I thought of AmeliaJake today. I was reading "odd facts" about states with my grandson and found out Raggedy Ann was born in Indianapolis. Just seemed fitting that Rose's cousin would be from the same state.
I wonder if Lili has missed Hawaii with all the cold she's been experiencing. Of course they might have just made her a nice bed in the microwave too....
For the past two years I have been a member of the Houston Choral Society. It is a community/professional choir that puts on four concerts each year for the public enjoyment. I am the community part of the choir. My daughter Emily would be more the professional part.
On Saturday night we had a 25th anniversary gala. A fancy dinner and entertainment. My husband and I were there. We put on our fancy duds and spiffed ourselves up to look presentable. I knew that mother-of-the-bride dress would come in handy for something.
Emily and Art attended
and Hannah and Chris joined us.
We were joined by my friend Clara at our table. My entire family has decided we need to adopt her. Clara is quite fun and has a great sense of humor. I have enjoyed her friendship.
We had a fun time. A steak dinner and fun entertainment as well as a silent auction filled the evening.
Emily and her friend Karen were the closing act and it was a hit. It also was the best performance of the night. And that's not just mom talking, everyone thought so. They performed the song All That Jazz from the musical Chicago.
Emily was quite happy to be "on stage", even if it was a small one.
It was a really fun night even if I didn't win any of my silent auction items. I had bid on a 1962 Mickey Mantle baseball card and various other little items. Emily and Art were the only winners at our table with an autographed baseball (some Astros player) and a limited edition print from the Metropolitan Opera (a beautiful print).
While I understand the draw and ease of using a Kindle or a Nook to read a book I sigh with sadness at the decline of the traditional book. I love holding a book in my hands, turning the pages, smelling the ink, feeling the words run past my eyes. It just isn't the same feeling with a digital book. I saw today that Barnes and Noble, the last large book seller in the nation is struggling. While I don't frequent their establishment, choosing instead to go to a smaller bookstore that is more intimate and friendly, it is very sad to think it may go the way of the dinosaurs.
We had a weekend of family parties. Saturday night we had a birthday party for Art. Sunday night we had a combined birthday party and super bowl party for Chris. I usually don't watch the super bowl, not a big football fan but since the family was all together I joined in and of course we watched the ads to see who did well and who bombed.
The winner hands down for me was the Dodge Paul Harvey ad. It just made me want to cry thinking of my dad. And my brother. And a way of life that I truly love and am not part of.
Some other favorites were the Audi goes to Prom, the Taco Bell Geriatrics club and the Budweiser Clydesdale growing up spot. Two humorous, two sentimental.
Gone in the blink of an eye.
0.91666666667 to go.
Before we know it.
I may have blogged about this before but every time I drive by a certain church my reaction is "really? are you serious?"... Who in their right mind names their church "The Winner's Circle Church". I just picture horses with big horseshoes of roses around their necks. Rates right up there with my other clueless name church down the road a bit... the "Change of Life Church." Probably filled with a bunch of menopausal women and mid-life crisis men. Not someplace I'd like to hang out personally.
I know, I'm being petty but really? It's like the Fifth Third Bank. Why would you want to be known as the fifth third bank?
Where my mind has gone today:
Six AM and waiting for the race to begin. Stretching and taking pictures while everyone was smiling and not sweaty.
Aaron at the start. I was on the other side of the road and much farther back.
Aaron at mile 6. His time at the 6.1 mile split was 57:17.8
Me at mile 6. My split time at this point was 1:15:48.9 so I was running about a half hour behind Aaron the distance which would only become greater.
This is Aaron at his half-way point, which would be my finish point. His 13.1 mile split was 1:30:45.2. Or at least if I read the results (which are confusing) correctly. He's still looking fresh and chipper. Of course he had been doing training runs of 19 miles so the 13 was nothing to him.
Me coming in to my glorious finish. Okay, maybe not a full out run but I did run the last two-tenths of a mile and semi-sprint across the finish line. No walking across for me! I have to admit the last two miles were real killers for me. My pace after mile 11 slowed by about a minute a mile and my calves started hurting. I found that if I did a slow job it was better than walking so I was doing this little shuffle down the running path. But I was still passing people so I was doing better than some! I want you to note that I beat the little kid... lol Of course there were several under the age of 12 that beat me, but they weren't at the finish line with me. 
Look! I got a medal! It's amazing how a stupid piece of metal and a t-shirt that says finisher makes you feel. The volunteers were really great, you cross and they would grab you if you looked like you were going to fall over (mostly the marathoners), hand you water, and cut off your timing tag so you didn't have to worry about remembering to do that later all while cheering and loudly proclaiming your greatness. Yah, I was great for a moment. My finish time was 2:54:20.3. My Garmin watch showed a moving time of 2:49 which means I had about five minutes of "still" time.... um.... fixing the blister time and a port-a-potty visit. I SO wanted to beat my previous time but only did by .2 seconds. I think that counts. 
We had to kill time waiting for Aaron to cross the line so Otto and Wren practiced their best statue poses on the concrete pillars.
Aaron came in with a time of 4:47:48.4. He sprinted the last tenth of a mile. I mean seriously sprinted! It was hard to believe he had just run 26.2 miles.
I believe his first words across the line were..... ow, ow, ow..... oh God.... ow.... But he soon began to smile. They stuck an ice cream bar in his hand and he hobbled off to find his friends and the free massages.
Here's Aaron with his running buddies. They had been training with him since the springtime. Two came in ahead of him and one right after him. This was the third marathon in 28 days for the guy on the right. Yes, THREE marathons in 28 days. I seriously doubted his sanity.
Mom and son, survivors. We look as happy as the early morning picture (no we were happier because it was over!), and relatively sweat free thanks to cooler weather and clouds. Aaron had poured water over himself so he was soaking wet, but not stinky wet.
I kept telling Aaron that I was the rabbit. It was nothing more than a dog race and I was the mechanical rabbit running the rail. His job was to catch me. He said he tried but just couldn't do it in the end. For his first marathon his finish was great and he says he's going to do it again.
I will stick with being the rabbit.
Tomorrow, Sunday the 27th, is race day. I will be silly enough to be running a half-marathon. 13.1 miles. The weather says it will be hot. 60 degrees or warmer so I'm sure it will be slow going for me. My goal is to average a 13.5 minute mile which will put me in under 3 hours. I'm not exactly as prepared as i was for last year's race and mentally I'm REALLY not prepared. I will be running it solo this year so I'm not sure how that will work out. I have my little ipod to keep my company loaded with music and a short 2 hour book in case I get tired of music. I like running to audio books, they keep me thinking.
My "support team" has staked out a few spots where he can give me encouragement along the route and replenish my water bottles if need be. The race has water stations every 1 1/2 miles so water isn't an issue but I like MY water, not nasty city water. lol Spoiled I know.
The big event of the day really though is that my son will be running in the full marathon at the same time I am doing the half. We do the same course only he will do two rounds of it while I will do one. He is hoping to finish the marathon in under four hours. I just hope I beat him across the finish line. lol
He has a double digit.... number 19. I don't know if that's because of his early registration or because of our speed grouping. Either way 19 looks impressive. 1226 not so much.
I'll let you know if I meet my goal and survive the whole ordeal. After the race we head home then we go to the theater to see Camelot. I better take a nap before or I might not stay awake through the singing and dancing.
Check out my lawn. No wonder I don't have any grass, it's all acorns! We had a bumper crop of acorns this year and the entire front yard is covered in them. They say you must plant about 100 acorns to get one to grow into an oak tree. With those statistics we will only have about ten thousand new oak trees sprouting up soon. The squirrels haven't even bothered to gather them, they just feast on the ground. It's made them into lazy little buggers.
In other news.
The past week has been one of great turmoil around here. There are major management changes in my husband's company and well.... they aren't handling the introduction of the new management/promotions/transition very well. My husband is just plodding along, not sure how the changes are going to affect him, it appears that the implementation of a "good old boy" network is in the works and he is not a good old boy. That's just fine and dandy with me. In any case it will prove to be very interesting the next few months as the transition slowly takes places. March 31st the new management will all be in place and I'm sure a few more people will be leaving in-between now and then. Employees in the home office are mostly affected by the changes, employees in the field are confused, and I'm sure investors are worried. The man at the rudder remains the same so that guiding hand is the same, which is good. The sail setters and rope handlers are the ones changing and that might cause a few sails to go flapping once in a while. Or maybe not. Maybe everyone will handle it better once it's settled down a bit.
