Last Halloween when anyone asked what he was dressed as: “I’m ADAM!” He refused to wear a costume!

Me: “That’s why you have pockets, duh!”
Adam: “I’m not duh.”

Grandpa Bill: “Adam, what did you do?”
Adam (with a cute shoulder shrug and lisp): “I pushed pause.” Now everyone in my family says this “I pushed pause.”

Adam: “Han-nah” (the way he says her name is priceless)

Me: “Adam do you have a best friend?”
Adam: “Nope. Just Han-nah.”

Adam (on his way to preschool): “I hope Olivia isn’t sick today” (already has a crush on a girl!!)

Adam: “Where’s my memory game.” Hannah had her Heritage Makers memory game that I made her two years ago out (http://www.heritagemakers.com/projectBrowserStandAlone.cfm?projectID=1117497&productId=63&sponsorID=291868). I’m currently in the process of making Adam his own set for Christmas and I can’t wait to it to him (http://www.heritagemakers.com/projectBrowserStandAlone.cfm?projectID=2032365&productId=63&sponsorID=291868)

There are many more Adam quotes, these are just the ones that always come to mind!!

• I watched Ellen today and the founder of TOMS was on. Buy a pair of shoes today and TOMorrow someone who needs a pair of shoes will get one. One for One. They look like extremely comfy shoes for a fantastic cause so I will definitely be checking those out. They are also just getting started into sunglasses and when you buy a pair of sunglasses someone else gets the gift of sight – either glasses or cataract surgery.
• I’m doing a Bible study at my church, A Quick Journey Through the Bible. It’s from Jeff Cavins’ Great Adventure series. I’ve done one of his studies in the past and I’ve attended one of his speaking engagements. He’s a fantastic speaker and his book My Life On the Rock was a great read. A Quick Journey Through the Bible is only an 8-week study and unfortunately I had to miss this week….
• Speaking of books, I read two easy ones this week to try to keep my mind off the body aches. This week I read two of The Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld. Both Uglies and Pretties were good and I’ve found myself now thinking in pretty-speak “That’s bubbly!” I want to finish the series but if I buy another $10 book this week, Nick might not be so thrilled with me. I need to start frequenting the library. I seem to be reading a LOT of teen dystopian series lately. My favorite series thus far is Hunger Games (a million times better than Twilight. Seriously, Katniss is a MUCH better role model than whiny, clingy, vapid Bella.) Other series that were good include The Declaration, Divergent (waiting for the second book to come out), Matched (I’m looking forward to Crossed on Nov 1), and the Maze Runner (I only read book 1. I’ll eventually read the others).
• Steve Jobs. What an icon. He’ll be missed.
• Waiting for Baby George – I’m excited to meet my new nephew. At the moment he seems to be nice and comfy and not in any hurry to meet all of us. At this point, he can take a couple of more days, I’m too sick to hold a newborn!
• The only two good parts of Halloween are the cute kids in costume AND candy corn.
• Hiccups. This is the fourth time I’ve had them today. Ouch. Once Nick had the hiccups on and off for days when we were in Jamaica. He tried everything to get rid of them. The culprit turned out to be sugary alcoholic beverages!!
• NyQuil. It’s time for my next dose and some sleep.

Besides wanting to complete a triathlon in 2012, one of my other motivations when I started on this 6-week self-challenge was a recent article I read in Self magazine. The article was on Alison Sweeney who has been one of my favorite stars for a very, very long time. Alison Sweeney plays Sammy Brady on Days of Our Lives and she’s on the Biggest Loser. I’ll admit that I’m an in-the-closet Days of Our Lives Fan. I really get a kick out of watching when I’m sick or need some entertaining and slightly mindless TV. I started watching Days way back in high school when I would go to Jenny E’s house after school and we would watch while she gave me everyone’s back story. I was hooked. The nice part about Days is that I can skip for 3 months and STILL know what’s going on.

Anyway, back to the Self article on Alison Sweeney. In the article there were two quotes that jumped out at me. The first, was from Alison’s husband, Dave, when he said to her, “Why do you complain? You’re beautiful already, but if you want to do something about it [her weight], do it. You pursue your career, but you don’t attack your weight.” That really resonated with me. I spend all this time working, talking about work, thinking about work but how much time to I really spend doing anything about losing my extra pounds or planning healthy meals? So I gave my workouts an extra high priority and I schedule them on my calendar a week ahead of time and rarely move them. I might decide to bike instead of swim, but I still do a workout AND I make sure to leave work at a decent time to get to the gym before I get too hungry for dinner.

The second quote from the article was from Alison herself:

As soon as I made it about being healthy and shifted my focus away from the scale, the weight started to come off,” says Sweeney, who still doesn’t use a scale. “I keep track of my body by how my jeans fit—and how I feel.”

Ding, ding, ding! My scale was becoming my enemy. I can’t believe how much contempt I had for an inanimate object and how much power it had over me. (Ironic side note: Could this be due to the fact that I work for a weights and measures company?). I also realized I didn’t own a scale until Nick and I registered and received one for our wedding. I never had one. So three weeks ago I stopped weighing myself and concentrating instead on how I feel. That number in the morning no longer has control over me or my entire day and it’s pretty awesome.

The best part about all of it is that I noticed this week that I’m yanking up my jeans because they are falling down. I could get very used to this! It’s easy to get past the sore muscles if there’s a visible payoff. I’m half-way to the finish and I can’t wait to see how I feel at the end of only 6 weeks. At the rate I’m going, I suppose I’ll need to buy a smoking new pair of jeans; probably another pair of (smaller) IT Jeans from My True Fit.

• Swim – alternating weeks of long swims and sprint workouts
• Run – slowly building on my running distance. I made it 2.25 miles yesterday with an additional 0.25 miles after walking a bit.
• Biking – slowly building up on distance on the stationary bike at the gym. I finished 9.25 miles this past week.
• Jillian Michaels 6 week Six-Pack - this one is the one I procrastinate the most. I sweat, a lot.

The most recent comic from www.xkcd.com that had me cracking up:

Where I can order the one on the right? Just kidding! And it’s a terrible idea anyway seeing that it will just encourage MORE thieves to target us (our house was broken into in May. Lucky us.)

Speaking of our house break-in, this comic appeared about 2 weeks after the idiot made off with our 30-lb fireproof safe containing all of our identifying documents (birth certs, Social Security cards, Passports, Marriage certificate, etc.):

Stupid thief. I want my jewelry back, especially my Buckeye earrings that I wish I was wearing today to the Ohio State football game!

When I first considered this “do a triathlon” thing I realized that I needed to give running another chance. Shortly after this realization, I read an article where the author wrote about how she started running and mentioned that running started with a single step and built from there. So I decided to start with just 1/10 of a mile. Funny enough I ran 1/2 mi that first time, on July 5, with very little effort and I was surprised at how easy it felt. I quickly realized all of the swimming I’ve been doing has built up my lungs to a decent capacity for other forms of cardiovascular exercise.

I successfully ran 2.0 miles last week in 19:39. Not a fantastic time yet, but it felt good to reach that 2.0 mile mark. Now I want to repeat it a few times and see if I can bring down my time a bit so today was another run day and I ventured out late this morning prior to the OSU game. It was BRUTAL and I struggled to finish the 2.0 miles. I need to be a bit smarter about when I run and what I eat before. Today it was 91 degrees and I ate peanut butter toast beforehand. BIG mistake and I’ve felt awful all day from it. Lesson learned.

Also today Nick and I had a conversation about paradigm shifts or the way we view situations as human beings. So often we use phrases that start with “I want to be…” instead of realizing that most of the time we could substitute “I AM a…” Our conversation didn’t mention running at all but I’ve realized that I can apply it my running and instead of continually saying “I want to be a runner” or “I’m not really a runner” I need to start the more positive “I AM a runner” and stop at that. There’s no need to add a “but” clause to that sentence and I don’t need to add disparaging comments about myself. Everyone started somewhere and I’m happy with my progress from 0 to 2.0 miles in these 8 weeks. Now I just need the weather to get cooler and to avoid peanut butter toast before I lace up.

• Learn photography (or simply, learn how to take amazing photos)
• Learn another language (you would think with my world travel I would already have already been inspired to do this)
• Organize my digital photos (boring) or just hang photos on my wall
• Visit Scotland, Italy, Greece, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, and all 50 states with Nick.
• See the Northern Lights
• Watch the The Ohio State Buckeyes win a national championship. Again. Watch them play in the Rose Bowl. Visit all Big 10 (12?) Stadiums.
• Play Piano more
• Eat at a Taco Truck here in town and have a burger at The Thurman Cafe
• Ski the Rockies, the Appalachians, and the French Alps (Did the Swiss Alps already. Got engaged there and hurt my neck. Those two things were unrelated.)
• Live in a different city. Zurich? Maybe.
• Have kids. Or kid.
• Become a GTD Certified Trainer
• Attend an English Premier League game. Probably a Tottenham game.
• Buy a house. Decorate it pretty. Have lots of people over.
• Go to Reds games in different ballparks. Especially a Spring Training game in Goodyear, Arizona. This and the Tottenham game are for Nick. He would love them and I while I love sports, I would enjoy his enjoyment most.
• Make a budget. Keep it for a whole year. Stop spending all of our money at Target.
• Writing something valuable. Don’t know what that is yet. Perhaps this is just keep a journal. Or a blog. Or something to look back and reflect on.

And the list grows. So then the questions becomes, when? When do I start trying to tackle or enjoy or start these things? When I’m 100% healthy? I struggle with that one. I’m not seriously ill but it’s always something. Gallbladder. Tonsillectomy. Right now I’m in Physical Therapy and Massage Therapy for re-injuring my neck. It’s not greatly impairing me, however, it’s well, a pain in the neck. Ha. Or maybe when I have time? I’m starting to believe that if I wait for extra time, I’m never going to have it. It’s up to me to determine what I want to do with my time.

Then I read posts like these: Reclaiming Wife: Do Things That Scare the Sh*t Out Of You and read about my coworker spending the next year exploring the US by RV at his aptly named website: “Someday I’ll Do It, Why Not Today?” And I read about the couple sailing across the Pacific Rim. Now that’s dedication. I admire all of these people – I know they all had fears but that didn’t stop them.

If I think back on when I felt the happiest about my accomplishments the past few years, it was when I was physically strong such as when I was able to pull myself into the white water raft with only my arm strength in the summer of 2007. When I trained and swam in a tri relay in June 2011. When I took 3 overseas trips in a row and didn’t get sick. When I skied the Alps and somehow kept up with the Swiss skier much more advanced than me.

All of the above is pointing me to one Someday/Maybe that I’m starting to believe I can accomplish within the next year and that I didn’t list above: Completing a Full Triathlon By Myself. Most likely a Women’s Only Tri. This was something I didn’t even realize that I wanted to do until I competed in the tri relay. I’m not a runner. I hate running. Oh and I don’t own a bike nor have a place to store a bike. And yet, the more I think about it, the more my workouts are starting to center around swimming, running, and (stationary) biking, I’m starting to realize that I’m getting excited. That I Really Want To Do This. And that’s how things move from Someday/Maybe to Yes, I’m Going to Do This.

This is what finishing looked like:

- Mary

Special thanks to Rachel and Lindsay T. for taking my absolute favorite photos of the day. I also LOVE the photos our wedding photographer took and of course I made an album.