Garage Sales, Baseball, and Iowa

But not at the same time.

For some reason, Cedar Rapids seems to be the happening place, and it’s easy to get to from here. This was our second concert trip in that city,  but before we went there we had a garage sale.

Laura and I had our second annual garage sale mid June. We had a garage full of stuff-mostly Laura’s but I put in a good lot.

See all that stuff?  Oh, Laura is in there too but she wasn’t for sale.

Anyway, this is right before we opened for biz, at which time the skies also opened up and it rained and rained until about 9:30-10ish. Well, that sort of dampened the foot traffic, so to speak, but we still didn’t do too bad. We had a lot of clothes but Laura says that doesn’t sell well and it really didn’t. But I got rid of two TV’s and a few other things. Laura got rid of a bunch of garden tools and some plants. I was amazed by what people bought.

Even though we didn’t sell as much as we hoped, we did get a good purge out of it. Next year Dave and I are targeting the garage cause it’s next on the purge list. Gah.

The very next day Dave and I went up to the cities and attended the Twins vs LA game. It was Stitch and Pitch and we had a great time.

The weather was perfect and the Twins won. What more could you ask?

The very next Tuesday we took the dogs to the boarding place and left Minnesota for Cedar Rapids, where we were going to see Brandi Carlile.

She didn’t disappoint.

The opening band was the Secret Sisters. Interestingly, we had heard them singing on the new Prairie Home Companion, which is now called something else and I don’t always listen to anymore. ANYWAY, they were the musical guests so when they came out and started singing and talking I knew who they were. They are very good and I may have to download a few songs, or at the very least get a CD.

I don’t even know why I post these bad selfies.

The venue was fabulous-

The ceiling was looking at us.

Even Brandi and the Sisters commented on the great venue.

The Secret Sisters

They not only sang great, they were pretty funny too.

Brandi Carlile

It was a rockin’ show.

I would see her again and again.

And we had to take an inside bad selfie too. I don’t know what Dave’s looking at. I’m sure it was interesting.

I really really really need to work on this. I’d get a selfie stick but when we were in Ireland we were with a person that had a selfie stick and I swore I would never have one after that. Lord have mercy, that was obnoxious. Maybe I just need an arm extension.

Did I mention the food was good too?

I realize that’s a drink, but it went with good food.

It rained quite a bit while we were there (for less than 24 hours) and the landscape was gray Iowa farm land-which I find very pretty-

It eventually broke up and got a little brighter, but never much sun.

We boarded the dogs and when we got home I figured out that they didn’t follow my instructions for feeding, didn’t give Lacey her pill, and stole the dog light off her leash. AND—Lacey has kennel cough now. She had her bordatella but it’s now always 100% effective. I don’t think she has it as bad as she could.

So they are going back in August I guess. I can’t find anywhere to board my pets that I’m satisfied with. What to do? I don’t know house sitters and Manny isn’t very house broken. That’s the problem. Although he worked and worked on it and he did this last week:

Yep, he got up on the couch so he could steal a bone Lacey hid there. That was the motivation it took. He hasn’t done it since. It was a LOT of work.

Friday was the Hot Air Balloon Rally (or whatever) at Rochesterfest so I saw this when I got to work--

They were super pretty.

Last weekend was the Zombie  Knitpocolypse (or something like that) retreat which had an open marketplace which resulted in impulse buys

Three Irish Girls, and I held back—I could have bought so much more

Oh, and that was after buying some new stuff at Angie’s store so I was in a spending mood.

The Fourth of July is coming up fast fast fast. I am running a half up in the cities on the fourth and I think the heat index is going to be back down to the 80’s. Starting today the dew points are going to be in the 70’s. That’s a lot of air conditioning happening. My training run on Saturday is going to have to be very early.

Dave is traveling to Madison this weekend so I have the house to myself. But not really cause I still have Manny. Yay.

So, that’s all the news for now. I’m home until September, with a brief Grand Forks trip in August. September is travel month for sure with the trip to Norfolk and then to Scotland. Am very excited for that.

And going to the Netherlands in January. Already checked out some yarn stores in Amsterdam.

In the meantime, this-

And Puddy, always finding the out of the way spot for some serious chillaxin’

Running Like the Wind

Wow, sorry about the delay in my blog posts. If I could keep up it would be so much easier.

Most of this post I think will be running related because that’s what I did for three weeks in a row.

But before those runs, or maybe during those weeks, It’s all such a blur, we went and saw Paula Poundstone.  This is the second time we have seen her and she was hilarious. She is so clever and quick and can turn a joke on a dime. If you ever get the chance—go see her. She spoke about the upcoming meeting with N Korea (which at that time was off, but as we know is on again) and she made the astute observation that “they are both nutters”. Couldn’t agree more.

I couldn’t get a smiling picture no matter how hard I tried. And then I just wanted to listen.

Up next week is Brandi Carlile in Iowa. Good for us!

Oh, how could I forget this—the Royal Wedding. Jeepers. I was all over that.

I wore my tiara. Watched it live. My favorite parts were this little princess and her over the shoulder wave-

Oh my God, that kid has the wave.

And this photo bomb. Are you kidding me? The best ever

The Bishop from the Episcopal Church was preachin’ some fire. I was almost squirming because as an Episcopalian I’m not quite used to that level of intensity. At least not at any Episcopal church I ever attended.

You gotta love a Royal Wedding, it takes me away from reality and just makes me sort of happy.

But—back to reality

I ran Women Run the Cities in May-the first of three running weekends.I only ran the 10K, but it was good enough.

Beautiful day for Women to Run.

AND—I didn’t have to take a bad selfie cause here I am!

Woot.

Next up was Med City 1/2 Marathon. Ugh. That wasn’t so fun. Not. At All.

They cancelled the Marathon and Marathon Relay, and the 20 mile run because of the extreme heat. And hot it was. Some saintly women around mile 11 handed me a baggie of ice which I wore under my hat until the finish. I was hot and uncomfortable and I have never seen so many people walking in a race. My finish, at 2:13 was very slow, but at least I finished.

Looking fresh at the start

Dying at the finish

I did recover enough to take a picture of my coworker-Ashley who ran the half marathon relay-(since they canceled the marathon relay)

After that, it was off to Canada on Thursday May 31st to  meet up with the team and run a little Ragnar.

Now I have been watching the weather around Toronto for a few months, and looking at the averages and calculating what I’ll run in and how the course will feel. And if you believe the averages it should have felt pretty nice. However, as we all know when I’m traveling the weather is either freezing and I don’t have the right clothes (remember Tacoma at the end of Feb?? It was snowing….) or so hot it’s ridiculous. Well, it was ridiculous. The weather was about 10-15 degrees above the norm AND the dewpoints were about 65ish. Which made my first leg so miserable I could hardly stand it. I badly miscalculated what I ate before I ran, when I was going to run, and how hot it would be. Needless to say, I suffered a LOT.

But let’s get back to the beginning.

We stayed in a hotel that offered the love tub—Scary

It’s a little bit funny with the foam roller on the edge of the tub.

One of the best things about this Ragnar was my favorite neice Katie, came and ran with us. AND designed our great magnets.

Katie and I did selfies throughout the race--

Our van before

and after--

and our team, of course-

I have to say the the course was ok but my van fam in Van One was exceptional. Everyone was chill and fun and nice and I laughed and laughed. They were simply the best. And I had the most wonderful time.

Beautiful Canada

And some action shots

Me and the best captain of any Ragnar eva!

Things you can’t get anywhere but in Canada

Team bonding-

Beer drinking--

And a whole lotta fun—except for my first leg. That was NOT fun.

Who knows? Maybe it wasn’t my last Ragnar.

In other news, Cody was thinking of me a few weeks ago….

What a good boy.

Puddy was chillin on the deck which is decked out, so to speak, with new flowers.

I got my native garden in the back and my flower garden started in the front. It will take a couple of years to get that all filled in.  I just keep putting plants in to fill it up.

Anyway, I’m home for the summer. We are going to Brandi Carlile next week in Iowa for a couple of days, and I have Stitches Midwest in August with Julie. Looking forward to both of these things immensely.

This weekend is the annual garage sale that Laura and I put on. It’s the second annual garage sale. Hoping to make some spare change for Scotland in September AND get rid of some things. I have a ways to go before I get rid of everything I should get rid of.

I’ll let you know how I do.