Weekly Mileage #157 and Chicken Coop Renovations

The mighty River! I may or may not have made him repeat his first jump 4 or 5 times till I got a good shot...

Sunday night I was up till 2am with River, who had a really bad earache. It was just in one ear, and it came on pretty suddenly, so I knew we were just waiting for his eardrum to burst. After some painkillers + hot compress + a blessing he was finally able to fall asleep. In the am, I checked his ear, and sure enough, crusty crud in his ear indicated his eardrum had ruptured. And he can't hear as well either because of that hole.

As painful as it was at the time, I'm glad I had a similar experience a few years ago, so I knew what was going on (recognized the signs) and wasn't super worried, just a bit frustrated because there's not a lot you can do while waiting for it to rupture. At 12:30am Jeremy offered to run to Walmart in search of ear drops, but Walmart is no longer open 24 hours and had been closed for hours by that point. There's so much we take for granted in our society. It was also somehow a bit disconcerting to realize that while we have this pandemic going on, there's still other illnesses happening and we may not be able to treat them as we would in the past. Especially since I'm very reluctant to go anywhere near a hospital right now.

The boys have had multiple ear drum ruptures, but this is the first time River complained about the pain- in the past, they never seemed to notice it. Shortly after mine ruptured, I think Ocean's did also, and I only knew about it because of the crusties around his ear the next morning. I guess they don't feel it as much when they're younger? Also, why does it always seem to happen at night?

The last time he went to preschool, his teacher had a tangram set out that he had a lot of fun with, and when he found this little travel set, he happily sat down and started playing with it. The grumpy face is because I was taking pictures :)

On Monday, the governor canceled school for the rest of the school year. It had been canceled for two weeks, which would have ended on March 27th. I guess being decisive has it's benefits. Everyone knows we're done. We picked up Ocean's change of clothes from the preschool, because that's done. Kinda silly we did his IEP amendment now, since he won't be having speech therapy for the rest of the school year, either.

Monday afternoon the kiddos FaceTimed with friends in the afternoon and Sunshine had a Scout troop meeting via Zoom in the evening.

Tuesday we did music lessons via FaceTime. We didn't do it last week because Sunshine was supposed to go to a career day sponsored by the local community college last Tuesday so we'd canceled music lessons that day. The career day got canceled and we just left the day empty.

Sunshine really likes driving the tractor, and the boys like getting rides.

Wednesday we moved the last bit of wood from the chicken coop area. On Saturday Jeremy cut down two smallish trees in front of the chicken coop because they've been growing out over the garden, taking advantage of the open space and unfiltered sunshine. Since we need that sunshine for the garden, they had to go. One got hauled away on Saturday, but we left one for later.

I feel like I'm coming down with a head cold. I'm not sure if it came from Ocean (who has finally mostly gotten over his cold) or detox symptoms or too many late nights. It could be any or all of them.

good thing there was no sound- Ocean was totally whining the first part of our hike because he wanted to run ahead and I told him he couldn't (the trails were too crowded and I didn't want him running headlong into another group)

Thursday I worked on some zip bags I've been stopping and starting for awhile now.

Friday I hiked with the kiddos, which turned out to be a bit more exciting than anticipated. The trails were more crowded than usual (ie, we saw 6 or 7 groups instead of just 1 or 2), and as we walked down one trail and came up over a rise, Sunshine and I realized we were seeing a full moon. We promptly turned us and the boys around and waited a bit. She was far enough down the trail that I don't know if she saw us. Sunshine and I definitely felt awkward as we caught up to her and a friend picnicking at the ruins of a house. We continued on after a short hi and tried not to dwell on it. We do have questions though. How did she not know she was right on a trail? Admittedly, there are a number of trails that all converge on those ruins, and maybe she thought it was a ditch? I don't know. I've always gone into the trees, not away from them. Anyway. An interesting experience.

After our hike I worked some more on my zip bags. After doing three different ones, I've decided I'm going to try something different- these were too time consuming and fiddly to be good additions to my shop. I need items that I can scale the production of, and those weren't it. I did find some patterns for some simpler bags that I want to give a try.

I've been carrying around this ziplock baggie with my supplements in my purse, but ziplock baggies don't last

so I made this bag to carry them in

it's not perfect, but I learned a lot from making it and the other two (I haven't photographed them yet). before I sewed it all together, I engraved the 'I Can and I Will' on the front. I thought it was rather appropriate for the bag that carries my supplements that help me stay as healthy as possible so I can be a functioning person.

Initially, I didn't think our schedule would be that impacted by all the social distancing measures. But it has been. Wednesdays were the only day of the week that I had a chance of staying home. Every other day there was always at least one or two activities to get us out of the house.

Mondays Ocean went to preschool and speech therapy, I went trail running and hiking, maybe did the grocery shopping, Sunshine had Scouts. Tuesdays we went to music lessons, maybe ran an errand on the way home. Wednesday and Thursday we might have a doctor appointment or hiking, or something.Wednesday nights Jeremy and Sunshine went to D&D.  Thursday evening was YW. Friday was speech therapy and play group. Saturdays were busy with Scout activities, errands, and other things. Sunday was church and whatever meeting I had that week. Throw in chiropractor, orthodontist, and other doctor appointments, and any other outings we might plan, and we were busy people.

River found this hole at the base of a tree

Now we do Scouts and music lessons virtually. Jeremy and Sunshine do D&D online. We meet with our YW classes online. We've even done a virtual playdate. Thankfully, we can still go out for hiking and trail running, but only if it's not raining (which it has been more frequently than I'd like).

I'm used to working from home with kiddos running around- I've been doing it for the last 3-4 years. Jeremy even works from home a couple evenings each pay period, doing time sheets. But that's different from trying to take conference calls during the day with kids running around, yelling in the background. At least everyone is else is in the same boat.

The employees with his company are supposed to be reading and doing training stuff when they're not working in the office, but Jeremy has yet to touch any of it. All his time is taken up with the admin side of things. As team lead, one of his daily tasks (including Saturday and Sunday) is to check in with each member on his team, make sure they're where they're supposed to be (not more than 2 hours away to get paid for working) and still healthy. And then there's the constant schedule changes, timecard questions, and all the other questions people come up with.

So it's all a bit more stressful than I anticipated, and the hike we did on Friday was the first time the kiddos had left the house in two weeks. We shoo them out to play and ride bikes in the yard, but it's not the same as actually leaving the house and going somewhere.

I will say this, despite all the stress, I've managed not to stress eat chocolate or candy. I started eating low-carb just in time, just before all this started, and I'm still eating low-carb (not quite keto). Despite the stress, I've managed to stay away from carbs and sugars. Yay me!

Saturday we tore out a third of the chicken coop floor. I'd planned on rebuilding it that day, but once we got the rotten flooring off, we saw how wet the floor beams were. We discovered some drainage issues after I built the coop, and water used to pool in front of the door. Oops. I've learned my lesson there, but the damage was done. We've corrected the drainage issue, and now that the weather has warmed up a bit, it was time to fix the floor before one of us broke right through. I'd put random scraps of plywood over the worst of it, but it wasn't going to hold forever.

we found two massive wolf spiders under the floorboards

Anyway, I decided to let it dry out over the weekend, and hopefully it will improve enough for me to get the floor in soon. After we tore the floor out, we unloaded some cinder blocks from the trailer and put them where the big brush pile used to be, next to the chicken run. I'd planned on putting a green house there years ago, but when we started piling up brush and stuff there, that got put on hold. Now it's time to revisit that idea.

I've been thinking about all the news available regarding the pandemic versus what things must have been like with previous pandemics like the Spanish flu and the black plague. For all our advances, there's still so many unknowns, and seeing all the doom and gloom reports so readily available is not good for mental health, regardless of how accurate those reports are or aren't. I'm not sure that the information age is helping us out there.

There is a sense of unreality, like we're in some movie or book. In my case, it's not helped by the fact that I had just finished reading a zombie apocalypse series (not my usual fare, but interesting) just before all this happened.

Weekly Mileage
Wednesday- .62 miles walked outside
Wednesday- 10.00 miles biked
Thursday- 2.00 miles walked on the treadmill
Friday- 2.05 miles hiked
total- 14.67 miles

2020 totals

12 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
0 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

54.47 outdoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
8.00 indoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
90.0 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
152.47 miles total

Sunday Funny

Last Sunday Ocean decided this was appropriate church attire. Since we were doing church at home, it was hard to argue with him. Still not quite sure why he put his Captain America shirt over his Sunday shirt, but at least it matched his underwear!

Weekly Mileage #156 and the Pandemic

the world may be crazy, but spring is still on its way

Such a crazy week.

Since I have celiac and narcolepsy, which are autoimmune disorders, I've been staying close to home.  Thankfully they're not the autoimmune disorders I keep seeing as high risk, but I do know that my body tends to overreact to things, so better safe than sorry. Jeremy has been running errands for us and the kiddos aren't allowed to go with him. Ocean is such a germ magnet he'd be sure to pick up Covid19 while out and about. This is the child who goes around licking his hands, after all....

Monday I finally finished our taxes. Then I made a few changes I've been thinking about to cut down on my overall business expenses. I canceled a service no longer being used and switched from monthly to annual subscriptions on two other things, which saves a bit of money.

Tuesday I went for a trail run. The parking lot was crowded like it was a Saturday as everyone gets outside. Supposedly our internet was fixed in the am, though we never saw the guy come. We had wanted to talk to him about what the issue was, so we were a bit disappointed when we got a text saying he'd fixed the issue. Especially since it's not really fixed. It still drops out, but not as often.

busy park

Wednesday the Elders came and we finished moving the smaller wood pile. I didn't do as much walking this time since I stayed and shoveled decayed wood into the compost pile while everyone else walked up to the unloading spot.

we had a row of moldering firewood stacked between these trees- not much use for it when we have have a gas fireplace

I had Ocean's IEP amendment meeting over the phone. It took all of 5 minutes (so glad I didn't have to drive clear out to the school just for that!) and we switched his speech therapy sessions from 2x a week to 1x a week because he's doing so well.

River was being ornery, so I threatened him with a hug (he thinks he's too big for hugs), and he ran to the basement. Apparently, he expected me to follow him, because when I didn't, he stuck his head through the doggy door and asked if I was going to come get my hug. Funny kiddo!

Thursday was the first time I drove anywhere since last Friday. I dropped off the car for its annual inspection (due by the end of the month) at the small garage down the street and Jeremy drove me home- no shuttle this time.

Friday I had wanted to take the kids hiking, but it rained in the morning and the trails were wet, so we didn't. That and I was feeling crummy. Several days of insomnia will do that. I've seen others comment on this in my narcolepsy groups, and it seems to be the case for me as well- my monthly cycle affects how I sleep. My insomnia gets worse right before and during my period

Ocean in 'vehicle mode' as Hoist (see the Rescue Bot on the floor next to him). He then transforms into 'bot mode'. The tp is his front grill, just in case you missed that :)

Friday I finished a notebook and left it in our mailbox for our mailman to pick up. I punched the holes and sewed the pages for a number of notebooks as well as finally cut the acrylic templates for small and large notebook covers (I did the music one a while ago and use it all the time since 99% of my orders are music books), but I have two more cover templates to do still. One of my goals for this year is to build up my stock of notebooks on hand and to have them in a couple local stores, so this will help me get to that point.

looks like Ocean thought the gas can was missing something

Saturday I finally got a decent night's sleep, but that meant I got a late start because I slept late. In the afternoon, the elders came and helped move the big wood pile. So much faster when young, strong guys are helping! The four elders are all going home on Wednesday- it's close enough to the end of their missions that they're being released early. Their replacements will probably be American elders sent home from overseas missions.

there used to be a huge pile of branches and brush between the chicken run on the left and the compost bin on the right

Sunday I had ward council meeting via Zoom followed by church at home. We had planned on going to a cemetery and photographing headstones (findagrave.com) but I ended up with a migraine and was nonfunctional the rest of the day. I'm pretty sure it was from not hydrating properly after moving the wood, but I thought I'd drunk enough electrolytes and water, so I don't know. Frustrating though.

such a cutie!

Jeremy has had to get up at 7am every morning for stats/check in for his team. He's exhausted from staying up late answering messages with questions people have about billing and schedules that have been changed several times just in one week (currently they're at a very abbreviated schedule in the office with minimal people in at the same time, then home working through a reading list for training to justify being paid full time hours). Jeremy is not a morning person, so the early am wake up time has been killing him. But it's nice to have him home more. He went in Monday and Tuesday and has been home the rest of the week. And we're grateful that he's still being paid, though definitely no overtime hours right now.

And Ocean being Ocean:

Some thoughts about staying home. I'm a home body and don't mind not going anywhere for days at a time. But I gotta admit that being told we need to stay home does make me feel a bit claustrophobic. Add in moments of panic/anxiety about what could happen (the bad side of over-thinking everything), and it's definitely increased my stress levels. However, our property is large enough to spend time outside even if it gets to the point where we're not supposed to leave home at all, and I could even run laps around the yard if I needed to without getting dizzy. In the meantime, we have a trails park a couple miles away that I can still escape to, as long as it's not raining...

Weekly Mileage
Tuesday- 2.02 mile trail run
Wednesday- 0.80 miles walked outside
Saturday- 2.40 miles walked outside
total- 5.22 miles

2020 totals

11 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
0 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

51.80 outdoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
6.00 indoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
80.0 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
137.80 miles total

Sunday Funny

Back in November Jeremy won an Alexa dot (aka wiretap) at work.

The boys have had fun with it and are always asking Alexa to play music and stories.

Except Ocean had a hard time getting Alexa to do what he wanted. It might have had something to do with this:

"Owexa! Owexa pway a wuwwaby"  (play a lullaby)

Alexa must be learning, since she wouldn't respond to him at first. After a week or two she started playing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by Nat King Cole. Unfortunately, it's not a satisfactory lullaby in his opinion.

He's been working hard in speech therapy and now can say his Ls, so we've already moved past this stage.

Weekly Mileage #155 and Hiring a New Pinterest VA

Monday I went for a trail run and hike. Thursday I did 10 miles on my bike. I upped the resistance, so it was much more challenging than the rest of my bike mileage so far this year. It felt good, though.

The vertigo hasn't come back, though I've had some moments of lightheadedness here and there. My ears have been feeling a bit off- slightly achy sometimes. Not really bad enough to actually go to the doctor though, so I'm waiting it out to see if it improves on its own. I'd rather not go on antibiotics- they always do a number on me. I do feel reasonably sure that the vertigo is related to whatever's going on in my ears.

the boys had my phone while playing on the trampoline

I dislike grocery shopping- it's time-consuming and I have to interact with people. Yes, I'm an introvert, why do you ask? 😉 Anyway, I've used Kroger grocery pickup for a year or two now and love it. Thursday I got to wandering if I could do pickup at the other two stores I usually shop at. I'd heard somewhere that Costco had a pickup service available, but after a bit more research, that seems to be in only in certain areas. Ours does delivery, but we're half a mile too far north to be eligible for that. Pesky county line. But I was very pleasantly surprised to find that Whole Foods will deliver to us. I'm guessing because they use Amazon Flex delivery instead of Instacart like Costco. And it's free because we're Prime members.

In any case, since WF will deliver, and I can pickup up at Kroger, I only have to go into Costco. Huge time saver!

Thursday evening, just as we arrived at the church for our activities, we got word that the Church had cancelled all activities for the next little while. While some of the youth were intercepted and went back home, some had already been dropped off, or their parents were there as leaders. The YW were supposed to have an unbirthday party, so there was cake and ice cream that needed to be eaten (no one wanted to take a sheet cake and four things of ice cream home). I rounded the corner of the building to where the kitchen is and caught a bunch of kids having a blast, eating cake and ice cream. Definitely a memorable send-off /start to a truly home-centered church experience.

A couple weeks ago my Pinterest VA let me know that she was closing her VA business. She has a couple other side hustles, a family, too many things to do, and too little time. I totally understand. But that means I had to find a new Pinterest VA. I started the search and have been working on narrowing down my options. I interviewed four ladies this week and made my final decision Friday morning.

I usually do the grocery shopping every other Monday morning, but with all the craziness going on I decided to move up my shopping day in hopes of still getting what we needed. I first was planning on going Saturday, then changed it to Friday.

I placed my Kroger and WF orders Thursday night, then planned on heading to Costco before picking up the Kroger order. I'm usually there around 10am, when they open, and there's very few people there. Not this time. The parking lot was super full and the line extended around the corner to the tire bays when I arrived a couple minutes after 10. I almost turned around and left, but decided I had time since my Kroger pickup wasn't until 11, even if Costco was super crowded. The line actually moved very quickly and they had an employee handing out wipes to those waiting. There wasn't a line when I left, so I think the line was just the result of people arriving before the store opened and having to wait to get in. It was crowded and there wasn't any TP, but the checkouts were actually moving pretty quickly (I've waited longer on other occasions), and I was done and on the road in half an hour.

Kroger, on the other hand, didn't do so well. They neglected to tell me they weren't ready (they had someone calling people, but I'm guessing they got pulled away to something else- it was packed there as well), so I pulled up, thinking I was good to go, only to find that was not the case. I went home and called later, just before the time they'd said to try again. They still hadn't even started pulling my order. Tried again later, they were working on it. Next time I called, they were just about done. Picked up my order almost 5 hours later than planned. All things considered though, there were only a few items that were out of stock that they weren't able to find substitutes for. We'll continue using Kroger pickup- this is the first time we've had a real problem with our pickup, and I'd say we've got extenuating circumstances right now. It wasn't their fault.

That evening I didn't even hear the Amazon delivery guy drop off our WF order. I'm definitely doing this one again! When I was placing my order I remembered that it's about this time of year that muscat grapes are in season, so I checked, and sure enough, now's the time to buy them! I can only eat a couple each day, but they are super yummy- much sweeter and less bitter than green or red grapes. But they're only available for a short window of time each spring.

We did have one hiccup with the delivery- our whole order ended up being refunded, and I couldn't figure out why. A couple items weren't in stock, so there was a message that I'd be refunded for those items. The best I can figure is that the whole order, instead of just the out-of-stock items were refunded. I tried calling and chatting with customer service, and they didn't know what was going on.

the boys keep bringing me flowers from the yard

One disadvantage of where we live (besides limited grocery delivery) is we have no options when it comes to internet- DSL over our phone lines is our only option. Well, we could go with satellite internet, but that's even worse than DSL.

Our internet has been fritzing out for awhile now, but it's been getting worse the last month and even worse this week. Back in December, we had the phone/DSL company out to look at our lines, and the in-house lines need to be replaced. They'll do it for several hundred dollars, but we opted to see if we could do it ourselves.

Jeremy got the appropriate phone line from Lowes and re-wired the phone jacks, but our internet was still having issues. So I put in a service ticket and they're sending out tech on Tuesday.

Saturday we moved a couple lawn tractor trailer loads of wood from next to the garden shed to the hill behind the RV. It's frustrating how little endurance I have these days. I only managed 4 loads I think? and then I was worn out.

Sunday we did church at home. The elders came over for dinner, and they did the obligatory asking if we knew of any service. Since we'd just been moving wood the day before, I said well, we do need a pile of wood moved. They said they'd be happy to help and would bring the other set of elders in their apartment to help as well.

I had the realization that I've got some fear of success and imposter syndrome going on. I mean, I knew I had them, most people do, but I thought they were lower than I think they actually are. My first PVA was a great intro to working with someone and increasing my site's profile. I was the first to hire her, so she didn't have a lot of experience, but she was willing to learn and I got a great rate.

I'm now at the point where I need someone more experienced and dedicated to the job, so it's actually good that she's cutting things off- I don't think I would have been able to. But with the experience I need will come a higher monthly cost. I'm actually familiar with some of the websites that my potential VAs have worked with, and they've seen good growth, which means increased income along with a higher profile.

Which are things I want and have been working towards. So why the fear of success and imposter syndrome? I'm not exactly sure.

I was already on track to start improving SEO (which will help Google send people my way) and figure out Facebook ads and be consistent with social media, so having a more targeted Pinterest strategy (which sends a lot of traffic to my site) is necessary.

I think it comes down to this: It's time to stop being comfortable, to grow, stretch, and reach for the next level. But it will be a challenge.

Weekly Mileage
Monday- 1.76 mile trail run
Monday- 2.40 mile hike
Thursday- 10.0 mile bike ride
Saturday- 1.22 miles walked outside
total- 15.38 miles

2020 totals

11 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
0 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

46.58 outdoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
6.00 indoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
80.0 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
132.58 miles total

Sunday Funny

Ocean wanted a pic with the mannequin at Target, so he climbed up and "smiled" for the camera. I have no idea what's up with the grimace.

Then River decide to slide into the frame for a pic as well. I love his pose- he's ready for his close-up :)

Weekly Mileage #154 and the Vertigo Episode

Monday I only had time for a trail run before doing the grocery shopping. This run and the run on Saturday were rough. The first half mile or so just sucked. I noticed this Saturday, but it didn't take me long to realize why. A couple days earlier, I started eating low carb again. For awhile now I've been working up to it mentally and cutting out the higher carb foods in my diet, but I hadn't really bit the bullet. Wednesday or Thursday I realized I hadn't eaten many carbs that day and if I was careful about what I ate for dinner, I'd finally be back on track.

Last time I started keto, exercising didn't feel good either. It should improve as my body adjusts, so in the meantime I'll keep exercising, but I'm keeping my runs in the one mile range.

It's interesting- I almost fell into eating low carb this time around. It's taken awhile to get here, and I did go through and eat some random high-carb foods one last time, but I also knew I needed to do it so I could feel better. I'm not keeping an exact count of carbs just yet, but I know I'm close to where I should be, and I'm feeling pretty good.

Sewing a zipper into a leather bag I'm working on. Still debating whether the extra time will be worth it- the zippers are proving more problematic than I anticipated, so I'm unconvinced they'll be worth the effort. It's a work in progress though, so we'll see.

Wednesday I went for a hike while I was in town for my chiropractor visit. It was a beautiful, sunny, unseasonably warm day.

Thursday we all had dentist appointments. Everyone was good, except Sunshine who has her first cavity and needs a filling (maybe this will convince her to brush her teeth better).

Friday did not go at all how I'd planned. I woke up and took a shower, but was feeling really dizzy in the shower. I tried turning down the water so it wasn't so hot, but it didn't help with the dizzy feeling. I laid down on the bed for a few minutes to see if it would pass, but when I stood up again, it was a lot worse and it made me want to hurl.

So I laid back down and emailed the speech therapist to let her know we wouldn't be making it to our appointment that morning (thank goodness for smart phones!). I also emailed our friend who organizes our Friday playgroup to let her know we'd be missing that as well, but she volunteered to pick up our kiddos and take them with her (super nice of her!). By the time they got home around 12:30 or so I was able to sit up without feeling dizzy. I continued to improve throughout the rest of the afternoon. So weird- I've never had vertigo like this before, and I have no idea what caused it.

Saturday I slept in, but woke up without any problems (I was worried about another bout of vertigo). Still felt a bit off, but not as bad as on Friday. I did manage 10 easy miles on my bike and it felt pretty good.

In the afternoon I took Sunshine to a Woodworking merit badge workshop, but since Jeremy was at drill and I had the boys, we just dropped her off, then picked her up when she was done.

Despite Jeremy being at drill, Sunday wasn't too bad- Ward Council was canceled, so I was able to sleep in and only go to church once, and no stressing about whether Ocean would stay clean while I was gone.

=====

I've been working on our taxes this past week. For all my big talk last year about keeping up my paperwork, I didn't. That is not my strong point, but paring down the businesses will make it less daunting for next year.

I decided a year ago to close my Amazon business, but I've been waiting for my inventory in the warehouses to sell out. I had some sent back to me, but I left those that were most likely to sell, and the last one sold in February. Well, I'm pretty sure it sold in December, but was returned and re-sold in February. Anyway, now that that's done, I need to do the paperwork to officially close that business with the state.

I won't be resurrecting my personal finance site since I've decided to incorporate the side hustle info into my travel site. I'm not closing the business associated with the personal finance site just yet though. There's potential for me to use it for some sort of marketing business, but that's on the back burner while I concentrate on my travel site and my leather goods. The worst part about doing taxes is seeing the totals- how much I earned versus how much I spent. Those numbers are still not where I want them to be. Frustrating, but it's a fact of life- hard work is required to achieve your goals.

Weekly Mileage
Monday- 1.65 mile trail run
Wednesday- 2.35 mile hike
Saturday- 10.0 mile bike ride
total- 14.00 miles

2020 totals

10 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
0 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

41.20 outdoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
6.00 indoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
70.0 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
117.20 miles total

Sunday Funny

I think I already shared this pic of Ocean, but I really love how it turned out- everything in the background blurry. Usually it's Ocean who's blurry! 

I recently bought a bag of cocktail cucumbers (cukes about the length of your index finger). Ocean saw them in the cart and called them baby pickles.

I said "No, they're cucumbers, but we can turn them into pickles."

So then he started calling them pickle seeds.

I repeated "No, they're just cucumbers and you can turn them into pickles."

He looked at me in confusion.

"Like how grapes become raisins."

That made a little more sense to him. Clearly we need to make a batch of pickles so he can see the process.

February Mileage

I'm all caught up on my bike mileage. But now I need to start upping the resistance when I ride. I've been doing minimal resistance, but it's not really improving my fitness. I may also try some mountain biking in March. A friend and I want to give it a go, but neither of us are confident mountain bikers (she's been a few times, I've never been), so if we can find a time that works for both of us, we'll see how it goes.

I've fallen a bit further behind on my foot mileage, but that's to be expected since my toe has been an issue. It is doing a lot better though, so hopefully I can get caught up in March.

I'm still on track with my hikes. By the end of February the last two years, I was already behind, so yay me! Part of my goal is to keep the average length of each hike at or above 2.25 miles, and my average is currently 2.32 miles, so I'm doing well there as well.

February mileage:
2 treadmill workouts + 4 hikes + 0 races + 3 trail runs + 0 outside walks + 3 bike workouts + 0 kayak outings = 59.08 miles

52 hike challenge: 9 hikes

365 mile challenge:  60.0 bike miles + 37.20 outdoor foot miles + 6.00 indoor foot miles + 0 kayak miles

total miles: 103.20 miles

January mileage:
1 treadmill workout + 5 hikes + 1 race + 3 trail runs + 2 outside walks + 2 bike workouts + 0 kayak outings = 44.12 miles

52 hike challenge: 5 hikes

365 mile challenge:  20.0 bike miles + 22.62 outdoor foot miles + 1.50 indoor foot miles + 0 kayak miles

total miles: 44.12 miles

Weekly Mileage #153 and the Race I Didn't Run

Monday I went for a trail run and hike in the morning, then I finished off a journal order that I dropped off at the post office after speech therapy. My toe is feeling a lot better, but there's still room for improvement. It doesn't hurt when I run, but the joint is sore afterwards. I still don't have complete mobility on it either: I can't bend it all the way just yet.

Monday evening as Sunshine and I went to Scouts, we passed Jeremy's brother in the driveway on our way out. He's moving out east and stopped by our house for a bit more than a day on his way to his new location. They had lots of fun hanging out and playing video games.

working on the first aid merit badge

We lost a chicken Tuesday. We got back from Sunshine's orthodontist appointment and I was looking out the window at the chicken pen, and it looked like several of them wanted out of the big run and into the smaller run, but couldn't find a way in. I sent River out to check on them and he came in crying. He thought I'd be mad at him because one of the chickens was dead. I wasn't mad, but we did have a discussion about why it's important to be careful when taking care of the chickens.

From what I can tell, it looked like an aerial predator got her, but the rest of them couldn't get into the smaller run and coop because the gate had closed (he's supposed to latch it open). Once he opened the gate, the survivors all ran and hid in the coop. I'm guessing we won't be getting many eggs for awhile.... I had hoped that the bushes in the large run would provide enough cover for them, but since I found the dead chicken under the largest bush, that's clearly not the case. So now I'm going to have to string chicken wire or something across the top of the larger run. Though I'm wondering if a little lean-to inside the big pen might provide enough protection?

Wednesday the poor girls hid inside the coop all day. I did 20 super easy spin miles on my bike.

On Thursday I noticed that the girls ventured outside when the boys were jumping on the trampoline, which is right next to the coop. Once the boys moved on to another activity, the girls went back inside. Smart chickens! I also walked 1.5 miles on the treadmill.

We finally signed our final paperwork on the refinance. It only took 4 months to get to this point. Despite how long it took to get to that point, the signing itself was a much easier process than when we bought the house. Back then I had to sign everything, including Jeremy's side of things, which involved the phrase "under power of attorney" or something similar every time I signed something for him. That was tedious. This time was still tedious, but at least I only had to sign my side of things.

Friday the girls finally started venturing outside on their own. I also finally caught up on posts on this site.

For the past month I've waffled about doing the 5k on Saturday (this one that I've done before), but my energy levels have been a lot lower than I'd like and between that and my foot, I have not been able to get my mileage base where I'd like it. I thought about doing the race anyway, which I've done many times, but I want to be better trained and in better shape so I don't spend the next day and a half recovering, so I'm holding off.

Since I didn't do the race, I decided to go for a short trail run, and I took River with me. This was his first time trail running and he enjoyed it. Afterwards we bought some new clothes (he keeps growing out of everything), stopped by PetsMart to look at the animals, and then he got some ice cream. I do Scout stuff with Sunshine, take Ocean to speech and preschool (and sometimes hiking or errands), and River and I run races. Since we don't run races very often, I decided he and I needed a little more regular one-on-one time.

Weekly Mileage
Monday- 1.50 mile trail run
Monday- 2.30 mile hike
Wednesday- 20.0 mile bike ride
Thursday- 1.50 treadmill walk
Saturday- 1.20 trail run
total- 26.50 miles

2020 totals

9 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
0 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

37.20 outdoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
6.00 indoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
60.0 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
103.20 miles total