but I was still soaked and freezing by the end! 

I was quite the productive domestic diva today, cooking a hearty dinner in the crock pot in the morning so it was hot and ready when everyone got home all cold and tired. When I started cooking, my nose told me that the pork I was using had gone bad, so I had to scrub out the pot and then stop by Walmart after dropping Amber off at school. I called Mom and we had a very meaningful talk for over an hour, all about helping/teaching youth and choosing to do less professionally so we can do more important things at home. It just felt so good to talk about all that stuff with my dear Mom, because I've been thinking about it a lot in the past week since I got my second calling, as YW advisor. I already teach the same age group of 17-18 year old youth in Sunday school, and now I'm the young women advisor of those same girls. I guess I really need to be there for these kids, and I don't take that responsibility lightly. It's not hard though because I love them so much, I feel lucky to have these two callings and to coach several of them too. 

Tuesday, February 24th: Today was very calm and quiet. As usual I was productive in the morning (made soup for dinner in the crock pot, got a good run and lift in, played piano) and then rested after lunch before the mid afternoon busy-ness began. I can't believe high school track practice starts in less than a week! Even though I still have responsibilities in the afternoons right now (picking up Amber, getting Rose to driver's ed class, etc.) it's still lower key than being in charge of a track team! I'll survive. I've done it before. And we're still 2.5 weeks out from middle school track. 

We had family scripture tonight about Lot's wife. Intention and desires are most important! The Lord looks on the heart. 

Wednesday, February 25th: The day started out with thick fog, but as the sun rose, the fog disappeared super fast and it was gorgeously sunny all day. I was almost giddy with joy over seeing the sun again after the past couple of thick dark wet cold days. I blasted my Sunshine mix on the drive to take Amber to school. So far I have 19 songs with the word sun or sunshine in them on that playlist. It's a happy collection. 

I prepped my Sunday school lesson this morning and vacuumed. I indulged in a long piano session. This afternoon it was 53 degrees and sunny for the Coach Winger track workout. 6x300 felt hard but bearable, although my Garmin watch declared that I would need 72 hours to recover from it, haha. Track pre-season and summer cross country conditioning are the only times that I run workouts with the kids. During seasons, I coach workouts and only do non workout runs with the team, so it's fun digging in and running hard with them now. My tendons are holding up pretty well so far too!

All 3 of our kids went to youth activities at the church tonight. Jeff and I stayed home alone together during that time--a rare treat. We didn't even go to the church with Rose so she could practice driving. It felt cozy to stay home together, even if we didn't do much. Cozy everyday side by side armchair companionship is one of the best things about being married.

Thursday, February 26th: It was 62° and sunny today with no wind! Gorgeous weather! I totally should've done some yardwork. This morning after school drop-off, I lifted with my friends Danae and Liz for an hour and a half. It was fun laughing and talking and taking our time to lift all of our heavy weights. I spend so much time with teenagers who I love, but it's nice to have time with peers too. I'm thankful for my friends and our weekly weight lifting. It makes a difference having that built in time together. We are closer friends because of it. 

This afternoon, I succumbed to a 20 minute recliner nap before heading out to the high school for the pre season track meeting. After that, some of the kids helped us get out the massive pole vault and high jump mats and set them up in preparation for the season. From there, I took Rose to driver's ed (she drove) and then Amb and I went home. It was barely after 4pm when we got home, so I played piano for the second time today and got some more good practice in on my current song nemesis, All of Me. It's coming! It's so fun and satisfying! 

We all ate dinner at different times (Jeff didn't eat at all of course, thanks to his poor sporadic digestive system). Once Rose was home from driver's ed, I made sure everyone came and sat at the kitchen table while Rose ate so we could have a version of family dinner time. Jeff took charge of family scripture. It was good spending time all together as a family after a busy day.

Friday, February 27th: Today I did laundry and cleaned bathrooms. Frustrations came in a group of three: A black ballpoint pen found its way into my laundry. (Thankfully it could've been so much worse.) When I was making myself some lunch, I dropped an egg in the bottom of the fridge, and it dribbled all over the place while I was cleaning it up. Another mess attacked my freshly cleaned bathroom floor, requiring me to scrub it clean for the second time in one day.

I guess the good things came in a group of 3 too: I got to talk on the phone with my good friend Laurs, and later with my dear Mom. On the piano, I played Jon Schmidt's All of Me in a blazing 13 second PR of 4:45. So fun and satisfying! It was sunny, calm, and 59° today for the pre-season track workout. Divine weather, especially for February! I guess that's actually 4 good things: 2 good phone calls, piano success, and idyllic weather.

But don't worry, a 4th frustrating thing came along to keep things even: After dropping Rose off at driver's ed class this afternoon, I went all the way home before remembering that I had scheduled a grocery order pickup at Walmart, which is right around the corner from the driver's ed building. So I had to drive alllll the way back to pick it up. Blah. 

Yet again, Jeff is having an autonomic-based setback right now, and he does not feel good. He didn't sleep well last night, although he has been sleeping relatively well all week, so at least there's that. I don't like it when Jeff doesn't feel good. 

Rose finished her science fair project today, just in time for the big day tomorrow. Jay went to his friend's birthday celebration tonight from 5:30 to almost 10pm, and had a good time with his buddies. Amber ran a driveway mile in 7:17, just 2 seconds slower than her lifetime PR. My kids are flourishing! 

[end journal entries]

Pictures: 

"I love you this much": I do mine and Jeff's laundry together, and fold both of our clothes. I don't usually fold Jeff's socks, and he doesn't either. Jeff has a lot of socks. It all came to a head when all but 3 pairs of his socks were mixed in a laundry basket, and it took him longer and longer to find a matching pair before work. Since I knew he wouldn't have the desire or energy to use some of his home-time to fold his socks anytime soon, I gave him a gift of matched, folded socks this week.

I did my track coach re-certifications this week, and did my best to memorize the setup of the high jump pit. It always seems so straightforward until those big marshmallowy pads are laid out in front of me, haha.

Rainy rainy Monday run! I was waaaay wetter than I look in this picture.

Amber is very in to creating music playlists for herself right now. She loves adventurous violin music best: music from movies and especially from video games. Her favorite artist is Taylor Davis, a middle aged mom violinist, who plays lovely energetic renditions of movie and video game music. This picture is from Tuesday morning, when Amber wrote down a list of songs she liked from our Alexa device, then methodically crossed them off as she added them to a new playlist on Amazon Music.

I am trying to learn how to do the Olympic lift clean and jerk. It is not going great. Ankle mobility is a huge limiting factor to deep squats. I took a video of myself doing a clean and jerk to show Jeff how not well it's going, haha--this picture is a frame of my video, from the top of the jerk. I chose it because nothing else about the exercise in my video was even remotely good!

Soup for Supper: Amber and I had soup together for dinner on Tuesday night while everyone else was busy. We got out one of our classic favorite books to read while we ate: Soup for Supper. It has a song in the back that is silly and fun to sing. Our soup had parsnips in it, so we had to find the verse with parsnips in it.

I'm still working on ankle and tendon stability and mobility, using this nifty balance board. It's slow going.

The black pen post wash.

Egg drop. The mess was contained until I tried wiping it up! Then it stretched and dribbled all over the place. 

Since we ran out of leftovers on Friday and we decided not to get pizza, I concocted a quick rice dish for a starving Rose on Friday night: Thai red curry paste mixed with spinach, cabbage, and a few cans of chicken. Rose was so busy working on her science fair project on Friday that she forgot to each lunch, so she was starving by the time she got home from driver's ed. 

Rose, finally home, finally eating food after sunset on Friday night.

Rose was a star presenting her science fair project on Saturday! She tested copper and PVC pipes to see if one was better for growing radishes.

Saturday afternoon, we gathered with the White family at Burger King for the annual memorial Whopper meal honoring our kids' great grandpa White, who passed away 18 years ago. He loved Whoppers, so we gather on his birthday for Whoppers.