Bits and Pieces

On Friday at Goodwill, Addra and I went down the aisle with the big plastic mixing bowls and such. She pointed to one and said, “This would be a good bowl for me to throw up in.” Clearly this has been a big part of our lives lately. That night when I retold the story to Brice, she changed her story to “I am finding a good bowl for me to throw up in.”

Coriel said she wanted to do the PMP like Brice (see below for more about the PMP), and he said she could plan a budget and a schedule and determine the scope and then she’d be ready to communicate. She then got up off her chair and started jumping around, adding, “And I’ll do my ninja skills!”

On Saturday, Brice took the project management professional (PMP) exam, a big certification test that lasts four hours and is full of awesome jargon like “schedule baseline” and “Delphi technique” and “risk register.” He passed and is now a certified project management professional. Because he is shiny and fully of the niftiness. 

Also, Brice got released as executive secretary in our ward and called as second counselor in the Young Men’s.

My only news for me is that I am massively behind on my writing deadlines. To which I can only say “flark.”

And now for a random link about silly punctuation mark ideas. And I say we totally need the andorpersand. Seriously. No, really seriously, like with a sinceriod.

Here’s to another week!

Seven-League Boots

Here I am, shamelessly promoting my other blog and the random excerpt I posted there today.

Conversation Overheard

Scene: Coriel and Addra’s room. The floor is scattered with toys. As usual. A spray bottle of water, several hairbands, and a comb sit on the floor beside me. I am sitting behind Coriel, frequently reminding her to hold her head still long enough for me to give her a fancy hairdo. She is having an increasingly frustrated conversation. It went something like this.

CORIEL: You need to hold still.

HER FINGERS: Why?

CORIEL: So Mommy doesn’t pull our hair.

HER FINGERS: Why?

CORIEL: Because she’s giving us a fancy hairdo.

HER FINGERS: Why?

CORIEL: [irritation obvious in her tone of voice] So that we can look fancy.

HER FINGERS: [oblivious to Coriel’s annoyance] Why?

CORIEL: [more impatient] Because we’re getting ready for church.

HER FINGERS: Why?

CORIEL: So we can go to church!

HER FINGERS: Why?

CORIEL: [after a brief pause, and in a completely calm tone of voice] I don’t know.

ME: [finally unable to contain my laughter] Coriel, you are so adorable.

CORIEL: No, I’m not adorable! My fingers are adorable!

Run, run, as fast as you can

Not sure if we've blogged about it, but I've done a few practice sprint triathlons at the gym. Here's how it works:

• Swim 750 meters (our gym has a 25 meter pool, so I do 30 lengths. I usually just count the laps, so it's 15 times touching the same end of the pool).
• Get out, towel dry as quick as possible, toss on clothes, then hop on a stationary bike. 
• Bike 12.5 miles. I usually try to add a little resistance (not too much b/c I'm not a powerful biker). 
• Go over to the treadmill and run 3.1 miles. I add a percent or two incline to simulate wind resistance on a flat trail. 

I've done three or four of these with times all around an hour and a half (plus or minus 10 minutes or so). My fastest section is swimming, then biking (which was a surprise), then running. This last time I did mine in reverse order, which is kind of cheating since getting ready to swim is easier than drying off after swimming.

• Treadmill: 40 minutes. The first part was walking to warm up my legs, which didn't actually help that much. I've been getting significant shin splints when running recently - annoying! 
• Biking: 25 minutes. I actually have no idea how accurate the distance tracking is on the bikes I use, but I generally try to keep my RPMs up over 100/105. So I'm using a pretty easy gear. 
• Transition time: 8 minutes. That included resting and drinking water as well as changing 
• Swimming: 14.2 minutes. 52, 54, 55, 56, 59, 56, 57, 58, 55, 60, 56, 57, 60, 59, 57 (seconds per 50 meters). This was the part I was happiest with, since I was able to not go over 2 minutes in any 100 meter length, which was a first for me. 

My next goals are to:

• Get my run time under 25 minutes (8 minute miles instead of 12+). It may be time for some new shoes to help with the shins, since my current ones are pretty beat up. 
• Add some harder gears (fake hills) to the bike portion 
• Eventually add some hills to my run portion. 
• Actually go run a real one instead of in the gym. This would require having a bike. Hmm.

It occurs to me that if other people want to participate we could each go to our own gyms on the same day and have a virtual triathlon together. If anyone is interested, let me know. It would be good motivation. 

Afternoon Tea

Fancy date! (This time with me and Brice!!) Brice and I got to go out to afternoon tea a couple weeks back, and it was fancy dancy. You get to pick your tea, and it comes out in little individual teapots. And… it looks like stuff. You know, like real stuff. Orange peel and rose hips and all sorts of cool jazz, all loose in the little tea sifter-y thingie (you can tell I’m really knowledgeable about tea accoutrements). I was excited to post a link to the tea I got (herbal, of course, called “rainbow herbal tea”), but the restaurant’s menu doesn’t list the herbals. Lame. And then there was this three-tiered tray with little sandwiches and tarts and pastries and all sorts of goodness. It was very fun and very fancy. (Very expensive, too, except that we got a groupon, which made it much cheaper.)

In case you were wondering, we did indeed sip with our pinkies out.

Edible Face Mask

If you haven’t already noticed a leaning toward “fancy” around our house, then… well, I don’t have a “then.” But by now it should be obvious that Coriel particularly likes doing fancy things. The latest was a need for trying out face masks. So I asked my awesome sister who’s all about natural stuff for a recipe for a good face mask for little girls.

Here’s the one she gave me that we tried:

Strawberry Oatmeal Facial Mask*

• 3 Tbsp whole, organic oats
• 3 strawberries
• 1-1/2 Tbsp full-fat, unsweetened yogurt or sour cream
• 1 Tbsp honey

Place your oats in a small food processor or blender and turn it on, letting it run until the oats have turned into a fine powder. Then, add in the other ingredients and continue to blend until you have a thick paste. Apply half of this paste to your clean face and then eat the other half. Leave the mask on for 15-20 minutes, and then rinse well with warm water, scrubbing the mask off gently with a washcloth.

This mask should be used immediately upon making it, and will not keep more than 2 days in the refrigerator.

And the results? The girls didn’t like eating it, and Brice and I thought it was okay but nothing amazing. Coriel had fun getting it slathered on, but after a few minute she wanted it washed off again (which was what I expected). I found it quite cool and refreshing. Brice was a super good sport and did a “manly” look for his. Addra would barely touch the stuff.

Such fun! And even if it didn’t last very long and was super sticky/messy, it was definitely a big hooray!

*From a site called crunchybetty.com

 

Had to do cucumbers to get the full effect.

What could be more manly than warpaint and a monocle? Nothing.