Marathon Man!

Two years ago, Tony was registered to run a full marathon in the first ever Modesto Marathon. He was many months into his training when he got injured and stopped running altogether for over a year. I wrote about it here and here. 

Fast forward two years and last Sunday, he completed his first half marathon. He gradually started running again and began training for it last fall.

Tony's Stats:

Half marathon = 13.1 miles

Division Place 145

Gender Place 118

Age Place 19

Start Time 07:03:12.041

Elapsed 01:47:39.490

Do you see that he placed #19 in his [40-44] age group? Isn't that super amazing? I am so, so proud of him! Here he is at the end of it. He doesn't even look tired! He is so proud of his medal.

I had to be in Salinas at 7:45 that morning for another volleyball tournament, so he made the trip to Modesto solo. I wish we could have been there to cheer him on. Next time. Or, maybe next time I will run the 5K! Did I really just write that? Oh.

Go Tony! You are my love and my inspiration.

3.4.2012

Having a late morning meal with my smallest sweetie. Panera won't let me look at facebook or google reader, so for the first time, I'm a mobile blogger!

Eva is playing DS while her broccoli soup cools, and in between easily coaxed smiles and playful conversations (the only kind she knows), I'm enjoying a tasty strawberry parfait with my yummy coffee. This is one heavenly Sunday morning. Yesterday was one of the most exhausting days I have ever known and today I am blissfully high on recovery. That dreamy space somewhere between pain, and relief, and rest.

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est, and peace and love. Amen.

Notes added moments later...

Note to self #1: If you are going to continue to use the date as a title to a blog post and you don't know what day it is, look it up before you hit publish.

Note to self #2: When Panera does not let you on facebook, or reader, or even let you post to your blog, GET OFF THEIR FREE WIFI BECAUSE IT'S CRAP!

Amen, again.

3.2.2012

I want to say stuff but the words won't come!

Nothing important, and we're all fine, I just can't make words into sentences anymore!

I had two kids home sick from school, but I did get outside today and took a few pics of the things happening in my backyard. I love it that spring so near. Love. Love. Love. And just then I heard John Lennon's voice. Nice, I like it when that happens.

My favorite tree, we planted it about twelve years ago.

My neighbors peach? tree. In a few weeks it will have green leaves.

We started cleaning up the landscape around the pool, it has been a mess and a disaster pretty much for the entire three years since we had the pool put in. Has it been three years? I will have to look in my archives to find out! Isn't that funny, that I can mark time by the memory of something that I wrote and shared right here. So, at first we put in the wrong plants, they were beautiful but they overtook the narrow areas quickly and we had to cut them back. Tony took them out after the first summer and replaced them with some new ideas, but those didn't work out either. So we're starting again, with one of my favorites, bamboo.

Late in January, Tony planted lettuce, peas and potatoes. That's the green that's showing. He also put down some tulip bulbs for me somewhere in there. They haven't shown themselves yet. I hope they come up. Who knows?

We did have a spectacular summer garden last year. Tony built these awesome raised beds for us in our side yard. I didn't do a good job of sharing it like I thought I would. It was a big deal though. We thought we would be working it year round but we pretty much shut it down at about mid-fall. We filled up that compost bin (there at the end with those blocks on it) dozens of times and it just kept shrinking down and nearly disappearing. We had it full to bursting when we shut it down. I am anxious to look in there, a little afraid, but anxious. Will there be anything in there but spiders? Are the worms still in there? If not did they die or slither down into the deep ground? They were so fat, and there were so many.