Finally Made It Home From Clovis

So it was brought to my attention today that it was taking us a long time to get home from Clovis. Oops - we're hooooome!

Lots has happened since I last posted - basically the whole month of April. Before I get to recent past events, I'll post some pics of past past events. Like my pink hair. I'll start with that.




The pink is fading on the edges (my pillowcase is slightly pink-tinged), but I'm still happy with the color. I need to get in to get a trim soon.

On another front, I'm down in weight to 167.4. I'm .4 pounds away from my 10% goal. Actually, it's the third time I've lost 10% of my body weight since I started on this journey almost 3 years ago. But the bummer is that I've weighed in at 167.4 for the last two Fridays at the Weight Watchers meetings. And I was so diligent this week with my tracking, measuring, and exercising. All I can hope is that next week the scales will be more kind to me. When I hit the 10% mark, I'll get a spiffy keychain from WW.

Back to Spring Break - we got to spend some time with our twin nephews. Here's a picture of us out on Mom & Dad's driveway on the very popular plasma cars. I was giving John a ride. He seemed to enjoy it. I know I did.
Next on the agenda: I went to a writers' conference in Albuquerque mid-April. It was a great learning experience for me. I took two yellow pads - one for general notes (I took several pages) and one that had a partial manuscript (I took several pages of notes specific to that manuscript). So now I'm ready to start some serious work! I also had an appointment with an editor about my Stephen F. Austin manuscript. While I wasn't offered a multi-million contract on the spot (or any contract, for that matter) I was able to pick her brain for a little while about how to improve the manuscript. I'm going to take the story in a whole new direction and I'm excited about it.

Random story here: A couple of weeks ago on a Wednesday afternoon, Audrey busted out with a classic "Audreyism." As you may recall, elementary schools in Los Alamos dismiss at noon on Wednesdays, so all 3 kids are home. Since we have such a nice stretch of time, I have the kids bathe. So I was in the bathroom scrubbing on Julie when I hear some bloodcurdling screams from Audrey. The screams are growing louder, so I know she's making her way to the bathroom where I am. The door opens, and I see Caleb helping Audrey in. She's got her arm around his neck and he's helping her walk.

She's still screaming like somebody is ripping out her fingernails, so it's hard to get a good read on the situation. She's bleeding a bit from her mouth (great - another mouth injury?), so after I get her to rinse her mouth out a bit, she sits down on the toilet lid and tells me that all this is because she fell out of a tree in the backyard. All her limbs are fine, her mouth is fine, but she has some scrapes on her cheek, chin, and tummy. Apparently she tried to hang on to the tree as she was falling.

But the best thing? She said this: "Caleb can be seriously annoying most of the time, but he was really helpful getting me inside after I fell out of that tree." I almost didn't hear the last part because I was trying not to laugh about the "seriously annoying" part.

These are the things I'm remembering at the moment. Steve is gone for the weekend - helping a friend at his mom's house in San Angelo. I'm just in "survival mode" for the next few days.

Future events: I'm going to run in one (and possibly two) 5ks in June. The first is Saturday, June 13, and the second is Sunday, June 21 (Father's Day). I'm positive I'm running the first one, and not sure about the 2nd one, since it's a Sunday. To that end, I've started running again. I stopped over the coldest parts of winter because I'm a weenie. My goal for the 5k is to run the whole 3.1 miles (right now I'm in a run-walk pattern). After I finish, I'll get a 5k charm to put on my spiffy 10% Weight Watchers keychain. That's why I'm really doing it. I love the bling!

That's it for now. If I think of anything more, I'll let you know (and I promise I won't wait a month to do it!).