Today I put on my new shoes (did I tell you I won free shoes from RYKA? Go to www.Ryka.com to enter to win your own!) and put John in the jogger stroller and said we were going to for a walk. I was actually prepared with a book and a toy for him, MP3 player and sunglasses for me, along with the cell phone, kleenexes, and a bottle of water. I had a few books to return to a friend, and I figured that would be a good, although long walk.

We made it. It took me over an hour, what with stopping there for a minute to see if she was home and getting a drink. There’s one big hill that we had to go up and down, but the rest was quite level. By the time we got to her house, I thought “What was I thinking?! Why on earth would I think I could walk this far AND BACK!” I wanted to quit, but since I was 2.1 miles from my house (I looked it up when I got home), we had to turn around and come back home. When we passed our church, which is still about 3/4 a mile from home, I rejoiced. I’m almost home!!!

John was such a good boy in the stroller the whole time I told him we could stop at his friend’s house when we were done and see if he could play. When I got there, I’m sure I looked a sight.  Red face, sweaty clothes, and just about ready to pass out.   “Oh, you’ve been out walking,” she said when she saw my sweaty red face and jogger stroller. When I told her where I had walked, she said, “That’s a 5K!” Wow, I hadn’t thought of that. She tried to convince me that it would be really fun for a bunch of us to run/walk a 5k together. Ha! She’s a runner. She runs 3 miles at a time while this is the very first time I’ve walked 4 miles. But, yes, I told her I would think about it.  It’s a Halloween 5k in American Fork at the end of October in the evening.

No promises made here, but I’ll think about it.

I know it’s kind of late notice, but if you happen to be watching Music and the Spoken Word with the Tabernacle Choir this Sunday morning at 9:30 on KSL, pay close attention to the artwork that will be shown during the spoken word.  The featured artist is my very own sister, Amy! She has done three paintings to go with the story, and I’m very excited for her!  If you miss it, then check back here and we’ll hopefully post a link to where you could watch a recording of it.

My dear husband has been out of town for almost a week, and we really miss him.  Parenting really is supposed to be a two person job, and I’ll admit that it’s been tough juggling all the schedules without a little help.  Plus, with him not here there’s been no reason to cook real dinners (why bother, the kids only complain), so we’ve been having lovely meals of corn dogs, scrambled eggs and waffles, and leftovers.  Since he didn’t the the one and only cell phone because I needed it to manage the kids and their various activities, I haven’t really been able to talk to him, because he isn’t at his hotel until after I go to bed (so he claims).  So, I’ve missed him.

And the house has missed him.  REALLY missed him.  Since our whole house is wired together and we have all this cool and funky equipment (thanks to Ryan’s job), all our lights, tv, videos, and radio and stuff are all tied up in the home automation system.  The system that is currently off line.  That means I can’t listen to the radio, no myth tv (our version of tivo), no dvds or videos for the kids, etc.  None of the remotes in the house work.  I can’t even turn on the tv manually since that button broke long ago and we can only operate it with a remote.

Yesterday I was exhausted after church (I gave a lesson.  It went fine, by the way) and feeding the kids dinner and I just wanted to lie down for a few minutes of quiet before we went to my sister’s house for a birthday party.  I just wanted to be able to put on a movie or let them watch something recorded, but NO.  Nothing works.  So I just told them to please be quiet (Right–like that works) and went and locked myself in my room for 15 minutes.  Of course the phone rang during my quiet time, and I had to answer it (it could be Ryan, after all), and then had to call my son and tell him the phone was for him.

My computer for some reason also senses that the master of all things electronic is away and it’s time to act up.  I’ve gotten about 50 spams a day asking if I want to increase the size of my….. never mind.  I can’t even access my blog, for heaven’s sake!  (I’m typing this on Ryan’s computer–I hope I don’t break it!)

But on the bright side, nobody’s broken any bones, the house has not flooded or caught on fire, and no trees were damaged in the recent wind storm.

And he comes back home today.

The first email I read this morning was from my mom. She had sent me a link to a story about Patrick Henry Hughes, a boy who was born blind and crippled, but with incredible musical talent. It made me cry. So, if you would like to feel good about the world for about 6 minutes (maybe longer–it gets you thinking), click here. You won’t be sorry.  It makes me want to be a better parent; a better person.