October 28, 2009
Finally making progress. We're down to three boxes left to unpack. It will be a while before I get to those though. They are full of stuff that belongs in the garage, but there's no place in the garage to storte them until i build shelves and a workbench. Monday I cleaned out the storage shed and made lots of room for all the stuff piled on the patio. Yesterday I cleaned the patio and put the legs back on the table so for the first time since we moved in, we can actually sit outside. The weather is perfect for it too. Now to just find the time.
Last weekend we went to Biloxi for my race. (Click here and scroll down to read about it). On Saturday afer the race, we took it easy and just drove around the coast. Sunday we left for home around 10:30, but decided to stop Battleship Memorial Park and tour the USS Alabama. The boys were fascinated with all of the planes, but they wanted to go on the ship. We spent a couple hours exploring the ship, and the kids were still reluctant to stop looking around. We then toured an old submarine called the USS Drum. Again, the boys couldn't get enough of it. I was very proud of them. We were there for a long time and they were perfectly behaved. I took a lot of pictures with my cell phone, but appairently only one of them saved. We've got to find our camera or get a new one.
Nick has a new nick-name, it's "Romper-Stomper". Last Thursday When I picked him up from school, he was a little excited to see me. When I stepped up to the half-door of his classroom, he spotted me from the other side of the room and began running in a straight line for me. Both his teacher and I could see what wqas about to happen, but there was nothing we could do. There was a child a little smaller than Nick sound asleep on the floor between him and I, but Nick had no idea he was there. I thought Nick would trip over him, but instead he landed his foot (my children don't run normally, they stomp hard when they run) right on ther side of that poor little kid's head. There was a lot of screaming, crying, and confusion and when it was all over, the little boys had a shoe print on the side of his head. I checked the next day and the shoe print was still there.
There has been a little more progress on the bathroom. Read about it here.
Meg has also updated her blog, read it here.
October 20, 2009 (again)
Chris was reading a library book to me this afternoon. In the book, a girl was telling her little sister how to act in kindergarten. She told her sister to "Ask lots of questions. Teachers like that." Chris looked at me after reading that line and said, "I don't think that's true."
October 20, 2009
Last night at around 9:30 Matt came into our room with a Camebak water bottle that I haven't seen for quite some time. It had some mysterious liquid in it. Matt way saying "taste it, taste it!" Meg and I looked at each other with disgusted looks on our faces, we had no idea what was in the bottle or how long it had been laying around fermenting, but we knew it couldn't be good. I asked Matt if he had tasted it. He said, "Yeah, it tastes like beer".
October 19, 2009
The swine flu has kicked my ass. The last time I exercised was the 5K. I'm very disappointed because my triathlon is next week. Last week was supposed to be my most intense week and this week was going to be a lighter week. Now I'm just going to swim bike and run on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. I'm not going to do it at my regular training intenity, I'm just going to get out and move around to guage where I'm at. I know I'm not back to 100%. At this point the training is over, I just have to make sure I'm healthy enough to race on Saturday.
The bathroom has not been touched in over a week. I'm so close to being done with the demolition, but I have to take it easy, so I'll probably leave it alone for the rest of this week. Once I get the demolition done, I think it will go back together fairly quickly. It will be nice to have it done.
I finally emptied out the last box from inside the house. The rest of the boxes are in the storage shed and on the patio. That doesn't mean I'm done in the house, though. There is a large hall closet upstairs that we just shoved a bunch of shit in when we moved in, and it's contents are now in the guest room. In the next few days, that stuff will be sorted, organized, culled, and but neatly back into the closet. Meg also began organizing the stuff on the patio last weekend, but we have a long way to go there.
Latle we've been having a big problem getting Nick to keep his clothes on. That kid just can't stand to be wearing anything. He's constantly pulling off his diaper and shitting somewhere. the other morning I got him out of bed, and he had shit in the corner, but had not spread it to the rest of his crib, it was th damnedest thing. Meg bought him some one piece pj's and I safety pinned the zipper to the top. The next morning he had managed to get an arm out of the top, but nothing else. On morning number two, I found him naked in the crib, and the safety pin was nowhere to be found. Morning number three (this morning) he was still dressed. It was nice to start the day not having to clean up some crap, but my shit-free day quicklly came to an end. I was on the phone with Meg trying not to crap my pants. I thought I had successfully kept the back door shut when I told her I had to go. I hung up the phone and started for the bathroom and that's when I realized I has sharted. When I took got to the bathroom, I saw that it had made it past my cheeks to my underwear. I stripped my clothes and finished my business before hopping in the shower (no amount of wiping was going to take care of this). after my shower a gathered my socks, shirt, and pants, leaving the soiled skivvies on the floor, and went to the bed to get dressed. At this point I was running behind schedule and needed to hurry. I could still smell shit and started loking around. Appairently I had dragged one of my socks across my shitty underwear, and then proceeded to get it on my shirt, foot, hands, and bed. So I guess if Nick isn't shitting on something, I am. I just can't win.
October 12, 2009
I had no intentions of goint this long without updating the site, but I've been pretty busy. Every time I think about sitting down a the computer, I look around at my messy house and think, "as soon as I get the house clean, I'll update the website". By the time I get the house clean, its time to fix dinner. Today I was going to work on the bathroom, fabricate some parts for my broken airbag brackets, swim 2000 yards, and of course clean the house. That all went out the window last night.
At about 6:30 in the evening, my whole body started to ache and I got a headache. Even my fingers hurt. I crawled into bed and that's where I stayed until morning. Megan was so sweet. She fed and bathed the kids, and she even did dishes and laundry while I laid in bed alternating between shivering and sweating. This morning I dragged myself to the shower where I just laid in the tub and let hot water rain down on me for about 45 minutes, but I wasn't feeling any better. I wanted to help Meg get the kids ready for school, but it hurt so bad to move, and I was very dizzy. I didn't even fully dry off before crawling back into bed to continue sweating and then shivering. I drifted in and out of conscienceness and at some point, Meg gave me some medicine. I feel better now, but I've written off getting anything done that requires much movement.
Megan has decided to start a blog, so we built a page just for her. She has called it Meg's Turn. There is a perminant link at the top of the page.
Progress on the bathroom is slow. You can read about it here.
We also ran our second 5K last weekend. Read about it here.
September 20, 2009
We went to Mobile this weekend to run our first race. Read about the race here. The trip was fun. We stayed with our friends, Jason and Aurie. We pulled the fifth wheel and parked it in their driveway. As always, we enjoyed taking it and staying in it, but I've been fighting the airspring brackets since I installed them. They kept failing in the same spot, so I fabricated new parts and had them welded on. The new part held up, but exposed another weak spot which failed on the drive over. Over all, its just a poor design. Once again I will fabricated new parts and have them welded on to the brackets as well as modify what's there. Hopefully this will finally fix the problem.
It was wonderfull to see Jason and Aurie and spend some time with them. Jason's daughter, Theresa, occupied the boys and even babysat them while Meg and I went to our race. Everyone had a good time, even NIck. He actually pushed away from Megan because he wanted to be held by Theresa. He's never done that before, not even for a grandma. Since Nick was happy being held by someone besides mommy, it allowed Meg to acually relax a little and enjoy a conversation rather than wrestle him the whole time.
After the race, we got to see another friend, Donna. We haven't seen her in a long time either. After the race, we went out to breakfast with her and got to catch up a little. Hopefully we'll make it back the way soon.
September 16, 2009
Chris had his first day of soccer practice yesterday and he has his first game tomorrow. Meg said he looked very athletic in his soccer clothes, but she said he got his athletic ability from me, whatever that means. He was very excited about soccer, but he wasn't quite so excited about having to do homework right after school. Its funny how the time he feels is best for homework happens to be after bed time.
I have been sick for almost a week now. I skipped my workouts on Friday and Saturday, but I felt a little better on Sunday, so I rode 10 miles. Since then I have felt horrible, so I haven't worked out. Its killing me because I have lost 10 pounds now and I want to keep that going, plus we have a 5K to run this Saturday. Depending on the weather, I may try to run this evening when Meg gets home.
September 10, 2009
Meg and I have been able to exercise together three times in the last week. Twice we ran together and this morning we went for a bike ride. For years she has been telling me how slow she runs, so I thought that we we run about the same pace. She had a very hard time running slow enough to stay back with me, but she did. My speed is picking up, but I don't think it will improve much by our first 5k in a couple weeks. Last saturday I rode 20 miles and felt great. Today meg and I rode 24 miles together and we both feel wiped out. She was on call last night and didn't get much sleep, so she has an excuse. I'm not sure what my problem is. It was still great to ride with her.and I hope we get to do it more.
I talked to Chris's teacher the other. He is doing very well and is well behaved. She rarely has to say anything to him and when she does have to warn him, she only has to do it one time.
September 2, 2009
Congratulations Chris! On friday he took his first spelling test and got 100%. Last night we went over his spelling list for this week and no doubt he will get another perfect score.
I found the battery charger for the camera so I will be able to put up new pictures. I'll try to put up at least one new picture a week.
Today I finally unpacked the last box in the garage, but I still have a long way to go. There are still two closets with boxes and several boxes on the patio waiting for me to cleanout the storage shed. Every day I intend to work on unpacking boxes as soon as I get the house clean, but it seems that by the time I get the house clean, its time to fix dinner. Today my house is still a mess.
The shower in the master bathroom is leaking into the downstairs bathroom. The plumber says that the showerpan needs to be ripped out and rebuilt so I offered to remodel the bathroom if the owners would pay for the materials. So far they are open to the idea so I have to get them an estimate for materials. I hope they agree to it.
August 31, 2009
The good news is that we found out camera, but the bad news is that the battery is dead and I can't find the charger. That's too bad, because we went to the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola. This was an amazing museum with more aircraft than i could count. It is free and I highly recommend it for anyone who visits the florida panhandle. Besides airplanes on display, the had cockpits from several airplanes that the kids could climb into and they had a flight simulator ride that I took Chris and Matt on. Matt held tight to my arm the whole time, but he never took his eyes off the screen. When it was over, Chris exclaimed, "I got dizzy and didn't even care!" I don't know what we're doing next weekend, but I hope I can find the camera charger before then.
The weigth loss continues, albeit slowly. I'm down 2.2 pounds for the last week, for a total of 8.4 pounds. I was hoping to average a loss of 2 pounds a week. After 4 weeks of training, I'm on track, but so far the numbers have been erratic so who knows what next week will bring. I added up the numbers for the month of August and it doesn't look like I've exercised that much. I ran 14.7 miles, biked 43.1 miles, and swam 6800 yards. Those numbers should be up quite a bit for October.
August 24, 2009
Today was Chris's first day of school. He was so excited that he couldn't sleep last night. The whole family took him to school this morning and saw his clssroom and met his teacher. Picking him up is no picnic though. The school is only 4/10 of a mile away, but it took over 30 minutes to get him because of the traffic. I really don't want to go through that every day, but with Nick and Matt in tow, I'm not sure what else to do. When he got in the car, he said that he loved school, and "can't wait for tomorrow!" Tonight we're taking him to the Crab Trap for dinner.
Meg was sick over the weekend, so the whole family has had it. Hopefully we're done for a while.
Meg and I have registered for a couple of 5k runs, one in Mobile in September, and another in Navarre in September. These will fit in nicely with my triathlon training. Meg got her bike and has been riding it a couple times a week as well. It appears I've finally lost a little weight. I'm down 6.2 pounds, but i have to attribute some of that to being sick. We'll see if the trend continues next week.
August 20, 2009
More sickness in the Karjola household. Today hasn't had the best start. Meg was up several times last night with Chris, who puked in his bed. This morning there was a thunderstorm so Meg couldn't run and I couldn't ride my bike. Poor Nicky has had the shits for a few days now and despite liberal use of diaper cream, the skin is starting to peel off his behind. I decided to let him run around naked for a while to air out, knowing full well that I would have to clean up a mess, but he really needed to dry out. After an hour I was pleasantly surprised that he hadn't even peed anywhere. I sat down to on the floor to put his diaper on and threw up all over me. It was in my lap, all over my legs and feet, pouring through the holes in my crocs, and all over the floor. Fortunately, Emma jumped in to clean up the big chunks and the steam cleaner took care of the rest. I'm also feeling very hot and nauseated. I just hope Meg doesn't get it, she has call tomorrow.
August 19, 2009
We decided to spend the weekend in Birmingham visiting friends. We had a wonderful time seeing old friends and meeting their children for the first time. It was also nice to spend a weekend in the fifth whelel. One would think that we'd be tired of it after spending so much time in it, but we actually missed it and enjoyed staying in it for the weekend. I turned the TV on Sunday morning while cooking breakfast to find that we had a tropical storm heading straight towards our house. As it turned out, we took a direct hit in the middle of the night, but we didn't even notice it. A friend of ours lives right on the water and did notice it. It kept her up all night, and when it was over her sailboat was laying on it's side in the boat lift. We had our own storm here at the house.
Sunday night Matt puked in his bed and then spent most of the night up puking. Monday he acted like he felt better, but he was a little warm and he threw up his breakfast. That evening he threw up again at dinner. I think he's all better now, but Nick has whatever Matt had. Last night at Chris and Matt's swimming lessons, Nick at I were sitting in the bleachers after playing in the water for a while when Nick blew chunks all over me. I kept from puking myself and took him to the showers, but he wqasn't done. On the way home he unloaded again all overhimself and his carseat. This wasn't the standard baby throw up, it was volumous, chunky, barf-smelling adult type puke. It took everything I had to keep from letting go of my dinner while disassembling his carseat to clean it. He hasn't puked again, but this morning he had a massive diaper blow out both front and back. Good times.
Last night Meg met with a running group in Navarre. Its kind of a long drive, but she really enjoyed herself and she's thinking going every tuesday or ever other tuesday. The pain in her side came back after only a mile, so she did intervals and the pain went away. That was the first time she's been able to get the pain to go away during a workout. I'm in week three of twelve week training program and have yet to lose any weight. I'm eating less, eating healthier, and exercising a lot more, so I'm not exactly sure why that is. I hope the weight starts to come off soon, I can really feel it when I run.
The unpacking is going painfully slow. I'm really running out of room for stuff. Most of the boxes are in the closets that the stuff goes in or they are on the patio waiting to go into the storage shed once i clean and organize that, but I still have 17 boxes of stuff in the garage I have to find a home for. I try to get to unpacking more often, but every day seems to fly by. I get up between 5:30 and 6:30 and I before I know it, it's bed time already.
The boy cave has been an absolute disaster, so I bought some cube shelves and canvas bins to help the boys organize their toys. Amazingly they have kept it clean for two days now. Their room on the, other hand, is maddening it's so messy that navigating from one side of the room to the other is a hazardous and time consuming task. Hopefully this weekend I'll get more cube shelves and get their room cleaned.
August 11, 2009
Last week we got a family membership to the YMCA and enrolled Chris and Matt in swimming classes. They are both doing very well, and as a bonus, I get to do my swim workout while they are in class. The Y also offers free childcare for up to 90 minutes while working out so I'll have plenty of time to train for my short triathlon. I also got a road bike so I won't have to get through any more painful bike workouts on my mountain bike. I think Meg will be getting a bike today.
I can now navigate through my garage, although there are still a lot of boxes in there. This morning I unpacked six boxes of pictures, and I still have 56 boxes left to unpack. I'm almost out of room to put things, so its going to be tricky to find a place for all of our stuff.
Today I got the honor of paying two separate electric bills. One for the house in Idaho, and one for the house here. My jaw dropped when I saw our first power bill here. For only three weeks of service, we used $210 worth of electricity. I'm dreading what a full month will look like. We have had the thermastat set to 80 degrees, but this house was built in 1967 and not much has been updated since. The windows are all single pane and it has very old appliances that I'm sure are very inefficient. I feel like I've been kicked in the gut, but there's not much I can do about it.
Yesterday Chris ventured out of the boy cave (there is a second living room on the bottom floor where the boys play) to show me a picture he had drawn. He gave me a very long and thorough explaination about every nuance of his drawing. As he was leaving, he turned back to me and said, "oh, and Matt is cutting his hair." WHAT?! I went to investigate and sure enough, he had taken several chunks out of hair off the top of his noggin. Needless to say, last night he got a daddy special haircut. He likes his shaved head, but I think he looks funny. After I was done with him, Meg suggested that we give Nick his first haircut. Nick looks much better without a mullet. Too bad I can't find the camera, I would love to put up pictures of my bald babies.
August 4, 2009
After an exciting and wonderful journey across the country, we're finally in a house in Florida and trying to get settled in. We still own a house in Idaho so we are renting (who wants two mortgage payments?) Ther is still a lot of unpacking to do, but we're slowly working our way through it. There are only a few boxes left in the house to be unpacked, but the garage is nearly full af boxes and we've run out of places to put things. Not having much of a daily schedule was nice for the summer, but I think we're all ready for a little more structure in our lives. There are pictures and stories to come about our cross country trip soon.
We are ten minutes from the beach and we've been there numerous times. The base aslo has a huge playground that the boys love and also a "splashpad" with several fountains for the kids to cool off in. There are restaurants and stores other than Walmart within minutes of the house. We are within an hour of several state parks so taking the kids camping for a weekend will be no big deal.
Megan is starting to run again after several years off and is excited about it. She's even wants to get into a training program through a local running store so she can run with other people. She's alsmost done inprocessing and begins real work soon. She has her call schedule for the next 2 months and its far better than Mountain Home. The rest of the family will get to spend a lot more time with her and she should even be able to take more vacation.
Chris is sure growing up. He is now six and starts first grade this year. He's very excited for school to start, and even more excited about soccer. We signed him up to play this fall and he can't wait. He will also be getting swimming lessons along with Matt very soon. Matt and Nick are enrolled in preschool. Matt will be going five days a week and he insists that he will keep an eye on his little brother and make sure he sits during circle time. He doesn't understand that they will be in different classes. Matt will be going five days a week while Nick is only going for two days.
I am trying to get used to living in a rented house. There are so many things i want to do but I can't. On the good side, when the sink clogged over the weekend, someone else had to pay a plumber to come out and fix it, so its not all bad. I have signed up for a sprint distance triathlon in October. I'm hoping that trianing for this will help me lose weight, I'm tired of being fat. I also have my sights on a 5kswim/5k run event next May, but that remains to be seen. I plan to use the time Nick is in preschool for a little extra working out.
