Just a few odds and ends from here…

– Wes is leaving for a conference this Wednesday and will be gone for three days. The girls and I are planning loud, wild parties during his absence. Actually, all that we really have planned is to finish the mountains of laundry and ironing around here today so that he’ll have clothes to wear when he goes. I’m sure he’ll appreciate that.

– The closing for our house in Oklahoma was supposed to be this Friday… but we got a call from the realtor last week about pushing the date back. The buyer has been approved for the loan, but there’s still some work to be done on that end of things to get it all processed and ready for closing. We’ve been assured that we’re still going to close… eventually. Our realtor said that May 30th is the latest that she sees it happening, but we’ll see. I’m hoping for a call earlier than that, telling us to get on up to Duncan to sign the papers. Here’s hoping!

– We’re still on schedule with the marathon training. Wes registered us for a marathon on the day we’re scheduled to run our twenty mile training run, telling me that at mile twenty, we’ll just walk off the course. I told him that I have no intention of running twenty miles then leaving, when I can walk the last six and finish the course. He agreed, especially since getting back to our car at that point on the course would have us walking back six miles anyway. So… does that count as a marathon, even if it’s a training run and we don’t run the whole thing? Hmm…

– I’ve discovered some things in our training that I never discovered last year. I’m running with the Nike GPS program this time around, so I have a helpful little voice telling me just exactly how fast I’m running with each mile and how many calories I’m burning as I go. In the process I’ve learned that I can run in the afternoon heat while pushing Emma in a stroller and just barely pace each mile at twelve minutes. In the cooler mornings without Emma, my pace is ten minutes per mile. I’m astounded by the difference! Also, I can run three miles in half the time it takes me to walk three miles, and in the process, I burn twice as many calories (in half the time!) as I do while walking. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve had tell me over the years that walking is just as good for your health and overall fitness as running is. Sure, it’s better than doing nothing, but it’s not the same as running. Thank you, Nike GPS, for dispelling what I always knew was a great big myth! (Next up, the “you’ll ruin your knees doing that!” myth. Hey, if my knees are going to go bad, they’ll go bad if I DON’T run just as fast as they will if I do. Probably faster, since I’ll be carrying more weight on them without the benefit of running off all those calories. And, added to that, knee problems are preferable to heart problems, so I’ll keep on running and “run” the risk.)

– Emma went to Ana’s school yesterday for her dual language program testing. They took her back alone, along with another little boy, and his mother and I spent the time chatting. (She had a Dooney and Bourke Mickey Mouse purse. I knew we were going to hit it off before she even said a word!) I finally had it confirmed that while they test the kids for proficiency in their own languages, this isn’t the end of the process, and doing well doesn’t guarantee a spot in the program. If Emma did well, she’ll enter a lottery system with all the other children who are trying to get into the class. This mother told me that our odds are better than if we were primarily Spanish speakers because there are far less English speakers trying to get into the class, but I’m thinking the odds are still not good with that many kids in the district and only a handful of the elementary schools offering one dual language class each. Eh. Emma was super proud of herself when she came back to meet us in the office, telling us that she got “lotsa check marks” on her paper and that she understood some of the Spanish words the teacher used with her. (Thank you, Plaza Sesamo!) I think the big victory was that she didn’t totally freak out when the teacher only spoke Spanish and that they still managed to communicate somehow. I have no idea how that worked out, but Emma assured me that it was “fun!” (Meanwhile, I’m not sure if they tested Ana for the first grade program or if they just spoke with her kindergarten teacher. And I have no idea if there’s a lottery for those extra spots in the already established class for her age group. Yes, I am completely ignorant, y’all.) We’ll see how the lottery works out…

– Wes found out a couple of weeks ago that the circus will be in town on the day we had planned on having the girls’ birthday party in July. We told them about it, and they said they’d rather go to the circus. This got me to thinking, and you know what I realized? We’ve never taken the girls to the circus! Perhaps I’ve just watched Dumbo with them too many times and counted that as good enough, but I think it’s far past time to go to the real event, don’t you? Emma is already ready to see those elephants prancing around!

– Speaking of birthdays, I’m trying to convince Wes that IF the house sells eventually (surely it will, right?!) and we can settle back into a more normal budget (as opposed to the one we’re currently running with two residences, two sets of utilities, two insurance policies, etc etc), he needs to take me somewhere special for my thirty-fifth birthday, which is coming up faster than you would think in 2013. (Honestly, it’s not really about the birthday. That’s just more leverage for my argument!) Since that will be our year to have Thanksgiving with his family, I’ve already run the idea past his mother who agreed that Walt Disney World is, in fact, the perfect place for all six of us to celebrate the holiday, my birthday, and the girls’ week-long break from school. Wes remains unconvinced…. but I’ve got eighteen months to work on him. Tell him why you think it’s a great idea, and help me out, will you?

– Oh, and Wes has a birthday in a couple of weeks. It slips my mind because HE’S ALREADY GOTTEN HIS PRESENT. What can I say? I had no idea what I was even looking for in the Apple store, so I ruined the surprise, telling him what the whole family — his side and my side combined — had joined forces to get for him. He wasn’t a bit bothered by finding out early and getting to pick it out himself. I’m sure that doesn’t surprise you at all, does it?

– And Happy Mother’s Day weekend to all of you moms out there! Ana has told me that I don’t have to do anything on Sunday and that she’ll take care of everything for me. I’m going to take her up on that…