Fluid Pudding

Hey! Can I talk a little more about running for a second?

(Actually, it’s going to go deeper than running. Stick with me for a minute or two.)

I go to the lake twice each week for a run. If you run around the lake, you score 5.7 kilometers, meaning The Lake is The Perfect Size.

I tend to park near the blue trashcan across from the canoe rentals, and I travel counterclockwise. This means I spend the first ten minutes or so running between a beach and a road. (In my opinion, this is the ugliest part of the path.)

Wait. So, here is the ugliest part of the lake. And it’s gorgeous. And I don’t even USE the word gorgeous.

(I took that photo today while trying to figure out how to do the panorama thing on my phone.)

When I reach the first bridge, I know the roughest part of the run is over. (The first ten minutes always suck. I spend every one of those minutes trying to talk myself into quitting. It’s horrible.) As I pass by trees on the left and soccer fields on the right, I know I’m nearing the halfway point. When I’m surrounded by trees on both sides, the rest is gravy. (AND, by Gravy, I mean I have only three or four more songs before I run under the highway overpass.)

I know I’ve shared this photo before, but just for the sake of taking you with me, THIS is where everything becomes gravy.

(I can’t even look at that photo without getting all smiley and Zen-like.)

As soon as the highway overpass is in sight, I tend to have about two minutes left to run, so I kick it into Haul Ass mode to see how far I can get (normally a tiny bit past the second foot bridge) before the run is over and the cool down begins. But wait. Before we finish out the run, let’s talk about that overpass.

Go here to see what it looks like. When I’m running at the lake, I have to travel under that overpass twice. Every time I’m running or walking under the overpass, I picture a car flying off of the edge and either crashing into me, or crashing into the lake. I wonder how I would handle either dying or having to jerk into disaster relief mode. I picture myself going up in flames. I picture my family having to deal with me as a sack of broken bones. I think about life insurance. I think about that time when I burned my finger on a pot of cream of asparagus soup and I think about how being burnt from the flames coming off of an exploding car would hurt SO much worse than that soup, and that soup HURT. (The soup incident occurred over two decades ago, and I still flinch when I think of it.)

I’ve probably experienced high doses of semi-irrational fears at least forty times while passing under the overpass. As soon as I’m back into the woods, my fears are extinguished and I’m once again all la la laaaahhhhh because it looks like this:

Last night a four passenger plane fell out of the sky and crashed into the lake. In other words, it doesn’t matter WHERE you are. A car could fall off of a bridge. A plane could fall out of the sky. Wild bears. Hunger Games.

This morning I spent my entire run thinking about the pilot of that plane and his wife and his family and how life can be and often is entirely too short and then I ran a little faster and then I slowed down and when I reached the overpass I was about eighteen items into a mental list I was making of all the things I still haven’t done and some of those things are basic, like “figure out liquid eyeliner” and some of them are a little more substantial, like “stop apologizing for everything.” And then there’s “Paris!” and “Rid your life of Stuff!” and “Pet a dolphin!” and “Make sure your kids are having some fun Every Single Day.”

I’ve never tried yucca chips.

I’ve never written a short story.

I’ve never learned how to cut paper dolls.

I’ve never woken my kids up in the middle of the night just to watch the snow fall.

A plane falls out of the sky, and I’m shaken and stirred. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

The girls had the day off from school, so we spent the morning listening to Christmas music and baking cinnamon rolls. (The kind that come in a can.) Because I’m one of those annoying jerks who always announces what they’re doing on Facebook, I soon learned that my friend Mitzi was also baking cinnamon rolls. These cinnamon rolls. As soon as she shared that link, my synapses began to fire differently, and now I can’t stop thinking about pumpkin cinnamon rolls.

The girls and I had lunch with my parents, and when we left the restaurant, our car was one bag of dried apricots heavier than it was when we had left the house. My life is a good one.

I got my hair cut. It’s a little too short, but that means I can probably get through Christmas without having to drop more money on a haircut. I win.

Oh. I bought this for you.

It’s name is Ugly Irisless Rubber Neon-Nipple Devil Baby and it wants to swallow your soul. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

Today was supposed to be the day where students gather in designated places around the community and walk to school. Sadly, Walk to School Day was rained out.

Harper: I’m pissed.

(She didn’t really say that. But I could tell she was feeling it.)

Me: Harper, I say we grab our umbrellas, park a mile away from school, and have our OWN Walk to School Day!

Harper: No.

Me: Yes! I’ll carry your backpack and your lunchbox! We’ll have fun! Let’s go!

Harper: No.

Me: Really?

Harper: I said no.

Me: Okay.

Instead, we parked in the drop off line (we were gold medalists!), ate apple slices, and cranked Fun. AND, for the first time ever, I didn’t stress out and mute all of the bad words (Just the F word. I know.).

(Harper and I like Fun, Maroon 5, and Taylor Swift. With that said, the soundtrack from Newsies will always be our jam.) ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

I dropped the kids off this morning and drove straight out to the lake for a run.

The sky was looking a little bleak, but I had checked the radar and everything seemed to be okay. When I got about halfway around the lake, the thunder started in. A few minutes later, it POURED down rain. During my run, I had been passing and being passed by a woman who is about my age and about my size. When the rain started, she FLEW past me. I picked up my pace as much as I could, but I am seriously not very good at this running thing. A few minutes later, I reached the bridge. My competition was sitting under the bridge waiting out the rain. And, yes. That was probably the smart thing to do, but This Was A Race. (To me. And to her, although she probably wouldn’t admit it. She’s shifty like that. In my mind.) Instead of chilling out under the bridge, I decided to fly past her to show her that I’m stouthearted with the endurance of a kangaroo. (Did you know that kangaroos can hop nonstop for twenty miles, and each hop is fifteen to twenty feet long?! I just looked it up!)

I made it back to my car as quickly as I could. Victorious. And drippy. And with the biggest forehead you have ever seen.

After showering, eating a baked sweet potato, and making a trip to the grocery store for dinner supplies, I found myself in the school pick-up line with this on my leg.

(They’re vegan. And delicious. They’re not as good as my father’s Snickerdoodles, but they come (sort of) close.)

Tonight? Sadly, I had to do this.

Last month I had a headache that lasted 17 days. Today is the 15th day of this particular headache. Tomorrow I’m going to make some calls to check into massage and acupuncture.

I hope you enjoyed your Monday. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

So, it looks like I need someone to move into our house and make fun of me every time I eat a handful of chocolate chips. It’s getting ridiculous.

Actually, let’s not even talk about it.

We topped off our anniversary weekend by taking the girls to see Frankenweenie. The girls loved it, and I cried like a baby. Success.

After the movie, the girls and I walked around the subdivision to pick up an Avon order. On the way back to our house, Christy gave us some of her amazing soap, as well as the inspiration to bake something. (I’m not sure what just yet. But something. Maybe from the vegan cookie book. Hrm. Go back up and read the first sentence of this entry. I’ll wait right here.)

This is my winter coat. It was an anniversary gift from Jeff, it will be arriving in the next few days, and if it doesn’t fit, you’ll see me go rancid.

I’m cranky this evening. My left leg is messed up, I ate cereal and corn chips for dinner, and I’m 0/3 with the things I wanted to accomplish today. I know it could be much worse. So much worse. Know that I know that. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

I wonder if the day will ever come when I think this card will work.

(That is not a biscuit.)

Similarly:

I almost purchased this card just so I could take it out to the parking lot and rip it into tiny pieces (which I would later recycle because I love the earth almost as much as I love honey).

This one did me in. Someday comma we’ll be a cute old couple period sitting on a park bench comma holding hands just because period until then ellipses… Don’t even get me started on the photo.

Do you remember way back in 2003 when my friend and I were considering starting up a greeting card business? Perhaps it’s time to revisit our business plan.

The Pudding Family spent the morning doing this:

And our evening was filled with this:

According to my calendar, it’s Sweetest Day. Jeff is the butter to my biscuits. Plural. Because I have more than one biscuit, and he is the butter for each of them. Googly eyeballs.

I’ll see you tomorrow. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

Eleven years ago today was my final day as a Not Married.

Every year on this day, I leave my wedding ring in the jewelry box and wear only my engagement ring (and clothes, obviously). I then drop the girls off at school and head straight to the bars bedecked in a tiara and an LED male private part necklace. The necklace doubles as a straw, and I use it to suck down cocktails with questionable names. I dance and drink (and then drink some more because Baptists generally don’t dance), and suddenly I have no idea where I live and where did this ham sandwich come from? By 3:15, I’m all back to normal and ready to pick the girls up from school.

Ah, but today is a half day for the girls, and Meredith has a Staying Home Alone class to attend, and Harper needs to figure out a Halloween costume, and we’re out of dog food and apples! The necklace and tiara will have to wait in the drawer until 2013.

(Eleven years ago last night, I sat in a restaurant with my family and got caught up in a web of confusing underpants.)

This is my favorite time of year.

Wait. One more memory. Eleven years ago Right Now Jeff and I were sitting in the church parking lot (it was time to hang tulle and lights), listening to this song and not saying a word.

That was 4,018 days ago. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

This photo was taken during my morning run. (My TERRIBLE run. My run during which I couldn’t actually RUN for ten minutes without stopping. Apparently, I have no drive unless the little man in my ear is yelling at me! It looks like I need to keep the little man around.)

Perfect weather. Perfect trees. Perfect leaves. Perfect sun. Perfect mom deer and her two baby deers. Argh. It’s just too much. I can’t get enough of this time of year. (We’re going to a marching band competition on Saturday, and it’s also our eleven year anniversary. I will probably put on my clogs and explode with Perfect Dayitatum.)

After this morning’s run, I came home, tried to figure out how to open two Excel files side by side, and eventually left for a veggie kebob lunch with a friend. I then returned home, somehow got the Excel thing to work, and quickly left the house to sit in the pick-up line and work on the headband for a half hour. Back to school at 5:00 to pick Meredith up from Girls on the Run. Straight to Panera for black bean soup and then to a retirement center at 5:50 so Meredith could sing with her choir.

Now? Now I’m back home and I’m getting ready to pajamafy myself and either hit the Excel files or the headband. I haven’t yet decided.

Wait! Em! You asked how I pick up knitting and know where I am in the pattern after the project lies dormant for a bit. I write all over my patterns, I have a ton of row counters that I leave in the Ziploc bags with my projects, and I often write notes on pieces of tiny notebook paper and stick those in the bag, too. (I have a terrible memory. I used to have a great memory. I have no idea what happened.)

Headband. The Excel files can wait until tomorrow. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

The headbands are happening. I’m nearly halfway finished with the first one.

This is the reason the Cardinals game was delayed.

This is what we had for dinner. It’s Chickpea & Sweet Potato Curry, it’s vegan, and it’s incredible. (We’re really loving Veggie Meal-Maker.) Carroll, this is the type of thing I picture you making for the vegan gang at Thanksgiving. I would eat a bucket of this before I would consider touching tofurky.

When I was 20 years old, I went to the mall record store where my friend worked in Columbia, Missouri. I told  him that I felt the need to purchase my very first New Age CD. He reached behind the counter and grabbed Ray Lynch’s Deep Breakfast, and it’s all I listened to for the next few months. This evening I found it, I put it in the CD player, and I couldn’t even get through the first song, mainly because I like the Blondie version much better.

‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

Elsiroomom asked when and where I knit, how I maximize my knitting time, what does knitting keep me from doing, do I have any hints for increasing speed, and do my kids knit. (I always love hearing from Elsiroomom. Elsiroomom? The next few paragraphs are for you!)

I knit in my car when I’m waiting for the kids to get out of school, and I knit at the performing arts school where  they take piano lessons on Mondays. This means I get about three hours of knitting time in each week. If Tempe and I go out for knitting and coffee, I score an extra 90 minutes or so. (Before we brought puppies into the family, I could sit on the couch and knit in the evenings. The puppies ate part of a cardigan about a year ago, and I’m still not over it.) I *do* occasionally knit while sitting at the computer watching Cary Grant movies on Netflix, but it seems that Netflix now crashes our computer, so that’s no longer an option.

This is what I worked on today in the pick up line. It’s the left front of this.

Knitting DESTROYS my reading time. Kills it dead. Because of knitting, I’ve been reading Gone Girl for a few months now (and I love it! I really love it!), the new John Irving has been sitting on my Nook for months, and I’ve all but turned in my resignation for my church book club. I read at night between 10:00 and approximately 10:04 when I nod off and my Nook whaps me in the face.

I’m a very slow knitter. I’m also a disaster in that I never have less than five projects going at once. When it comes to maximizing knitting time, the only thing I can say is this: I carry knitting with me wherever I go. If you see me in public, I have a knitting project either in my bag or in my car. (You’ve probably gathered that I’m a semi-nervous/awkward person. Knitting gives me something to do with my hands, and when all is said and done, I have a cardigan instead of bald spots.)

The headbands I hinted about yesterday? I’m thinking this will be this year’s “I’ve got a gift for you” thing. It was Meredith’s idea, and Meredith has been known to have some good ideas. (With that said, today Meredith was told that she needs to change the way she walks if  she wants to be popular. Let the games begin! And then please make them end!)

Oh! Wait! My kids HAVE knitted, but they don’t regularly knit. Meredith made a pretty amazing dress for her American Girl doll using a knitting loom, but she hasn’t explored many other options. Harper has been known to crochet a chain, but she would  much rather draw than deal with yarn.

Today I finished up a freelance project, accepted a new freelance project, edited a few articles for the church newsletter, did some laundry, and made tacos. As I made those tacos, I thought about the importance of popularity for young girls. I then did one of those thought bubbly “If only I  knew then what I know now” sort of things. (I was never popular. When I was in high school, I spent a lot of time practicing the piano and writing in journals. My family STILL pokes fun at me for always needing a new notebook and pen before leaving on family adventures.) ((The sad thing? I actually burned most of my journals during my “I think I’ll listen to The Cure and/or Don McLean” college years. That’s right. I threw my journals into a FIRE! I could have told you, Vincent, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you. Also, I left that house on fire and I never went back.))

This is what’s going on in our side yard right now.

‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>