Inner dialogue

I'm on week 8 of the 9 week Couch to 5K Program. Today I was supposed to run for 28 minutes. Yeah. I was supposed to that on Monday, too, and it didn't go well. Not at all.
So this was today's inner dialogue while on the treadmill:

You can do this! You CAN!
Oh, my God! How much longer?! I can't do that !
Don't think about it! You can do this!
(about 10 minutes into the run) I really don't think I can make it. This hurts! Need to stop...
Don't stop! You can do this!
Maybe I'm just not meant to run that long!
Don't give up! Keep going!
Hmm.... maybe if I can just make it to 25 minutes. I've done that before. Yeah, I'll just run 25 minutes.
(I wasn't too sure I was going to make even the revised goal, until I put on a certain song a couple of minutes before the new goal) Okay, just make it to the end of this song. You can do that! Feeling better. You can do this!
(The song ended at the 26 minute mark) Yes! Hey, only 2 more minutes to 28. You can do 2 minutes! It's only 2 minutes. C'mon! You can do this!
(Check the time) Oh, thank God! Only a minute and a half! You've got this! You're almost there.
(As the 28 minutes ended) Yes! It's over!

The embarrassing thing is I may have muttered some of this out loud.

Later, I had a conversation with a good friend who told me about a similar dialogue she had with herself on her local track. When she told her husband about it, he seemed stunned and asked, "Do you really have these conversations with yourself?"

To which I can only answer, "Um, yeah. Gotta problem with that?"

It's all in good fun (and for a good cause!)

Check out today's Marine of the Day, Lance Cpl. James Crosby over at Jules Crettenden: Forward Movement. Cassy Fiano has some great demotivators up as well as some USMC trivia questions, for those of you who think you know the Corps. And Cassie has a post up about the Miracle Marine, Sgt. Merlin German.

Also, there's a offer on the table to match the first 10 donations of $100. Go here for details. What a great way to double your donation!

I can't take credit for this one, but had to pass it on:


We're neck and neck with the Army, so spread the word, donate the money you would have spent on a latte or lunch instead! Donate by clicking on the thermometer on the top right of this page.

My quote for today:

The bended knee is not a tradition of our Corps.

~General Alexander A. Vandergrift, USMC
to the Senate Naval Affairs Committee, 5 May 1946

The Marines have landed

My quote for today:

"I come in peace, I didn't bring artillery. But I am pleading with you with tears in my eyes: If you fuck with me, I'll kill you all."

~Marine General James Mattis, to Iraqi tribal leaders

Don't forget to spread the word and donate to Project Valour-IT (you can click on the fundraising thermometer at the top of the sidebar to the right).

Update: Today's Marine of the Day is Captain Kyle VanDeGiesen. Read his story here.

Off to a good start...

Let's keep it going! How's this for some motivation to keep that thermometer moving in the right direction?





Support our Wounded Warriors by supporting Project Valour-IT!

And we're off!

The 5th annual Project Valour-IT fundraiser has begun! Starting today and going until November 11 (Veterans Day!), the inter-service rivalry will be raising money and awareness.

"Project Valour IT is simply this: grateful Americans, providing voice-activated laptops and other helpful tech gear to severely wounded troops." You can read more over at Villainous Company (VC), our fearless leader of the Marine Team.

Today's featured Marine of the Day is Matt, a corporal who has deployed to Iraq twice. Read his interview over at Cassy Fiano.

My quote for today:

"Freedom is not free, but the U.S. Marine Corps will pay most of your share."

~Ned Dolan

As Cassie wrote over at VC :
"Please open your hearts and your wallets. Dig deep. These are some extraordinary young men and women - they've given their all in service of this great nation and this is a great chance to show them that all the talk of supporting the troops isn't just lip service. Someone still cares and more importantly, respects and honors their service. Please dig deep. You cannot know the value of the comfort your support can bring to those who have already given so much on our behalf."

If you wish to donate, simply click on the fundraising widget on the upper right sidebar or the link below:

You can pay by credit card or electronic check. You can also mail a check (with MARINES in all caps on it!) to this address:

Soldiers Angels Project Valour-IT
MARINE CORPS TEAM
1792 E. Washington Blvd
Pasadena, CA 91104

OORAH!

Project Valour IT

It's almost time for the annual inter-service competition to raise funds for Project Valour IT, a Soldiers' Angels program. Project Valour IT provides voice activated software and laptops for wounded Marines, soldiers and sailors. Every cent raised goes directly to aid wounded warriors, so it's a great way to support the troops and know your gift is well spent.

Typically, these young men and women have lost the use of one or more limbs, their hands, or their sight. Valour IT allows them to keep in touch with buddies in the field, with family, and with friends during the long and grueling convalescence period. It helps them escape the confines of their hospital rooms mentally, if not physically. This is an enormous morale booster. Valour IT also provides Wii's, which have proven very useful during physical therapy and help wounded warriors regain flexibility and strength while having a bit of fun.

Historically, the Marine team have been the underdogs in this friendly inter service competition. In 2006, the Marine team not only outraised the far larger Army and Navy teams, but total fundraising receipts were the highest in the history of Valour IT. The Marines would really like to give the Army and Navy a run for their money this year, but to do that we need to assemble a strong team.

Would you be willing to join the Marine team? If so, click over to Villainous Company to join our Marine team!

OORAH!

Best quote heard today...

My 9 year old said:
"I'd rather get a horse than go through puberty."

Followed by the 5 year old asking:
"Can we go and visit Poo-berty someday?"

honest mommy moment

How ridiculously sad is it that I'm SOOOO happy that my butt-wiping days are just about over? Seriously, I have been wiping other people's backsides on a regular basis since 2000. L'il Sis has FINALLY started to wipe her own and just about has the process figured out. YES!!!

The really sad part is that it is 2009 and I'm just getting to this point. I only have 2 kids, people!

Suck it up, buttercup!

... is not a phrase the girls are familiar with... yet. But I think L'il Sis already understands the gist.

Yesterday, the girls were rough-housing and somehow ended up in my room. Big Sis banged her knee against my bed's footboard. There was much wailing and moaning. We checked and her knee was fine aside from a red spot, but that could have been from her rubbing it as well. At any rate, Big Sis was on the bed, holding her knee and crying, "It hurts! It hurts!"

L'il Sis, being the sweet little sister that she is, kept bringing things to Big Sis to help her feel better. First, it was a paper cup with a sip of water. This was followed by a bandage (no blood so not really needed) and then her sleep mask so that Big Sis wouldn't have to look at her boo-boo (again, it was just a little red spot).

Eventually, L'il Sis brought in a little pink egg-timer that their dentist had given them and said, "When the sand runs out, you have to stop crying."

Big Sis responded with, "But that's only 2 minutes!"

If L'il Sis had known the phrase, I'm sure she would have used it: Suck it up, buttercup!

9 years ago...

She came into the world weighing just over 8 lbs. 7 oz. and measuring 20-1/4 inches long.
Today, she's almost 4'6". That's roughly 33.5 inches of growth in 9 years. It sounds like a lot, but it creeps up on you. On day, she's a bundle of babyhood entirely dependent on you for everything. Then one day, you wake up to find a little girl who wakes herself up for school and makes her own breakfast. She's not entirely sure that you know anything about anything but has to stay on your good side to keep collecting her meager allowance. I'm telling you those 9 years went by in a flash!

Big Sis turned 9 today.

I took cupcakes to her school for her to share at lunch. She'll have a party this weekend. But today was just for family. She asked me to make veal piccata for dinner and I helped her bake brownies for dessert. After dinner, she opened her family presents. While her sister was less than thrilled with the book she received, Big Sis was excited about the Little House book she got.



I was reminded of my sister and myself as Big Sis went about opening her presents. While L'il Sis urged her to just tear them open, Big Sis very carefully and slowly unwrapped each gift.
(One Christmas, my younger sister grabbed my gift and opened it for me because I was being too slow in her opinion!)



Enjoying Big Sis's brownies for dessert...

Marines

What does this button do?

Big Sis knows how to push our buttons. Tonight, it was Stretch's turn.

One of Big Sis' jobs is to pour milk for herself and her sister for dinner each night. She is notorious for trying to skimp on her glass. As she was pouring, she asked, "Mom, what's sex?" Okay. We're sitting down to dinner and the 5 year old is sitting right there, so I said, "Whether you're a boy or a girl."

Then, she filled her cup with more milk than her sister's tonight. She pointed it out as she sat down to dinner and asked if anyone was wondering why she had so much milk, looking at her dad with a twinkle in her eye. Then she informed us that it was so "these" will grow and pointed at her chest. I thought Stretch was going to have a stroke.

She went on to ask what a tamp0n is. And then casually mentioned wanting puberty to happen. Stretch got a headache and I started to worry his head might explode from the sudden rise in blood pressure.

Naturally, Stretch's over the top reactions resulted in a lot of laughter. L'il Sis didn't really know why she was laughing, but thought it was all hugely funny anyway.

Quietly, I told Big Sis that I would answer any questions she had after dinner but that we weren't going to talk about it over dinner (and in front of her dad and 5 year old sister, to boot). Since I had already covered a lot of what she was asking about with her, I had a hunch she just wanted to punch Stretch's buttons.

Of course, after dinner, she had more important things to do and was no longer interested.

Field trip day

Today marked the first field trips of the year for both Big and L'il Sis. Only one seemed to have any educational value. The kindergartners went to a movie theater to see "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs."

Big Sis has been excited about her field trip for weeks so I'll let her tell you about her field trip:

a day at little red school house

big sis got her aqua blue Sunday school dress on and grabbed her green 19th century bonnet.
she hurried to get a basket, so i could pack bread with margarine and a clear jar filled with fresh water. then i dropped her of at school. at 9:30 her class got on the bus. big sis said they drove for at least thirty minutes. when big sis's class reached their destination they had to walk most of the way, some of the distance was done by bus. then her class went to the back of the little red school house or the one room school house because it is only one room.

the teacher met them at the back talking about how the children got to school. once they stepped inside the teacher became a 1800's teacher and very strict she said. we learned the rules. then we learned how to rise and sit down again properly and how to address her, like "no, ma'am," "yes, ma'am" or if it was a man, "no, sir" or "yes, sir." You always had to say, "ma'am" or "sir" before you started a sentence.

then we had our lessons. first was penmanship. we had to draw circles, then o's and a's. then while we were doing penmanship, we were supposed to be writing, "good posture makes good thinkers" but my row was called up to do a private lesson in reading where we got to read. she called us by our character names not our real names. big sis was "maggie bradley." the people were real who actually went to the school house. big sis shared a desk with another girl because there were not enough desks, but that happened in the 1800's as well. we went outside and played "get the bacon." it was a knotted piece of cloth, not real bacon. we were split into 2 teams and the "bacon" was put in the middle. we each had a number and we would run in and try to grab it without being tagged on the way back to our team. after that, we had lunch. when the bell rang once again, we lined up once again in back of the schoolhouse. we went in and put our baskets of food down in the corner. then we sat down the way we were taught to sit back down. we learned more lessons but our main lesson right then was reading. if we had a partner, then we shared the one book we were given. before we did that, we gave our pieces of slates that we did our penmanship on to the teacher. some of us didn't finish reading the story and then we could ask questions but we had to stand and say "ma'am" before we asked the question. then she taught us more and pretended we were back in 2009 but still called us by our character names.

she didn't do a roll call and she didn't do a check of our palms and knuckles and our necks for any diseases. then we were dismissed and we walked back to the bus.

the best thing about this field trip was the whole thing.

the worst thing was the heat since there was no air conditioning in the 1800's.

spotted on a bumper sticker:

CONTRARY to BELIEF
no one owes you anything

napping and chatting

Kindergarten is apparently quite exhausting. For the first week, L'il Sis was coming out of that school looking like she'd been run over by a bus. I'm sure she'll work up some endurance over the year, but for now school just about does her in. She doesn't normally take naps (mainly because she won't sleep at night if we let her). But Thursday was a half-day for some reason so when L'il Sis put herself down for a nap about an hour after we got home, I just let it lie.



While her sister was sleeping, Big Sis went into tween mode. She spent almost all afternoon on the phone. Most of the time, she and a friend from school were calling each other. If this was a preview of life to come...*shudder*
.... I actually had to threaten to make her pay the phone bill to get her off the phone.
(no, this is not her room...she took over my room for all the chatting)

Motivating

Still on the bandwagon, er, treadmill...

I've never been athletic or even particularly active. Running is a totally foreign concept to me (as in "If no one is chasing me, why would I be running?!"). So, just the fact that I've taken up the Couch to 5K program is a huge step for me. I've been running on a treadmill because the one day I ran outside I wanted to die. It wasn't just the heat and humidity. I have no clue how to pace myself apparently. So the treadmill it is.

Now, factor in the fact that I'm not only married to a Marine, but one who is naturally quite lean without much effort on his part. I finished Day 1 of Week 4 on Monday. It involved running for 3 minutes, walking for 90 seconds, running for 5 minutes, walking for 2-1/2 minutes, and then doing it all again. The thought of running for 5 solid minutes terrified me. So when it came time to run for 5 minutes, I set the pace slightly slower than I did for the 3 minute run (very slightly). I wanted to be sure that I actually ran for the entire 5 minutes and didn't give up and slow to a walk prematurely.

I made it through the work out and told Stretch about it later. He told me not to slow it down too much, I needed to keep pushing. Sometimes, I hate being married to a Marine.

Today was Day 2 of Week 4. I kept the same pace for all the runs. It was at a roughly 13-minute mile pace. Which I know is probably super slow. Heck, I used to be able to WALK a 15-minute mile without a problem. (Okay, so that was over a decade ago, but whatevs.)

My point is that despite the slowness, it was HUGE for me. I kept it up. I didn't stop despite really, REALLY wanting to during the last 5 minute run. I can't help wondering where are the endorphins I keep hearing about? They're probably a myth.

Now if I could just see some pounds and inches disappear...

...heavy-hearted......

It took me until almost noon to remember today's date. But I had my reasons. That day 8 years ago was tragic and changed so many of our lives. But today my heart was heavy from more recent events.

Yesterday, a Marine Reservist died during a routine training exercise. Stretch not only saw the event, but then was one of two Marines to notify the young man's parents. As much as we as spouses dread that knock on the door, I can only imagine the heaviness in a Marine's heart as he stands on the other side of that door.

So, in addition to remembering the tragic events of 8 years ago, I'm asking that you keep the Marines of this unit, as well as the family of this young man, in your thoughts and prayers.

Patriot Day giveaway

Head over to the Mrs. and see the blue star she's giving away in honor of Patriot Day.

Just another reason I'm NOT a Marine (just married to one):

I don't like sweating. As in the wet and dripping type of sweat. Nope. I don't enjoy it. In fact, it grosses me out. Now, I already knew this about myself. But I confirmed it this morning.

I started the Couch to 5K program this week in an effort to get in better shape. I want to use some of that extra time I have now that both kids are in school to get more exercise. The first 2 days I followed the program inside on a treadmill in our neighborhood clubhouse. (And yes, I worked up a sweat, just not like today!) When I found it wasn't open yet this morning, I decided to go ahead and do the workout outside despite the heat and mugginess.

I knew it would suck. About half or three-quarters of the way through the 30 minute walk/run workout, I wanted to die. By the time I got back home and stretched, the sweat was pouring off me. Ick. Stretch laughed at me when I asked if you could be allergic to your own sweat. (My chest started itching at some point and when scratched, I found it was covered in a sheen of sweat. Ick. Ick. Ick.)

I also asked Stretch if he could just go ahead and shoot me to put me out of my misery. For some wretched reason, the man refused and kept grinning at me (and probably inwardly laughing).