The cheapskate marathon

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I admit, I am a bit of a cheapskate. I signed up for another marathon this week in order to save $10. But I have learned the lesson over time when to be a cheapskate and when not to. So saving $10 forced me to make a decision early, one that I was probably going to make anyway. So I decided to plan my whole race calendar for the year. I am planning on running a marathon in May, a 10k in June, my first tri in July, and ending the season with a half marathon in the fall.

The best thing about running a marathon in May is that I have the whole summer ahead of me to plant my boney carcass on the beach somewhere. Last year I gave up a lot of relaxation time to train for a marathon in the end of August. It will mean more long runs on a treadmill. Maybe I will have to tape pictures of myself bikini clad, beach bound with umbrella drinks to the treadmill for motivation! Hmm. Lol.

Then there was that one time when I learned that being a cheapskate is not the best move. One of the biggest lessons I learned is not to accept items from people who are cheaper than me. Items like an avocado green 1970’s model clothes dryer. When Paul and I got married, we had a little starter house that came without appliances. Paul’s mom and step-dad gave their old gas dryer to us which was very kind of them but didn’t work out too well for us. First of all, we didn’t have the hook ups in the house for a gas dryer. Paul’s step-dad had some old copper pipes that they ended up using to hook up a gas line for the dryer over a weekend.

This is probably the part where you want me to tell you that they screwed up the gas line and blew up that tiny starter house. Sorry, there wasn’t even a gas leak. The dryer itself was not in good working condition. First, I had to put the clothes in the dryer. Then I needed to manually start the dryer by putting my arm inside to get the drum rolling. Some times the process itself would twist my arm. The big kicker was that the darn thing didn’t even dry well. The hardest part of the whole process was that after all of the work that was done to install it, we had to say that we didn’t want it anymore. That was not an easy thing to say to my new in-laws.

So over time, part of the life learning process is when to be cheap and when you have to fork out the dough. I think I made the right decision about the marathon. Bring it on!

Wrestling with the school

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My son Alex used to be involved in almost every sport offered in the area, but not anymore. He started wrestling when he was in kindergarten. He was competitive, aggressive, and not afraid to get hurt. To be completely honest with you, I loved being a wrestling mom. I even loved getting up early on a Saturday morning to sit for hours in a loud stinky gym for those few minutes of anxious excitement. Most of the moms didn’t like the sport very much because they were afraid that their children would end up hurt. Most of the kids would leave the meets bumped and bruised and at almost every tournament someone would leave the gym on a stretcher.

The sport required a high tolerance of boredom and anxiety. I have seen almost everything over the 8 years that I was a wrestling mom. I have seen kids puking into garbage cans and heading back to the mat. Or more common, kids with bloody noses. Little kids running off crying after losing a match. Siblings would sit bored for hours playing their video games. Babies cried. Parents would coach from the sidelines losing their voices like they spent the night at a bar. I have seen kids worry over a couple of extra ounces when they were trying to make weight sucking on Jolly Ranchers and spitting into water bottles. I never liked that part. I have seen parents escorted out of the building for fighting with refs over calls. Some kids would win, others would lose. Pictures at the podium. Pins for your hat. Then we would pack it all up and head back home until the next weekend.

Alex was a B+ wrestler. When he was in 6th grade, he tried to make it to state. Only the first and second place in the weight bracket would make it to state. If I remember right, there were 8 kids in the weight bracket and Alex took third. However, another district had only one child in the weight bracket so they called Alex up to state. For the next two weeks before state, Alex wrestled twice as much and twice as hard. On the drive to state, Alex fell asleep and woke up with a kink in his neck. He pinched a nerve or pulled a muscle. We tried everything we could think of but Alex could not hold his head upright without extreme pain. We watched his teammates wrestle while Alex had to forfeit every game. We were so angry. He worked so hard. It was such a fluke thing that he made it to state and then he couldn’t even wrestle. So we resolved to do everything possible to help get Alex back to state the following year.

Alex went to summer wrestling camps and we signed him up for very intense wrestling training 2 months before the wrestling season started. This involved an extra expense and 2 hours of driving every time he went. He was very motivated and worked hard. He became an A- wrestler. In school, he was second in his weight class under an A wrestler. With all of the extra training, he could beat the A wrestler 1 out of 3 times. This is where things went incredibly wrong for him. He took on the alpha. This is a boy whose dad was a wrestler that graduated from that same school.  He was friends with a lot of other boys whose dads were wrestlers that graduated from the small town school. He got a lot of the other kids to turn against my son. A couple other kids were getting bullied as well. Some of the boys were being pushed around and had their wrestling shoes thrown in the toilet.  We talked to the coach, but he didn’t do anything.  One day my husband couldn’t take it anymore. He took Alex with him to confront the boys that were bullying him and to talk to their parents. Things got better for awhile.

Then a few weeks before trying to make state, my son came down with the flu. He missed a week of school and when he came back he didn’t wrestle as good. He still tried hard but then hurt his neck again in the same place as before. He spent a week in a lot of pain. He never made it back to state and quit wrestling altogether. Even though we tried to help him become a better wrestler, in hindsight I am not sure it was worth it. Being better jostled the system that was in place, the hierarchy. Since then my son has been ostracized from the jock group, he quit all sports, his grades dropped, and he has a negative attitude about school. He hangs out with other kids that aren’t accepted. Kids that have been known to steal things, do drugs, and run away from home.

My son begs us to take him to another school which has been tempting since he has two really good friends that stay out of trouble in the neighboring school district.  But would that teach him that he can run away from his problems? That he doesn’t need to change negative things about himself in order to get along with people better? Or would it give him a better attitude about learning and opportunities to grow socially and academically?

We have a lot to think about before the next school year.

Ending the holiday season

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I didn’t tell anybody this earlier, but I started the new year off on the wrong foot. We had a couple of friends over for New Year’s Eve. Everything went well and the last people left at 1:30 AM. Paul and I finally made our way to bed around 2. At 6 AM, a noise woke me up. Somewhere between 2 and 6 AM, our furnace went out. The house temp was under 50 degrees. We ended up having someone come out at the crack of dawn on new year’s day receiving holiday pay to fix it. It was a rough start. 

Today we took down our Christmas tree. I put all of the decorations back in the crawl space and dug out all of my old journals. I don’t know how quick I will go through them to be honest with you. I always have a rough time this time of year with the lack of sunlight. Even though I take massive doses of vitamin D, my thoughts and emotions tend to be dark. Just thinking about the past can bring me down on the sunniest of days….so this month might be light and fluffy like the winter snow. Talking about the winter snow, Paul and I were able to get out and cross country ski for the first time on the skis that we bought last winter. What a workout! Sure made me feel out of shape, especially since we saw a friend of ours there and he did two laps to our one. 

Yesterday I told you that we were going to one last Christmas party at my uncle’s who happens to be a clean freak. Well, I am embarassed to say that it was me this year that made a mess. That’s right. After being at the party for about a half an hour, I cracked open a bottle of beer. I took 3 sips and proceeded to spill most of the bottle everywhere. It went down my shirt with a majority of it landing on my pants and their off white carpet. I greeted relatives coming to the party looking like I peed my pants. My uncle said I could leave behind some money for the carpet cleaning. I am glad he was just kidding. Or was he? He didn’t freak out though like the story I heard of when my cousins accidently knocked over his fish tank. Other than looking like a complete idiot, the party went well.

Our staff party a couple weeks ago went great too. We took our employees to a painting class. It was so much fun. And I didn’t suck at painting. I was happy to be average. Out of the four of us that went, not one single person between the ages of 30 and 52 ever painted on a canvas before. Checked that off my bucket list and would love to do it again. 

Other than that, I have been trying to upload a video of my daughter and I singing. I haven’t been successful at that. I will probably figure it out by July. Geez. We sang our Christmas songs at the party yesterday. Every year my aunt insists that we sing. My daughter moves people to tears with her singing. She wants to spend the summer singing and performing on tour. She is auditioning to do that next month. When my cousin heard that, she was bummed out because she wanted Angel to sing at her wedding this summer. Angel just sang at my brother’s wedding a few months back. Angel and I have very similar voices, except that hers is well trained and mine is not. I used to be the one asked to sing at weddings, now it is her. When did she become better than me??? She used to ask me for advice and now she tells me what to do. I listen to her because she is right, but can’t help but feel hurt that I am no longer wanted. I am happy that she has had so many opportunities that I didn’t.

Sometimes it is hard for me to accept this whole aging thing. 

One last Christmas party

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This afternoon we will be going to one last Christmas party. It is for my mom’s side of the family. Unlike my dad who was an only child and only grandchild on one side, my mom comes from a very large family. We usually get together twice a year as a group. Collectively my mom’s siblings are hard working, average (not eccentric), and slightly neurotic.

The uncle’s house that we are going to today would fit into the above category very well. I am not sure why year after year they host the family Christmas party which usually attracts between 30 and 50 family members. My uncle is an extreme clean freak. I have never seen any clutter or anything dirty or out of place. Last year during the party, I saw my uncle on his hands and knees scrubbing the bathroom floor. I have a sneaky suspicion that my autistic brother may have missed the target. Years past, he has followed around his guests with a dust buster, vacuuming crumbs or any speck of dirt that they may have dragged in.

Last year we were at his house for the Packer game. When the game was over, he asked his guests if he could get their coats for them. The game is over, now get the hell out! His wife kindly suggested that he take the dog for a walk. After he got back, he seemed to calm down a little. I have another aunt that is also a clean freak. We went camping with her one year near her house when a huge storm came up out of nowhere. We were wet and cold. We ended up huddling in her garage. She didn’t want us to come in her house because we were too dirty. I guess that explains why I am slightly neurotic. It’s a family thing.

When we all get together, everyone is best friends. There is some animosity over some people getting more family heirlooms than others when their parents passed away. I imagine that this would be very hard to do fairly. One other thing about my family, they are very competitive when it comes to playing cards. I wouldn’t recommend a potential spouse of the cousins to join in a card game. Winning trumps being kind to each other in this one area. My mom just found out that her brother refused to go to my brother Mark’s wedding this past year because a couple of years ago he passed in a card game when he should have picked. God forbid!

I’m sure that we will have a good time today. Just stay out of the card games and don’t make a mess. Other than that, they are the nicest people that you would ever meet. There is a lot of laughter and fun.

Letting go of the present

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I think that my focus this new year is going to be letting go. Now before you start to get any ideas, I am not planning on letting myself go. I just finished an 18 mile run. Well, I think that it was 18 miles anyway. Twice during my run I accidentally hit the emergency stop button on my treadmill which upset me because I did not know my exact mileage at the time. The second time I almost got propelled into my TV. Nothing like being thrown into a crime show. LOL

Not only do I want to start the process of letting go of my past instead of outrunning it, but I am also faced with something that I never thought would happen. I am not needed as much anymore. My kids are growing up. My oldest will be graduating from high school this year. If everything works out as she has planned, she will be leaving our house in 5 months. She will become an adult. Gulp. Yesterday my middle child drove a car for the first time. He got his temps this week. Last night my youngest child babysat so someone else could go out for New Year’s Eve. I don’t even need a babysitter anymore for my youngest child.

When this whole process started, I never pictured in my mind that someday my babies would grow up. Some days I wished for it after sleepless nights with a newborn, toddler temper tantrums, potty training, math homework, etc.. When did time change from wanting them to grow up to wanting time to stand still for a little longer? In five years, I will be done with this job. I’m doing the best that I can so I don’t look back with regret. Despite some relatively minor teenage issues in comparison, the burden of responsibility is starting to lift. I will finally have time for the first time in my life to do what I want to do.

It’s time to start letting go…

Old new years

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Do you remember what you were wearing 20 years ago today? For some reason, I seem to. I was wearing a red and beige plaid leotard shirt that had snaps in the crotch. I don’t remember if I was the original owner of the shirt. For some reason, I think that someone gave it to me. Probably because the snaps were really uncomfortable. If it was a fashion, I don’t think that it lasted long for that reason. I did like the shirt design and it fit like a leotard so that part of the shirt was comfortable. I decided to wear that shirt to the New Year’s Eve party in 1995.

The party was held at a cabin a couple of hours away. It was hosted by Paul’s frat buddy. The cabin was owned by his friend’s parents. The party was attended by Paul’s fraternity friends and an ex-girlfriend. The host of the party was a rather eccentric fellow. He had a brilliant mind with bizarre thoughts and behaviors that others at times would find offensive. He was the one who would get lost in complex philosophical theories. His responses were always atypical and hard to understand. But he had great taste in music and people seemed to like him.

I remember that his parents kept a cabin journal and that night I wrote in it. I think that it was a tacky love letter to Paul as we had met a couple months earlier. This was the first night that I heard the band Rusted Root.  I went home and bought the CD. But the real reason that I remember the night so clearly was because it was the night that Paul said he would quit smoking. Smoking was a deal breaker for me.

Paul’s mother was a smoker. She smoked while pregnant with him (it wasn’t as big of a deal in the 1960’s as it is now), she smoked during his childhood, and she finally quit smoking when Paul was in college. Paul came home from college with his new habit the day his mother told him that she quit. Before he met me, Paul had smoked 7 years. When we met, he was in the process of quitting. So at the time we met I did not know that he was a smoker. Then he started back up and then quit again several times over the process of several months until New Year’s Eve in 1995. He said that when the clock struck midnight he would have his last cigarette and throw it into the bonfire extinguishing his habit forever. And that is just what he did.

Since that day, many years have past, a decade went by, and now it has been exactly 20 years. Years of New Year’s parties have flown by, but for some reason that year has stayed etched in my mind down to the clothes I was wearing.

Partying like it’s 1999

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I find it very interesting that Prince’s song 1999 released in 1982 speaks about judgment day. It goes along the lines of lets party like it’s 1999 because the following day the world could end. What I find even more interesting is that back in 1999 some people thought that when the clock ushered in the year 2000 that the world really would end. I am sure that Prince knew nothing of the Y2K scare that would grip many citizens 17 years after he released the song.

Lets rewind the clock a bit back to New Year’s Eve 1999. Wow, it feels great to be 25 again! It is a cold winter here is Wisconsin. Many are expecting that the world would end as we know it in 2000. Computers were programmed with the year 19** and they would not recognize the year 2000 and stop working. Our cars weren’t going to start. Our heat and electricity would stop working. Our pipes would freeze. Life would grind to a crashing halt and we would be forced to live like our ancestors did a century ago without the knowledge of how to do that in the dead of winter.

I was pregnant in December of 1999. I did worry a little bit about having a baby without modern technology especially since I delivered my first baby via C-section. Some friends of ours really thought that the end of the world was coming and that they needed to do everything they could to prepare for it. They bought a wood stove for an alternate heat source. They started stockpiling food and water. They bought survival gear and started teaching a survival class. When our cars wouldn’t start we would be trapped wherever we were at the time.

Most people that I knew didn’t party like it was 1999. They prayed, they got together with friends and relatives huddled around the TV watching for signs that other countries in time zones ahead of us would have problems. I remember the night well. Paul and I stayed overnight at my parents house with our oldest child who wasn’t even 2 at the time. My dad volunteered to be a civilian officer to assist police officers and firefighters if the Y2K apocalypse happened. My mom was afraid to be left home alone with my autistic brother Matt.

So while the idea of partying in the new millennium sounded great, we didn’t know what to expect. People were frightened. The next day the new year came, but the end of the world didn’t. We got into our car and drove home. People threw out all of their end of the world survival books and Y2K pamphlets, except for me. I kept a pamphlet because I thought that it might be valuable someday.

 

1oo followers!

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Thank you, thank you, thank you to my 100 followers! 

A few weeks back my employee gave me a 32 fl oz can of Badger State chocolate stout for a special occasion. He often brings back beer from around the state to appease me. So I said to myself that when I get one hundred followers, I will crack it open and share some with my husband. Somehow I thought that time would stand still for a couple minutes but apparently once again I was wrong. It happened last night before I went to bed and I couldn’t justify opening it right before bed. So seemingly by magic when I woke up I had 101 followers which was good because maybe one would back out and then I would have to let the beer sit longer.

Along with opening a special occasion beer, I am going to upgrade my wordpress account to make it more user friendly. I thought that I would have time to do that this morning, but after I got in to work it became quite obvious that wasn’t going to happen. There was problem after problem after problem. I took the afternoon off to run to appointments with the kids. This morning at work the employee that covers for me called in sick, so I became bottle necked at work. While at work I received a call that the 40 mph winds that we are having ripped my hot tub cover off. 

I did get the appointments and errands run efficiently then drove home through a blizzard. Yes, winter did finally make it to Wisconsin. We still have strong winds and are expecting a foot of snow tonight. Bring it on! Maybe I can finally use those cross country skis! Until then, I am cracking open a beer too celebrate. 

A few minor Christmas detours

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I tend to be a black and white thinker. So I usually go into situations with really low expectations or very high expectations. When I go in with low expectations, I tend to have more of a negative attitude. This has earned me the title of pessimist, which I would argue that I am not. I tend to describe myself as a realist which is false for all practical purposes too because my expectations are not realistic. Most of the times it turns out in between. Some good, some bad. Which is still polar and I am back to thinking black and white again. I tried.

I placed Christmas within the high expectation category which can be disappointing if it is not perfect and what ever is? My daughter and I sang the duet O Holy Night for both Christmas Eve services. That went well. Christmas with the kids went really well the next day. Then Saturday morning we headed across the state to have Christmas at my brother Luke’s house. Expectations were high, I was in a good mood. Well, until we found ourselves on a country back road with the bridge out. There weren’t any detour signs or anything. Plus there was no cell reception at all to navigate or call for directions. We ended up on an icy gravel road that looked inviting to people seeking a place to hide a corpse. That should have been the first indication right there.

Despite sitting several hours in the car, all three kids got along great. Until we pulled into the driveway, that is. Then there was some bickering. We entered the house just in time for lunch despite the 20 minute detour. The kids weren’t terribly interested in helping unload the car. Paul ended up taking Alex’s cell phone away as he didn’t want to help after he unloaded his items. Alex got upset and locked himself in the bathroom. He refused to eat with us. Then it was time to open gifts, but Alex still refused to come out. Who would’ve thought? Then Alex felt too embarassed to come out, but eventually did. My 6 year old niece asked loudly why Alex was so upset over and over when he finally came out. This all happened while my brother Mark opened a gift that was a talking Darth Vader figurine that was bigger then my niece. His new wife exclaimed, “Where the hell are we going to put that?” My mom said that she had another one at home for them that she couldn’t fit in her car.

Other than a few snags, everything went really well. We had a lot of great food and played games all night. Mark got pretty drunk. For the most part everyone got along. No one got any sleep. Then we woke up and made our long journey back home. Only one more Christmas party to go before we can call this season a wrap.

Christmas (pet) lover

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Many, many ages ago when I first met Paul, he performed a quick thinking pet rescue. Christmas time can offer new dangers for pets.

Paul has always been a dog lover. When I met him he had a dog. I have always been a cat lover. When I met him I had two cats. If I didn’t marry him, I may have been destined to be the crazy old cat lady. So we struck up a compromise after marriage, he has one dog and I have one cat. It is a good arrangement and with 3 kids we do not have any more openings for pets or people.

During the Christmas of 1995, Paul and I were in his apartment when across the hall we heard cries for help. There was a desperate pounding on the door of his apartment followed by hysterical screams from the neighbor lady. She was crying and shaking as she grabbed us into her apartment. Her little dog was wrapped in the Christmas tree lights. He was trying to free himself but was becoming more and more tangled in the process. The cord wrapped tightly around his neck.

Everything was happening so fast that I too began to panic. Paul, however, ran back to his apartment to grab his scissors. He held the struggling dog down while he cut the cord that was wrapped around his neck. Time and time again, Paul has acted in situations where most people freeze. This makes me feel safe because I know I can’t seem to control my inaction during those times.

On that winter day, my Christmas lover became a hero in my eyes. Paul the Pet Rescuer. I knew that I had to keep this guy.