Holiday

So, this weekend is the Memorial Day weekend. A tribute to those who have gone before us and those who served and lost their lives.

It’s also the official beginning of summer.

And summer is a bike riding time.

Cathy and I nominated Jules and Connie to get some donated bikes. They brought them on Friday.

Here we are with our girls

Me and Jules

Cathy and Connie

Connie needed to raise her handle bars, but Jules took to it like a fish to water.

 

You go Jules

This was  a program from the Kiwanis and Joe was the one who refurbished the bikes. I think it’s a great deal.

 

Cathy and I are planning a little bike ride with the girls very soon.

Memorial Day weekend-end of May means Med City Marathon. This year was a new course and new venue and it was great-such an improvement over the last few years.

I met up with Nanci start line. She looks good-I look confused.

And, as usual, he got a great picture of me starting.

I just think I look a little stupid. Maybe I am concentrating on the fact I have to run for the next two hours, 13.1 miles. And I really, really want to finish in two hours. Really.

And I did.

Look at me on the big screen.

Clock time said two hours and 14 seconds. Result time says 2 hours 44 seconds. Whatev. All I know is it is 2 hours. I was actually on track to finish in under two, but the last 3 miles were brutal and slow. I hadn’t trained over 10 miles, or over 1.5 hours and it showed. But still, 2 hours. Sweeeet.

I  met up with my friend Nina at the end. She is a great running partner. And always looks so much better than me at the end.

So, all in all, great weekend. Blane was here too, but he left today and took Betty Ford, the cat, with him. (Betty is staying here while Cody is in Europe for 52 days-he has posted on Facebook so I know he’s there, but he keeps posting about girls, and has not said a word about missing his mother…..)

(Archival picture-for some reason I didn’t take any pictures of her here)

Anyhow, I think she’ll be a little more relaxed at Blane’s apt without the crowd. Blane brought Kitten this weekend and we had 5 cats over. Just a bit much. Look what it did to Jack.

I saw a cartoon in the New Yorker. It was Idiotman and he said-

At the end of the day, it is what it is.

Ain’t it the truth?

Now-bring it summer!

More Painting

Last week was busy trying to make everything look like it should.

The red wall is gone, replaced by boring brown.

Red Wall-Loved the red wall.

 

Brown wall. Yawn. Wake me when it’s over

Now the blue bedroom, well that’s another story.

Bye bye blue dungeon

Aloha bright and airy new bedroom

Serious improvement there.

Last week our director, Mary Wellik, had a lunch for us because she is retiring after spending her entire life at Olmsted County.

So we ate.

Laura is getting food AND telling me what to do. I am not sure she’s really telling me what to do, but that’s the look she usually has when she is telling me what to do.

There’s Lyndsey and Rachael looking on. Don’t know who the caterer guy is.

And while we were eating, Laura found a baby (Shocker!)

That is Jill’s baby, but I can’t remember the baby’s name. And she has a weird kind of pacifier in her mouth which gives the odd impression that she has one of those baby doll mouths-like this

In real life, not like that at all.

Hey-I got a new purse last week. Did I already blog it? I think not.

Not a great picture, but it is my new purse. I just couldn’t make the small one work. I have too much stuff-iPod, camera, glasses, shopping bags. You know, stuff you need.

It’s getting green out at work, here’s the workplace seasonal indicator tree

Weather is questionable, although it looks nice on this day.That was probably right before it started raining.

But I guess it did get sunny for a minute because look at these two.

 

 

Last weekend, however, weather was bad-rain, wind, storms. Tornados in Minneapolis, but just thunder, lightening, rain and wind wind wind here in the Charles.

A perfect day to meet up with the knitting group.

Barb, Susan, and I. We were happier than this picture looks. Really. And look at our knitting line up-that’s the Skacel KAL, baby. I told Barb to bring her April socks so we could pose this month,and then I forgot mine. What an airhead.

Lorna was there too knitting on a shawl with some seriously soft yarn.

And Barb, the fixer. I always say-Give it to Barb, she’ll fix it. I don’t know how she does it. I guess if I did, I wouldn’t be saying give it to Barb, eh?

The Bills next door have completed what I like to call the Shrine of our lady of the Trampoline

 

So they filled in, put in a retaining wall, and could have a lovely green space, but yet they do not do this. They are seeding which is the light brown straw in the foreground. Will keep you updated. (If you can’t see clearly, there is also a fake goose under the arbor thing-unsure of the significance….)

And lastly, a little sunrise. If we move, I sure will miss the views.

Be sure to click to make it bigger, and enjoy the day.

Mixed Feelings

My good camera broke last week. So I didn’t have many pictures and I didn’t blog. I was also busy painting and putting the basement together so we could have some realtors over to see if we could sell this house. (That would make  a good TV show eh?)

So this is what we did

We painted the floor white (that’s the royal we-namely Dave-but I moved all this crap around and cleaned up)

Then I rearranged my craft area

We got rid of the pool table and moved the birds over to the end of the room and moved the desks to the middle

We got rid of the denim couch and pulled the dog couch forward-poor dogs.

 

And put a little reading area where the birds used to be. (The phone didn’t work there-no one, meaning Dave, knows why)

Much better. Blane gave it a thumbs up. Jack likes it too.

The realtors liked it when they came over, but didn’t like the red wall nor the blue bedroom. So Dave painted the big red wall today, but I don’t have a picture yet-that will be next week. We also bought 3 expensive gallons of paint and used one. Can’t take it back. Crap.

The hillbillies next door are putting in a retaining wall so they can have a garden AND the trampoline close by. This is the big garden, which of course makes ours look very malnourished. They are going to move the trampoline over a little bit. Maybe out of the view just a tad….

I would rather look at this everyday than the trampoline. Go figure.

It’s getting to be spring out there

Last week it got warm for one day.

 

so Yeltsie went out to enjoy the heat

 

and I activated the Jack cam

  

Look at him looking so smart. For a minute.

I finished April’s Skacel Socks (not a very good picture of the pattern-Blame the camera)

And the orchid bloomed, again

I got Blane’s Seattle Mariners curtain done. Here it is before I sewed down the fabrics. And got all the cat hair off.

We drove up to Madison on Saturday. We were supposed to do a 1/2 marathon power walk in N Wisconsin BUT Dave “hurt” his foot and I didn’t feel like walking for 3 hours by myself. So we stayed home Friday, cleaned up, and then got Blane to watch the dogs, cats and birds and we took off.

It was a grey drive up.

  We got to Madison and stayed at this hotel.

This is a PR photo, not mine. This is called the Road Star and if I were you and you had reservations here, I would tell you to turn around and book a different hotel. NOW. I wondered about it when the sign on the door said no hoodies, sun glasses, or anything covering the face is allowed when entering the lobby. Really? Is that an issue?…..

The room was, well, dirty and very, very noisy.

This is the cigarette butt behind the bed

Along with the other dirt and gross lint back there. There was an inch of lint all the way around the walls. It was really a testament to where the vacuum cleaner can’t reach.

And this is our view

It’s really all you need. We slept on top of the bed in our clothes AND washed everything on our return home. This was Dave’s good deal. The parking lot party at 1 AM, setting off someone’s car alarm, then resulting in the party moving to the hall outside our room was the ultimate in a full service experience.

We had dinner here and it was delicious. There were also lots of prom gals there, and I so wanted to photograph them for the blog, but sadly, inappropriate….

The graduation was Sunday at the Kohl Center and was very nice.

The day was sunny and we stopped for breakfast at the only place open by the Kohl Center

Coffee shop looking out on the famous State Street

We got there early and took a few pictures

I did this

The graduates came in and sat themselves. I like the march in but they don’t do that here.

Because I only have the crap camera these pictures aren’t so great-however, if you click to embiggen the picture you’ll see someone on the left in a red stole waving-that’s Justin

Here’s the walk across the stage

And here’s the two of them afterwards

WooHoo

Afterwards, we had a sunny drive home and saw a ceremony with a zillion flags

And some pretty scenery

And a cool looking church

So we have arrived home and back to work tomorrow. Dave painted, I bought some flowers to plant (if it ever gets warm and the wind quits blowing) and life goes on.

Sadly, this weekend, while I was away, I received news that a friend of mine has passed away-which cast a pall over the weekend, and, in a way, over the blog this week.

This was our Ragnar 2010 team. The name was Divas and a Dude. The guy in the front left, Paul Melby, was our original dude before the other dude, Brandon, joined up. Paul was a great sport and wore his pink with pride.

 

On Saturday, just after completing a marathon up by St. Cloud, and qualifying for Boston, Paul collapsed and could not be revived. He passed away at the age of 35. His wife, Shelly, works at the county and with her name and mine so close, we are frequently redirecting phone calls, e-mails, and paperwork-we get a kick out of it and I talk to her regularly.

I am so sad about this, because Paul was a really nice guy and Shelly is very sweet. Besides Shelly, he leaves behind 3 young children.

Ragnar 2011-In memory of Paul. Rest In Peace