Mottos by which to live...

For years, I've had the following poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson (maybe) hanging in my office:

Success
To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people
and affection of children;
to earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty,
to find the best in others;
to leave the world a bit better,
whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch,
or a redeemed social condition;
to know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.

However, after having children and determining that things are seldom as perfect as I'd like them to be (including my behavior when dealing with them!), I think I'm going to change it out for a very wise quote I just received by e-mail:

"If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning."

Surely it's better to just set a lower standard than to continuously fail at perfection. :)

Random musings of a 4-year-old

Yesterday the boy was in rare form - here are some of his random musings...

Yesterday morning as I left for work, the kids had the following conversation (my husband text-messaged me as I was driving down the street):
the girl: "I wish... we'll miss her all day"
the boy: "We'll miss her all day... But we won't! After nap she'll come."
the girl: "I want to watch Calliou right now!"
(It's nice they think about me so fondly... and for so long!)

They then sat down to eat breakfast. And while sitting at the table, the boy says, "Daddy, you know what I really want is some attention" (pause) "but you're not giving me any." My husband said he thinks his reply was something like, "Hold on a minute - I want to hear what Cadel Evans has to say." - You know, an exciting stage of the Tour de France was going at this time! :)

The boy apparently then wanted Daddy to take him outside so he could check the weather. He got outside and declared, "Yep! Still summer!!!" and they went back inside.

And then last night, we went for a bike ride and Fellan was telling me all about how we would ride bikes when he gets older, "When I get older, then I could ride your bike. And Daddy and I could ride with the babies on the trailer bike."
"What babies?" I asked.
"The babies we're going to get!" he replied.
"Where are we going to get these babies?" I asked.
"From the hossibal! I know they make them there!" he exasperatedly replied.

(Lately, he's been obsessed with us having more babies - he wants two girls. Twin girls, to be exact. How long do you think it will take for his disappointment to fade?...)

Of course, the evening ended with him stubbornly refusing to brush his teeth and crying himself to sleep because we then wouldn't read him his book, but I'll try to remember the good parts of the day instead. :)

Mark my words...

For the last 8 years, the Tour de France has been won by an American. Last year's winner is still being questioned as a doper, however it remains a big question in my mind. The french labs that do the testing seem to be as reliable as a Yugo and I don't trust anything they say. I think they're still a little peeved that they've never been able to get any dirt on Lance, they hate that Americans have been winning, and they haven't had a French winner since 1985 - Bernard Hinault.

So, this year's Tour de France has been going on now for a week and the first big mountain stage was today. Everyone seemed to have a hard time coming up with the favorites for this year because more and more riders are being accused of doping and admitting to doping, but, even before the Tour started I figured out who the winner is going to be: Christophe Moreau.

Not that I like him at all. He's been a professional rider for 11 years and has been known to be kind of a jerk for most of his career. A few years ago, he was involved in a scuffle during a race and either punched another rider or got punched, I don't remember which.

Anyway, this year, he has become a "revelation". He won the French National Championship and the Dauphine Libere this year and I figure he'll probably win the Tour - he's French, he's probably doping (because, come on - at 36, he's suddenly a "revelation"??), but the French labs won't dare to "out" him as a doper.

So, there's my pick for the Tour. (do you think I could be any more fatalistic about this?...)

P.S. My real hopes for this year? Levi Leipheimer and Cadel Evans :)

I'm a "Fire Warden"

In my office building, every floor is required to have 4 "Fire Wardens" - people who check the floor during a fire drill and keep everyone on the floor until we're told to leave.

So, in case you can't find my office, just follow the gigantic arrow...


I just about fell over laughing when I came in one day to find myself "labelled".

Mini-vacation

Well, as if taking a week and a half off to go biking wasn't enough, we also decided to take a mini-vacation last week. My company only works 4 days a week and since the 4th was on Wednesday, I decided it was just stupid for me to come in to work on Thursday. I was having hard enough time trying to get back into the "work" mentality anyway!

So, we decided to take a mini-vacation out to Fredericksburg, TX. We were only there for one full day, but we managed to go hiking at Enchanted Rock for the morning, visited a winery (of course!) in the afternoon, and ate our fair share of bratwursts and German potato salad while we were there.

Hiking in a "valley" next to Enchanted Rock:


Our feet at the highest point on Enchanted Rock (surveyor's mark):

(notice the runnin' back shoes?...)

Tour de Nebraska

I'm a little behind in my posts, so I'll try to catch up in the next couple of days...

The Tour de Nebraska was really great! The route basically circled my hometown this year, so the kids stayed with grandma and grandpa and they all came to visit us a couple of times.

The first two nights of the tour, we stayed in towns with wineries! Yeah - wineries in Nebraska - whodathunk?! The first winery wasn't spectacular, but that didn't stop us from splitting a bottle of wine that afternoon. The second winery, however, was really good. We, of course, felt it necessary to split another bottle of wine that second night and we ordered a case of it! We're pretty sure this tour was designed with us in mind. (Good thing we do so much "training" every evening here so that we could keep up with all the drinking during the bike ride.)

The third night we went out for a nice meal together - and split another bottle of wine. And the fourth night, we stayed in Wilber, Nebraska, the "Czech Capitol of the USA" (they even hold a "Miss Czech USA" pageant every year!). Of course, the evening was capped off with a traditional Czech meal and a couple of huge bottles of Czech beer.

Oh yeah, besides the drinking (which, of course, was the most important part) we also did some biking! It was beautiful and fairly challenging! For the first 2.5 days, there wasn't a stretch of flat ground to be seen. And the hills were pretty steep. I had trouble walking the 2nd and 3rd nights because my legs were so sore! But I got a massage on the 3rd night and that seemed to help my legs quite a bit for the 4th and 5th days.

So, yeah, the biking was really very nice. Most people think of bicycle tours as being in the California wine country, or Vermont, or some other spetacular place, but I'd have to say that this one is probably nicer than those places. There are no people in Nebraska, you know! No people = no cars! It was great. And the roads were nice, too - you know, no cars to mess up the roads! :)

And it was just so nice to visit all these tiny little towns in Nebraska - the Rotary Clubs and church groups staffed rest stops for us and we ate every day in whatever local bar was in town. It was pretty cool.

Definitely something we'd like to do again! And we're going to try to convince other people to come with us next time... Any takers?...

Quick Update

Sorry, my adoring fans, but I only have time to write a quick update on the goings-on in our parts.

We've mostly been trying to ride our bikes in a futile attempt to get ready for our upcoming vacation. We've unfortunately discovered that our 30-something bodies don't recover quite as quickly as our 20-something bodies used to. And since this is the most riding we've done in 4 years, our bodies are really not appreciating it.

We've also been busy trying to de-clutter. De-cluttering the house and our lives. We're in the process of trying to get rid of one motorcycle, but that involves actually getting it running! It's out of our garage, though, which made room for the workbench, which made room for a cool bookshelf from IKEA! :)

Aside from that, work continues to eat into our real lives - not a good precedent to uphold - and I've also decided that the US Passport Agency is woefully understaffed! Our nanny (a US citizen) is supposed to be traveling home to El Salvador in less than one week and she still doesn't have her renewed passport that she applied for in early March. AND if you call the Passport Agency number, the only thing they tell you is that they don't have enough people, to call back later, and then the automated system hangs up on you. It's infuriating. Word to the wise: if you think you'll be traveling overseas (or Canada or Mexico) in the next year, apply for the passport and pay for the expedited delivery. You might get it in about 6 months.

Whew. How's that for the most convoluted, rambling "short post" ever?...

Note to self:

Ride for 23 miles with Fellan in tow on the trailer bike, then take him swimming for 2 hours at a friends' house - he'll actually get so tired, he'll take a nap on his own on the weekend - for the first time ever!!!

What more could I ask for?

Every Monday morning, people at work ask all their other coworkers that one question which I always think is only asked out of politeness, "How was your weekend?"

Well, my weekend was great! It started off on Friday evening when my husband suggested that I take my road bike out and see if it still works. I haven't ridden my road bike since the boy was about 6 months old, so considering that stretch of time without any mileage, the bike did great! My butt? Not so much. I think I'll be getting a new saddle sometime soon. There's no way I'll be able to put enough miles on that saddle to get used to it before our biking excursion this coming June. :)

On Saturday, we went for a family bike ride in the morning and then rode our bikes up to Allen Parkway to watch the Art Car Parade. This was the first year we were finally able to go after many years of conflicts, one type or another.

And Sunday was a Mother's Day bonanza:

• The husband and kids went and got me bagels, coffee, and flowers.
  
• Then it was time for the family bike ride...
• ...with our ride finishing at the Houston Grand Criterium - yep, a real bike race in Houston!
• Then lunch and naps for both kids (yay!)
• And to top it all off, we went to IKEA, where the kids are both now able to stay in the supervised play area while we get to wander around and not yell at children. How refreshing!
• And then (as if this wasn't all enough) we picked up the kids from the play area and went and ate dinner at the IKEA cafeteria.

Yes, yes, I'm easily amused, but it really was a very fun and relaxing weekend. The husband did a good job of making it a nice Mother's Day weekend. :)

Nice, strong cup of milk

The girl is increasingly asking to drink out of cups that don't have lids or that are not "sippy cups". And usually, she wants to drink milk from a big-girl cup.

So, we'll get her a cup of milk and every time we give it to her, she takes a long drink, puts down the cup, sighs, and says, "Now that's what I like: a nice, strong cup of milk."