My Mega Exciting Life: Land of the Living

I'm back, I'm back, I'm back! I bet you thought I was on the losing end of an ill-timed zombie attack. Wrong-o! Still here. And when you get filled in on all the goings-on you'll understand why I was MIA for a bit.

The big news is: I DID IT. (again). Ladies and gentlemen, I give you:

me polishing off 26.2

I tell ya, I'm tough stuff, cream puff. Actually. I'm not. This photo is more indicative of how I felt.

please make it stop...

But I managed to have fun in spite of the agonizing pain.

me at mile 20

And I had an amazing cheering section! Mr. Smith met me at miles 8, 11, 17 and found me at mile 24 on his bike and rode along side me and cheered me on the last two miles. Jenny made me this fabulous sign:

i went

She also made a sign that said "Getting up early to make this sign is HARD WORK TOO." Which really cracked me up.

Good times! Next race I'm signed up for? Epcot Center's Wine and Dine Half Marathon with Jenny, Amanda, Rachel and Ames Hussar. Can't wait! It's in October though - plenty of time to recover.

In other news:

we put our house up for sale! first time selling a house!

Annnnddd... three days later we got a certified letter from KUB. Notifying us that we were officially not in compliance with their concept of the perfect poop pipe. Nice. Just what every prospective new homeowner is looking for - a nice new poop pipe. Oh well. I got a digger machine and got straight to work!

move it or lose it, bub. i ain't messing around.

this is the original meaning of laying pipe

and now we're officially compliant. thanks, kub. have another thousand dollars while you're at it.

In other exciting news, I sat for a portrait:

it's just like looking in a mirror! artwork courtesy of lucy venable.

And I found this fabulous new recipe:

but... what if i'm making this for kim who hates tomato? and i personally prefer provolone to monterey jack... and what if i only have white bread on hand? and what if i want TWO sandwiches??? and hot mustard makes me want to PUKE... jeez. maybe i should find a new recipe for turkey sandwiches. i'll do that right after i finish eating my uncrustable.

Next, in case you were living under a rock you knew that the weather recently has STUNK to HIGH HEAVEN. I got home from work one afternoon and Mr. Smith was mowing the yard. I turned on the news to Todd Howell frantically advocating everyone in the viewing area to please get inside... he's a rabble rouser, so I didn't pay too much attention... until about one minute later the light went out. Daylight and power light. I thought about calling Mr. Smith in and decided I was being a rabble rouser a la Todd Howell. When lightening popped I went outside to yell for him and only had time to note that he'd moved on to the back yard when I was cut short by him streaking through the living room to get out of the storm. We were lucky - we lost power for a day, and off and on for the week, but that was the worst of it. Our neighborhood got HAMMERED. But, that one night we entertained ourselves by candlelight!

just like abe lincoln! or laura ingalls wilder. with less outhouse. tommy couldn't stand it. he kept going from room to room and cussing when he'd go into another room and flick on the non-existent light. that and he kept exclaiming to me, quiet reading by candlelight on the couch, "HOW can you READ?"

In keeping up with current events, we went with the Masons to see a movie in 3-D!

thor in 3-d is lame. don't bother. on the flip side, i did not know that thor's brother was loki, who we named our cat after. when movie loki got hisself into mischief and started causing trouble i didn't umderstamd why they just didn't turn on a vacuum cleaner. if i know my loki's, that would have straightened that brother RIGHT OUT.

Next up, MOTHER'S DAY! I was a lame-o last mother's day and didn't get my sweet Mama nuttin'. So I made up for it this year by throwing her a party!