Tag: meisaj

Its about me.

Confused

meisajDaily Life

So it’s 9am. Edith is still asleep, probably because she woke up around 4:30 and was up for a bit. But with Marceline already at kindergarten, the house still largely clean, and my chores done, I’m confused as to what to do with my time. I even packed her snack and lunch for later today, made myself some breakfast (I usually skip) and am on my second french press of coffee. Not nearly as tired as I usually would be because I didn’t run this morning either – Edith’s awake time went into when I’d normally get up to run.

So I decided to check in on my website. I’ve largely no idea what to do with this site. I love having it. It’s such a part of me and I’ve had it 15 years now, which is nuts, but I don’t update it much.

Anyways, until I figure that out, here’s the “Twisty-Bitsy Spider Bread” Edith and I made that was in the High-Five magazine she got yesterday:

Summer Ramp Up

meisajDaily Life

At the start of the year I set a few goals for myself.

A) I wouldn’t buy myself candy
B) I would do 100 push ups a day
C) I would 15 minutes a day on my kindle
D) I would try to run 50 miles a month

I’ve kept all of them – to one degree or another.

I haven’t bought myself candy, explicitly bought myself candy. I did buy Sam a bag of peanut butter hearts around Valentine’s Day when she was having a few tough days knowing that I would eat some. Same around Easter – buying her or the kids Easter candy knowing I get to eat some. But as far as picking myself up candy as a snack, or while out shopping, or just for myself – I haven’t done it. So totally counts.

I have done 100 push ups a day, every day except one, last week. I did 250 the next day to make up for it.

I have read 15 minutes on my kindle daily. It tracks that, so not really a way around it. And I’ve been enjoying it.

In February I ran 47 miles. It was a shorter month. But that’s close enough to count and I picked it up in March with 85 miles. I’m trying to be most lenient with this one. I run around my family. So getting up early to run or running at night. And when I don’t get at least 6 hours of sleep for one reason or another I refuse to run, and rather prioritize sleep.

And there are days like today where I come out to the living to get my running clothes on before heading out the door and Marceline is just laying on the couch with a big smile on her face. Of course I’m going to sit with her instead of running. She is too cute not to.

Birthday Card

meisajDaily Life

Our 2-year-old daughter is very much into monsters right now. Wolfman and Frankenstein are her favorites. So when I took her to the Dollar Tree and let her pick whatever card she wanted for Sam’s birthday, obviously she was drawn towards the Halloween cards.

Sam took it in stride.

I think it’s wonderful! We will be keeping this card for a long while.

I let Sam pick her birthday dinner. It was something new. Avgolemono soup, and pitas made from scratch. With Apple Crisp instead of cake. It all turned out great.

James Garfield

meisajDaily Life

I’ve been reading a biography about James Garfield on and off all summer. It’s hard to find time to sit down and actually read more than a few pages at a time.

But at 300 pages in I’ve come across my favorite quote by far:

“It now appears we are defeated by the combined power of rebellion, Catholicism, and whiskey, a trinity very hard to conquer…”

Is that not an amazing quote? Have another measure of respect Mr. Garfield.

Victory for AJ?

meisajDaily Life

We got a letter from our local city government yesterday.

It says they are now going to repave our road this fall.

I’ve been arguing for it since early April when I saw that we were not on the list of roads they considered for repaving this year. I went to a city council meeting to find out why we going to be repaved last year before they decided to cut our road for budget reasons and then opted not to pave it this year.

That did not go well. I wrote about here. Basically, our street is not a “through street” and thus “not a priority.” And because major roads around us have been paved recently, they had no reason to bring paving equipment back to our area just to work on our street.

I’ve been emailing and leaving messages for various public officials since. I had been told that “fingers crossed” our street could be covered by a state paving project and that was the only way we could be paved this year. Maybe that is what happened, but I wrote our services department three weeks ago when details for that project were released and our street was not part of that project.

I never got a response to that email. I specifically asked what it would take for our street to be a priority for the services department, like they said through streets are. That our street is still crumbling, that I have to direct Marceline around potholes on her bike so she can learn to ride, and that my youngest still picks up chunks of the road every time we walk despite them claiming to have cold patched all of the potholes earlier in the year.

Soooo… victory. I fought the man and won. I don’t want to take full credit but I feel vindicated for my effort.

Now if I can get the sound wall study redone I’ll feel really good.

Echo

meisajDaily Life

While at my parents in May, Marceline got a bump on her head from running into a door. I used it as an opportunity to tell her about the myth of Athena jumping full grown from Zeus’s head.

She loves it and her nighttime stories since that night are different Greek myths. One that really caught her imagination was ‘Echo and Narcissus.”

In the version of the story we read Echo is always running fast away from you while repeating your last words back to you.

Marceline now will swing back and forth on her swing with head back screening “Echooooo” into the air. It’s been two weeks of her doing this and it’s just as adorable now as it was the first day she did it.