Entertaining week

We had a rather entertaining week. On Wednesday, we were treated to dinner and a movie by the company. It was one of our summer intern events, and Jeff got invited because he's volunteered to help with another intern event later in the summer. We went downtown to have a pizza dinner at Old Chicago with about 250 other employees, then we all went to see Indiana Jones and the Space Invaders, I mean Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, together. The movie was a bit strange on the plot side, but was still semi-entertaining, and since the entire evening was free, I'm not complaining.

Last night, we went to see the Wichita Grand Opera's production of The Pirates of Penzance. I've been a fan of this show ever since my parents took me to see FHSU's production of it when I was a kid. I liked watching the movie every now and then growing up, too. Jeff had never seen it before, so he wasn't quite sure what to expect. I think he was a little surprised that it was so silly, but he still enjoyed it. They screwed up my favorite song in the show, Modern Major General (orchestra playing too fast for the soloist to keep up), but otherwise, it was pretty good. The cast threw in a few fun twists that were unexpected and really fun, like audience sing-along time, and daughters cheering the police with KU, WSU and KSU pom-poms.

Tonight we are scheduled to meet my grandparents, aunt and uncle, cousins and siblings in Salina for dinner together. My aunt, uncle and cousins from Pennsylvania are here for the weekend to visit my grandparents, and Salina just happens to be about an equal drive for all of us scattered around the state to meet up for dinner. It will be nice to see everyone again.

Howdy, Folks

Jeff's parents are visiting this weekend. We decided to take them out to the Prairie Rose Chuckwagon Supper for a rollicking good time. Jeff's dad is quite a fan of the cowboy culture - he likes reading Westerns, watching Westerns, and driving through the middle of nowhere, so we thought he might enjoy this place. We were pleasantly surprised at the quality of the food and the entertainment, and I think we all had a good time.

The Opera House, where supper would eventually be served

Cowboys and Indians (Chief Itchy Bottom, to be exact)

We went for a horse drawn wagon ride through the property

Ken and Bev ride the wagon

Bev ropes a steer

The kitchen

The supper, all-you-can-eat, and quite tasty

The entertainment: The Prairie Rose Rangers, also quite good

A covered wagon at the entrance

There was a pretty sunset as we were leaving

(That last photo is Michelle's attempt at HDR photography without the proper software or camera. You'll just have to ignore the watermarks and the blurry trees and pretend it's the coolest thing you've ever seen.)

Go me!

I got a promotion today! Woo hoo! It wasn't entirely unexpected, but it was still nice to get the official word. My new title is "Specialist Engineer". I am no longer a measly "Senior Engineer". Oooh, ahhh. It sounds like I might actually know what I'm doing...

I had my first appointment with the personal trainer at the Y yesterday afternoon. It went well. She was really nice. We went through the medical history stuff, the diet stuff, the goals stuff, and then we worked out a schedule for the next three weeks. After all that, she watched me work on three of the different cardio machines to make sure my form was correct before letting me go for the night. I did 5 minutes on the Arc, 20 on the treadmill, and then 5 on the elliptical. Apparently I don't completely suck at any of them, so I've been cleared to do them on my own until I see her again. I'm supposed to be at the Y three times a week, one to do 20 minutes on the Arc, one to do 40 minutes on the treadmill, and one to do 30 minutes on the elliptical. I'm also supposed to use my rowing machine at home for one day a week. That all seems pretty doable because that's pretty much what I was planning on doing on my own before seeing the trainer. If I manage to do all of the above for the next three weeks, we'll add in weights next time.

Jeff meets with his trainer tomorrow after work, so we'll see what he gets told to do and we'll have goals to meet together.

It turns out that my illness is not really due to the germy kids at the gym, so no excuses for not going any more there. It's just really bad allergies. It's knocked a couple of people in my office out this week, so I don't feel like a total wuss for missing work for it last week. Of course, this also makes me question why I bother to take nearly $200 of prescription allergy medication each month to deal with them... I just keep telling myself that they'd be even worse if I didn't take it.

Flora and Fauna

Jeff took some pictures of the flora and fauna of the House of Boy and Girl this weekend:








That little bird in the second to last picture is the noisiest little guy! He flits between our roof and one of the trees in the front yard and just chirps and chirps and chirps and chirps all day long!

"I wanna quit the gym"

said Jeff, shortly after our first workout on Tuesday. LOL Poor boy!

Yes, we finally joined the Y on Monday. We would have joined last week, but I was struck with a nasty bout of sciatica which left me unable to walk without severe pain in each step for several days last week. I didn't think they'd be too keen on letting us join the gym if I limped in with my face all screwed up from the pain, so I waited until it subsided enough that I wouldn't look so gimpy when we went in to join. When we were filling out the membership application, the fire department's medics showed up to treat someone. Jeff asked how often that happened. The girl at the desk said, "you don't want to know." Jeff's apprehension increased...

We went for our first workout on Tuesday. I quite enjoyed it, Jeff overworked himself and therefore announced that he wanted to quit. I was amused, and gave him some workout education on Wednesday, optimum heart rate, you don't need to do 30 minutes on the elliptical your first time at the gym, etc. We went back on Thursday, and I think he had a better time. He admitted that it was good for us. We're shooting for three trips to the gym a week for starters. We meet with our personal trainers for the first time next week, so we'll see what they think we need to be working on. (Everything.)

I've had this sciatica thing for about a year and a half now. It started in a rather amusing way. Fang was out in our garage sniffing around at something. I had been trying to get his attention by calling his name for about a minute, because it was time to go back in the house, but he was ignoring me. So, I stomped my foot to make a loud noise to get his attention. Pain shot up the nerve in my leg, and it hurt for a couple of weeks after that, and has continued to hurt off and on ever since. Most of the time I either don't have any pain, or the pain is minor enough that it doesn't interfere with life. I'm lucky because it has never hurt in my back - just in my leg and butt. But, once every two or three months, I get a day or two where it's just brutal. Once every six months or so, I get an entire week that's brutal. Last week was that week. Drugs don't help at all (and my doctor and I have worked up to the maximum doses of everything we can think of to try), stretching helps just a little bit, but doesn't give very long lasting relief. I'm hoping that with more exercise I can strengthen my back enough to stabilize my vertebrae so the nerve doesn't get tweaked. Of course, we haven't actually done any medical scans or tests to be sure that that's what's causing it, but it's worth a shot.

In other news, I fear that my apprehension of germs at the gym had merit. I have quite the sore throat today, and had to take a sick day. I rarely get sick, so I'm quite convinced it's something I picked up at the gym. It's all those germy kids running around... :P

Pretty colors in the yard

The last couple of weeks have brought mild weather and a lot of rain to our house. Our planting beds are going crazy this year. Some of the plants have been thriving for a couple of years now, but I think others finally got their roots deep enough for the first time this year to really start growing. I walked out to get the mail this evening and glanced across the front of the house and thought all our flowering plants looked exceptionally pretty today, so I grabbed the camera and took a quick picture. The wind is blowing like crazy, so all you get is a group photo of one of the beds today. I'm sure Jeff will be out there sometime soon to take some better close-up photos to share.

Mother's Day

We made the trip up to Hays once again today. This time it was to scatter my mom's ashes. Joella rode up with Jeff and I. My grandparents came over from Manhattan, Mike and Debbie came from Olathe, and Nathan, Daniel, Ken and Rachel, and Jan met us at Frontier Park in Hays. We decided that the park was a little full, so we went over to another area along Big Creek where our family and friends spent time with mom. It was the area where both Joella and I had Girl Scout Day Camp (mom was a troop leader) and where North Oak had their Easter sunrise services. Mom liked walking there with her friends, too. It was peaceful and quiet there today, with no one else around to disturb us (or to get grossed out by us scattering ashes). We reminisced for a little while about mom, recited Psalm 23 (those of us who had it memorized did, anyway) and sang a hymn. We poured the ashes into Big Creek, then Rachel made a little memento of the occasion - a cross fashioned out of twigs she found by the creek and tall grass.

It's hard to believe that it's been almost a year since she passed away. The time has gone by so quickly. We all miss her, each for our own reasons. What I miss most is being able to call her up and let her know when something exciting has happened in our lives. I still tell her about it - maybe God lets her hear, maybe not. Anyway, that's what happened here this weekend. It's not the most fun thing to read/write about, but there it is.

A long Saturday

I mentioned in my last post that we had a busy Saturday ahead of us, and it turned out to be just that. We got up in the morning and headed over to our neighborhood clubhouse to pick up our neighborhood cleanup assignment for the morning. We volunteered to pick up trash along the side of our property that runs next to the main road. It was pretty cold and extremely windy, but we managed to get the entire area done in a little under two hours. We stayed pretty warm, but our poor noses were quite runny by the time we finished. We hung out at home for about two hours, had lunch, then went over to our "Serve and Celebrate" project at one of the elementary schools nearer to the center of the city.

The Serve and Celebrate projects are something our church started doing last fall, and something we hope to keep doing on a semi-annual basis. We missed the first one because we were still working on cleaning up my mother's house back then. I think we had about 1000 people volunteer to do various projects around the city last fall, and we had about 500 people volunteer for projects last Saturday, so these are pretty big events for both our church and for the people around the city that we're helping. Projects range from cleaning up overgrown shrubbery in rundown neighborhoods, to painting fire hydrants, to washing windows at schools, to playing with kids at day camps, to cleaning up graffiti, and whatever the city comes up with for us to do. We contact the police and city management for ideas, and then we get groups assigned to each project. You can opt to work the 4 hour morning shift, the 4 hour afternoon shift, or to work all day. You can also choose labor intensive projects or low impact ones. We all wear this highly visible fluorescent yellow shirts so people can recognize that we're all in a group (or perhaps they just think we've been let out of prison for the day).

Jeff and I volunteered for the afternoon shift, and we didn't care what sort of project we ended up with. We got assigned to "assemble and install three sections of playground equipment at Jefferson Elementary under the supervision of a school employee". That sounded like a fun job, and sure, it would involve some lifting and digging and such, but we didn't think it would be so hard. We were asked to be co-captains of our team of 13 people for the afternoon. There was another team of 15 that worked the morning shift.

It turned out to be a massive endeavour. The three sections of equipment were actually HUGE interconnected playground systems, $40,000 worth (the school's principal got them through a grant), requiring something close to 100 holes in the ground that needed to be at precise locations, and varying depths. There was a supervisor in charge of the project, a man (also a volunteer, who apparently does this sort of work 30-40 weekends a year) who was directing his three sons and all of us volunteers in how to do everything. It was a bit unorganized, but we all figured out what we were doing after a while and got into our stride. Our 4 hour project turned into 8 hours, and we had to call for reinforcements at 5 pm. We worked from 1 pm to 9 pm, when it finally got too dark to work safely anymore (although I have to say that our shirts definitely lit up the night a bit). We managed to finish most of the work, but there were still a couple of park benches that needed installation. The guy in charge said he'd finish it up on Sunday. We are quite sore from all the work today, but it was definitely worth it. Here are some pictures from the day. There were some other volunteers from the school that worked with us (they're the ones in the non-yellow shirts), so you'll see them in the pictures, too. Jeff's wearing tan pants and a tan hat. We hope the kids have a blast playing on their new equipment!

Leveling holes for the second section of equipment

Installing the equipment

Mixing concrete

Our trash compactor

The guy in the white t-shirt is the man in charge

The second section is in!

Starting the work on the third section of equipment

More holes

Jeff surveying

Sorry - no pictures of the completed third section of equipment due to the darkness that set in. It wasn't quite as big as the other one we did, but it was just as impressive. :)

It's fun to tour the Y...M...C...A!

First of all, let me just tell you that I flunked out of the 5th grade spelling bee on the word "exercise". It's true. I spelled it "exercize", and my teacher made fun of me in the classroom when we all got back there after the bee. Really. The whole world of exercise has been stacked against me since I was 10.

That being said, we toured the East YMCA Monday night. We purposely went on Monday night at about 5:00 to see how horribly packed the place might be. (That's supposed to be the busiest time of the week.) It WAS horribly packed, but there were still a few free treadmills and ellipticals and such. I have to say that I was really impressed with the girl who gave us the tour. She did a great job of showing us every corner of the place, including the part we'd be most likely to use, the new Wii stations... just kidding! But only about using them - they really did just install three Wii stations at the Y. Anyway, we found out at the very end of the tour that our hostess goes to our church, so that was kind of cool. The place was also full of very normal looking people of all ages and fitness levels, so we knew we'd fit in fine. Everyone was modestly dressed, which was great. We both came out of the place semi-excited about joining.

Then, in the middle of the night, I woke up and proceeded to think myself out of joining. I was reminded of all the crowded rooms, the equipment jammed side by side, the lack of personal televisions for each workout station, the huge amount of sweat and miscellaneous germs from other people that I'd come into contact with, the need to buy real workout clothes that are appropriate for public viewing (at home, I usually just go for worn out pajama tops and too short shorts that are no where near modest because I get soooooo hot when I move), the need to wash said workout clothes between workouts, and on and on. All this invaded my brain at about 3 am (couldn't say for sure about that time, because I'm blind, and the clock's on Jeff's side of the bed, but you get the point).

However, over the last couple of days, I've pretty much talked my way back into it. I think we're going to give it a shot for a while. It would take us over three years of paying the membership fees at the Y before we would even start to get close to paying same price of the treadmill we're considering buying. We'd also get three free sessions with a personal fitness coach/trainer if we joined, which would be a good thing for one of us who has never been sporty, and for one of us who hasn't been sporty since her college days. We're going to try and set up a schedule so we get over there on a regular basis and actually make use of the place. They will be opening a brand new Y in Andover next spring that will be even closer to our house than this one is, so hopefully that will alleviate some of the crowding at the current one.

We have a crazy busy weekend ahead of us - Saturday is our annual neighborhood cleanup in the morning, then in the afternoon we are co-captains of a team from our church that is going to be assembling and installing playground equipment at one of the city elementary schools as a service project, then on Sunday we have our neighborhood picnic in the evening. I'm sure we'll be quite exhausted when it's all said and done.