Happy Snow Day all you fellow Michiganders!!!!

Wow, for once the forecasters were right, we got dumped on with snow. We were all set here to laugh when we woke up to a light dusting...you know, what we usually get when they hype up the storm of the season for 24 straight hours. Not this time, we got all 10-12 inches!

This was our front yard about 10:00 this morning, there are two lit presents under that spiral tree...even when I put the lights on you can't see it.

The kids ventured out to play in the snow. Schubert loves to frolick in the fluffy white stuff.

Mack tried to shovel a path from the garage to the house with little luck. I just got back in from using our heavy duty, northern Michigan snowblower on the driveway and all the sidewalk. Corner lots suck that way. I also made a path from our drive way all the way down the block to one of Mack's friend's house passing 4 houses along the way. My Christmas present to them!


Once Mike gets home I'll send him next door to do the neighbors driveway, no sense in him missing out in some of the fun. We plow it every year for her, she watches our dog for weeks at a time...fair trade.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
In other news...

Wednesday night was Mack's holiday band concert. It was lovely....






Someone please get that clarinet a new reed...
You can't really see Mack, she's third chair alto sax, first & second chair are in the viewing way. (First chair showed up late for the concert so she's not in the pre-concert pic)

Everyone stay warm and safe...thanks for reading!

Ok dear, i'll try to do this again

Well ladies and gents, my long over-do apology for thinking that maybe i abandoned this little cerebral exercise.

Maybe i did....abandon it, but as i have actually mentioned to some folks.

i tend to be a little political and rant-ing. i tend to be a tad sarcastic and although i avoid sexual topics, with occasional innuendo...and profanity.

i have a legitimate concern, that a prospective business contact could opt to google me. See how can i not use some aforementioned innuendo there?????

Unfortunately, it has happened while professional, very serious minded, fully licensed financial advisor Mike and little liberal, tree-hugging, psuedo-socialist, share the same body, a client has made mention of finding this little corner. Bummer....

So here's the deal.....

i am going to take the blog off the "public" list and just invite people to peruse it from time to time. If i have correctly synced up my Facebook....this should each new post should link to my profile....if this happens i may have to give up my computer-idiot monifer and upgrade to computer-handicapable (p.c. mike also shares this body and i try to avoid handicapped)

And so, because i can't truly censor myself, i'll give it a week or so and after the new year, make a brief change to the blog.

But.....i can give a brief running report...cause that's about all i have right now.

i basically had a nice jog, no stress for a time and no pressure to PR, BQ, insert random letters as appropriate, etc...

So, i chatted and ran, watched a Santa or two pass me. Drank Beer whenever offered and smiled through a nice relaxing run. Oddly enough, t'was (blatant Christmas reference, tis the season) only 20 minutes longer than my PR.

So really, why am i trying so hard??????

Anyway, i took the rest of October off, and that pushed my recovery into November and well maybe last week i started running again.

btw....3 miles is lot longer than i remembered. When did that happen???? Oh yeah when you took 6 weeks off. Doofus

So let's just move on...but

let's do some housekeeping. How much weight can a runner gain when not running for 6 weeks??? Apparantly, 15 to 20 lbs, so as i approached the, used to be skinny for me, but now feels enormous weight of 220, i hope to have squashed the bug at 215.

So there it is, i weigh 215 again, ergo new goals for the spring marathon and summer.

PR in a marathon, or a least do a half in under 1:40.

Loss weight, seriously though, really concentrate on a 180 number and getting there.

Do another Tri, and not panic-attack in the swim portion.

So there it is. Some difficult goals and while a plan is in place, it will be detailed in future post.

Now let's hit "publish" and see if my Facebook links up correctly????

Thanks for reading and Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Feliz Blabby Blah and all that good stuff...

Sorry for the lack of posting the past month, the holiday season has struck and contrary to Mike's belief Christmas presents don't just magically appear under the tree. Someone has figure out what to buy, where to find it for the best price and then brave the crowds and go shopping for them....lucky me!

But now the presents are all bought and wrapped and tomorrow I attempt to bake 7 dozen cookies for a cookie exchange (what was I thinking?). I'll be honest I opened up my cookie cook book that I've had for 13 years and never cracked open, looked for a recipe that I knew I had all of the ingredients in house for (I'm so the scoop and bake kind of cookie maker...love those tubs of cookie dough) and said I'll make those. Jam Thumbprints anyone? My mom made them all the time when I was a kid so I've enlisted her assistance, I've been told they're quite labor intensive ~ great. Hopefully my baking does not kill off the rest of the PTO board as they are who I am exchanging cookies with.

Last weekend we celebrated Christmas with Mike's side of the family. A nice casual gathering at his dad's house in Durand. It was actually a pleasant day...everyone behaved!

This weekend we have a birthday party on Saturday (who the heck has kids in December so close to Christmas?????) and we'll be baking & decorating our Christmas cookies that night. Gotta love the pre cut shapes with icing and sprinkles ~ thank you Market Day.

Sunday we're off to Greenfield Village to freeze our butts off and enjoy Holiday Nights with the Guilbeaux's. Our family looks forward to this outing every year no matter the weather. There seems to be something magical about the Village in the snow all decorated for Christmas...we'll ice skate, sing carols while riding in a two horse open sleigh, eat chestnuts freshly roasted over an open fire, visit Santa & his live reindeer and listen to our favorite story teller recite 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.

A couple of spare days off to chill and then the hustle & bustle of family holiday celebrations. Looking forward to seeing those family members you only see about once a year...thank God for Facebook, we've been able to keep in touch a little better this year.

We're going to need a vacation after this Christmas vacation...3 months til Mexico ~ let's hope I make it!

Hope everyone out there has a safe, happy and healthy Christmas and a Happy New Year!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mike claims he's got a post brewing in his head...now that they've cancelled about 3/4 of his favorite TV shows, he might actually find time to come in here and post...we'll see ~ I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you!