Out of the Mouths of Babes

When you think about it, your children reveal alot about you. Whether you were a tough love parent. If you babied your kids. Do they have a good sense of humor and coping skills. Or did you allow technology to let vital skills slip from their fingertips. I am guilty of all these. But this week was especially comical...

Case in point #1: I was working with Bridget on what letter does a word begin with. She brought me in a leaf (I have more leaves in my house than the Metropark has!). I asked her what letter does LEAF begin with? I then sound it out - la, la, la, la. To which she replies, "it begins with a song?"

Case #2: Megan is putting together college applications and requests for recommendations. These requires a stamped envelope. She looks at me and asks for confirmation, "the stamp goes on the top right?" At first I was stunned, but then I realized that she is the queen of texting and probably hasn't personally sent snail mail.

So there you have it. Parenting at it's finest! Have a great weekend!

Massachusetts Fun Facts

I'm running a neat little 5k race in Cambridge this weekend as part of their Oktoberfest celebration (costumes are encourages and oh I have my costume ready!). The girls and I are flying to Boston, doing a little Boston authors kind of tour, eating pizza in our room, and paying outrageous in-room movie pricing as part of this weekend jaunt. As with all our states, I like to throw in a sprinkle of education with "fun facts."

Boston is one of my favorite towns and I never tire of visiting there (love San Francisco as well!). So let's begin with some odd stuff that makes MA awesome:

1. Boston built the first subway system in the United States in 1897.
2. There is a house in Rockport built entirely of newspaper.
3. The Fig Newton was named after Newton, Massachusetts.
4. 1634: Boston Common became the first public park in America.
5. Glaciers formed the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard during the ice age.
6. The Boston Tea Party reenactment takes place in Boston Harbor every December 16th.
7. The first Thanksgiving Day was celebrated in Plymouth in 1621.
8. The official state dessert of Massachusetts is Boston cream pie.

Yay 34 states! Massachusetts, here we come!

Great App for Cycling and Running

My husband is far more into apps than I could ever dream of being. I find it time consuming searching for that ultimate application and, besides, I get "menu anxiety" when there's way too many options to select. Good thing I have him to do the searching for me. His latest "find" was the Cyclemeter app, which can be downloaded from iTunes. We used this iPhone-friendly app for Eddy's Sweet Corn Ride and it was awesome. The stats it gives is incredible and it easily hooks onto your handlebars (you'll need to purchase the case first). I'll be trying it out on my long run this weekend and will definitely be using it on my 100k bike ride the end of October.

For more in-depth review, go here and here.

Best Gear Advertisement

I really like this company. Even Facebook "liked" them. They're funny, make a good product, and I'm all about the up-and-coming small business making a way for themselves. But this ad...it's the best. You can't tell me it didn't make you laugh a little, too!

Weekend Fun in the CLE

I've said it here loads of times, but there is so much to do in the Cleveland area. Love this town. Saturday, we enjoyed the Farmer's Market in Shaker Heights. Made a little trip into Little Italy for those wonderful cinnamon stars from Presti's Bakery. Then checked out the RIPE! Festival at the Botanical Gardens. Here's my two darlings having fun - and it's root beer. Although Hubs and I were enjoying a nice brew.


After squeezing in a long run Sunday morning, the girls and I checked out a new playground. Bridget is always on the lookout for the next, best, most awesome-est playground out there. We hit the jackpot. As an added bonus, there was a huge hill for rolling down. This was Bridget's first time to enjoy this rackous good time and I had so much fun showing her how. That is...until she asked to do it again! Ahhh, yes...it was the second time rolling down that hill that I thought I was going to hurl. I tried standing up, but could only muster the cow pose on my hands and knees...then I toppled over like a sorority girl who needed to be taken home at the end of the evening. Phew, that second "roll" took a couple hours of recovery time, but it's all good now!


No matter how old I get, I never progress past the age of 12!

Hope your weekend was just as fun!

Dual Focus

The last couple of months I've been mostly focused on running, but that's a changin'! My training is in pretty good shape to handle the multitude of events coming up for October - one 5k, two 10ks, and a half marathon. As luck would have it, I am tentatively scheduled to bike my first 100k this year as well. This means a long ride on Saturday and a long run on Sunday (phew, I'm tired already!).

When we got into this whole crazy-travel-run-races thing, I wanted to make sure that we tried different types of events. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a great accomplishment for someone to run a marathon in every state. But I wanted to step out of my comfort zone and try races that scared me or required me to build upon a physical weakness (hello, swimming!). In the process, I have tackled triathlons, an adventure race (which included mountain biking and canoeing), several marathons, more than a dozen half marathons, and an assortment of 5k and 10k races. Even better, my daughters and husband have joined me along the way - whether it's running the races with me (including Meg completing HER first triathlon), going along in the jogging stroller, or participating in all this craziness by cheering me on to the finish line - it's been a family deal. But the one thing I've yet to complete is an all-cycling event. I am now signed up to tackle my first 100k cycling event, which has the added bonus of raising funds for a good cause.

Training for a cycling event presents interesting challenges in our rain-soaked state, which is experiencing a very wet fall. Thank goodness for spin classes and my CycleOps trainer. My Saturday morning spin class was nothing short of awesome. And it was the first time that I used my new Pearl Izumi cycling shoes. These shoes may be the ugliest fashion choice on the planet and I have appropriately named them my "Pat Boone's" because they are all white with black accents (please tell me you're old enough to know who Pat Boone is?). And yes, they were on sale. Otherwise, I would have bought something far less atrocious looking! But wow, what a difference in power. I felt like I was hardly exerting and could have cycled for hours! I have no idea what took me so long to make this purchase. Even funnier was watching me attempting to clip in and out - zero coordination on top of having no clue what I was doing made for a funny experience. So while training for the ride, I'll be blogging about both running and cycling and all the mayhem both bring to this family.

My question to you: if you could complete an event, other than in your regular sporting field, what would you complete?

What Is Your Entrance Song?

My husband and I were at an afternoon Indians game (yes, during the workday!) last month and marveling at how players get to choose their own music for when they're at bat. It's kind of cool because their song choice reveals something about their heritage or maybe it's a kick-ass, get you pumped up to win song.

Later in the game, Firestarter was played. Light bulb! I leaned over and told Greg, "This is the song I want played when I enter a room." I'm a redhead - that's gotta make me a firestarter alone. The beats, the energy, it's all there. Now, I'm the first to admit that I don't look like your typical Prodigy "fan", but they do produce high energy music. So if you hear this song, chances are I'm entering the room!

Do you have an entrance song? I'd like to hear it.