When it rains, it pours (onto my husband at 4 in the morning)

We got the first good rain in months very early this morning. All in all, that is a wonderful thing, except for the fact that we have a damned roof leak that the three different fixer-folks we have called out have failed to fix. A water stain on the ceiling does not try my patience nearly as much as the water dripping on Derek this morning did. Why is this so difficult?

So after the non-fixes by Kirstan, Chimney Dude, and Susie's boss, I called the roofers we use here at work for our buildings. No deal -they don't repair unless it is a roof that they installed. I hate to just call someone out of the yellow pages, but my list of trusted repair-people has been exhausted, and you can see where that trust has gotten us - an ineffective job by two companies and one that the third company refused to complete, even though they at least think they know what is wrong...

So much for customer service.

Vacation Photos

We now have our vacation photos posted to the Flickr site. To see them, click here.

I think I may go out and get a reflective vest. I am going to sit and think on it a while to determine if it is overkill. I have reflective stripes on my shoes, a reflective armband that I carry my ID and key in, and a blinky LED that I wear on my iPod armband.

This morning, somebody wasn't paying attention and very nearly ran me down. He was speeding and turned in to the wrong lane. He was being lazy - it was 6 in the morning and dark. He just didn't expect anyone to be there, I am sure. I was less than 10 feet away from the sidewalk on the left side of the street. He stopped 3 feet short of me and I had nowhere to go. He was in the wrong, clearly, but when you're roadkill, it doesn't really matter who was right.

What scared me was that I wasn't as visible as I could have been. Todd the iPod wasn't with me so I didn't have my flashy LED. Instead of a white t-shirt, I was wearing grey. My shorts have white stripes down the side, but the shirt sleeve was covering up the reflective armband.

Am I overreacting by adding more to what I am already doing? Maybe if I go back to white shirts only and make sure that all of my other precautions are in place...

At least if he had smooshed me, I had my ID and they would have known who I was and who to call...

We're back from vacation, and hopefully back into the routine. Ethan tolerated the travel and time away pretty well, although he was fussy the last couple of days there. I think he was suffering from a lack of sleep, as he perked up after a full day and night of sleep on the way home. I wouldn't sleep well in a pack-and-play either, even if I was that small. We saw dolphins, walked on the beach, swam, visited with family, and had a great relaxing time. It is good to be back home to our bed and the lonely cats.

Ethan now has his second tooth and does a couple of new tricks. He plays peekaboo by himself now and will also make a kissyface. He doesn't always do them on demand, but he clearly does them intentionally. Too cute.

Running just didn't happen while we were gone. The beach wasn't runnable, and I was just plain lazy. We were active every day - walking, swimming, exploring the area, just no running. I should still be fine for the half mary in October. Long runs start back up this weekend. In the meantime, I have made the mental switch from running to eat to eating to run. It is the state of mind I have been trying to get to for months!

Pics to come once we get them moved around and consolidated.

Cute Ethan pic of the day - this is him in the hat that his oldest cousin Brian got him in Boston last month. Not only is it cute, it is apparently tasty too. He has learned to take it off to chew on it.

Today's run was a failure - I completed 1.5 of 5.25 miles planned, and then the legs just gave up on me. I'll make it up on the beach Sat and/or Sun. Tomorrow I have my long(ish) run of 7 miles planned for before we leave.

I am now in week 2 of training for the louisville half marathon. I am still poky, but I am also looking at my second week in a row of 20+ miles. That is very good news for me. I feel better in so many ways when I am over that bump. Since we're leaving Friday morning on vacation, that means that I am squeezing 17 of those miles into 3 consecutive days, but I figure it will be worth it for 2 reasons. First, hell- it is vacation! Second, I'll be running on the beach next week, hopefully at sunrise if the tide allows, so a little PITA now will be repaid by the candy runs next week.

I am looking forward to taking Ethan to the beach. Seeing his cousin Jonah's (that is Jonah in the pic above with Ethan) beach pics from last month makes me feel pretty confident that he won't eat too much sand or get too crispy burned. He travels well, and will have 2 of us there to trade him off as needed, so it will be a good vacation. His second tooth has been struggling to come in. It has been this big grody and painful looking blood blister for a couple weeks.

We took him to the zoo last Friday and he had a good time. He didn't notice the non-human critters there, but really loved watching all of the kids. he really loved the cement turtle, as you can see.

It has been over a year since I did my last half mary. I think I am ready to train for another one. There are 8 weeks or so between now and the 21st of October. All I have to do is add back my weekend long run to my existing running schedule. I can do this.

Maybe next year I'll do the full...

Here are some of the photos we're sending to Ethan's birthmother this month. I would like to point out the copious amount of drool on the exersaucer picture and note that Rosie's eyes are actually green and not demonic red. The red eye repair function doesn't work on cats. It also, incidentally, doesn't work very well on Ethan's deep brown eyes either. That is another story altogether.

Ethan is 5 months old today. I am amazed by how much his personality has come out in the past month or so. He is a happy, and giggly and busy all the time. I put together pics to send to his birthmother last night, as we do every month, and will try and remember to post some new ones in the next day or so.

Last night Mr. UPS dropped off the new running shoes that I ordered from shoes.com. Their warehouse is in Louisville. I was going to have them shipped to work, but that would mean that they would charge sales tax, so to save 6 bucks, I had them shipped home instead. Interestingly, the package was sent from Louisville to Indianapolis, and then back down south to Jeffersonville. Distribution logistics are tough to understand.

Either way, it is great to:
a)run in new shoes
b)have decent looking regular tennies now (my former running shoes)
c)demote my former regular tennies to yardwork shoes (the pair before that)
d)pitch my falling apart crappy yardwork shoes (three pairs removed)

Being a runner is complicated.

Aargh!

I finished coursework for the MSSF degree in May. I still haven't received my degree in the mail. I e-mailed the department in June and she said to wait another month. I e-mailed the department yesterday and received a reply back this morning that says that the registrar deals with this, not the MBA/MSSF department.

This morning, I called the registrar's office. There is no notation in my transcript that I have been awarded the degree. She said I should talk to the department. I told her the department told me to talk to her. In that case, she said, the person I needed to talk to was away at a doctor appointment. I was promised a call-back this afternoon.

In the meantime, the registrar person called the department person and determined that they did not have an application for graduation on file. I called the MBA/MSSF person and told her that we had e-mailed about my graduation application on 1/29/07. She found a copy of the e-mail. Sometimes it is good to be anal about keeping e-mails. She will research and call me back soon.

Everyone I have spoken to has been kind, helpful and gracious. I am frustrated, but remaining patient. I have 2 e-mails from 2 heads of the department saying that my course schedule would indeed fulfill the requirements for the degree. Now I just have to wait.

Guess who got his first official tooth Friday! I don't have any pics yet, but it looks like the next-door tooth will be coming in within days as well. He isn't sharp yet, so I continue to let him gnaw on my jawbone as he loves to do.

I am amazed at how much solid food Ethan eats. He will eat a whole container of baby food in addition to 2 oz. of formula blended in with rice. He seems to have enjoyed every food he has tried so far, even the grody ones like peas and carrots. He is even getting the hang of opening his mouth for the spoon. No shoving and prying is required.

Every day for the past week, I have expected to find Ethan sporting a new tooth or teeth, but we're still not there yet. He has the low grade fever, the slobbering, the swollen gums, the fussiness - all the classic symptoms. You can see where they're just straining against his little gums, but they have yet to poke through. Last night, he was bleeding a little bit from one side and you could see where the gum had split a little, but still there was no telltale white poking through. This morning, that side was actually less swollen that the next-door tooth-to-be. I feel bad for the poor little guy - I hope he can get it over with soon so his little mouth won't be so sore...

Here are some of the latest pics of Ethan. His hair issues seem to have been fixed - we have had pretty good luck with hemp oil. It takes away the frizz but still leaves it soft and not greasy.

I can't believe how much he has changed over the last few weeks. He's such a grown-up boy in his exersaucer, and he is really doing a great job of eating solids.

There is a 5 mile race on Saturday morning at 8:00AM near where we'll be staying for vacation. I can't find much information on it online, other than to see last year's results. With my poky post-vertigo speeds, and if this year's race mimics last year's, I would likely be in the last 10 people (of about 75) to finish. Plus, will I really want to run a race after being in the car so long the day before. Then again, I know I am slow and am ok with that. A race on vacation would sure be fun...

Much pondering will occur between now and then...

Hooray! I got my lazy hind-end out of bed this morning for a full 5.25 mile run. I feel pretty good, considering that it was (and is) stupid-crazy-hot-humid outside. It was a tough one, but it felt like an accomplishment when I was finished. Now I need to figure out if my headache is due to dehydration or just getting up too durn early. Nudge me if you see me falling asleep at my desk.

We're officially booked for a condo at Oak Island, NC next month. We wanted to combine a trip to the in-laws with an actual vacation so we could eliminate feeling guilty, and yet have a little relaxation as well. I think that this will take care of both of those. A trip that is 12 hours each way normally will be much longer with little dude, so we are planning on taking our time getting there. Damn - now I have to get into swimsuit shape before we go.

And I finally finished Harry Potter Saturday night/Sunday morning. Whew!

Have you ever just had one of those days where you're down for no reason? Today was one of those days. I felt tired, unmotivated and sluggish. when I get in these moods I have a terrible time concentrating long enough to get things done.

I tried making a list and going through the line items. Didn't work.

I tried rationalizing; talking myself out of the funk. Failed again.

Then I pulled out my wild card - the mood cure-all that trumps my Papaw's CamphoPhenique or Grandma's CortAid. It worked. Here it is:







I feel better now. Do you?

Vacation

I think we're planning a vacation in September. Derek and I are big fans of travel and have gone lots of places together, but other than a trip to Ohio last month, and one to eastern KY in May, (which don't really count because they were to see family and there were no overnight stays)we haven't gone any substantial trips since Ethan was born. As a matter of fact, the last time we stayed in a hotel was at the hospital when he was born.

So I've got the itch but don't know what sounds appealing. Anywhere we want to go is going to require a fair amount of driving, and with little man is going to take longer than it used to. We're going to have to do some research to see what is within a reasonable distance.

So how do you decide?

Stay in the great house in the great neighborhood or move to the ok house on the amazing parcel of land?

The 'burbs or the rural area?

Deal with the hassle of moving or stay where we're settled?

Spend $$ on fixing up the new-to-us old house or on the higher mortgage of the old-to-us newer house?

What suits us better? Quirky character or trendy newness?

There are a lot of unknowns and a lot of variables. I think we are going to leave it up to fate - if it happens, we'll be off on a new, semi-scary adventure, if it doesn't, we'll still be content. Either way, we can't lose.

The Cereal Adventure

Solid foods already! I can't believe how grown up he is. Here is Ethan's first adventure into eating like a big boy, complete with totally dorky "mommentary".

Infertility and Adoption

Before we adopted Ethan, I put a lot of effort into thinking and worrying about our infertility journey. It was always out there - something that made up a big part of who I was. An unaccomplished goal combined with a desperate fear that I wouldn't be able to carry/give birth to/breastfeed a child. Now that Ethan is ours and real and tangible, it is so completely different. I don't pine for those things that I spent so much time and energy wishing for. I really don't feel like I missed out, perhaps because I was able to closely observe so many pregnancies through other people. Instead, I am glad for the time I spent waiting and wanting because it has made the *now* seem so much better. I am glad that we had the trouble we did - if we hadn't, I wouldn't have Ethan, and he is as much mine as any child that I would have given birth to. Our agency has a saying that "you will get the child you were meant to raise". When we were in the pre-adoption classes, I dismissed it as hokey, but now I believe it with all my heart.