i'm restless. i'm waiting for the rain to stop so i can go outside in the after-rain and let my brain go free. i've been waiting all day. sometimes, i just have things to process and i NEEED to go on a run. even if i'm a little bit injured and a little bit lazy and a little bit cozy here in my house. i had a half-conversation last night with someone i barely know--a guy from college--and i can't shake it. i asked him how he was doing and he looked at me with these soft brown eyes and said "life could not be worse." then he told me how his wife found out she had leukemia while she was pregnant a couple years ago, and she died. he was left with a newborn and another little one. he told me this in a drunken stupor, and i just stood there, wondering what to say. ten seconds later, we were interrupted and he was gone.

so i need to go think about it. i'm not sure why. i guess because life is short and sometimes really, painfully sad and it's hard to keep it all in perspective. i take so much for granted. i waste so much time doing stupid things and thinking about stupid things. i don't tell people how much i love them often enough. i don't make phone calls when i should. i don't send packages on time. i don't thank God enough. i want to be a better person, and then i find myself bickering at the kids or nagging my husband to please for crying outloud shut the cupboard doors.

so. i will go run...i think it's stopped raining. it's going to smell good and it's going to feel good and i'm going to come home with something i didn't leave the house with. i'm not sure yet what it is.
i guess i'll go find out.

for 36 years i have chewed my fingernails. i also rip on the cuticles, which looks just lovely. i've never had to file my nails, because, well...i've never had any. when i saw my cousin (i only have one cousin, she's a year younger than me and i love her like a sister) a couple weeks ago, i had serious nail envy. she has these beautiful squared-off nails with french tips and gloss. her toes are even perfectly manicured, and she's got a little design painted on each big toe. she's always been way more of a girl than i am. i think she was the first one to ever apply mascara to my lashes.

anyway, i vowed to stop chewing my nails after that trip. and except for a little slip that involved my pinky finger and a long stoplight, i pretty much have. i bought some clear polish, and that helps me not want to gnaw on them so much. yesterday i decided to buy my first NAIL FILE. i just wasn't sure exactly what to do with it.

do you just saw it back and forth or up and down or what? one nail is kinda pointy and the next one is kinda flat, and none of them look at all like my cousin's. how pathetic is it that a grown woman can't operate a nail file? are there support groups for this kind of thing?

sigh.

it all just makes me want to...chew my nails off.

well, starley's story didn't last long. rest in peace, kitty cat. we're glad we got to know you.

this is the story of the three-legged cat. last week, she came wandering up the driveway, waltzed into the garage and cozied up on the dog bed. then she turned over for a belly rub.

she looked skinny, but i didn't realize how skinny until i picked her up. she's a pathetic bag of bones. so...i decided to feed her.

and then the boys named her starley.
and then we gave her a bath.

and now it seems we might have acquired a three-legged cat.

that's her story so far.

we'll see where it goes from here.

so we've been in colorado to say good-bye to grandpa the past few days. the trip was long but good. it's been a long time since the whole family has been together like that. the kids have been talking about their cousins constantly. my cousin and her family live in oregon, in a parallel universe. too many similarities to count (except for the fighter pilot thing, the big social calendar and the fact that my cousin is a rocking cook) . i wish they lived much, much closer...and not just for the food :)

at any rate, the whole deal really made me think about family and how much i love mine. they are just good people, all the way around. and plenty of things that are completely endearing. like the way my uncle always wears suspenders. and the way my younger half-brother has slowly morphed into my brother--they talk alike, laugh alike and are really starting to look alike--despite the miles and years that separate them. the way my cousin's husband plays like a kid...just like my husband does. or the way that all of them are so completely nuts about pets. in fact, my brother levi claims that all of his photos have been replaced with shots of the dog, and at christmas, she has more gifts than he does. this stuff makes me laugh, because i know it's true.

yep, family is good. grandpa would have loved this gathering so much, but i know he was there.
i heard his laugh every time i turned around.

i'm 36 years old and until now, have not had to say good-bye to anyone really close to me. this past wednesday, my grandpa passed away. next week i will be attending the first funeral i will really be able to remember. i'm blessed that God gave me plenty of time to prepare for this. grandpa has been sick in the hospital since march. my family was able to drive to colorado to spend a great day with him there in july. he was in good spirits, and i know he really enjoyed the visit. as for memories, i have a ton of them, especially from when i was a kid. grandpa was always full of stories, and he told them in a big, booming voice. i can recite most of them by heart.

he will be missed. i will think of him often. and i know he will have some great new stories to tell me when i see him again someday.

rest in peace, grandpa.

i didn't go to high school in a small town, so the small town coronation ceremony was a new experience for me. starting with my son coming home with a note that said he had been selected by the senior class to be one of the...hmmm. i'm not even sure what they are called. one of the kids who dresses up and gets to be part of coronation and ride on the float during the football game. anyway, he was pretty excited about it until he found out he had to wear a tie.

anyway, these are pictures from monday night, when they crowned the king and queen. since the whole senior class is made up of something like 15 kids, all the girls and all the boys were up for the honor, rather than nominating three or four and having a big school vote like we did.

so anyway, these are pictures of the king and queen...and you can see big j standing there in his tie, itching to take it off and untuck his shirt. trust me, by the end of the night, he looked like a bachelor party gone bad.

then there is the bottom picture, of both my handsome little men. little j was upset that his big brother didn't get the crown. then he was upset when i told him i never got the crown.
when he asked why, i told him that our class was really big and we all had to pick just one person.

he says "oh. and you didn't have enough friends, right mom?"

sigh.

so thanks to bobbi and her $3 yard sale find, toad has been relocated into some swanky new digs. you can see the new condo has got an indoor pool, where he and his pal frog love to hang out. frog was added to our family about three weeks ago, after the husband shook him out of the throat of a garter snake just before he went down the hatch.

toad and frog have been feasting on a bevy of grasshoppers, crickets and worms. they are both getting pretty fat...in fact, so fat that one day we could not find frog and we thought toad might have consumed him. but no, frog had escaped and was merrily hopping down the hallway. good thing we found him, i was having visions of finding a frog carcass behind the fridge someday.

anyway, the condo is in big j's bedroom. i have to admit it's kinda cool to watch them eat and hop around. i feel much better about keeping them in captivity when they've got such a fancy house. besides, the alternative is the inside of a snake. i guess this ain't so bad :)

i. am. in. a. slump.

i've been running faithfully (mostly) every other day since february. and suddenly, due to cirumstances beyond my control, i had a 5 day stretch where it just wasn't exactly convenient. and now, i don't wanna. at all. i am one month away from a half-marathon, and i cannot get myself going. i feel like i may not ever get going again.
in fact, this very blog post is a tactic to avoid running. tonite my husband is on late shift, which means to get the 6 miles in, i will have to hit the dreaded treadmill. so i sit here. and it sits in the next room. taunting me. perhaps i shall kick it.

but serioulsy. i'm worried. is this the end of the road...literally...for me? i just bought new running shoes last week, and now this. i could have had a pair of really senseless shoes instead.

no more running. huh. i can feel my butt spreading across the computer chair as i type it.

argh.

this past weekend we finally went to the omaha zoo. we've only lived 3 hours away from it for 15 years, but hey. so the zoo was cool. we didn't really get any good pictures of the animals, so i just posted pictures of my monkeys instead. our favorite part of the zoo was probably the aquarium, where sharks swim right over your head. or the desert dome, with the swamp and the snakes and the gators. or the gorillas. when we were there, the big silverback walked right up to the glass, sat down and defiantly picked his nose. i can't say i haven't felt that same way at times.

the bottom shot is the boys at memorial stadium in lincoln, nebraska. grandpa jim and grandpa vern love their 'braska cornhuskers, so this one was for them. i would love to see a game here.

otherwise, it was a great way to say good-bye to a really really fun (but short) summer.