Drops of Awesome

Personal Blog of Author Kathryn Thompson

About Me

Speed Walking Glory

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Best Parade EverDan supervised the kiddie festivities with mildly-annoyed resignation while I walked a 5K in the mud behind some of my running girlfriends. My joints are fairly bad and I once had a physical therapist tell me not to become a runner so I use that as an excuse to walk races with dignity. And I was chock full of dignity on Saturday, speed-walking along the gravel trail past the cows with my stretch pants rolled up to mid-calf to keep them out of the mud.

My original goal was to complete the 3 miles in less than an hour. By the time I finished my only goal was to not let the old lady with the cane cross the finish line before I did. She kept passing me as we walked along the trail and at first it stressed me out. Eventually I just had to face the fact that I was an amazing speed walking athlete and that if an old lady with a cane could pass me like that, then she was the freaking awesomest old lady with a cane who ever lived and thusly a worthy opponent. She was my nemesis and I could not let her win.

Mud EverywhereSo towards the end of the race I ran a bit until I was a safe distance ahead of her and then crossed the finish line with a time of 1 hour and 30 seconds. I was glad to beat my arch rival but a little frustrated that I couldn’t walk 3 miles in under an hour. And then I saw a friendly face at the sidelines so I walked over to chat. After a few minutes went by, someone mentioned that although I had crossed the finish line, my place in the race wouldn’t be recorded until I walked another hundred yards and turned in my number. So yeah. Several people had passed me at that point, including the OLWAC, who was probably laughing to herself knowing that our epic struggle had ended and she had gotten her revenge.

But at least I got a free t-shirt… and a free banana… and some free water… all included in the $25 entrance fee. And I found out later that the clock at the finish line had been set to time a race that had started 15 minutes earlier so I’d actually walked the run in about 45 minutes, smashing my original goal to tiny shards of glory.
Nancy Likes Bananas

Idyllic and Over

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I want to write about our mind-popping trip to Disneyland, really I do. Much to share, there is. But now I’m back and there’s life and I’d rather write about what we’re doing now but I feel pressure to blog the big D so instead I blog nothing. And that’s just wrong.

Today was as near perfect as a day can be… in my world… with the life I have… with these children I own. Dan and I sat down this weekend and listed out a bunch of goals. We basically wrote down the things we would be doing in our ideal life and chose several of them to focus on for a whole month. They include things like consistent bed and wake up times, scheduled family dinner, exercise, meaningful prayer and scripture study and more dateage and schmoopage.

So for two days we’ve stuck to our plans and despite a plague that’s ravaging Dan’s delicate software-engineering body, we feel great. I’ve had healthy attractive dinner on the table at the same time for two nights in a ROW! I even used several of the herbs and vegetables disguised as weeds that I received from my CSA in tonight’s dinner.

I’ve been excited to support local agriculture and broaden my horizons but a little afraid of the bag of early spring greens I’ve been getting each week. I thought I had a wide veggie repertoire but it did not include chervil, lovage (Dan says he’s a big fan of my “lovage”), lemon verbena, nasturtium, new varieties of kale complete with little yellow flowers, leeks, silver thyme, mountains of rhubarb. Don’t get me wrong, I can make a super-rad rhubarb pie or crumble, especially if organic strawberries are on sale, but there’s still the question of what to do with the other 10 lbs. Suggestions?
veggies
Tonight I made a salad from the lettuce mix in this week’s bag, chopped chervil, verbena, sorrel (looks like spinach, tastes like lemons), mushrooms and yellow tomatoes. To this I added salmon marinated in olive oil, soy sauce, fresh oregano, chives, verbena and lovage with brown rice and steamed carrots. It was delicious and 3 weeks into the CSA I’m finally getting more comfortable experimenting with all these new foods.

This weekend I made an omelet with sauteed lovage stalk and sun-dried tomatoes and garlic in red pepper oil because I happened to have those things from the farm and they were yummers. Who knew?

I woke up before the kids this morning and read scriptures while I waited for them to pounce. Then we had oatmeal and fresh cantaloupe for breakfast. We read several stories and then walked to the park to meet some friends. Magoo rode his new scooter and when we passed a jogger, he jumped off, lifted it in the air towards her and shouted, “I GOT A SCOOTER!”

“Wow. I can see that.”

“And it’s BLUE and I saw a BUG!”

“Really? A bug?”

“Yessir!” he called to the nice lady.

And we walked another 3 feet until he saw ANOTHER BUG!! The bugs were plentiful and we paid our respects to each and every one. No one was maimed or park-napped. Everyone waited for mom before crossing the busy roads. No one even asked me to push them on the swings! When it was time to leave, I told them we had to go and they CAME WITH ME, no questions asked.

We went to Target and Costco where we got decent, if not super-hero-worthy, parking spots. I stayed close to budget. There were free Haagen Dazs ice cream bar bits at one of the sample tables.

After coming home, we headed to the farmer’s market where we bought tomatoes, more herb starts and a loaf of fresh-baked apple cinnamon bread.

My neighbors came over to play.

The sun shone.

My kitchen remained clean.

My new washer was shiny and it washed things.

I weeded my garden and no mosquitoes bit me.

The Bambi deer stopped by and left my garden untouched in their beneficence.
bambi

Dan asked me if I might like to watch Corner Gas later even though he’s not orignally from my motherland.

We had healthy dinner in which the children ate green things without much coercion.

There was no TV and no video games today and no requests for them.

My dining room floor smells like peppermint.

Today is the opposite of that one other day.

SUN!!!

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Thank you all for your comfort, ideas and cyber hugs yesterday. It’s amazing what good a little time, sleep, perspective and chocolate chip cookie dough will do. I got a recommendation from my doctor for another naturopath she trusts and I’ll just cross my fingers, prepare to delve into the details of my personal and medical history and try again.

I’m worried about Laylee’s hearing, even more so because in the past couple of months she’s become obsessed with sign language. I thought it was really cute until yesterday when the initial hearing tests showed a problem. My mind is prone to spiral out of control with “what ifs”.

What if she loves sign language so much because she’s in the beginning stages of a profound degenerative hearing loss?

I loved sign language as a teenager and always had a feeling it was because I’d someday have a deaf child? What if Laylee’s becoming that child?

What if I never lose the baby weight from Magoo?

What if American Idol ends up in a tie between the two Davids?

I could go on like this forever. I am truly much more calm today and much more in touch with reality. It just seems like the more things that go wrong, the more things seem wrong and you start to notice problems where they don’t exist.

But truly this bad weather does exist. It has existed for far too long, even for Seattle. I’m starting to think that this global warming stuff is all a lie and that living more green is plunging my family into the depths of eternal drizzleish winter.

I’m seriously tempted to turn on every light and appliance in the house, go through the McDonald’s drivethrough in a Hummer, kill a few slugs and spiders with acid, slather my arms with paraben-full lotion, hire a few slave children to help me flush a couple hundred rolls of bleached toilet paper made from ancient Amazon rainforests down my high flow toilet, feed chili beans to some cows and dump a chemistry set over the fields of my nearest organic hemp farm.

If green stops the warming, then I’m gonna live black or red or whatever’s the opposite of green for a while. OH SUN, WHERE ART THOU!!???

**Megan, Jenny, All Adither, Isabel, and Renae have all promised me sun tomorrow. If it rains, I’m burning their blogs to the ground and dancing amidst the flames.**

Mobile Medicine

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I’m a little glum today folks. Okay. A lot glum. Wallow with me for a moment before we get back to our regularly scheduled programming. Magoo turns 3 this summer. He’s a big fat ball of toddleric cuteness and I want more.

I’ve been wanting another baby for years now and have been pushing against obstacle after obstacle to having another healthy pregnancy. My most recent and hopefully last hurdle has been working on getting my body and brain to a place where I can survive postpartum without losing my marbles.

My post partum specialist has been amazing at treating my symptoms and I’ve gone from doctor to doctor looking for someone who could find the root of what went wrong and fix it before next time. I finally found a great naturopath who I’m happy and comfortable with and she’s run a bunch of tests and we’re working on a plan to get me up and running.

It’s the first time in my adult life that I’ve had a general practitioner I’m happy with and we’ve been making good progress towards my goals.

This morning I went in to see her and she told me she’s moving to another city a few hours away. I am crushed, frustrated, sad and discouraged. I cried off and on all day. I don’t want to start meeting doctors again. I don’t want to have to tell one more person all the hairy details of my medical history. I just want to keep progressing.

Then I took Laylee in for her 5-year-old check up and the doctor’s test confirmed what I’ve been fearing. She appears to have some level of hearing damage from the repeated ear infections. My baby could be hard of hearing and we’re off to a specialist to find out more.

Magoo filled his pants as soon as we entered the exam room and I’d forgotten a diaper.

Laylee screamed like the dying when they gave her the first immunization shot. They then proceeded to give her 3 more. By the time they finished we were both crying.

I’m just tired and whiny and my foot still hurts.

My kids filled the entire house with packing peanuts and then danced them into the carpet.

It appears that it may never stop raining again.

Lost and Found

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lost-and-foundI’ve officially decided that I have too many purses. Remember the priceless family heirlooms I allegedly tossed in the landfill a couple of weeks ago? Well it turns out that they were in the zipper pouch of the OTHER purse I took on vacation and not the one I cleaned out. So Dan and I are still officially married and I feel officially sheepish and very grateful.

I usually pray when I lose something and 9 times out of 10 I find it right away. This time however I was too sure that the rings were gone forever to bother praying for help. I just accepted my ringless fate. Possibly there was a part of me that was hoping to cash in on Scout’s suggestion to add a few carats here or there when we replaced the set… for comfort.

But they’re back and I have a renewed love for them.

This color is radIn other news, my 20-year-old dryer that’s painted a color which indicates that it’s impossible to find replacement parts for it, finally bit the big one. Dan performed an autopsy this weekend and it looks like one of the thingies is snorgled and there’s no recovering.

Luckily the drying racks I ordered weeks ago showed up in the mail within 5 minutes of me discovering that the dryer had surrendered to the sopping towels in its belly. I guess I’ll be finding out what it’s like to line dry for REAL over the next couple of weeks as we research various dryers. Anyone in love with theirs? Any good recommendations?
it's too rainy here to dry them outside

My Favorite Husband — Mother’s Day Edition

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And the award for My Favorite Husband Mother’s Day 2008 goes to… SLASH THOMPSON!!!!
We ROCK and stuff
This is a picture of us dressed up to play Rock Band this weekend with some crazy friends. Dan went all out with the nose ring and wig this time. He even painted on a gold tooth. No one can ever say that man’s not fly because he is.

Not only is he fly but he’s also the recipient of the MFHMD2008 award and I will tell you why. This year for Mother’s Day Dan asked me for a few gift ideas. I typed out a wish list, complete with links to websites, and then gave it to him way too late for him to order anything on the list in time for Mother’s Day. So he improvised.

I’m trying to consume less after following one of my reader’s advice to watch this video. When I do need something, I’ve been trying to buy more things second hand or from companies that follow fair trade practices.

On my wish list I’d asked for a fairly-made recycled glass pitcher, glass because it’s free of the toxins commonly found in plastic. (Yes I’m being assimilated by the granola-ites.)

Pitcher PerfectSo Dan took the kids to a giant antique shop where he spent over an hour walking them through the entire maze of breakable treasures looking for the exact right pitcher for me. He said he passed up several along the way, wanting to make sure he found one he knew I’d like. Be still my heart, it’s perfect! “Recycled” in the truest sense of the word, BPA-free and lovely. He couldn’t get me exactly what I wanted in time for Mother’s Day so he paid attention to the REASONS behind what I was asking for and got me something better.

At the store he let Laylee pick through every piece of jewelry she could find, advising her on my tastes. “Yes that IS pretty, but mom doesn’t really like to wear heart-shaped jewelry.” Heaven bless him for guiding her to a pretty bracelet I will actually WEAR! On the way home from the antique shop, they stopped for flowers.

I slept in late this morning and woke to find Laylee had created an avalanche of drawings for me, all on the theme of love, moms, mudders and LOVE. Dan made scrambled eggs with extra cheese.

From Magoo I got new non-slip potholders that match my KitchenAid perfectly and to top it off, I was presented with the final season of the West Wing so I can discover again whether Matt Santos, Latino for President, beats Allen Alda to become the next leader of these United States in Imaginary Political World Where I’m a Staunch Democrat.

And they were nice to me all day. And they made me breakfast. And I got to eat off the special plate. And Magoo magically fell asleep in the car on the way home from church and let me carry him inside and rock him like a baby for the better part of an hour, something he hasn’t let me do for months. It was a great day to be a mom and a great day to be married to Dan. How was your Mother’s Day? Was it a great day to be married to Dan for you too?

Holy Cherubic Pudge!

That’s NOT Yoga!

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I was trying out some yoga for beginners in the family room this morning when Magoo walked in.

Magoo: What? Are? Youdoing?
Me: Yoga. It’s a special kind of exercise.
Magoo: That’s not ECKK-ERCIZE!!!! That’s SITTING!

Maybe I should go to a class.

We Don’t Put Meat in Our Pockets

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Last week I found myself having the following conversation with Magoo:

meat-in-his-pocketMe: NO. We don’t put meat in our pockets!
Magoo: Oh. Hmm. We don’t put meat at our pock-ets?
Me: NO. Meat only goes in our mouths or on our plates.
Magoo [still holding the lunch meat an inch from his jeans]: I can save it?
Me: Not in your pocket.
Magoo: Okay.

Sometimes we SMELL like we put meat in our pockets… or onions… or rubbed onions under our arms. Those are the days that we return our natural deodorant to Whole Foods for a refund because if we’re gonna spend $5 for a quality aluminum-free deodorant, we’re gonna be sure we don’t stink.

I handed the deodorant to the man at the service desk yesterday and told him I was returning it because it didn’t work. He asked me if it had been opened.

“Yes,” I said slowly, “I did open it. I even put it on. After a couple of days I started putting it on twice a day. No luck.”

He gave me a funny look.

“My friends and acquaintances would all appreciate it if you’d give me a refund so I could find something that works.”

I will never feel embarrassed returning an unwanted Pyrex dish to Target again.