Favorite Things

I think my favorite thing about fall is stepping on dried, fallen leaves. That crackling, crunchy sound under my feet makes me smile. I love it! Aaron likes it too. I've taken him out for walks in the stroller and as we crunch leaves under the wheels, he laughs and signs "again" with his cute little hands. It's the kind of moment I try to capture in my mind to remember for years to come.

Costume gone awry

Littleman(5) decided on being a ghost for Halloween this year. He actually tried to change his mind and be a ninja at one point, but I carefully steered him back to a ghost because it would cost less. So I bought a couple of yards of cheap white fabric, folded it in half, cut a hole for the neck and sewed a hood on it. He tried it on this morning and pulled the hood down over his face a little bit. He looked like a member of the Klu Klux Klan. I think we'll cut the hood off.

Catching up

I haven't blogged for about a month, yet I can't really think of much to say. It's strange to me that after a month of not blogging, I can't really think of anything to write about, but when I blog regularly it seems like there are lots of things to say. There's probably a lot to write about but it seems silly to bring it up, since it's long past now.

For example, I was called into the Young Women in August. I should have said something about it then, but I was on "hiatus". I'm the Mia Maid Advisor. It's been really fun so far. The girls are really great and we have a good group of leaders. I feel a little inadequate teaching them sometimes. There's so much I want to get through to them and I just don't seem to be getting my point across sometimes. I remember so well the heart-ache of growing up and I wish they didn't have to go through that, but maybe it's inevitable.

The point is, I'm going to try to be a better blogger. Hopefully I'll figure out something to say. :)

Marathon Day

The St. George Marathon was quite an experience. It started with my watch alarm going off at 3:10 am. I probably didn't even need an alarm because I barely slept. I got ready, ate a bagel and a banana, and headed off to catch the 4:00 bus to take me to the starting line. I hadn't mentally prepared for the 2 hours that I would have to wait for the actual race to start. I really wished that I'd had a book but when it started raining I realized that wouldn't have worked either. The marathon organizers were so prepared and had garbage bags that we could use to make impromptu rain coats. Some people wore those garbage bags the whole race. I really thought that the rain would let up after a little while, so once the race started and I had warmed up, I took my "raincoat" off. I think it was after mile 19 that I thought, "Oh, the rain has mostly stopped." It was on and off again after that.

The first few miles, I was thinking, "What the heck am I doing? I'm going to catch pneumonia." We started at 6:45 and it was still dark, so here we (more than 6000 crazy runners) were, trying to run without tripping over each other, in the dark, and getting wetter by the minute. I really was questioning my sanity. Little by little though, my attitude started to change and I was enjoying myself. When I ran the SLC Marathon, I kind of crashed at about 18 miles and the last part of it was pretty hard. This time I tried to conserve my energy a little and I was able to really enjoy the last part of the race, especially the last 3 miles. I was hurting, definitely, but I was able to pick up my pace just a little and feel really strong. It was awesome. I finished in 4:19:05 and beat my last time of 4:32:00, so I felt pretty good about that since I didn't feel as prepared for this one. St. George is a better, easier course but it still feels good to beat my previous time. It was raining, after all. :)

The crowd support once we got into town was great and that made the last few miles funner, too. There were three signs that I saw sponsored by the mortuary that were particularly cool. The first one said:

Metcalf Mortuary 3 Blocks Ahead
DIG DEEP!

The second one said:

Mortuary 1 Block Ahead
LOOK ALIVE!

And then finally on the corner at the mortuary there was a sign that read:

We'd rather wait for you,
KEEP RUNNING!
Good job, marathoners
From Metcalf Mortuary

Another one was pretty funny too but you have to have some background. Gunlock is tiny little town on the race route that has a population of no more than 500, but probably much fewer. It's towards the beginning of the race. So I saw another sign that said:

Gas $3.99

Running Shoes $100

Running Redneck from Gunlock... Priceless

Maybe that's only funny after you've run 23 miles but I was quite amused by it.

Anyway, it was a great day! I'm so glad I did it. I am very, very sore today and I have a few spots of chafed skin where my wet clothes rubbed too much but over all I'm doing well. The knee I've been having trouble with feels pretty good, so I'm very grateful for that. The race organizers where amazing and I'm especially grateful to all those volunteers who stood in the rain for hours giving us water, Gatorade, bananas, etc. I'm taking a break from marathon running for a while but I hope to go back to St. George within a few years. It was awesome!

There may be some confusion...

You may be wondering what I'm doing talking about these apps that I've mentioned lately. Mr. Dad is working from home and has started a new company that builds iPhone applications. He's asked me to post about them to help with the google search, so if people search for these kinds of applications then more of the results will point to his stuff. I know it makes for some lame posts but since our livelihood depends upon the success of these apps, I figured I should help out. :)

Fingerspell App

I have to tell you about another app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It's called Fingerspell. It's a fun app that teaches the ASL signs for the letters of the alphabet. I know I've learned the alphabet signs many times but the cool thing about this is that it helps you learn to recognize them. There are flash-card type screens that come up and you guess the letter. You can even control how fast the flash cards go, and they can go pretty fast if you want them too. There's also a place to enter a word that you want to see spelled and then it shows you in the speed that you choose. I think this would be a great way to learn how to read fingerspelling. There's more information on the website, http://www.aslfingerspell.com/.