Stadium Stairs

Stadium Stairs, originally uploaded by MrsMama.

These are the stairs I ran up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down this morning.

Everything in its Place

I love our coffee corner. When we moved into this house, I deliberately set it up in a certain way; I can stand in front of my coffee maker and have everything I need at my fingertips. The coffee maker is on the counter, between the sink and the fridge. I store the coffee mugs and filters and beans in the cabinet directly above and the trash is in a bin directly below. So I can empty the old filter into the trash, grab a new filter and coffee, and fill the machine with water without even taking a step. I have a grinder there and I can even reach the cream from the fridge. It's perfect!


Our laundry room is a small little room connecting our garage to the kitchen and contains a washer, dryer, freezer, dry sink and lots of shoes. It's also where we keep the pet food and cat litter box. Because of the limited floor space, the litter box ended up directly in front of the washing machine. Inevitably, a clean sock or piece of clothing will fall on its journey to the dryer and land, splat, in the dirty cat litter. I am constantly having to rewash items because of the poor placement of pet poop. It definitely isn't working and I must come up with another solution.

It's amazing how a little advanced planning can result in years of happy usage. And how a little haphazard placement can cause infinite headaches and strife.

A Scratch for Every Itch

“Happiness is having a scratch for every itch.” Oqden Nash

Poor Master Munchkin. He has 74 chigger bites!

Rechelle's Angel

Rechelle took this beautiful photo of a weeping angel. I did a 30 second edit in Lightroom - I mostly wanted to get rid of the ugly white bucket behind her. I did a very poor job of cloning it out, but you get the idea. Now the eye goes to the beautiful statue and isn't pulled away by a piece of plastic. Isn't she lovely?

Oh, and by the way:

“Your life could depend on this: Don't blink. Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead. They are fast – faster than you can believe. Don't turn your back. Don't look away, and don't blink! Good luck.”

Whew!

Well, I passed my belt test last night. I think it was the hardest one yet. Luckily, my instructor was a bit distracted and I was able to slip my wimpy, limpy tornado kick by without close observation. I did get caught on a sloppy body lock though. A short lecture and some grappling later and I emerged from class, sweaty, tired, and sporting a stiff, new brown belt with a black stripe.

Woo Hoo!

Belt Testing

This week the Munchkins and I are testing for our next belt in martial arts. Master Munchkin is testing for his brown and Miss M and I are going for our High Brown belts (brown with a black stripe). I think I'm ready except my tornado kick is still pretty sad. It's sort of like an F1 on the Fujita Scale. And it can only twist one way. :(

Wish me luck!

Dog Days

Each summer brings a unique event to the large college town nearby. Each day, hundreds of people gather at dawn and dusk to, well, exercise! Together. In a huge, organized, free exercise orgy. In fact, next month, they will attempt to break the world record for the "World's Largest Community Workout"!

The sleepy little town down the way has it's own version. They meet during the week, morning and night to workout in the local outdoors sports stadium. This group numbers about 100 instead of 1000 and is a little more intimate and family-friendly. Still, it's a unique event - I've never heard of anything like this and there are 2 that meet within 15 minutes of my house!

I've gone to the smaller event twice now, and I am so sore! We run laps around the track, jog up and down the stadium stairs and lunge down the length of the football field. Oh, and do many, many jumping jacks, leg lifts, situps and pushups. Good old fashioned exercise. I'm hoping that attending this exercise group will help to counteract all of the yummy summer food in which I've been indulging, especially all those root beer floats. :) I mean, what's summer with root beer floats?!

Pictures may or may not be forthcoming. This class does meet at Crack-of-Dark-Thirty and I'm lucky to get there fully dressed. :P