My first triathlon

So here it is- I ran the Jay Benson triathlon on Sunday here in Albuquerque. I woke up in the middle of the night with the wind pounding terribly against my bedroom window and all I could think was 'I can't even ride the bike that great when it's not windy...' But I got up and got ready and headed out to the military base (where the race was).

Sheldon was very helpful and together we figured out where to put my bike and how to lay out all my stuff so that it would be ready for transition (the in between events time when you change your gear, which by the way is also timed), and all the other logisitics. So I went and got my body marked with my number and age and all that jazz- they do this at triathlons for some reason, even though now everything is computerized. I guess they still feel like embarassing you when you get passed by a lady who has a '68' on her leg, you realize that is her age and that you are a slow runner.

Anyway, I warmed up lined up and then headed out on the run. I made it in pretty good time actually, then transitioned to the bike, which took longer than it should have, but I'll know better for the next time. The bike ride was 12 miles- it was great going out because it was mostly flat or slightly downhill. However, remember the wind I mentioned...well, it was in my face the whole way back, which by now you can figure out was ALL uphill. It sucked, but I made it back in.

Sheldon was standing at my transition area so I knew where to go and he said just leave your socks on and run over to the pool. So I did, and ruined a pair of socks, but we just left them there, so oh well. I jumped in the pool and it felt very good, but I realized I had to get going and not think about the cool water. I passed lots and lots of people- did I mention that I have been going swimming about 3 days a week (at 4:30 am)? So I did my 400 m and there are people at the end that pull you out of the pool so you can cross the finish line on foot. I did and right there waiting for me was Sheldon, my mom and her friend. it was very nice. My time was 1:34:48.

I did well, but I will kick more butt next time!

triathlon...almost

The triathlon is almost here. Today is Wednesday and the event is Sunday morning. I am riding the bike with the clips....yes, I know this could spell disaster, but oh well. I am borrowing the bike I fell off of once so that I can go faster- does that make sense? The way I see it, even if I fall off, I'll just get up fast and then the bike will still be faster than what I have. :) (unless I break something, then I don't think I'll be getting up quickly).

I am on this taper week now, which is my favorite week, because you are only supposed to work out 15 minutes 3 times this week. why can't every week be taper week?

I'll post pictures after the event. I think I am going to have to rely on my mom to figure out our digital camera and take pics as I pass her along the route. So if all you get is a leg and a bicycle, you'll know it's mine because it will be white and fat.

Enjoy!

photos

About the last post: No, you are not technically supposed to have cameras or recording devices at concerts, but well....if they don't catch you, it's not a crime, right? Besides, everyone there had a camera- and those who didn't had camera phones (which i don't have, but I'm pretty sure I got much better pics than a camera phone could have caputred).

By the way, Sheldon got me these totally awesome sunglasses to wear when I run and ride. I really wanted them, but I never even told him I did because I figured he'd say they cost too much and I didn't really need special sunglasses. But he just knew I wanted them and got them for me. He also gave me the boxed set of the "Little House on the Prarie" books- the whole set. I used to love to read those when I was a little girl.

My Birthday!

Yesterday was my birthday- finally! It was a pretty nice day. I got up and taught band, then I went for a nice run, took a nap and taught some saxophone lessons and one student even brought me a little present. But the big event of the day was the "Time Well Wasted" concert we went to see last night. You may be asking yourself, isn't that the name of Brad Paisely's latest album? Yes, it is.

We got tickets in the fifth row and the show opener was Josh Turner- the super-cute one in the picture here. He is much cuter than his voice makes him sound. He's pretty much a stud. Then the next act was Sara Evans. She was GREAT! And since she wasn't the headliner, she didn't get to sing as many songs, so all the songs she sang were her biggest hits (and best songs).

Then Brad Paisley came on. He is AWESOME! We have seen him in concert before, so I knew he would be good. He was on stage for an hour and a half! He never left and when he was resting his voice, he just played the guitar, which he is totally awesome at. It was such a great concert! If you have a chance to see this tour, do it. Part with the money because it is so worth it!

Then I came home and went to bed but couldn't sleep because my ears were still ringing (I forgot earplugs), but I didn't care because I was very happy.

2 Days!

Here we are, Tuesday, May 2 and I am very excited to say that my birthday is only 2 days away!!! I am a grown up, but I am still looking forward to birthdays and presents and stuff. I have a friend who has her birthday soon after mine and she has decided not to celebrate because she is going to be 29 and thinks if she stops celebrating now, then she won't actually have another birthday next year.

But nonetheless, I am celebrating. I told all the little kids I teach that Thursday is my birthday and if they wanted me to continue being nice to them, they need to bring me presents and preferably a new car. So they all decided that they would buy me a porsche and also a horse for my back yard. So, I can't wait to see what they come up with on Thursday. Pretty cute actually.

I am going to see Brad Paisley that night too! I waited in line for tickets when they went on sale and I am happy to report that I am sitting in the middle section 5th row! Yay! I might even catch his eye and then he will tell me happy birthday! Although I doubt seriously that will happen. Either way, We have good seats and I am very excited!

umm, hello?

Yesterday I was supposed to have 4 students come for saxophone lessons. Total number of students that showed up: 0! Can you believe it?!

I got called from one mom who said she forgot to put the saxophone in the car and they would never make it by their assigned time and then another dad called and said the clarinet was in the mom's car and he couldn't track her down. Then the two high school students- one said she didn't have an instrument because the band room was locked after school and the other one (who happens to be the boyfriend of the above mentioned student) just flat out didn't show up. No call, no show.

So, according to my lessons policy sheet- which each student gets when they start lessons- I made over $100 for just sitting around waiting for people yesterday afternoon. No show= you pay for the lesson anyway as if you were there. Pretty easy money, huh?

What is(n't) wrong with NM?

I have pretty much decided that the price of gas is just absurd and I really wish I didn't fall off bicycles or else I wouldn't have to drive so much. The price of gas here in the wonderful (sarcasm) Land Of Enchantment is $2.90/gallon! Can you believe it?!? We have among the highest number of people living in poverty and the gas is almost $3/ gallon! No wonder there are so many poor people here.

I saw on TV that the gas in all the other states of the 4 corners is among th nation's lowest priced gas. What is wrong with NM?!?!? I ask myself this question everyday.

I'm pretty sure that ol' GW has quite a bit of "interest" in this high price of oil, being that he and his family are oil men.

But I have decided to make the most of it. I moved some of the money in my IRA to a fund that is made up almost exclusively of foreign oil intersts and the one American oil company is Chevron, so the higher gas goes, the higher my IRA goes. I have just made lemonade out of lemons! :)

Doggie party

So here she is- the winner of the 2006 Steichen Dog Show "Best in Show"

Actually I have a little saxophone student who held her 2nd annual doggie show/party on Saturday and she really wanted me to come since I missed it last year. Keep in mind this little girl is 10 years old.

She had all kinds of fancy dog treats, you know the kind you go to the dog bakery for and pay ridicilous amounts for? Yeah, those. She also had prizes for EVERYTHING! Lila won a prize just for getting locked in the garage and no one noticing she was gone for about 10 minutes.

Then there was the dog show. And there was this super-cute ballerina costume and can you believe she didn't even win best costume?!? She did win "most obedient," which I am glad she did, because we pay the dog school lots of money each month to become more obedient!

And she also won....drum roll please...."Best in Show."

Well, her prizes for all this were: a little thing you clip to the leash or your belt so when you go walking and the dog poops, you have bags accesible, a squeaky dog toy and also a squeaky frisby toy. Plus all this dog cake from Three Dog Bakery, which I happen to know costs about $1.50 per piece, and a doggie bag full of treats to take home. I'm serious, Lila didn't eat again for a day and a half.

Plus there was all this food for humans, plus beer for the adults (a group consisting of myself and this little girls parents and grandma). This must have cost a fortune for all the food, plus doggie food- which might have actually cost more than the human food- plus all the toys, which I know came from Target and their dog toys aren't really all that inexpensive.

Ahh, I love teaching at a private school! :)

My bicycle adventure

So, I konw I don't blog that often, but let's face it, my life is just not all that exciting and I really just want to blog when there's something worth saying, so the few people who actually read this won't be totally bored. I hate reading mindless blogs.

Anyway, today I went out bike riding with this lady who is my swin coach for the triathlon. I have been riding a mountain bike and it is taking me FOREVER to ride the race distance, so she has an extra road bike she said I could try out.

So I get to her house and get all set up to ride and she informs me that her bike has clips instead of pedals- for those of you that don't know, you buy these special shoes that clip on to these really attachments where the pedals would normally be. You're supposed to have more power and be able to go faster with clips. Anyway, when you clip in, you're basically stuck in the bicycle.

All was well for about 28 miles and on our last couple stops to cross the street, who failed to get out of the clips?! You guessed it. Well if you can picture this- basically your feet are stuck and in a very short time, the bicycle comes to a complete stop. Well, if you're still on the bicycle, then you pretty much just fall over and hit the deck- HARD. And because my feet were still in the clips, I fell right over and killed my knee and my hip and my elbow- luckily I was wearing long sleeves, so all that really bled was my knee- although it was a mess.

Well, I was proud of myself that I didn't get all pissed off and throw a tantrum. I just got up and sprayed some of my water on my knee and got back on the bike- the bike that I happened to be borrowing, don't forget. So I rode another mile or so and had to stop one more time to cross the final street before arriving back at her house. Well......you guessed it! I fell again, only this time, I scraped my knee even worse and I killed my hip and totally went through my long sleeve shirt. So this time, I got up again, but this time, I just walked the bike across the street and hobble home without my feet in the clips.

So, tomorrow I am supposed to go swimming again and I don't think I will go because I'm too afraid that the water will sting ALL my wounds. I told her that my husband might not let me play with her anymore. :)

Lunch with Grandpa

I wrote an entry about going to lunch with my g-pa a few weeks ago, but didn't realize that it never got posted, so now it is posted and it is pretty funny, so you must go back to 2-28 and read it. enjoy!

Old Lady

So I am pretty much feeling like a total old lady. I have been training for this triathlon and this week I decided to hit it pretty hard. I even started doing lunges and squats again (although I don't know what I was thinking).

Anyway, the last two days I have had the hardest time just getting out of bed, not because I'm that tired, I just can't physically will my legs to touch the ground because my legs hurt too bad. But, even worse than getting out of bed, going to the bathroom- whoever decided to make toilets so low to the ground must have been a man. anyway, I just kinda bend my legs and drop then hope for the best.

I told Sheldon that if I am this bad now, imagine how bad it will be when I am 80!

I am getting faster at all my race events though, so I guess it must be worth it. Although I have actually gained weight- it's really quite terrible!

Inspired

So, Kerry has inspired me to quit one of my jobs too. Well, actually it was due to the fact that the person in charge told some of my students that I didn't like people and that they must never teach like that. So, in a round-about way, it was Kerry :)

anyway, I told that lame band director that I would finish this year out for his students and then I would be "moving on." That was polite way of saying "you're an a@#!"

I found two other high schools that I am going to work for next year and then I still have my little elementary school band students, so I am definitely not going to be bored- although I wish I could be bored for a little while. I guess that is why they give teachers the summers off too. If we had to teach all year, we'd probably kill all the kids and then there would only be kindergarten teachers, because the end of that year would be the end of them- maybe I'd off some of them in the middle of the year....hmmm......

Surely you know I am just kidding. I really like my job and working with kids is definitely WAY better than working with adults. They just act like wierdos sometimes, you know?

Why do they do this to me?

So Saturday was solo and ensemble festival- a thing where you prepare a solo and then go play it for a person who judges your performance and then gives you a score. Well, I had many of my students working on solos and felt that they were mostly prepared and should do ok on Saturday.

Well, for the first time, I went to hear all of them perform their solos. And the judge was this guy who holds the same degree as me and basically we are the good teachers in town. He happens to be the sax professor at the university here. So here it comes...

They all played like CRAP!!!! Some of them were so bad I just wanted it to stop! So obviously since I am sitting there listening to them, he knows I am their teacher and I'm sure he must think I am a terrible teacher now. It was SOOO embarassing and now I am just mortified to play a gig with the guy again.

Now, maybe they have been going to auditions and performances all this time and sucking, but this is the first time I have actually had to listen to them play so badly for so long. It was awful!!! Mental note to self- do not let them play solos again- EVER! :)

Microwave cake

Sheldon is on call tonight, so I went over to my mom's house to help her highlight her hair. After we ate dinner, we decided that we felt like cake. I went to the grocery store to buy some cupckes, but they were $6.00 ! Since I did not feel like paying $.50 for one cupcake when I could make a whole cake for far less, I decided to buy one of those new bowls of cake that you warm up in the microwave, with the caramel and fudge.

It was sooooo good! I highly recommend this product to everyone. We had the chocolate cake with the caramel swirl. Basically, you open the box and there is a packet of cake mix. You just add water, then swirl the enclosed caramel sauce on top and voila- 1.5 minutes later you have a super yummy chocolate cake and it's warm and gooey. you can tell I liked it. And it only has 10 grams of fat for the whole bowl of cake, and since my mom and I shared it, that's only 5 grams. I'm pretty sure I burned that much just driving to the store to buy the cake, which by the way was $2.29- roughly the same as buying all the cupcakes. oh well.

Lunch with Grandpa

Last week my grandpa wanted to take me to lunch, but he asked me if I liked shrimp and I told him no, so he decided that he would go with someone else who did like shrimp- he had a coupon, you see. So yesterday he called and told me his neighbor was in the hospital (the neighbor he usually goes to luch with EVERY Wednesday) and so he could go to lunch with me today.

He picked me up and took me to what he calls "home buffet." The actual name of this yucky place is Hometown Buffet, maybe this is a chain, if it is then you might know how yucky it is. Anyway, I don't really care that he always takes me there because I know that he is eating a well-balanced lunch and getting all his veggies, etc and even some dessert. I can usually find something that's pretty decent, you can't really ruin salad, right?

Anyway, today was like lunch at the geriatric psych ward. Normally at lunch I bring the average age down to about 78- you know the crowd. But today, there was this crazy lady sitting on the floor and moaning/crying. Then the manager tried to walk her around to calm her down, then she started doing this again, only this time, she started really crying and yelling to everyone that she was "so sorry, I'm so sorry everyone." Then all of a sudden, she went over the edge and freaked out and yelled at someone to stop looking at her- think exorcist here. She was crazy. Then my grandpa sat back down and said "she's on the floor." I said "yeah, I know, I think they are trying to get her out of here, we should just ignore her." But he was like a little kid and couldn't stop staring at her. Pretty sad when you realize that you are actually the adult now, huh?

Doggie school

So, Lila has moved onto advanced obedience- I'm not really sure she "moved on" as much as she finished the first 12 weeks of beginning and had no where else to go but up. So, we have been going to advanced class on Monday nights. There are about 30-40 dogs in this ongoing class (basically you go whenever you want and only pay for the times you are there) and they are all big dogs with short hair that sheds all over the place. Anyway, she is the smallest dog there and the cutest- a fact that she exploits. She is always the first dog to act up and I have to yell 'no" at her from across the room and then go correct her.

Last night we weren't even there 5 minutes yet when she started sniffing butts and pretneding not to hear me. I yelled her name about 3 times, then finally I clapped really loudly and called her name and all the other dogs got all uptight at my clap and I think everyone there hates me now.

So after class there are "birthdays," basically an excuse to feed our dogs food I would rather not feel my dog, but the b-day dog's owner goes to this fancy dog bakery and spends about $20 for a doggie cake to share with the class- a nice gesture, but you can rest assured that we will not be going to class on Lila's b-day. Anyway, all the dog's get in a large circle and the owners sing "happy b-day" and then all the dogs start howling, except my dog. She starts running around in circles because she knows "cake" is coming. I guess they love cake. One night the lady next to me started eating it because she thought it was for people- it was doggie cake! It was so funny! She didn't know what to do, so she just ate it all- YUCK!

V-day

Well, as you know yesterday was Valentine's Day and Sheldon actually got a day off from the hospital. So we went and had a nice lunch and spent the day together (because my dumb students forgot to tell me they weren't coming- I didn't forget, however to email them and remind them that they will be charged for missed lessons). So for my present, he bought me a new pair of running pants and a new sports bra top. Now you're thinking "oh, that is a very supportive husband trying to help motivate his wife to exercise and get in shape," and you might be right except that those items of clothing were in a gift bag with the contents of a HUGE bag of candy at the bottom.

Now, I do appreciate both the clothes and the candy, but I do find it a little funny that they were packaged together, don't you?!

Mail man

The mail man (actually, I think they are technically called postal carriers or something PC like that these days) is a new guy on our route and when he stops at each house, he turns his little truck completely off and has to re-start it every single house. Now, I'm no mail carrier, but it would seem to me that you could just put the truck in par, or maybe even neutral when you jumped out to put the mail in the mail box.

I can only imagine how many times he must turn his truck on and off each day- there are like 30 houses just on my street multiply that by all the streets in the neighborhood carry the one......:)

Think about how much gas he is wasting and probably also time..... And one day I stopped him a few houses early because I was leaving and didn't want my mail sitting there for the few days I would be gone and he was so snotty. He thought he was the head of national security or something. He was very nasty and told me to just wait and then I finally asked one last time and he made me show him my ID and verify my address, etc. Now I know there is mail theft, but he sees me every day anyway.

Teenagers

Ok, so when I was a teenager, I really did know everything, but these kids today think they know it all. I taught this morning at a high school- something I do every Tuesday- and one group of kids decided that if they could get me off track talking about something else, they wouldn't have to work today. So they all get out this test their teacher handed back and most of them did actually get bad grades, but I'm pretty sure they just don't care, so why would they start today?

So, they ask me all these questions about music theory and counting ryhthms and stuff I know for a fact high schoolers care NOTHING about. So I figured out their game and then I started going all crazy on music theory and even making them come up to the board and figure out complex rhythms. They looked like they had obviously fried brains.

Then I said " well, we need to work on these few spots in the music, but as soon as we get through them, we can get back to this stuff on the board." Idiots.

Foleys, part II

So, it has been brought to my attention that Foleys really won't change, but just their name. Well, they are selling everything in their stores- there are 2 in ABQ and my aunt who is a bridal consulant at Foleys in Austin says the same thing about her store and is possibly going to lose her job to someone from Macys.

Now I do realize that Marshall Fields is going away and that is a shame, but I really liked Foleys and, at least in ABQ, the actual Macys store is moving into the Foley's building and going to sell Macys stuff, which I don't like by the way. So, the point is that my Foley's is leaving and being taken over by yucky Macy's.

Foleys

So, in case you haven't heard, the Macy's the evil chain store, has purchased Foley's and all the other May and Co. stores. Well, all the stuff is on sale now, except anything that you might want that is kinda good- because Macy's is keeping all that stuff for themselves and not putting it on sale.

I was there today and I must say, the sales there are not even as good as the sales you could find at Foley's on a regular weekend when you could use your 15% off coupon. Most of the stuff is 20-40% off, but that is off regular prices on most stuff, so not all that great.

The real deal to be had at Foley's right now is on the fancy dresses. Those are the ONLY things in the store that are 50% off. And some have already been reduced, so they are 50% off the lowest price. I actually got a cute Jones NY dress that was normally $130 for $30. So, even if you don't think you need a fancy dress right now, you should think about going to look for one for later- what girl couldn't use a little black dress in her closet?

I think you are the only one I know who is reading the blog, but I don't care. It's still fun! Maybe I will email a link to my blog site for everyone I know to see. That should be about 3 people :)

Well, here is my second blog- I'm so technologically advanced. I just got a massage and now I am very tired and must go take a nap. I tell you what, my life is pretty hard. I'm not sure if Lila wants to take a nap now, but I'm pretty sure she'll try to be tired.

This is my first attempt at a blog. I hope it works! Enjoy my thoughts!