Home Improvements

This summer I have been militant about reducing clutter in this house (the guy at the Goodwill drop off station recognizes me because I bring in donations so frequently), fixing things that are broken, and trying to make myself actually feel at home here.  I don't feel that I have made nearly enough progress on any of these fronts, and that is distressing.  I really don't know why I cannot feel at home in this house, or in St. Louis in general, but here is a look at the changes I have made so far:

When we moved in, the dining room was red, which I think was a very popular decorating scheme in the early 2000's.  I actually really like the color red, but it seemed a bit dramatic to me, and when combined with the green of the adjacent kitchen, it made me feel like this house was in perpetual winter.

 

I took it upon myself to get rid of the blood-red shade of the dining room, and I can honestly say that painting over red is something I hope I never again have to do in my lifetime.

It started when I dropped Will off at daycare and then went to Home Depot, where I had them mix up another 2 gallons of "Sandstone"-- the color of the living room and the hallway up the stairs.  (The previous owners were nice enough to leave behind some 27 used buckets of paint, which actually isn't such a nice thing after all, since we are the ones who now have to deal with them).

With my newly purchased paint supplies in hand, I went home to begin the epic task of painting the living room.

First, I put on a coat of primer.  The red looked absolutely no different.  So I put on a second coat of primer (easing the ladder around the room in what seemed like a monumentally slow process).

At last, there was some progress:

** Yes, I left some stuff on the wall.  I tried to unscrew them, but the screws wouldn't budge.  I think they super-glued these things on.

 

By this time, it was 5pm and time to go pick up Will from daycare, and I had not even started on the real, actual color.

Rob went to pick Will up while I kept painting.  Luckily the color went on very smoothly, much easier than the primer.

I had hoped that one coat of Sandstone would be enough, but it was not even close.  At 8pm, I started the next coat, and it was after midnight before I finally got it finished and everything cleaned up.

I don't have the best picture of the finished product, but I like the Sandstone color much better than the red.  It makes the room seem bigger, for one.  And it gives it a more comfortable, less garish feel.  

The next thing I started on was Will's room.  When we moved in, it was pink and green.  It was a long time before I finally had a chance to deal with it.  One weekend day I painted over the pink part with white, thinking that would match the baseboards and doorways.  Not so, because even though these things looked white, they were not actually white!  The baseboards, chair rails, doors, and a few random walls in this house are painted with an "off white" that does not match any of the 27 gallons of paint that the previous owners left behind.  Not "Country Dairy," not "English Countryside,"  I tried them both.  This was hugely frustrating, and for two years, Will's room looked mismatched and kind of like an orphanage.

This summer, I decided to paint his room dark brown below the chair rail, and tan (actually, the same Sandstone as downstairs) above it.

 

Part of the way through: brown below the chair rail, still white above

 

 

This photo doesn't show the tan very well, but here is the finished product:

I also moved out his changing table and we did some furniture rearrangement to come up with a dresser for him:

I don't really like this cube storage thing, but Will can easily reach and open/close the fabric doors, so he can pick out his own clothes (which is very important to him right now).

Then I moved on to our room.

I started by deciding to paint our dressers white.  We got these at Lowe's in Urbana over 12 years ago, and had left them as is (unpainted pine, I think) ever since.  Not so much because we loved the unpainted pine.  But because no one disliked it enough to take the initiative to skip a weekend long run for this and do something about it.

This was the summer I finally could not stand the dressers anymore, and all I can say is that my grandmother would be proud.  Painting furniture white was kind of her thing.

Here are some photos of the process:

Before:

 

During:

 

William helped, shirtless:

 

After:

I had every intention of painting our room as well this summer, but I have kind of lost steam.  It was really hard for me to paint the rooms I've already done, not like Oh this is annoying, but I think I actually have arthritis in my right hand and I was in a lot of pain for several days after each of these painting episodes.  A friend pointed out that it would be much easier if I got a longer handled roller, so at least then I wouldn't have to drag the ladder around the room for multiple coats of paint.  This is probably true.  Never having painted a room before, I did not realize that there were things that could make this easier for me-- I didn't even look at other types of rollers because I knew we had one at home and figured I would just use that.

If I were to paint our bedroom it would be either "Lagoon" or "Tropical Tide":

*Note: this is Will's hand, not mine.

Unfortunately, these shades really clash with the only artwork I have in the room (see the above photo that includes paintings from Ometepe).  So at the moment, I am just continuing to live with the gray, sad looking room.  It's a little better with the white furniture and white bedspread, but still seems kind of industrial.  

There are a lot of other home improvements I have on my list, but it feels really good to have these done.  And mainly, it feels really, really good to have less clutter.  Keeping my fingers crossed that the house can stay nice and neat after I go back to work full time in a couple of weeks.

Thanks for reading.

You're a Vegan, What Do You Eat? (Dashboard Cookie Edition)

It has been an embarrassingly long time since I have made a YAVWDYE post.  Might as well jump back into the game with a recipe for vegan chocolate chip cookies, baked on the dashboard of your Prius!

It all started last winter, when one of my favorite vegan cooking sites (Plant Based on a Budget) published a recipe for Trail Mix Cookies.  I love these cookies.  The beauty of them is that you start with a basic dough (vegan butter, flour, sugar, brown sugar) and you can add pretty much anything you want to them.  They always turn out great.

Here is how I usually make them:

1/4 cup Earth Balance

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup sugar

Dash vanilla extract

1 tsp baking soda, dissolved in 1 tablespoon warm water

1/2 cup (heaping) flour

1/2 tsp salt

~1 cup quick cooking oats

chopped peanuts

chopped dried apricots or dried cranberries

non-dairy chocolate chips

--> Occaisionally I also add sunflower seeds, ground flax seeds dissolved in water, and/or shredded coconut.

They are delicious:

You can also add molasses to them and they turn out darker, still delicious:

 

Earlier this week, Snarky Vegan reposted the link to her blog entry on how to bake cookies on the dashboard of your car.  Basically, you just need a car, some vegan cookie dough, a very hot day, and cookie sheets lined with aluminum foil.  Visit her site for the full instructions on how to do it.

I thought this would be a fun project for me and Will last Friday-- he often likes helping add the ingredients and stirring when I bake things (though he rarely if ever eats the finished product).  I tried to get him pumped up about baking cookies in the car, but he was decidedly unamused and preferred to play with his trains.  The dashboard cookies turned out to be a largely solitary effort.

I started off with some basic vegan cookie dough:

 

Then I placed the cookie sheets on the dashboard of the Prius:

 

And waited.  And waited.  While it was definitely a very hot day, our driveway is a little shady, so it took a while for the car to get hot enough for the cookies to bake.

 

At last, I decided they were done!

*Note: be sure to use potholders to get the cookies out of the car! This pan had been out for a couple minutes already so it was cool enough for us to touch it like we are in the picture above.

 

I was hoping Will would be excited to have a cookie for a snack.  He did seem interested in the cookies, so I took one off the cookie sheet and handed to him.  He smiled and shook his head.  I asked him to please try it, and to his credit, he did bravely take one bite.  But then he handed it back to me and said, "I don't want it," and ran back inside.

If you have a kid who eats food, please, please, consider yourself lucky.  

More for Rob and me to enjoy, I guess.  

I thought the cookies turned out pretty well, and it didn't heat up the house to make them.  They were a little gooier (sp?) than usual, but there's nothing wrong with that.  

Many more hot days ahead in St. Louis this summer--I'm definitely planning on making these again.  Hopefully Will will eat one this time, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Thanks to Snarky Vegan for the tip, and thanks for reading!

Dear William (47 months)

Dear William,

Today you are 47 months old! Time is just flying by.

We started off the month with a camping trip near Boonville, IN.  Your father was doing an off-road triathlon there.  Let's just say it wasn't the classiest place in the world (for example, there was a woman at the campground wearing a confederate flag bikini).  But we had some fun.  We found a playground.

There was a water slide there too, and you insisted that you wanted to go on it.  I told you that you would get your face wet and you would go all the way under the water at the end, and you said that would be fine.  You said you wanted to sit on my lap and ride the slide, and so I hesitantly agreed.  But as we started going down, you got really, really scared and didn't want to do it anymore.  Kind of too late at that point.  And then at the end you were terrified.  You screamed and cried as we went under water.  I think it scarred you for life.  You had about 2 weeks of swim lessons left and you refused to even get in the water most of that time.  I really hope you can recover from this someday.

 Before the slide. There are no pictures from afterwards.  Too much crying.

We went to the library a couple of times this month and picked out some new books to read.  We found a really good one about a baboon.

We all had some cuddles on the couch.

 

You helped me do a lot of painting this month.  We painted your room brown and another color brown (your description).

Your dad bought a season pass to Six Flags, and because he claims you are 42" tall (you are not), he took you on some of the big roller coasters, such as the Screaming Eagle. 

You called Six Flags the "Fun Park" and it wore you out so much that you fell asleep on the way home.

I got my hair cut this month, and it was horrible and so I had to re-do it myself after I got home.  You were very sweet about it and said, "Oh Mommy, you are so pretty."

You ran the kids' version of Macklind Mile again this year (it was 1/4 mile).  Your grandpa and daddy ran it with you.

Your friend who is our neighbor was running it too.  She fell down.  You called her The Baby Who Fell Down after that.

You had a strong finish.

 

I couldn't go to your race because I was at a workshop learning to be a doula that weekend.  The workshop was good, but I was really sad about missing your race.

While I was at the workshop, your dad kept you busy by taking you to ride on trains and going to the Fun Park again.

You fell off your bicycle that weekend, and you had a scraped up lip :(

 

Your dad also got you a new pool, I think to try to counteract your fear of the water after the waterside incident.

 

You were very helpful this month.  You helped me go grocery shopping.

You rode your bike a lot.  

You still go to school 2 days a week, and you have started riding your bike there while one of us jogs along beside you.  I am so proud of you for doing that!  Your school is almost 2 miles away!

Our air conditioner stopped working again (just briefly) so we had to camp out in the basement where it was cool.  You didn't mind.

 

You played with some of the neighbor kids this month, including The Baby Who Fell Down.  The conversations you had with each other were so interesting.

 

Will: I am number three, almost number four.  What number are you?

Baby Who Fell: I am number two, almost number 3.

Will: I went to the library and the fun park and Ashlynn's house and Nicaragua.

Baby Who Fell: I had a cupcake.

 

Will, you and I have had an amazing month, and I have one more whole month left before I have to go back to work.  I am looking forward to all the fun things we are going to do!!

Love always,

Mama Meli

 

Doula in training

So this happened.

Last spring, during a Google-search rampage initiated by an Oh My God, What Am I Doing With My Life moment, I came across an announcement for a Birth Doula Training Workshop in St. Louis.  

As some may recall, I had a doula when I gave birth to Will almost 4 years ago.  I can't even imagine how completely botched and horrible the experience would have become if she had not been there.  Every single day that has passed since then, I still take a moment to be thankful for her.

Becoming a doula myself was not something I had ever considered.  In fact, I had to take a step back from anything birth or pregnancy related for quite some time (say, 4 years) because these things triggered a flood of negative emotions in me.  Hyperemesis, the near-disaster that was his birth, and the resultant breastfeeding hell that made me wonder what I'd done to deserve such punishment.  We all survived by the very skin of our teeth.

But when I saw the announcement for the workshop-- a DONA approved doula training that included a childbirth education component required for certification--I knew this was where I belonged.  

The workshop took place over 3 days last weekend.  It was intense.  Intense.  30 hours of birth, birth, birth.  The other 20 or so participants in the course now feel like members of my own family.  Most of what I learned wasn't entirely new to me-- it was more like reawakening muscle memory of my once-extensive command of the vocabulary of birth.  It made me appreciate my own doula even more, after trying on her shoes and walking around for a while.

To me, birth is a big, big deal, and after this workshop, I definitely feel prepared to support other women through the process.  In a strange sort of way, my many years of running marathons and ultra marathons, as well as crewing for Rob during his races, has provided me a remarkable preparation for becoming a doula.  Let me be clear: giving birth is nothing like running a marathon or even an ultra, but the kind of support you provide in both situations is actually quite similar.  What you have to do is make someone believe that they can do something, and then they go ahead and do it.  I think I'm pretty good at that.  I got Rob to go up the volcano at Fuego y Agua this year.  I can make a laboring woman believe in herself.

At the moment, I have no real leads on potential clients, but I certainly hope that I have the chance to attend births someday.  While I am gaining experience, I think I would be happy doing community service work for free.  For example, working with incarcerated women who are transported to the hospital from their facility.  Teen moms.  Women who do not speak English.  Low income women who want to have a doula but don't have the means to pay for one.

If anyone out there knows of someone who might be interested in having me attend her birth, please feel free to send her my way!

Thanks for reading.

Dear William (46 months)

Dear William,

Today you are 46 months old!

It has been a fantastic month.

We started it off with camping trip to the Mark Twain National Forest, where your dad ran the Berryman 50 mile trail race.  You were very helpful setting up the tent.

 

Back at home, you tried cauliflower, which you sort of liked. 

 

It was raining on Memorial Day Weekend, so we couldn't go outside much. Instead we did some baking. You helped me invent the most amazing Vegan Chocolate Chip Oatmeal cookies, but then you refused to eat them :(.

 

There was an end-of-the-schoolyear carnival at the Catholic school up the street. (End-of-the-schoolyear carnivals are A Thing in St. Louis.  Every school has one).  There were real, actual roller coasters there.  The height requirements for most of them were 42 inches, and you are about 39, but no was too concerned about that.

You loved the roller coasters, which is surprising, considering that you share my DNA (and occasionally my propensity for carsickness).

Although it looks like you must be in horrible danger, you said you were having fun.

 

You went to Shakespeare in the Park.

 

You continued to work hard at school, practicing pre-writing and the teeter-totter.

You love practicing to read and write.  You even do that for fun at home with me.  Sometimes you do some pages in your kindergarden workbook while wearing a Buzz Lightyear costume and a conductor hat.

 

This month you drew a picture of me for the very first time.  It's adorable.  I think I look like a smiling australopithecine in a dress.

 

Left: Mommy.  Middle peach blob: Will.  Skinny brown stick figure below that: Daddy.

 

You are taking a swim class at the Heman Park Pool.  Sometimes you love it, sometimes you cry and say that the water is too cold.  I am really hoping that you stick with this and that you like swimming.  Of all the sports you could end up choosing to do, swimming would be a good one.

You have also started riding your balance bike more and more.  At first you didn't like it, but now you can't wait to ride!

 

 On a nice day this month, I took you outside and gave you a really great haircut.  You are so handsome!!  I could just kiss your cheeks all day long.

William, starting this past week, I am off work for the rest of the summer.  Time for Mama and Will to play!  We have been having so much fun, and we've got 2 more months to play and play.  I am loving every minute of it.  When I wake up in the mornings and hear the birds chirping, I get so happy just thinking about spending the day with you!

Love always,

Your mama 

Love on the Run 10K

Two 10K's in two weeks for me!

Immediately after the U-City Memorial Day 10K, I started perusing Big River Running Company's race calendar to see if there was anything else coming up that interested me.  The Creve Coeur Heart to Heart run on June 8th looked good-- it was a 10K and nearby.  Miraculously, it did not conflict with any of Rob's running, swimming, triathlon, hiking, or mountain/road/cyclocross bike races, so I signed up for it.  

On Saturday morning I got up early, had some cinnamon toast, and drove all the way out to West County.  After I picked up my bib number (there was an actual expo for this race), I ran a couple of miles along the course.  It started out going up a pretty sizable hill, and I thought, this is fantastic.  Seriously.  Three years of living in St. Louis, and somehow, hills have become My Thing.

Sufficiently warmed up, I went back to the start/finish area (at the Creve Coeur Government Center) to wait.  I ended up running into one of the guys I had met 2 weeks prior at the U-City 10K, who had asked me where I get my protein.  I guess I was pretty easy to spot-- I was wearing the exact same outfit (No Meat Athlete singlet, black shorts, sliver/teal trail racing flats).  It was nice to have someone to talk to as we waited for the race to start.

I was determined not to make the same mistake that I had at U-City, which was starting way too far back and losing about 40 seconds in the first mile.  But I also didn't want to miscalculate and put myself in front of any guys who were planning on going out at 5 minute pace.  It was a delicate balance, and as the seconds ticked down, I alternated panicking that I had again positioned myself too far back, or that I had overcompensated and now risked being trampled by lining up too close to the front.  

But when it was time to go, we all just went, and everything was fine.  It was one of the smoothest race starts I've ever had-- maybe just about 5 or 10 seconds of jockeying for position, and then I felt like I was perfectly on my pace and exactly where I wanted to be.  

Starting on the uphill was hard for a lot of people, but I effortlessly streamed passed other runners.  Maybe about a half a mile in, I noticed how very close to the front of the pack I was, and that I could only see one other woman in front of me.  This was peculiar.  The race was a 5K as well, and we were all still running together at this point.  There should have been a lot more people ahead of me than there was.  I started to freak out a little bit.  This either meant that 1) I was running way too fast -or- 2) There were not a whole lot of fast people doing this race.

I decided to just stay the course until we got to the mile 1 marker and see what kind of pace I was going.

I got there in a no-frills time of 7:28.  Fine.  Exactly where I should be.  I was capable of holding 7:30 pace for the rest of the race-- wasn't I?

The first mile (on N. New Ballas and Olive) had been nearly all uphill and in a rather bland concrete expanse of businesses, doctors offices, and chain restaurants.  Once we got through that section, the 5K and 10K split off.  The rest of the race wound up and down (the hills never quit!) residential areas.  I liked that part much better.

I made it to mile 2 in 7:37, and I felt a little grim.  It didn't seem like I was slacking off, but I was 9 seconds slower.  This didn't bode well.  If I was already slowing down by the 2nd mile, how much more would I slow down by the end?

I picked out people ahead of me and made up my mind to catch them, one by one.

I hit mile 3 at 7:30 even.  Okay, that was a good sign.  Not a huge speed increase, but at least I wasn't continuing to go slower.  By this point I think we hit the section where we had to run on the sidewalk because the course was on a semi-busy road that wasn't closed to traffic.  I'd been kind of worried that this was the road-race equivalent of running on a single track trail (and getting stuck behind people you can't pass), but it was fine.  The runners were very spread out by now, and I was not boxed in on the sidewalk at all.

Mile 4 was 7:29.  Huzzah.  I was still kicking it and now there were just two miles and a bit left.  No nausea, not any real fatigue, nothing hurt too bad. My legs were totally fine on the hills-- in fact, I felt noticeably better at this point than I had just 2 weeks earlier at U-City-- but my stomach was cramping.  Like having a stitch in my side.  I notice that this happens a lot when I run hills at under 8 minute pace.  I think it is because I breathe too shallowly.  I should probably work on that.

Mile 5, 7:40.  Ugh.  Pick it up, Ragfield.  Ignore the stitch in your side and breathe as deep as you can.  You've only got a mile to go.

Mile 6, 7:35.  Okay, you can still pull this off.  And it is probably going to be a PR.

My finishing time was 46:55 by my watch, 47:01 by the gun (meaning there had been a 6 second delay from the start of the race until I actually crossed the start line).  I'll take it.  That's almost 40 seconds faster than I ran 2 weeks ago at U-City, so I am pleased.  And it may be the fastest 10K I've ever run (I wasn't very good about keeping track of m times back in the early 2000's when I was faster).

This race had a much smaller field than U-City.  My time, which may have been a PR for me but in the scheme of things is really No Big Deal, was good enough to place me as the 13th overall finisher, 3rd overall female.  That is kind of cool, I guess.

 

And here is a fun spreadsheet of how my splits compared to the U-City race 2 weeks ago:

So, the difference really does appear to be primarily a result of that slow first mile at U-City.

Don't get me wrong, I love ultras, but these last two races have me half tempted to try to go out and be fast at shorter distances.

What I learned from this race: I am not too old to run a 10K at near 7:30 pace.  Also, I might have evolved beyond the Clif Bar (or else, thrown up too many Clif Bars in my lifetime) because my pre-race breakfast of cinnamon toast (Will's current favorite food) served me well.

Something else noteworthy: Race organization was great.  Except for getting slightly tangled up with 5K walkers at the end (I think that was during my 7:40 mile), everything was fantastic.  You could tell that the race directors really took this seriously and knew what they were doing.  I mean, there was an expo and I got a medal at the end.  That has never happened in a 10K before.

How does this mesh with ultra training?  The thing about running a 10K is that it is kind of a waste of a good weekend with regard to ultra training.  At least it is when you married to someone who trains for 1700 different things and you have a child that one of you needs to be looking after at all times.  Saturday morning was the little block I had chiseled out for myself.  Immediately after the race, I drove home and then left to run another 8 miles (including a stop by the playground where Rob had taken Will).  I was still home in time for lunch.  Even though I only ran about 14 or 15 miles for the day, it was a pretty good workout.  Those fast miles really made a difference in my level of fatigue-- I was exhausted afterwards.  Rob left in the afternoon to run for a couple of hours, and I completely passed out on the couch while Will was sitting next to me reading some books.  I woke up an indeterminate amount of time later-- Will was sitting on my stomach, eating Goldfish crackers, and apparently just staring at me until I opened my eyes.

A final thought: June 8th was Eduardo's 18th birthday.