College Visit #1 - University of Virginia

We headed out today for our first official college visit of the year.  University of Virginia.  Zack's number one choice.  He has his heart set on UVa; I'm not sure why, except that he did row there last summer so it's really the only college he's had any real exposure to. The tour didn't do anything to dissuade him of his opinion.  We had a gorgeous day, the college is beautiful and I think he'd probably be very happy there. It's definitely a pretty campus, relatively small - 16,000 undergrads, I think.  It has some odd things, there is one section of dorms (really individual rooms) called The Lawn.  It's part of the original section of the college, built by Thomas Jefferson (or TJ as we like to call him) so there is no indoor plumbing!  I want to make sure we all understand..NO.INDOOR.PLUMBING!  But... to make it all better, you are given a nice white robe to wear as you walk down the path to the bathrooms.  Apparently these room as highly sought after and it's a very competitive process to get into The Lawn.  SERIOUSLY???   That's the best damn job of marketing I've ever heard of!  Tell everyone it's very competitive and you have to go through a rigorous screening process and then suddenly everyone wants to be a "Lawnie"??!!  Ha!  I don't think so, Mama wasn't born yesterday!

 I think he'd fit in just fine and I think he has a really good chance of getting in.  Just like anything, it will all just depend on how competitive the incoming class is.  He's got to be right up there!  How could they not want a ZACK HYZY representing their school!! :o)

Obviously going to be his favorite eating establishment!  LOL!

Prevented from getting to his man "TJ" by the fences and construction.

So close and yet so far from the man - Thomas Jefferson!

Pondering life as a Cavalier

Next up - in order of interest George Mason, Virginia Tech and William and Mary.  Those are really the only ones he's even interested in.  I love that he has such lofty goals!  I'm sure he'll go where ever he decides he wants to go.  When he puts his mind to something, it's pretty much done.

My boy is making me happy - 2 things

Sitting watching my boy eat... 3 eggs, 2 waffles, a bowl of grapes and half a dozen slices of bacon.  Eat baby eat!!  Still doing the "refugee sit."  He still eats like a camel... nothing but goldfish and fruit snacks for weeks at a time and then suddenly it's cheeseburgers, bacon dogs, eggs and bacon.   I just try and hold on to the eating times! :o)




 I woke up yesterday to this sitting by my phone.  Say What??  What teenage boy wants to get up at 5:00am to go to an Erg class with his mother??  My BOY!  That's who!   He's such a great kid, so off we went and erged away!

Running, Rowing - why is it all so hard??

I'm back trying to get myself running, erging and rowing.  It's not been easy, it seems like since I took May off, I just can't get my groove back on. Although I certainly have my eating groove going on!  The erging is fine - it's a class and I feel guilt if I don't go and work hard when I do, but the rest... it's a struggle.

I'm finding the rowing to be particularly challenging.  I feel like, I just don't feel like, I am, a novice rower trying to hang with the competitive women.  It's challenging to put it mildly.  Everyday I finish practice and I think, "I'm going down to Intermediate, I gotta go down to Intermediate."  There's so much I need to work on that I can't keep it all in my head.  As soon as I focus on one thing, everything else goes to hell.  I practically panic when they bump the stroke rate up and then I tense up and it all gets worse.  I'm a mess.  If I'm being completely honest, I don't think I'm that much worse than everyone else, but it sure feels like it.  If we could just spend all our time rowing at about a 20 and doing drills I'd be perfectly happy.  Doesn't sound much like a competitive woman to me. :o(

And the running....  Geez, it's like I've never run before.   I can't even run a mile without having to stop and walk.  I might as well be doing a Couch to 5K program, run a minute, walk a minute.  Geez it's ridiculous.  I feel like my legs weigh 800lbs and I'm huffing along like a gimpy elephant.   It's just not fair.  2 years of running and I take one freaking month off and it's like I've never run before.    It doesn't help that I'm about 6lbs heavier than I'd like to be, which is like I'm carrying a bag of sugar with me on every run.  Today I ran 2 miles on the trail and then did 3 -one mile repeats on the Boathouse hill.  God, that hill sucks!  I was pretty happy with my performance.  My new goal will be to run that freaking hill without having to stop, by the end of summer.

Can you say EMPLOYED!!

My boy went for his first real world job interview today!!

And he slayed it!  He will be working down at the park and marina behind our house.  He'll be working on the docks renting boats, kayaks etc and then he'll also be a "caretaker" which means he'll drive around in a golf cart taking care of stuff. It's a couple hours a day, 5 days a week and the hours will be flexible around his coxing and college visits.  I'm very happy that he has something that will get him out of his cave in the basement, give him a little more spending money, zack, but won't completely overtake his summer.  Really the best of both worlds!  GO Zack!

Summer in pictures

Now I know it's summer....

Where the hell am I living?  Seriously....and the humidity...don't even...

Three new summer beverages to try...  white and red sangria, just add fruit.  And Sweet Tea Vodka mixed with lemonade, an alcoholic Arnold Palmer!!

Back to fabulous salads... this is fresh Hyzy caught Alaskan Salmon 

Fruit, fruit and more fruit.  Unlimited fruit... next up, breaking out the Ninja Smoothie maker!

While I don't welcome the heat and the humidity this early in the summer, everything else is more than welcome.  Zoey and I are on Operation Slim Down and the fruit and salads will go a long way toward that goal.  The beverages... probably not so much... but everything in moderation!  

Summer is exhausting

This picture cracks me up!  We took our first walk of the summer today.  Zoey and I are both on a slim down program for the summer.  On our walk today we did a little running, just a tiny bit, and I think I might have killed Zoey! :o)  She hung in there like a champ, but I think we'll need to take it even easier as we build up our endurance! 

Happy Father's Day

Went out to breakfast at the Silver Diner this morning.  I think that's probably everyone's favorite.  Zack always gets the caramel french toast, I always get the Bison Huevos Rancheros (probably the best meal ever) and today John went just a little crazy and got Eggs Benedict.  It was extremely tasty!  

Then we went to go see Jurassic World.  It was pretty good, for what it was.  It couldn't hold a candle to the original, but it was decent.  We enjoyed it.  I don't think anything could compare to the wonder and amazement we all felt when we saw the first one at the movie theater.    Came home for a quiet afternoon of napping and relaxing.  John made delicious salmon for dinner and we finished the day off with a trip to SweetFrog!

I hope that John enjoyed his day.  He certainly deserved it for all the amazing things he does for this family.  Such a great husband and father!

Schools Out for Summer!

I can't believe school is actually out.  More importantly I can't believe Zack has finished his Junior Year.  He's basically a Senior now.  I just don't know how that freaking happens.  I'm taking today, and the weekend off, just relaxing and not doing anything and then Monday, I'll start getting stuff taken care of.
My To Do list seems to be growing on a daily basis,  if I don't start working on it pretty soon, it may become insurmountable!  But even the threat of that is not going to make me get started today! :o)   I need to gather my strength!

Award Winner!!

We had our EOY school staff luncheon today.  I won the Support Employee of the Year Award!  The award comes with a fabulous certificate and I do get my name engraved on a plaque in the hallway.  I was very nice of everyone to vote for me.... it's probably the chocolate I keep stocked in the copy center! :o)

Run This Year

I've come almost to a standstill with my May month off, but now I'm trying to get back into the swing of things.  I'm erging and rowing so that's helping, but I'm still working on getting my run back on.  I can't believe how hard it is to start running again, once you've taken time off and broken the habit.  Today was Graduation.  We had 17 seniors graduate today, including the Valedictorian, so I really wanted to go to the ceremony.  I had to row this morning from 7-9am and the ceremony started at 900am, so I thought might as well just run up to the ceremony when practice ended.  I mean, I'd already be in my workout clothes, there's no way I'd be able to find parking, so running made sense.  Until I started running.... Sweet Jesus, what the hell was I thinking??? Just "run up to the school" in 90 degrees and humidity.  Obviously, I'd lost all my sense!  It was horrendous!  But I did make it up to the school in time to hear the speeches and watch the ceremony.  So very bittersweet.  I can't believe in one year, Zack will be taking part in the ceremony.  I'm really just ignoring that as much as I can.  I'm so not ready for Zack to leave and go to college. I don't want to be an empty nester.  Not yet anyway.
My "run" did accomplish one thing... I finally hit the 500 mile mark on my Run This Year challenge.

Hopefully my mileage will pick up as soon as school lets out and I have a little more free time. 

I CAN do something not related to rowing!

We actually had a weekend where I did almost nothing rowing related (except for practice Saturday morning).   Here is my "non-rowing" life in pictures.  Doesn't happen very often!

Bobby's Burger Palace... Fried Egg Burger - SOOOO Good!

Popcorn and the movie Tomorrowland - with my 2 favorite boys!  It was okay, not great, but fun.

Finally going to take care of our yard, so it looks like our house has someone living there instead of an abandoned crack house!

Beautiful Bounty!

John finally pulled out the last holdover bush, that I have hated since we moved into the house...8 years!  Blank canvas...

After - lots of lavender and pretty plants.

The old dead mum plants are finally gone!

Such a nice weekend with my boys.  The house looks great and we all got a much deserved break from all things rowing. 

First Day of MY practice!

The adult rowing season officially started today.  I've been debating since the end of last season whether I should sign up for the competitive women's team or go with the newly created Intermediate team.  My gut said to go with the competitive women, but if I'm perfectly honest there are a couple of VERY intimidating women on that team.  I mean, scary ladies!   I went back and forth, back and forth.  I asked everyone I know who knows anything about rowing what I should do.  They all said competitive.  But only one other Novice, Jullie, decided to sign up, everyone else went Intermediate.  Was I being too arrogant to think I could skip a step?  Oh how I went back and forth.  I finally decided to just jump in with both feet and bite the bullet. (How's that for a mixed metaphor).  We all met on Saturday to go pick up the boat we're using and to do the inspections.  We only got about 45 minutes of rowing in and I was in the launch for 1/2 of that.  What I did learn is that NONE of the scary ladies are coming back this year... oh what a relief!  All the other women seemed very nice and very accepting!

Today was our first full practice.  Took out an 8 and a 4.  I was 2 seat (same as Saturday).  I actually liked 2 seat.  The woman in bow is really nice!  Practice actually felt pretty darn good.  We mainly did drills by 4 and 6 and then some 10 on/20 off by all 8 not the way back.  I wasn't disasterous and actually felt pretty good a couple of times.  I don't think I was any worse than anyone else.  Do I have much to work on... absolutely!!!  I still open my back way to early!  I tend to forget about early rollups when we bring up the stroke rate, I still use my inside hand to do everything so that my forearm tends to cramp up... I could go on and on, but I wasn't a disaster and I felt like I was keeping up reasonably well.  Yeah me!  We'll see how it goes as it gets more and more intense.

Reset and recharge

Went to Erg class this morning, wasn't pretty, but it wasn't as awful as I expected it to be.  After my month of excess, I'm actually ready to get back into good habits and an exercise plan.
End of challenge.... time to reset my mind and body...

Visited my favorite juice bar. Puree and picked up a 3 day juice fast.  I'm a little worried I'm not going to be able to last 3 days without eating - I don't have a lot of reserves.  I'm not sure I'll be able to row tomorrow or Thursday without a little eating to sustain me.  I'll just play it by ear... there are no "juice fast police" so if I want to eat a few grapes or a pretzel or 2, no one is going to scream "Cheater, Cheater" at me.  I'll just have to play it by ear...or stomach...

Here's what the end of May looks like...

This is what the end of May and the Spring rowing season looks like!  The state of my Stamping Room pretty much sums up the chaos that reigns both in my head and in my life by the end of May.  Bring on summer and the time to start getting myself and my life back in order!