At the center of your being you have the answer; You know who you are and you know what you want.

so we're having a blast on garrett mountain today, went and got a cheap toboggin and headed out around 10:30 to let Brianna have her first sledding experience. found a deserted section of the mountain where noone was sledding, it was quite slippery because there is a coating of ice on top of the snow, so you FLY down the hill (which wasn't even THAT steep) but it was too much fun, we let Brianna go down a few times by herself and she loved it, then Jorge and I would take turns sledding with her, I'm tellin' ya, climbing that hill about 30 times is one heck of a workout, we were all breathing heavy, laughing and sweating. we'd been up there for an hour going at a regular clip and then Jorge gets the bright idea to take Bongo down in the toboggin and here's where the fun stops. Bongo was NOT havin the sled idea and thrashed about so much that his bone-head whacked Jorge in the mouth and cracked his front left tooth in half and almost right out of his mouth! so our sledding fun was cut short by an emergency trip to the dentist, who was open today thank god - two hours later, he has a temporary bridge and will have to get a dental implant because of how far up in the root the tooth broke. oy to the vey! not that its all about me but that put the kebash on any chance of my getting a regular workout in before work (which is where I am now).  i have a 7 mile run planned for tomorrow - will be going up to the mountain w/Bongo for that because the CRRC canceled their bun run for tomorrow since a member's mom just died.

Live as if your prayers are to be answered

today's quote is nice. i'll be thinking of it most of the day.

my dog should be praying for mercy right about now. Brianna's abuela, "Ita" bought her a pair of Dora the Explorer slippers last night - bright pink, so cute, Brianna actually WANTED to wear them. we've been hunting for slippers in her size for quite a while and i'm sure these were maybe 2 bucks or whatever because Ita is cheap - my point, they weren't fancy-schmancy or anything, but Bongo ATE THEM! last night while we were all asleep! she wore them a total of maybe 1/2 an hour before going to bed. Jorge is gonna flip out when he finds out, I'm seriously debating whether to tell him at all, but that's a bad example for Brianna. anyway, Bongo must know he's in for it, because he's sulking like a child who's been punished or is about to be. Brianna's upset, but she's taking it okay... she actually laughed when i said to Bongo... "you wait until your father gets home!" our cat seems to know she's got our good graces just by not being a dog and was miss affectionate immediately after i scolded bongo. of course all of this is human perception about an animal - so take it with the proverbial grain of salt. more on this drama later.

early conference call (845!) so Brianna will be late to school then a call to the Netherlands and hopefully a hike in the woods around 11... peace out, homies!

Love what you do. Do what you love

i'm sorry, did i complain about how hard it is shoveling a driveway yesterday? silly me! that's cake! what's harder is shoveling a street parking space AFTER the plows have been through and packed all the snow down... yeah, that's way more fun! but i saw my M-I-L spinning her wheels enough to know that she can't maneuver into the spot we dug her this morning, so I had to make it wider for her.

going to do some yoga to stretch the back now. will try to 'mill it at the gym tonight after din-din. didn't do the yoga, but got to the gym - not nearly as crowded at that hour, 8:30 as it was a month ago *sigh* guess the new year's resolution crowd has other things to do

Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly.

snow day, means no school, also means jorge did not drive the 30 miles to work and is working from home. *whew* don't have to worry 'bout him dealing w/the highways in this icy mess. i'm laptopping it today, not too much happening at work because my boss, poor thing had to take her son to the hospital for what i'm assuming was a major asthma attack. she funnels my assignments to me and since she's not in the office, there's nothing funnellng. i've got to make calls, but they're on california time, so i can't call them yet, too early. brianna is rotting her brain w/noggin, i'm goofing off on bt and jorge is working, we're warm and dry so all is good. gonna go heat up a bowl of my homemade "harmony bean vegetable soup" that i made yesterday... its got black beans and black eyed peas, barley, collard greens, carrots, celery, onion, tomatoes and chicken stock. YUM-O!

hope everyone had a happy valentine's day! i celebrate it on the 13th because of a sweet story that describes how special my hubby really is... wanna hear it? here it go - JennBunn1e can skip, i already bragged, and Carol heard it a million times: 
i used to hate valentines day. as a kid i just never seemed to get too many valentines. one year i even got none. i mean i was all charlie brown about it. i remember feeling like such **** that day as the other kids gave each other valentines but not me. that was before the days when teachers made sure that parents included everybody. so i went through adolesence and young adulthood hating the day, convinced it was a hallmark holiday that i just ignored. i even told my first husband that i didn't need cards or candy or flowers because it was a stupid holiday.
that relationship didn't last - but that's another story.
when i started dating jorge, i of course filled him in on all this so he could be spared dropping 50 bucks on a dozen roses or other nonsense.
i figured he'd be relieved - ya know? one less thing to deal with.
but what he did was amazing.
he went to the store, bought crayons and construction paper and handmade me about 30 cards as if they were from that class of idiot kids that dissed me so many years ago.
he happened to give them to me on feb 13th, though... so we always celebrate valentines day then because that's when i stopped hating the holiday.
AWWWWWW!
jealous?

I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacations with better care than they do their lives. Perhaps that is because escape is easier than change

Dog update: "Alfie" did not break his leg, but boy did he do a number on the muscles, ligaments and tendons. Two big scrapes up each leg, I guess from the bark of the tree and a possible torn tendon somewhere in his back left leg. No activity for 3 weeks - I don't know how Gina and Corey will manage that, he's basically a year old border collie mix and has MUCHO ENERGIA! which is why he was running through the woods at a pretty fast clip with Bongo and Annie.

Busy day on tap for me. I have a gyno-appt at 2pm (yay.) and there's a possible early dismissal for Brianna's school because of the snow - oh my gosh a whole 2 inches might fall, what will we do? That means I gotta hunker down, get some stuff written so I can go run without a guilty conscience. I will run 4.5 miles today before the snow starts falling. i got in my run... it was okay - didn't feel that strong, but did the 4 miles - my left leg gave me trouble near the end, so i opted out of the extra 1/2 mile.

question: what is it w/men in trucks? why do they have to honk at runners? what is the friggin' point of that? has a runner ever stopped to have a conversation w/them after they make them jump or freak them out with the blasting horn? OY to the VEY!

and another thing: it will snow at some point in new jersey tonight, the flakes aren't even falling yet, they were supposed to start 2 hours ago and not a one, so if one more person asks me if the effin' HMN meeting is canceled, i might actually flip out. its not even SNOWING yet! why would I cancel a meeting on the POSSIBLITY of SNOW???  god you'd think clifton new jersey had never seen more than a flake fall - everyone's up in arms over the possibility of an inch to two inches being on the ground! ARGH!

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.

extra long hike in the woods today with a little drama at the end. one of the dogs we hike with got wrapped around a tree when they were all tearing through the woods. poor thing may have a broken leg now. i had to run out of the woods and get my truck to drive it to where they were because he couldn't walk. luckily i have a 4WD truck that is able to off-road a bit. thank goodness his dog mom wasn't there or she'd have had a heart attack! the dog dad is more calm - but he took him straight to the vet for x-rays. i'm waiting to hear back. i'm so glad it wasn't bongo that got hurt, what would i do w/o my running buddy?

Never fear growing old; there are many who have never had the privilege.

if i don't get to do a bun run today, this is the route that will give me 7 miles http://www.runningmap.com?id=8832 

brunch at noon at carol's, gotta get in the run early... i'd love to log 7 - but we'll see how that goes! i'm not running w/crrc b/c that'd get me home too late... gotta make up the lack o mileage this week

okay so i didn't get up early to run... the plan is to do one when we get home - we'll see. it was too dark by the time we got home from carol's - so no run. but i did some strength exercises and tomorrow is a new week!