Whirlwind

My life is typically boring. I have a routine that gets me through the week. The weekends are usually spent with family time. We rarely have any engagements or special events. Even in the summertime when weddings, barbeques and vacations usually clutter the calendar, ours is relatively clear.

But for some reason, we are busy this summer. And everything we have to do is crammed into the month of July. A family reunion was followed immediately by a trip to a circus carnival, followed by a barbeque.

We will then add parties and concerts to the mix. Saturday will bring us to the triple bill of Poison, Def Lepard and Cheap Trick (admit it you are so jealous). Sunday a garden party at the Zoo for my husband's company's annual meeting. Then a concert on Tuesday with the annual meeting featuring ... Kool and the Gang and ... Danny Gokey (and now you are even more jealous of me).

Then I'm off to BlogHer and LobbyCon on Thursday for a fun filled weekend of meeting and greeting a bunch of really cool bloggers. There will be all sorts of cool parties and events to go to. I am really excited.

To finish off July and usher in August, we all jet off to New York City to visit our very best friends.

And then we come home and pass out.

Family

Here are some photos of the family reunion we went to in Iowa last week. We had a wonderful time with my mom's family. And Bunny keeps asking when we are going back.

Update Time

I'm back from the family reunion. We all had a wonderful time. Pictures and stories will follow at a later date.

A while back I mentioned that I was going in to get my hair done and I was not sure what to do with it. Well I went from this


To this


Pretty cool, right? I love it. Well I should say I loved it because . . .

While we were in Iowa, I decided to get a swim in for my tri training at the hotel pool. I was there with Bunny and didn't bring my swim cap or googles down. I thought it would be no big deal but my pretty red highlights are now a faded bronzy pink (and not in a good way). I had the red for a week. A week! Not happy. My hair dresser said they would fade and I might have to have them re-done with a more permanent dye sooner rather than later. I thought a few weeks not one. Which just shows you how strong chlorine is. So a word to the wise, if you're going to swim with brand new highlights, wear a swim cap.

So that was a low for the training but the rest went pretty well. I ran two miles with out stopping on the treadmill at the hotel. I was impressed with myself. Running on a treadmill is way different than running outside. I'm not sure I could have done it outside but two miles is two miles and that is cool.

I did a full bike workout on Saturday, the full 12 miles that I would do in the race. Then I went on the treadmill to see how it would feel to transition to the run. Um, not good at all. My legs felt like lead, my calves were tight. I had to stop and stretch a lot before I could really start running. I only ran for 10 minutes but it was enough to show me I had some serious work to do.

All in all I feel like I am progressing on the bike and the run but the swim has me worried. I can't swim more than 2 laps without stopping. And I've never even covered a 1/4 mile in my workouts let alone a 1/2 mile. So I've got some serious work to do in the next 11 weeks.

Training Update and Announcement

Training was back on schedule this past week. I did great on biking, logging the actual race distance during one of my rides. Running was great too. I even managed to squeeze in an extra run and I still felt good.

Swimming was another story. I wanted to swim. I went to the club to swim. But then I found out the lap pool was closed all week for maintainance. I managed to squeeze in one work out in the exercise pool in the midst of kiddie swim lessons, and two water walkers. Needless to say it wasn't my best effort to date. So this week, I'll have to work a bit harder.

Which brings me to my announcement, I will not be posting this week because we are headed to a family reunion in Iowa. We will be leaving tomorrow and not returning until late Friday afternoon. So I hope you all have a good week, I'll see you next week.

Carded

I have a dilemma. Since I am going to Lobby Con at BlogHer this year, I need to have some spiffy business cards to promote my blogs.

It makes perfect sense, cards help people remember who you are. But I have three business that I would like to promote - this blog, Juniper and Coffee and my Etsy store. And three business cards seems like an awful lot to hand out.

And there is also the added problem that every time I've ordered business cards in my professional life, I've quit that job within six month. I don't want to quit blogging or making jewlery so should I even risk ordering cards?

So that is my little dilemma. I would appreciate hearing what you are doing and what you think I should do.

Hair There And Everywhere

Or how to hit a moving target.

I may have mentioned previously that I have some issues with my hair. I cannot decide how to wear it. Should I cut it short? Should I grow it long? Should I keep it blondish? Should I go brunette? Should I dye it pink?

Well lately I've been growing it out. It is at a lovely mushroomy state right now, falling just at the bottom of my ears. In other words it is annoying. Tomorrow is d-day in a way. I have a hair appointment and I have to make a choice where to go from here.

I want to grow it out. I am so close to getting it to the style I want. But I am also close to pulling it all out. So I may be having Terri, my stylist, talk me down from the ledge. But if I can't get it to look exactly the way I want it to look length-wise, it probably means a color change. We will just have to see.

I also have an obsession with my daughter's hair. Because I didn't have long hair when I was growing up, I am keeping her hair as long as possible. Other than her bangs, her hair has never been cut (so she's the exact opposite of me).

But it is approaching an unruly length. I have to put it up every day to keep it out of her face. But she always complains that I pull her hair when I am putting it up so she preferrs it down. Which inevitably leads to her getting food in her hair or hair in her mouth, which she hates.

So this means it is probably time for her to get it cut. She could lose about 3 inches and it would still be below her shoulders, it would still be long. I could do that, I think. But then I think, if I'm going to get it cut why not donate it to Locks of Love and cut it short. Well this leads me to have flashbacks of being mistaken for a boy with my short hair and I can't do that to her.

So I do nothing and it keeps getting longer and more unruly. I can't even make an appointment to get her bangs trimmed for fear that I will make a hasty decision on a cut and traumatize myself (she wouldn't care in the least). Which means I have to trim her bangs at home and now they look all wonky and uneven.

Sigh.

Excuses, Excuses

I've always been really good at coming up with plans and terrible on the follow through. I can come up with a million reasons why I am not doing something that I should be doing. I may eventually do it. Or I may not. It sort of depends on how important it is.

Well I had a training week like that last week. The week started off hotter than heck. I kept telling myself I didn't want to work out in this heat. Which is a valid excuse except that I work out at the gym and some of my work out involves swimming in a pool. But that excuse lasted three days.

Then I got a head cold, nothing terrible, just annoying. I could have used the sneezing, congestion and cough as a totally valid excuse not to work out. But I felt guilty from missing three days so I actually worked out through the cold.

I got all of my bike and run work outs in and felt pretty good about them. I still have to walk during my runs but the running parts are longer and the walking parts are fewer. If I keep this up, I should be able to run two miles without stopping very soon (I can almost make it a mile now).

But the swim did not go well. In fact I only made one of the three scheduled work outs. For some reason, I figured that getting in a pool with a cold probably wasn't the best idea. Maybe it was, mabye it wasn't. Maybe I'm just lazy, who knows.

So I really need to get my act togther this week and get back on track. I don't want next Monday's post to be filled with anymore excuses.