Weddings and birthdays and bouncing boobs

Sure enough, as soon as I decide to start blogging again, my computer breaks!  Then I decided I wouldn't let it stop me and I could blog using my S.L.O.W. laptop, and I went and left it at Emily's school when I brought it in for Lego Club.  So then I was left with only my phone, and I'm embarrassed to say that my right thumb is pretty painful already from being forced to use my phone for ALL of my (obviously excessive) computering, so adding phone-blogging into the mix might have left me crippled.

But now, thanks to our friend Lyle the computer is fixed and back in its rightful place.  Apparently there was something wrong with PhysX and it wasn't getting along with the graphics card after an update.  All I know about PhysX is that it's what makes boobs bounce more realistically in video games.  So yeah, important stuff.  Glad we got that sorted.

This past weekend was lovely.  We spent Saturday morning in the garage bottling the latest batch of mead.

My wonderful husband, making sure I'm well supplied with my preferred libation.

The rest of the day was spent at Will's cousin Thomas' wedding.  The wedding was held at Will's Aunt's house, which is right next to Gambrill State Park where I've been stomping around almost every day so I felt right at home :-)  It was a nice, short ceremony, and a pretty wedding with beautiful weather but it did get COLD!  It was one of our first truly cold evenings of the year so I was glad I had decided on my frumpy but warm sweater vs. a more fashionable but not very cozy wrap or shrug.

Waiting for his bride

Married!

Beautiful day, beautiful setting

Frickin' adorable!

I limited myself to one bite.  It was a super-tasty bite though.

I don't even remember what was being said here

Sibling Selfie



Showing that eye color wise, I fit in much better with Will's family than my own 100% brown-eyed family.

Sunday we celebrated Grandma Randall's 90th birthday!



The girls and their 2nd cousin (once removed) Cameron from Michigan

The rest of the week was pretty normal.  I have still been hiking my butt off (hopefully literally) and I even got especially feisty and did some trail jogging this week as well.  Only on the downhill parts though.  I do my best to engage my hips and glutes in order to save my knees (like Ken the personal trainer would want me to do) but as a result I kinda run like Phoebe on Friends. 

No matter.  When you're secluded in the woods there's no one to laugh at you!  Plus the weather has been much nicer for hiking this week, clearing out but staying delightfully cool.  A little TOO cool for some.

Poor dude has no body fat and barely any fur.  The borrowed jacket stopped his violent shivering at least.



Middletown, lookin' pretty

This post has been a huge pain in the butt, retrieving pictures from my phone, my super-slow laptop and getting re-acquainted with the little BlogSpot issues.  Basically I'm saying I'm done now, but since my REAL computer is fixed stay tuned for another post before too long!






Well how about that!

I stopped blogging for awhile.  Maybe you noticed.  Most likely not.  For a long time the idea of blogging stressed me out.  For some reason it doesn't at this particular moment.  I looked back through my previous entries a bit, and I really like how it reminds me of little daily things I had forgotten.  I don't feel like blogging every day or posting pictures of all of my food, and as much as I always told myself I was blogging for ME, I always kind of struggled to find a voice.  Blogs have gone through so many strange permutations since I read my first weblog back when doing so required  earplugs to block out the shrieking of the modem as you logged onto "the net".  I read MySpace brain-dump blogs and that's pretty much how my blog started out.  Then when my kids came along I got into reading mommy blogs and my own kind of ended up going that way as well.  When mom bloggers became old news I started reading food blogs and brought my own blog along for the ride.  I guess I worried that I needed to have some sort of theme because the minutiae of my day-to-day life wasn't interesting enough to support a blog without a "hook".  It still isn't.  But I'm well into my 30's now and caring less and less about what others think (thank God) so I'm just going to write whenever and about whatever I desire.  How's THAT for "finding my voice"?  If I write it, it's my voice.  So there.

Today I woke up.  I took my pills.  I ate breakfast.  I drove the kids to school.

Just kidding.  Hopefully I can keep it a BIT more interesting than that.  But for real, that is how my morning started.

So now that we're back and chatting again, I feel like I need to admit that I have once again let myself go.  I had a longish depressive time over the past few months, and I just really didn't care what I ate or how much I exercised.  Depression, for me, sometimes manifests as really "down" days where I can't imagine how I'm going to get through the day and I just lay on the couch feeling sad whenever I don't HAVE to be doing something, but more often than that it's a kind of complacency.  I just.don't.care.  Things are fine, some people live in shacks next to a river of sewage, so why should I worry about keeping my house spic and span?  Some kids eat nothing but McDonalds and my kids eat A LOT better than that, so whole wheat pasta thrown in a pot with ground beef and a can of diced tomatoes fairly often isn't so bad, right?  All my desire for self-improvement disappears.  One of the toughest things about depression for me is that you don't realize you ARE depressed until you aren't anymore and you're looking back on the past few months.  Well, that and not being able to trust your own thoughts.  That's pretty fun too.

It may be the new meds or it may just be my natural mood cycle, but I'm feeling better.  And I want to stay that way.  As long as I have the motivation and good mood to do so, I plan to do as many things as possible to keep myself this way, and I want to focus on the fact that things don't have to be all or nothing.  They don't have to be 100% perfect or a mess, there can be a happy medium.  I've been tracking my food, eating like a little angel and exercising for the past 4 days, and I know the time will come when I "mess up" but I am trying to be very aware that one mess up doesn't have to take things from perfect to crappy.  If I can get back on track then I will still end up above-average.

Jumping to what seems like a completely different topic (but what actually is a little related), we went to Colorado this summer.  The trip was nice and it left me with a desire to simplify, to live near friends, and to appreciate my mountains more.  The Appalachians may be smaller and harder to spell than the Rockies, but they're still pretty nice and between you and me, I prefer them!  And about 10 minutes away from my house is Gambrill Park, which is a really nice place to enjoy them.  There are quite a few trails up there you can hike with your dog, and my dogs definitely need exercise.  On top of that, sunlight and exercise for me and being out in nature are good for depression, so it's actually pretty dumb that I haven't been doing much hiking up there before now.

So on Monday I biked to the gym, took Bodypump and biked home.  On Tuesday I hiked with my dog Hunter up at Gambrill (2 different 1-mile trails, since I wasn't sure how long it would take a beginner like me), Wednesday I biked to and from the gym to take Bodypump again, and today I hiked with Hunter at Gambrill again.  Not too shabby!  And since Will is begging me for pictures because he wants to live vicariously through me, I snapped quite a few on my hike today.

On the way there, the mountains weren't exactly visible so I figured I'd be hiking in the mist.

There are usually mountains up there

Hunter was stoked either way.

Yes, he did try to climb out the window later.  Thank goodness he was on a leash.

After blasting through the 1-mile red and white trails on Tuesday, we decided to try the longer, more challenging green trail today.

Hunter would rather I didn't waste time taking pictures.

We walked along for awhile.  I tried to breathe in all the nature and be mindful of everything around me.

For example, I noticed that someone had been having fun along the trail.

Hiking with a dog is awesome.  Hunter loves to go down hills quickly, so he keeps my heart rate up by keeping my speed up even when we're going downhill.  Then when we're going uphill, he helps by pulling me along!

The only time we have issues is when we encounter something like this, because it either requires that I unhook Hunter's leash, crawl under the tree or throw him over it.  We usually figure it out though.

Yep, I crawled under it

Pretty view looking down the mountain

But oof!  There was a lot more mountain to go above me!

After a particularly tough hill we stopped for water (Hunter got some from a stream, I got some from my bottle).  I figured I was probably almost done.

Nope.  Only 25 minutes into my 1-hour hike.

Oh man.  I'm already as pink as my shirt.

I let Hunter pull a little more of my weight :-)

Smoky Bear.  Telling us the obvious.

We passed these cute dudes and it made me smile to hear and see how similar the Chocolate Lab was to Maxx.  I feel bad leaving him behind (he'll be my hiking buddy tomorrow) but there's no way I can handle both dogs on a trail.

Woof.  Woof woof woof woof, woof woof.

Hunter left his calling card for them.  The joys of owning male dogs.

 We eventually reached the top of the mountain, where Hunter was terrified by a statue.

 Then we took a moment to enjoy the Frederick overlook.

Ahhh, what a beautiful view.  Of fog.

Mom, I can't see anything.  Why are we standing here?

Hunter gave the statue one last suspicious look,

I've got my eye on you, you creep.

Then we got to walk back downhill!  Yay!

My favorite part of the hike, because it means we're almost done!

 When we got back to the parking lot, I was seized with the urge to maximize my exercise time, and decided to hike for 8 more minutes and check out the yellow trail a bit.

I was interested to see what this trail is like, because a bit sign said it was maintained by a local biking club.  If that was true, then maybe in a few months when I'm super-fit again I could try my hand at mountain biking.  But how on earth do you climb steps on a bike?

I've got a little more training to do it seems.  Especially since I still run into things on my bike.

 All of the trails we've hiked have been loops, and it turns out Hunter does NOT like turning around and going back the way we came.

Luckily I am stronger than him.

And that was our hiking experience today!  I have really been enjoying squeezing in an hour of exercise and nature while Charlotte is at school.  And the dogs are far less annoying when they're tired.

Hunter, NOT trying to jump out the window this time.

Keeping my motivation up for the rest of the day after working out has been challenging, but I'm getting there.  I don't have to go from a lazy bum to Olympian in one week, right?  It's not all or nothing, right?  RIGHT???

I know it's right.  I just don't always trust myself.  And even when I DO manage to know that it's right, there's still the truly believing it part.

Fun Family Weekend

I love weekends.  You would think as a stay-at-home mom weekends would be much like any other day, but now that Emily is at school I like having days when she's home the whole time, and I especially like having Will home.  I especially ESPECIALLY enjoy weekends that include days where I get to lay around and let someone else do all the work :-)

Our weekend started out at the Westview children's reading festival, which had to be moved inside due to rain.  It was a neat event, but made super-strange by the location, which was a bar/pool hall.  People were still coming in to eat and play pool, but it was also crammed with kids.  I'm not even sure it's legal to have kiddos at a bar that's actively serving alcohol, BUT it was better than being out in the rain!  There were games with prizes, and the biggest attraction was Mr. Jon, who does storytime and sings songs at the library.  He's a huge celebrity to the girls (he IS on iTunes!), so they were super-excited to be able to see him and chat with him.  I only managed to take one picture:

I was quite grateful to Carolyn and Christian for getting there early and reserving a table, which gave us a base of operation (so important when you're with kids) and access to drinks for everyone.

After that we headed to Brewer's Alley to have a mother's day lunch for Will's mom.  I'm sorry Brewers, I have been less than impressed with you food the last few times I've eaten there.  It's not BAD by a long shot, but not quite what they're striving to be.  I guess the main draw is the beer though anyway, which is always good.

The next activity on our agenda was heading up to the farm so Will and his dad could brew some beer!  Will got his dad all the supplies to brew a batch of beer for Christmas, and they decided to brew it up at the farm using the spruce tips that come out in the spring, so this was the weekend!

Grain

Malt

Spruce Tips

Licorice

Hops

Boil

Stir

Yeast

Beer!  In a few weeks.

In the meantime, the girls and I were playing down by the pond.

Pond hockey

It also rained quite a bit, but luckily we had just gotten the girls new umbrellas so they were excited to break them in (and soon they'll just plain break them if things proceed as they always have).

The umbrella really helps when you're walking through soaking-wet ferns

 Sunday continued with the outdoor fun.  It started with a lovely breakfast in bed, plus hand-made cards from all three of my favorite people :-)  Then we set out to go for a bike ride on the C&O canal towpath.  Emily had a rough time getting started, but ended up doing really well.

Ohm-ing out

 Will even sneaked in a workout, with the help of Emily.

Charlotte chilled in her trailer most of the time.

The Potomac was so high and muddy it looked more like the Mississippi.

We grabbed lunch at Café Rio, chilled at home for a bit, then went over to my sister's house to do my Mom's mother's day party.  Kathleen and Dylan set up an amazing champagne and hors d'oeuvres party in her backyard.

The fare included saltines because....

...my sister Krista is pregnant!

Telling the girls they're finally getting their first cousin!

I'm super-excited to finally be an Aunt this December!  I definitely need to work ahead to make sure everything is ready for Christmas early this year so I can spend lots of time snuggling my new niece or nephew :-)

The evening was extremely chilly for May, so there was lots of sitting by the fire with blankets.

 Except for Charlotte of course, because she is immune to cold.

 We even got a visit from a little deer mouse who lives in Kathleen's retaining wall.

See him?

If every weekend could be like this, I'd be one happy Mama!  I think Will might die of exhaustion though :-)