26.2 with no freaking sports bra?

The celeb sites and blogosphere is abuzz with the news that Katie Holmes (registered under a fake name) finished the ING New York Marathon in 5:29. Of course, hubby Tom and daughter Suri were there to cheer her on.

My question is: Does Scientology have some sort of magic potion that makes it so your ta-tas don't hurt after banging around for more than five hours without a trusty sports bra? A strappy tank is fashionable, and might be functional for a session of Pilates with your personal trainer, but not the best choice for running a marathon. I realize she's young, but those'll be some saggin' Maggies when she gets old if she keeps that up.

My love-hate relationship with Daylight-Saving Time

It's 8:30, but I'm ready for bed. My body thinks it's 9:30, and on school nights, I usually hit the hay about that time.

I hope that my posts don't take a decidedly depressing turn, now that it will be getting dark a 5 p.m. I don't mind the crisp fall air, the leaves changing colors, wearing jackets to work, but I abhor the shortened days. My body just wants to take 'er easy when it gets dark. I'm pretty sure I have seasonal affective disorder. At least we got a few extra days of daylight-saving time before we had to change the clocks.

In the mornings, though, at least for the first few days of standard time, I love it. It felt like it was 6:30 this morning when I was waking up at 5:30 for school. It's just a few days in the year when I actually can try to be a "morning person."

I'm so not.

Every time I typed a time in this post, I hit the shift key for the first number, so I had to go back and delete on every one of them. I told you, it's my bedtime.

Okay, I'm out there.

I've officially put up three bags for sale on this website. It's incredibly rudimentary, though. No clicking to put in cart, no ordering online. It's pretty much only my friends and family who read this thing anyway, so if one of you sees something you like, and you want to be able to say "I gave her her first dollar" someday, just comment or e-mail me and let me know what you want.

Mom and I had the sweat shop going last night. She was the machine seamstress, I was the hand-stitcher. She doesn't, ahem, trust me with the sewing machine. I don't blame her though, since I really haven't used a sewing machine since seventh grade home ec class.

I am really proud of the Red-Eye bag. I love the shape of it, and how we problem-solved to create the long straps that I wanted. It's officially the first thing she and I have designed on our own.

Check it out:

I really like this bag. The sweater was a beautiful color that lent itself to felting really well.


Here's the first one we made. Most of you have probably seen it before.


Here's the back view.


I promise - this isn't going to turn into a shopping website. It's just that right now, it's the easiest way to show off the work.

•••

In other news, we did our nine-mile run today. It's Adam's longest run ever. It took about an hour and 40 minutes. We're doing six-minute bursts with one-minute walk breaks in between. I think next time we do a long run, we'll move the bursts up to eight minutes. Our plan is to run 10 minutes, walk one minute during the race.

We did a couple of major hills today, because we took a new route. Running along a Florida beach will seem like a cakewalk - I think the race website says there's a total elevation change of just 25 feet during the entire race. Piece of cake (I hope).

I'm sure we'll be a little sore tomorrow, but it's worth it.

The Day of Good Deeds

Today Adam and I each participated in activities to help our community. Yes, I'm on a school bus. Yes, I'm wearing a safety orange vest. And a stocking cap.




Today was BV's day to clean up our stretch of adopted Kansas Highway. About 20 students from the school donned orange vests and gloves, and five teachers headed out to help them pick up trash and make sure no one got hit by a car.

I don't know if YOU were out and about this morning, but it was pretty darn cold at 8 a.m. Though, I must say, if I'm going to be out picking up trash, I'd rather be cold than do it when it's 100 degrees.

Things my day on the side of the road taught me (in no particular order):

• Even in 2007, people still think it's okay to throw trash out of their cars.

• The most litteringest people? Smokers. By far. No, we didn't pick up any of the nine zillion cigarette butts we saw, so I'm not even including those. But, I alone picked up AT LEAST 25 cigarette boxes, packs, etc. Our stretch was only about one mile.

• The promotional campaign for the movie "Seed Of Chucky" included foam sperms with "Seed of Chucky" IN STORES NOW printed on them. Yes, I picked up one of those. (?!?)

• Trash can stay on the side of the road a long freaking' time.

• Even at 8:30 on a Saturday morning, standing on the side of a 65mph road, teenagers will still stop and text message someone.

• People need to get with the times and start drinking out of refillable, durable water bottles and stop throwing the disposable kind out of their cars.

I mean, SERIOUSLY. Who throws trash out their car windows? Who? Trust me, I know that there is usually trash in a car (anyone who's been in my own car will attest to that), but I'm amazed that someone can say to themself: "Self, I think I'll roll down the window and toss this BK cup out to the side of the road. That sounds like a grand idea."

Whatever happened to "Keep America Beautiful"? "Don't Mess With Texas"? "Littering is punishable with up to a $500 fine"?


After cleaning up after our "neighbors," I buzzed home, showered to remove the grimy, I've-been-standing-on-the-side-of-the-highway-this-must-be-what-a-hitchhiker-feels-like feeling, and Adam and I headed to the Special Olympics Bowl-A-Thon.

Here's Adam with one of his students. Check out his fly bowling shirt. The entire team of teachers had them.

Bowling was fun. The bumpers were up, so that was a little strange. I've never bowled like that before. Just like the morning's activity taught me a few things, the afternoon of bowling taught me something as well.

I'm a damn sight better at Wii bowling than I am at real bowling. Usually, on Wii, I score around 260 - today, didn't get higher than 70ish, and that was WITH the bumpers.

Hip and crafty mamas (or just plain mamas) out there, listen up

There's a button over there on the right side of my blog that will take you to CRL - Knitty Gritty chick Vickie Howell's new podcast. You can also download it on iTunes.

I know that most of you readers aren't knitters, but a lot of you are pretty crafty, and almost all of you have little ones running around who might enjoy a cool, creative outlet. The first episode of CRL is up and I just listened to it (while running three miles). I got some new ideas for gift projects I want to try (when I have some free time...oh, wait), and she also talks about some resources for kids crafting ideas. And we're not talking about your run-of-the-mill folded paper snowflakes, people. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.)

Anywho - check it out.

We're off to First Friday.

Market research

Okay, here's my latest creation.



Curious - do you like it? Would you buy it? Would you carry it? What would you pay for it?

I'm warnin' you...

this will be a post full of random floofy schmoopers. (Okay, I think that phrase is from "Friends" and for some reason, I can't get it out of my head. It's just funny.)

Anyway - as I said, on with the randomness - expect bullets thoughout the post.

First off, I have been remiss in not adding my friend Jaime's blog to my list at the right. You've got to check her out - great photos, great videos. I used to work with Jaime at the Eagle (photo chicks!) and her reading blog really is like hanging out with her. Or, the closest I can get to it from three hours away.

•••

Today at school was a great day. All my classes went well, and we had something called the "Arts Potpourri." It was basically like a two-hour pep assembly of sorts, only people were watching/visiting the drama students, choir students, drumline, jazz band, painting students and ceramics students. It's really a chance for students to see what all those classes entail, so that when enrollment comes around in a few weeks (god), they might decide to sign up. There was even a video describing working on the newspaper and yearbook.

Imagine my chagrin when the VERY FIRST student quoted in the piece said "Newspaper's really fun, and stuff, we like, celebrate everybody's birthdays, and have lots of parties. It's just...it's really fun."

Um, okay. Yes, we DO have food days. But the last thing I want is for every slacker in the school to join newspaper 'cause we like to party...we like...we like to party...

The biggest irony in all of that is that we have sort of put a moratorium on parties for the time being because the kids can't clean up after themselves. Literally one hour before the TV piece aired, we had a hee-uge talk about it during newspaper class. The come-to-Jesus meeting must have worked, though, because at the end of worknight tonight, all were scurrying around throwing away trash and closing up the food.

Oh, and the one time during the video that they mentioned my name, it came out like this: "So, if you're interested in joining newspaper or yearbook, talk to your counselor or see Mrs. Cheeetum in room 450."

But I digress. The real reason I mentioned Arts Potpourri is because I continue to be amazed at the talent level of high school students. The visual artists, musicians and singers put on an incredible show. I think that's part of why I like teaching high school so much. At this point in their lives, students are still doing so much exploring of things they like to do, and things they are good at. I suppose I've always been surrounded by creative people, working for newspapers, but the raw talent you see in teens is a sight to behold. I hope that all of the "working" stiffs I know still take as much pride and joy in their jobs/careers/lives/whatevers. Even if what your favorite thing to do isn't necessarily what you get paid for (i.e. knitting) find the time to do it. It'll make the bad days on your job so much better.

•••

One of my former students, Trina, is in KC this weekend, passing through town. She's stopping by school for a visit tomorrow. I'm so glad we were able to connect while she's here.

She's the one on the left. That's Sami (in green) and Bonnie (with her arm around me). They were my senior editors last year, and Amy took this photo of us on the convention trip at the Gaylord Hotel in Nashville. It was a wonderful trip - can't think of three better students to travel with. As journalism advisers, a lot of times, you hear horror stories about groups of students on these trips - smuggling "drinks" sneaking out, etc. I'm lucky to have been blessed with good kids so far along in my career.

•••

It seems like there were a million other things I wanted to post about today, but I guess I'll have to wait on most of them. I do have one more thing, though, since all of my friends are posting photos of their kids dressed up for Halloween:

Here's a photo of my "KID" dressed up for Halloween.