A sign

One of my absolute favorite times of the week is Sunday morning. I love the smell of the coffee brewing, the look of my dining room, with the sun shining in the windows across the wood floors, and the big Sunday newspaper.

I start with the front page. Just a quick glance. Then I go right to the ads. I used to save the Target and Dayton’s ads for last. A weird idiosyncrasy I’ve had since my twenties. Now that Dayton’s is defunct, I still savor the Target ad. Before Weight Watchers, I would eat a still-warm scone from the little local market two blocks away, but now I down my dry Kashi GoLean with my coffee. After the ads, I go back to the available sections (Chris is usually reading across the table from me.) The Arts, Money, Opinion and Travel are my first choices.

Yesterday, in the Money section of the Salt Lake Tribune, there was a fluff piece on employment - “Employment: The worst jobs”. Underneath the title, and before the brief article, was a list. Number one was “Flatulence analyst”, number fourteen was Blue cheese factory worker and then near the bottom – right after “Slaughterhouse worker”- was “High school guidance counselor”.

I kind of wish I had seen this list before I invested two years full time into grad school, one year of internship and 14 years on the job.

I don't know if I should be worried, or gleeful with pride.

Me, yelling from one room into another to Chris: "I need to go to the liquor store today."

Ella, responding from the other room: "Yea!"

Photo Friday - Theme: Boy

I think they're finally ready for the black tight shorts

Chris has been riding bikes for years. We came into this relationship with a bike a piece, and now we have about eight total.

Chris got into mountain bike racing a few years ago and needed an upgrade. Moving to real mountain country required a third upgrade. He now also owns two road bikes (one was a hand me down from his brother) to keep him in better shape for his racing.

Our wedding gift to each other was a tandem. (We heard that it was great for a relationship because you were literally stuck together on them therefore having deeper and more meaningful "discussions.") It's great except that when you add a Burley, the rig gets a bit long.

Last fall, I gave up my circa 1987 steel "mountain" bike (that is heavier than our tandem) and bought myself my own road bike. It's been a slow learning curve, but I truly love having my own. I have mastered the clip pedals and can even turn my head, to watch for traffic, without falling over.

We take the kids on rides, occasionally. Harrison on the tag-along and Ella in the Burley. Usually, however, Chris and I ride separately for exercise. A few times we've hired a sitter so that we could ride together, but not nearly as much as we would like.

You'd think with all the bicycle enthusiasm around here that the kids would be little biking machines, but alas they are products of us. Their athleticism is doomed to be mediocre to non-existant until they are older. Ella is quite content on the small tricycle we bought Harry when he was two, and Harrison has shown zero interest in donning a bike that doesn't have four wheels.

During the Tour de France, the Outdoor Life Network coverage was broadcast for hours in our house. The kids knew that Lance had retired and that Floyd was the man of the hour. It was fun to see their sincere excitement about the bike race - although they usually could only handle it in five minute increments.

With Chris in his cast since July, biking has not been a main attraction around here, but obviously it's still on their minds....



Ella (to me and Harrison): Hey – we never got to go on a bike ride yesterday. (We were going to try a family ride, but I was pretty nervous about Chris attempting to ride with his cast.)

Harrison: Do you want to do a pretend Tour day France in the driveway with our bikes?

Ella: Sure. What number do you want to be?

Harrison: Ten

Ella: I want to be twelve.


Chris, we may have some racers in our future yet!

Found on the ground at a neighborhood park

Throughout my career I have “happened upon” a large number of notes written by one adolescent to another. My nine years at the middle/junior high produced, by far, the most entertaining notes. Often, however, the swearing or vulgarity just got to the stupid level and stripped away most of their entertainment factor.

I found this a couple of weeks ago and laughed out loud. I truly think it is in my top five as one of the best notes I’ve ever read: (words in italics are mine)

“Reasons why Parker is a RETARD! (double underlined)

1. says I wear too much make-up :( (the actual frown face also had a “v” mark above the eyes for extra effect)

2. his laugh is gay

3. breaks up through an e-mail. HOW RUDE + MEAN!!!

4. breaks up w/ me before I break up w/ him. (can you believe the audacity!)

5. immature around his friends (wouldn’t you love to know the depth of the conversations she and Parker had when he wasn’t with his friends??)

6. too much in common w/ Mike.

7. talks too much about kissing.

8. fools around (I’m guessing she’s not referring to him as a class clown)

9. BOSSY!

10. Never calls back…

11. tells family everything. Underlined five times

12. nosy. underlined twice followed by another frown face with a furrowed brow

13. talks about Catlin BIG frown face

14. is a shithead.”

Well, that just about sums it all up.