Grins and Giggles

We are all eagerly looking forward to our upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. Tim is planning on driving back from Fort Knox. After he returns from the long weekend, he will only have a few weeks until graduation! I will take over dog-duty for a few weeks while he moves out of the crack house he lives in and mooches off a buddy for a while. It is a lot easier to mooch when you don't have a 140-lb dog vying for some floor space in someone else's house. So, I will have Chance and Timmy to keep me busy for a few weeks, but I look forward to having Tim back to spend some quality time with Timmy. It will b good for him to have some leave time to re-connect with his son and have some fun.

I am also looking forward to starting some serious running training. I am less than thrilled about running through the winter in the cold, but I have decided to enter some races and begin serious training for a marathon. I have some triathlons under my belt, but I would like to go for the 26-mile challenge before I get too old to cross the finish line. I haven't decided on a marathon location, although I am leaning towards some place like Disney or Hawaii so we can take a family trip and have some fun after race day. I have had to take a little break from running for a few weeks, which has left me about ready to crawl out of my skin. I grew accustomed to a 4 or 5 mile run every morning, but an inner ear infection put the brakes on that training for a while. I tried to train through it and learned very quickly why people with medical degrees often give good advice. :) I am hoping to be back on the road this week and fully training by the time Tim gets back!

Timmy is doing a great job at keeping me busy lately, but he is such a fun, happy, smiley kid it is all worthwhile. He has learned the finer points of a well-choreographed temper tantrum. I usually respond to these by ignoring them or offering a sarcastic remark about the problem-solving effectiveness of throwing one's body onto the ground and kicking and screaming. Obviously he won't understand sarcasm for a few years to come, so I will probably need a new technique. :) That being said, I am still very blessed to have such a great baby like Timmy. His "moments" are usually confined to the evening hours. The rest of the time he is a load of fun to be around and usually keeps me laughing. He is also incredibly adaptable, including those Saturday nights when I get called at 0230am to go handle a situation at work and have to drag him along. Luckily, he is like his Dad and can sleep anywhere :)