Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Sweeties

IMG_0054bI have taken to referring to Ellie as my little sweetie and Kathy as my big sweetie.

Kathy decided that she is medium sweetie and I am big sweetie. It’s a little weird to call myself big sweetie so I am sticking with her as the big sweetie.

I know—mushy right?

Thursday, January 6, 2011

New Beginnings

A lot has happened since our last post. We celebrated Christmas. We entered a new year. I signed up for photography classes and gave up my wisdom teeth. Kathy joined me in my running ventures.

Christmas was on a Saturday this year, which lead to a short, full weekend.  We spent a little bit of time with both families. Pretty much the entire weekend we had a tea light burning for Eleanor.  The little light reminded us of her and gave her a presence that would have been completely missing otherwise.

We miss her dearly.

After a second short week, we went up to Grand Rapids for an indoor Ultimate tournament.  We have finished off the year at this tournament for the past 3 years or so.  Fun was had and no one got seriously injured.  Kathy and I were both pretty tired by the time we got home so we stayed at home and watched a movie. I think we remembered to smooch at midnight.

This week, I finally got my wisdom teeth taken out.  For the past couple years, my dentist has been telling me I have a cavity on one and I should get it removed (and while you’re at it get them all out). I finally decided I needed to schedule it and get it done or I would keep putting it off. 

They are now out and I am doing fine.  Still taking pain killers, but have not had any major pain yet.  I’m thankful.

Next week, I start taking photography classes at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh—online.  For now I am only taking one class per session, but I hope to expand on this and continue to grow as a photographer. I’m sure you’ll hear (and see!) more as time goes on.

Kathy started running with me! It used to be that we would go over to the Rec-Fit and she would work on a machine for half an hour or so and then run a few laps, maybe up to a mile. Well, she caught the running bug and now she comes over and does the whole run with me. She ran 5 miles on Sunday—her longest run ever. And followed that up with 6 miles on Monday!

We have also been talking and reading about running quite a bit. We’ve both changed our gait, and Kathy is determined to “run like a robot” which a friend recently informed us is his goal. I have been counting my stride rate and trying to get up to 180 steps per minute. I used to be between 150 and 160 so adding 20 more steps per minute is quite a challenge.

I’ll leave you with this song that a friend recently shared: