Deadly Doberman

I think my wife is losing her mind. Not that I haven't noticed it for the past four years or so, but it's becoming even more noticeable lately. Much like me, she's been running a lot lately. Only she runs farther. And sweats less, and doesn't breathe as heavily. And she kind of glides, whereas I have more of a "gallump." But I'm really losing my thought here. Anyways, she's losing her mind.
She's told me a couple things recently which, had they happened to me, I probably would have kept a secret to avoid the ridicule of a spiteful spouse. Some things just shouldn't even be shared between husband and wife. Especially this husband, because she should know I will subsequently post it on this blog site, which is read by thousands of people all across the nation and maybe even the world. She gave up her right to privacy, though, so here goes:
She said she had a huge fright while running the other night. As I have previously mentioned, there is a nice neighborhood across the street from ours which we frequent on our runs. While running into the entrance of that neighborhood, my wife said she saw two huge Doberman Pinschers. That kind of took me back a little, because I have seen dogs in that area, but the biggest they get is around one foot tall. They're more of an annoyance than a danger. But she said these Dobermen (plural form?) were huge. And just staring her down. She kind of slowed down and considered her options: Option #1--She could turn around and run the other direction; Option #2--She could keep running and hope the huge beasts would just ignore her; Option #3--She could wet her running shorts and start sobbing. She went with option #3 first, then after about ten minutes, took a few steps towards the dogs. They were still just staring at her, which was a little odd. Shouldn't they be barking or sniffing or something? She took one more deadly step towards them and all of a sudden, they quickly ran away. As she watched them fearfully flee, my wife suddenly realized that they weren't Doberman Pinschers at all! These crazy eyed, teeth-baring "dogs" WERE ACTUALLY DEER. My poor wife. After she told me the story, I tried to make her feel better.
"It's okay, honey...did you know that deer are actually more afraid of us than we are of them?"
But maybe it's not her fault. Maybe her eyes are going bad. For instance, one day later she told me that she was running in that same neighborhood and saw another big dog, staring her down. She got really scared, almost as scared as she was of the awful deer. But as she got closer, she realized that what she had been so afraid of was not a dog, but actually a LAWN CHAIR. Ah, yes, the all-too-common mistaking of a lawn chair for a ferocious dog. Who can blame her?
So we're having her eyes checked tonight, and I'm in the process of finding a psychiatrist. I love my wife, but honestly, this is out of control. I actually woke up last night to find her scratching my belly and trying to shake my hand. I just hope I can make her better before she tries to have me neutered.









LOOK OUT, KID!

The Gigantic Sauna

Imagine a sauna. The hottest, steamiest, most scorching sauna you can think of. Now picture that sauna stretching...extending...growing...until it has about a mile radius. That's one heck of a huge sauna. Now imagine you just got home from work and it's time to relax a little bit. And what better way to relax then spending some time in a nice sauna? So you open the sauna door...wow, that is scorching. The heat just pounds you in the face the moment you step in. You immediately start to sweat. Now you move to a bench to sit down and relax....but wait....there is no bench! All of a sudden, you feel something forcing you to run. NO! You don't want to run! You feel as though you're being pushed, tortured as you run. The mind-numbing heat dries up your throat and makes it hard to breathe as your legs move painfully under all the stress. You run in the awful, miserable, deadly heat of the hottest sauna you've ever entered. You run and run and run until you feel that nothing could be worth this. Not even the absence of love handles.
That last part may not have made much sense, but that scenario is exactly what happened to me the other day when I went running. If you've been reading my blog, you probably noticed that I have been running in the mornings at around 6:00. Well, after trying it once, I found that I have a great deal more energy at night. So I started evening runs. And two nights ago was the hottest run I have ever taken. I literally began to sweat before stepping off of the front porch. It was one of the hardest things I have physically ever done. But you know, it ended up being a really good run. And I haven't informed my blog readers of this yet (the two of you that actually read it), but I am now running a hefty 1.9 miles per day. And walking 1.1. That's up seven-tenths from what I had previously been running. It's getting a little easier. And while the pain during the run may be way worse than anything I've ever been through, the feeling I get when I finish is well worth it. There's nothing better than that feeling of accomplishment.
One thing I wanted to write about, though, was something that happened on that awful, sauna night of running. Out where I run, not a whole lot of cars pass by. Which is a good thing, the way I'm swerving all over the road. But once in a while, I will have a car pass me. And that night, as I was running back towards my house, a big black Buick passed by on the right, going in the same direction as me. As it passed, I noticed a tiny hand poke out of the halfway-rolled down back window and wave at me. I couldn't see the child it belonged to--all I could see was that little hand, but the child couldn't have been any older than a toddler. That hand just kept waving and waving at me until the car was out of sight. It actually made my whole night. It also made me greatly appreciate my 16-month-old daughter, Abby. She is so amazingly precious--honestly the cutest child I have ever seen (and I don't think I'm saying that just because I'm her Daddy, but who knows?). I feel so lucky to have such a special little girl in my life, and I hope I never take her for granted. I love being her Ga Ga.

Nice While It Lasted

Well, we're getting down to the last couple weeks before we move out of the ol' in-laws' house and into our new one. Sad. Very sad. And I'm not being sarcastic. I'm actually sad about leaving my in-laws' house. But it's not because I'm going to miss them. Not even close. We're going to be about seven minutes away. I'll probably still see them everyday. I'm sad because I won't have the lake anymore. Oh, yeah, did I mention they were on a lake? They are. A nice one. And they have a boat.
I've become so accustomed this summer with walking down to the lake, spending some time in the water, then laying on their boat and just relaxing. It's become my favorite quiet time (when my wife and daughter aren't with me--then, it's my favorite family time). I can just get away, relax, listen to my iPod, and get a nice, Mexican tan. I love it. It's also an excellent time to show off my buff body. Just kidding. I mean, it would be an excellent time to do that, but my body's not buff. Yet.
I love the lake.
I'm also going to miss my usual running route. Their neighborhood is so peaceful. The street is paved so nicely and easy to run on. Everyone that drives by (though it's rare) smiles and waves. When I pass anyone on the road, they always have something nice to say to me. I never hear it because my headphones are always in, but I can see their lips moving, and I'm sure it's nice. I usually just smile and wave. There's even a very nice neighborhood across the street I frequent on my run. It must be a requirement to have an in-ground sprinkler system in that neighborhood, because every single house has one. I enjoy running through the mist created by the sprinklers, whipping my hair back in forth across my face in slow motion as the water soaks it to create that perfect wet look. Well, I don't do that so much, but I always think about it.
I even enjoy the six-pound dog that chases me halfway through the sub-division. Though I have wanted to kick him in the face many times, I think I'm gonna miss the little 'fella.
So it's tough to move after all this time. There won't be a lake. Though the backyard near the fence floods sometimes after a hard rain, it's not nearly the same. And let me tell you--I like the road we're on--the houses are all nice-looking houses, but the pavement...GOOD GOSH, THE PAVEMENT! It's incredible. It's as though four or five earthquakes have devestated our road, and nothing else around it. Gigantic chunks of cement are laying all over the road, leaving thousands of potholes screaming for their next victim. I have to break about three driving laws just to make it to our house without losing my little car. How will I run on this? I guess I'll be doing a lot more now than just running. I'll have to learn the high jump to hurdle the cement chunks and the long jump to avoid the potholes. Or I guess I could just run on the sidewalk.
But I wrote all of this just to say that I will miss the luxuries of the in-laws' neighborhood. It's been nice while it lasted. Time to be a grown-up now.

Fly Trouble

Something has really been annoying me lately, and I'm not sure I can handle it much longer. It's such a small thing, but worse than anything I could ever imagine. As I've noted in previous posts, every morning I get up and run 1.2 miles. Sometimes 1.1. And every freaking morning, this stupid fly, my arch-enemy, gets up at the same time and follows me the whole way.
Now, I don't know if it's the same fly every morning--in fact, I'm sure it isn't; that would just be weird--but why would so many flies try so hard to annoy me? I just get up, minding my own business, wanting to go for a nice little run and listen to my music in peace. I don't run around with a flyswatter and bug spray, making it my goal in life to hunt down this fly. I just want to run and lose weight. I mean, the hatred I have for this fly is stronger than anything I've ever felt. I want it to suffer, and I want its family to feel the pain, as well.
And geez, I look like an idiot out there. Let me be more specific--the entire time I run, I look like a schizophrenic tripping on acid. I'm constantly swatting and jerking, as far as any neighbors are concerned, at what are probably a halucination of purple vampire bats. And every time I get a hand on this fly, I think it just makes it mad. It starts buzzing around me more, making sure I see that it's definitely there, and landing in my hair a lot more than it had been. And that's something I hate more than anything else. The feeling of a fly in my semi-sweat-covered hair. There's nothing worse. Nothing. So then I start swatting double time, trying to keep up my pace while my arms are swinging wildly in the air. It's really not easy, and not fun to watch. I start insulting the fly, swearing at it, threatening it. Nothing works. This fly is cold as stone. It follows me all the way back home. I don't even lose it until I step into my back door.
I'm seriously considering carrying a flyswatter with me tomorrow morning. This has got to stop.

Remodeling Blues

This whole remodeling thing is really getting to me. It's funny how little I actually knew about the process. When we bought our Great Depression-era 1200 square foot mansion in February, I thought for sure we'd be moved in by March. All we had to do was drywall the ceilings, rip out the upstairs bathroom, replace everything in there, paint the whole upstairs, carpet it, rip out the kitchen, put in new flooring, cupboards, cabinets, and a countertop, paint the rest of the house, and BAM--we're in, just like that! Doesn't seem like much, right? But little did I know, this kind of thing takes much longer than a mere couple of weeks. Four months later, we're still working.
Let me tell you why it is so hard to get work done on this house. There are many excuses, uh, reasons why it has taken so long, and many of them aren't even my fault. For instance--waiting on things. A lot of our time is spent waiting. Waiting on the carpet to be installed, waiting on power tool batteries to charge, waiting on lunch to be delivered, waiting on friends to finish their portion of my work, etc. You can see that this whole "waiting" thing really slows down the process.
Another problem is the fact that once we do one thing, we find something else that needs to be done. For instance, we ripped out the kitchen cupboards, and while drywalling that wall, we found that the outlet receptacles needed to be updated. That takes up a whole afternoon, especially if you don't know what you're doing. Please pray that we did it right.
My family is also holding back our progress. I know, I know--"How could that be?" you might ask. "Isn't your family trying to get in as quickly as you?" I thought the same thing. Well, my beautfiul, intelligent, social, extremely forgiving wife chose to quit working inside the house for a while--and decided she was going to put all her focus and energy on plants. Yep, three weeks of planting and pulling weeds, watering and filling. And what am I going to do? I have to help her! I can't let my little wife do it all by herself!
And not only is my wife delaying the move-in date, but my daughter is making things even harder! "But I thought your daughter was only 15 months..." That's true, she is. But I think she's going to be the downfall of this whole project. Luckily, my in-laws are able to watch her some of the time when we work on the house; however, other times, we are not as lucky. Let me give you the scenario. Say we're going to attempt to paint a bedroom. We take our daughter, Abby, to the house and set her in her playpen. We pour the paint and get our rollers ready. No worries. I paint one strip of wall, and here it goes--Abby starts screaming as though someone had ripped the chocolate milk from her tiny clammy grasp (which I have been known to do--I just love the taste of that cold, thick chocolate on its way down my throat). I don't know if you've ever tried to accomplish ANYTHING with someone SCREAMING IN YOUR EAR, but let me tell you, it is NOT easy. My emotions start to go haywire. I want to yell, laugh, and cry all at the same time. I can't think or focus, so nothing can be done. We rush out of the house in tears and go back to our temporary home with the in-laws, Abby's mission accomplished.
So maybe some of it has to do with me not wanting to work sometimes, but that's a very small portion, and not even worth mentioning.
But after all that, there IS actually an end in sight! We will be picking up our furniture this weekend and moving it into the house! So we can't move ourselves in until the kitchen's done, but it will be soon! Until then, I'll just keep waiting, helping my wife and listening to my daughter scream.

Rundown

I started running recently. Not much, but enough. And it makes me wonder...what is it about running that people like so much? I've talked to so many people about it (including my wife) and the answers I get are ridiculous! "Running is relaxing...just me and the road." "I have my best ideas when I run." "It's a time to reflect on nature." "Running gives me a chance to think about the beauty of good and the danger of evil, to really capture the essence of God and all he has done for us through his sacrifice of Christ on the cross." That last one was my pastor.
Do these people not feel what I feel? Are they not bound by the same laws of gravity I find in my neighborhood? If someone asked me what I thought about running, the last word that would come to my mind would be "relaxing." "Excruciating," "agonizing," and "self-inflicted pain" are just a few of the words that pop into my head first when I reflect on running. And I don't reflect on it unless I have to.
So why do some people love running, and I hate it? Here are my thoughts:
I'm a big guy. Gravity has a lot more to work with when I run.
I don't have all the cool running clothes that real runners have. They're in their little "tech shirts" and "tight tech shorts" and I'm in my "heavy cotton shirt", "knee-length floppy gym shorts," and "grass-stained walking shoes."
I'm not in touch with nature.
I'm running because I have to, they're running because they want to. This is probably the biggest reason.
I have to run. Believe me, if I didn't have to, I wouldn't. My weight has gotten over the acceptable amount for someone my height and build, and over the last couple of years, it has started to show. I had to do something, and I couldn't stop eating at McDonald's, so here I am, every morning. I get up at 6:00 am, a time of which I was previously unaware, and put on my heavy cotton shirt, knee-length floppy gym shorts, and grass-stained walking shoes and start my morning run. And I don't look pretty doing it, as I'm sure is hard to imagine. I look good for maybe the first tenth of a mile. Then my jaw just sort of drops open and I heave oxygen into my lungs. I use "heave" as an onomatopoeia. Say the word, "heave." Now say it like a really old man about to die. That's the sound I make when I run. My eyes get kind of droopy and sweat starts pouring down my face, blocking my vision. By the half-mile, I'm swerving all over the road. My heavy cotton shirt is soaked through and the heavy cotton boxers I'm wearing under my knee-length floppy gym shorts need a good wringing. I've actually seen mothers jerk their children behind them, screaming as I pass by.
But I don't stop. I keep going and pushing until I finish that 1.2 miles. I don't know why 1.2 miles is the cutoff point, but I know that once I hit that marker, my body just kind of shuts down. And once I'm done for the day, it's the most satisfying feeling in the world. But when noon rolls around, I start thinking about tomorrow morning at 6:00 am and the satisfying feeling vanishes. But I just keep in mind that as long as I keep going, as long as I keep my feet pushing concrete, I will be ready for that 1K race sooner or later.

Hanson My Pockets

I've been looking at windows lately. We need about 12 new ones in our poor old house, so we had a few people come out and present their company's windows to us. Hanson's and Wallside Windows. I'm going to take a little bit of time to talk here to talk about Hanson's windows.
First of all, when I called to set up the appointment, I was told I had to have a table and chairs at my house, and the heat and electric had to be turned on. Boy, these people are picky. Of course, I don't have a table or chairs at the house--we're in the middle of tearing it apart. So I had to find some run-down card table and use camping chairs for seating. The electric and heat are already on, but the heat is at 52, which I wasn't going to change for this joker and pay the bill that came with it. So my wife and I are waiting in our cold house for this guy to arrive. Eventually, we hear a knock on the door and I opened it to find, not one, but two guys standing there with smiling faces. But maybe I should preface this a little bit with some information about Hanson's commercials.
We see them all the time. Always the same, with the owner of the company, Brian Elias, shoving himself into every inch of the commercial, making sure everyone sees how beautiful he thinks he is. If it cuts away to, say, a WINDOW, it quickly cuts back to Brian and his beautiful features. This guy's a slimeball. You can tell by looking at him. He thinks he's gorgeous and believes everyone else thinks the same. Stupid greasy hair. Everytime I see one of his commercials, I just picture him stirring a martini, throwing his head back and belting a hefty laugh. It's like he's trying to seduce my wife through the television screen! I have to distract her everytime he comes on so she won't feel violated by his sleaze.
So anyways, these two smileys come into the house and start taking measurements. I was told on the phone that the whole process would take about an hour. After taking measurements, they pull out this binder the size of an A-K encyclopedia and slam it down on the card table. One of them is there for the talking portion, the other for support, I guess. So the first two things out of this guy's mouth are: "We don't like to put down other window companies" and "We're not those kind of loser salespeople that give you a price, then keep moving the price down until the customer's satisfied. We have one price, and we don't change it WHATSOEVER." Those were nice things to hear. I could trust these people.
So he opens his giant binder and I immediately understand why it's so big--it's filled with negative content about other companies. That was the first hour of the presentation. They pointed out every bad thing about every other company out there. Wow, when you look at it that way, Hanson's windows really are the best!
The second hour of the presentation was spent discussing how great a guy Brian Elias is. Everything I never wanted to know about anybody, they told me about their great boss. I'm almost certain they've never even met him. And they did not convince me. I can see right through that greasy little head of his. Well, not literally, because it's so full of grease, it would be impossible to see anything through it. Who cares about how Brian Elias' dad's uncle got his start and where it led Brian Elias' dad and eventually Brian Elias? Wow, Brian Elias didn't originally want to do this? He really wanted to be a fireman? Amazing! I don't care! Just show me a window and tell me how much it is!
After tutoring me on Brian Elias WAY more than I ever wanted, they finally got down to their windows. And tried to demonstrate to me another hour's worth of why their windows are the best windows ever. At one point, they were even jumping up and down on one window! One thing I thought was kind of funny--he told my wife to jump on the window and she just kind of looked at him and said "no." I wanted to laugh.
So FINALLY he pulls out his pad of paper and works the numbers. He gives it to me and it says $7500. That's way more than we imagined. BUT, contradicting himself once again, he takes off a little here and there, and gets it down to $3900. Unfortunately, I was dealing with a salesman that was not willing to change the price WHATSOEVER, so he wouldn't even take a full half off of it. However, just before I asked them to leave, they did get it down to $3200. I mean, I guess these discounts were legitimate. I received one "first visit" discount, one for guessing within $200 of the correct price, one for being willing to put a sign in my yard, got one for listening to their 3 1/2 hour presentation, one for being tall, one for having my shoes tied, and so on.
So after all I went through, all the information I was given, all the backstabbing of other companies, all the changes in cost, all the compliments and small talk they offered, I have come to a very definite decision. I'm buying my windows from Wallside.