My new bling

So, I finished another half marathon. That's pretty much the story. My 5th one, and not my best time by far. But it was super fun, and I'm happy with my time of 2:25:48, especially with everything I have been through in the last 12 months trying to remake my running form and overcome injuries.

This was my first experience of having to use the port-o-potty mid-race (TWICE!). Let's just say my tummy didn't cooperate with the timing of the race. That cost me some time.

Also, out of nowhere, the same pain I have had every time I have run a half marathon came out of nowhere at mile 9-10, which forced me to stop and stretch a couple of quick times, and definitely to shorten my stride so that I could keep going. Initially I had planned to just take it easy and try to keep at 10-minute mile. I was doing that, and a little better, when things fell apart. But I'll take it. It was an incredible day, a beautiful run, and I had cause to celebrate that at least I could go put down 10 miles without any trouble (except for the potty break, sadly). One of these times I will come in under two hours, but it wasn't this day. But I am still so happy about it all. Seriously, I'm a mom with 7 kids and I can run 13 miles! What's not to be happy about?

Jacob and Abram ran also, but they didn't train AT ALL! Seriously, not at all. They decided to stick together and just have fun with the race. They started in a corral about 10 minutes before I did. Just as I hit about mile 10, I caught up with them, and we decided to all run together to the finish. But then I had those tell-tale rumblings in my tummy that told me there was no way I was going to get to the end without another potty stop. At mile 11.5 we came to the Honey Bucket, and I told the boys to run on and finish.

We have always talked about how we don't wait for people in races. You just go on. However, Abram and Jacob decided to wait. Only I didn't know this. I finished my business, and jumped right back into the race without even looking around for them at all. I had no idea they were waiting for me, and they didn't see me. So they stood there for at least 5 minutes staring at a Honey Bucket door that they thought I was behind. When a total stranger came out of it, they realized what had happened and they ran to the finish where they found me. I beat those suckers by 12 minutes.

The biggest news of the race is that Mark had the race of a lifetime. He had a goal to run the half marathon in under 1 hour 30 minutes. He had everything align for him to have a perfect race, and he finished in 1:29:39. So amazing! He is one fast guy. He placed 181st out of 17083 runners, 23rd out of 854 men ages 40-45, and 153rd out of 5625 males.

My stats were much more around the 50% range.

We are running a half marathon again on July 4th. I have been taking my sweet water floatation belt to the pool with me every morning this week and aqua jogging to give my knee a break, yet still keep my legs moving so I can hopefully run on the 4th. I have also been doing some cool exercises I had sort of slacked off on. I'm not expecting much, but I will be so happy if I can run and not hurt and not have to stop for a bathroom break. Hey, if I can avoid tummy trouble, I will shave at least 10 minutes off of my time.

Which brings me to one interesting tidbit. The girl who pooped in Boston (remember this?) took 2nd place in the half marathon in Seattle last weekend. And I didn't notice when she ran past me in Boston with poop all down both of her legs that she is a BEAUTIFUL girl. Incredibly pretty. Stunning. And she is from Oregon, too!

After the race, we stuck around, of course, for Everclear. Yes, a free concert in Quest Field parking lot for the finishers and their families. It was amazing. We were about 15 feet from the stage, and afterward Art stuck around to shake hands and say hi to those of us who wanted to meet him. The boys and I went up and shook his hand. He is one of the funniest and wittiest people I have ever seen. He was full of one-liners during their performance and we were laughing so hard at his off-the-cuff remarks. He was hilarious. But they didn't play Rockstar. That made me sad. I love that song.

I don't know what it is about Art Alexakis, but he is fascinating to me. I normally don't think tattoos or piercings are cool, but I adore Art Alexakis. My favorite thing he has ever done is play Mr. Gibson in the Music Class episode of Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide. He is the nicely-groomed, sweater-vest-wearing music teacher Mr. Gibson, and then at the end he surprises Ned with his real life rockstar persona.

I am a winner!

So, if you have read my blog at all, you know that I am generally an unlucky person. When I buy something, I can pretty much plan on it being defective, missing parts or broken. Or the wrong color, or not what I ordered, etc. I know that everyone cannot have the same luck, or e-commerce would have become extinct years ago. My attitude about is all is that I am just surprised when something actually works out!

I do not remember ever having won anything. Like in a raffle or drawing or contest. Never. Ever. Even bingo I will sit there with like 4 ALMOST bingos on my card, and the one number I need will stay in the cage while everyone wins all around me.

But today my life changed. We are in Seattle for the Rock N Roll half-marathon tomorrow. We went to the expo to pick up our race bibs and man-shirts (which I will need to tailor when I get home). Brooks has a big circus cavalcade exhibit where they have games, prizes, do gait analysis on treadmills, and everyone gets a ticket with a barcode. Then you go get your barcode scanned at the prize table and find out what you won.

Everyone was getting a water bottle, knit hat, cheap bag or a lucky few got t-shirts. I handed over my ticket fully expecting to hear, "Congratulations on your new bandana." Instead, the ticket lady started jumping and shouting "You won free shoes! You won free shoes." I started laughing, totally thinking she was kidding. But she wasn't.

I went over and tried on several pairs of Brooks shoes at the expo store, and I just had to tell them which ones, and they ordered them and are shipping them to my house. Crazy!

Really? $120 shoes? Me?

I will believe it when they show up.

Pulling out my hair

We have had the computer system at the dental office for 7 years. It's a beautiful system that my dad and I put together, and it has run flawlessly all this time.

Last Friday I tried to remote into the office, and I could not. However, my family had just arrived in town for Savanna's baptism, and it was nothing urgent, so I didn't worry about it. From time to time, our modem randomly gives out a new IP address, and then I have to go into the router and see what the new IP is, change settings and I'm in again. I figured this had happend. Oh, if it were that simple.

Saturday my dad and I went to the office to see what was going on, and the server was off. We determined that the power supply had gone bad. Saturday afternoon where do you get a new power supply for a Dell Poweredge server? That's right. Nowhere.

We headed home to see if we could find a place in town or online to get one overnighted by Monday, and had no luck. At the same time, my dad went out to check if our BBQ was working for the big BBQ we were having after the baptism, and dicovered the burner had completely corroded through in about 4 places over the winter. So it was off to Home Depot to buy a new burner, which we installed and then washed the black gunk off of our hands just in time to get Savanna to the church in time for her baptism.

Then we had family over for the dinner and fire, which made it quite impossible to worry about the computer. Ironically, my dad had 2 of the exact power supplies I needed at his work in SLC. I thought very seriously about buying him a $600 last-minute plane ticket to fly home Sunday and get them for me and then fly back. I really should have done that.

Instead, we borrowed a blank machine from someone in our ward, and went down Sunday night and turned it into a temporary server. I had a backup of all of the data and images we needed in the clouds, which I was able to download. It took about 10 hours to get the new machine loaded up with software and all the workstations pointed in the right direction. We were there until 3AM.

The new power supplies arrived today, and I shoved them into place, and we had power. Only problem is that the button battery that keeps the BIOS settings in the event of no power had gone dead. The server has power, the hard drives are good, but it cannot figure out how to boot.

I want to cry.

In the meantime, the office has been able to remain functional, but I am worrying about how I am going to mesh the old database that was backed up with the new data from this week. We are missing all the data from last Thursday, as the shut down happened before the backup ran Thursday night. To complicate things, when I installed Dentrix on the server, it forced me to do an update that the other workstations had not had yet, and this update changed the version of the database, so the original backup from last week is now a different version than what the office is running now. To add to the fun, this software update forced me on Sunday night/monday morning to go around to all the workstations and also run the update.

Now I need to find a genius who can reconfigure the server BIOS to find my operating system and boot up. I have no idea about that kind of stuff. And my dad isn't here anymore, and it's kind of hard to figure this out over the phone.

Stress.

Les hommes belges

Abram's AP Economics class had a project presentation today where each group represented a minor country at a class economic summit. Part of their grade was incorporating a native costume and food into the presentation. Abram's group was Belgium.

I put my papercrafting skills to work and made the guys some "wooden shoes" out of yellow posterboard. They were fantastique. We also cut out some mustaches from some leftover black fur. Abram dug out some sweaters and hats and, voila! The boys were ready.

For their food item, I made sugar cookies representing the Belgian flag. They turned out so cute. The boys used the cookies as leverage in their bargaining with the other countries.

Joel update

Joel survived his day at school Wednesday, and did a great job of facing all the teachers and friends he had said goodbye to the Thursday before. What a trooper.

He got to skip Thursday to go to OHSU for a pulmonary test. Our insurance stated that he had to have a pulmonary test that showed he had "Restrictive Lung Disease" in addition to the CT that clearly showed that the chest cavity has severely restricted space. One look at this kid with his shirt off and you can see that there is no way his lungs can inflate to full capacity.

So, the insurance company paid for the testing to be done so that they can pay for the surgery...

Anyway, it appears that the medical definition of Restrictive Lung Disease is someone whose lungs can only inflate at 80% or less of expected capacity for height and age. Joel ended up at 77%.

Now we'll see what Blue Cross has to say.

Make-ahead mashed potatoes

Every year for our church young women, we put on a fundraiser dinner to earn money for the annual summer camp. It is a super fun night, and the girls have a blast playing waitress that evening. We set up the gym like a restaurant, Aubrey plays the harp, and the girls serve the food. We serve the same menu every time. Lame? Well, it's easy, and also delicious and we have it down to a science. Salad, rolls, roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, and a raspberry brownie sundae for dessert.

My heart rate jumps when it is time to make the gravy for this event. It has always turned out, but gravy can sometimes just do crazy things. I just use the pan leftovers from the chuck roast, add a bit of water to get the desired volume, beef base for more flavor, corn starch and my immersion blender. I blend it until smooth and then bring it to a boil.

Some things make this meal super easy. First, Montreal Steak Seasoning and chuck roast. Second, is Make-Ahead Mashed Potatoes. Last, is Betty Crocker brownie mixes. But this post is about the potatoes.

The traditional mashed potato is good at first, but then as it sits gets clumpy and not very tasty. When you are feeding 50-60 people at one moment, it is tricky to cook mashed potatoes to be timed to be finished at a precise moment. This recipe is amazing, because you can make them any time during the day you are serving them, and then put them in the crock pot to stay warm until you are ready to serve them. Plus, they are the best tasting potatoes I have ever had. Maybe because there is more "other stuff" than potatoes? They are a hit.

17 potatoes
garlic (7 tsp)
1 stick butter
1/2 cup milk (slowly add more if you need to--too much turns them into soup)
3 tsp salt
1 tsp ground pepper
1 c parmesan cheese
2 8-ounce pkgs cream cheese

Peel potatoes, but leave some skin on. Slice potatoes into quarters (or eighths if they're large). Boil potatoes and garlic for 30 minutes, or until tender. Drain, but don't lose the garlic--keep it with the potatoes.

Soften butter and cream cheese in the microwave. Mash and blend potatoes, butter, cream cheese, parmesan cheese, salt and pepper.

Have your crock pot pre-heated to high. When you have finished making your mashed potatoes, put them in the crock pot, cover and turn crock put down to low. You will need to stir the mashed potatoes every 30 minutes in the crock pot even though it is on low, or they will scorch.

Cinnamon Rolls

My mom called me in a panic Friday because she couldn't find my cinnamon roll recipe. Normally when someone needs a recipe, I can just tell them I have it posted on my blog, but in this case, I didn't. And I was at the church at crunch-time of serving dinner to 50 people when my mom called, so I couldn't give it to her. I promised her I would post it this weekend.

I cut this recipe out of the newspaper about 10 years ago, and it has never failed me. I love this recipe, and so does everyone else. I have big 13x18 inch pans I make these in (like a jellyroll pan with 2" sides, but I also have made these in 2 9x13 pans. The recipe calls for making 12 huge rolls, but I usually roll the dough long-ways and make 20, putting 5 rows of 4 in the pan. Otherwise, we had a lot of unfinished ginormous rolls, where 20 still makes big rolls, but an actually eatable size.

DOUGH

• 2 packages active dry yeast
• 1 cup water (105-115 degree)
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
• 1 cup warmed milk
• 2/3 cup butter
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 eggs, slightly beaten
• 7 cups all-purpose flour (or more if needed, up to 8)

FILLING

• 1 cup melted butter, divided
• 1 3/4 cups granulated sugar, divided
• 3 tablespoons ground cinnamon

CREAMY GLAZE

• 2/3 cup melted butter
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 4 -8 tablespoons hot water

Directions:

1. 1 To prepare dough: In a cup, combine yeast, warm water and 1 tsp sugar, stir and set aside.
2. 2 In a large bowl, mix milk, remaining 2/3 cup sugar, melted butter, salt and eggs; stir well and add yeast mixture.
3. 3 Add half the flour and beat until smooth.
4. 4 Stir in enough of the remaining flour until dough is slightly stiff (dough will be sticky).
5. 5 Turn out onto a well-floured board; knead 5-10 minutes.
6. 6 Place in well-buttered glass or plastic bowl, cover and let rise in warm place, free from drafts, until doubled in bulk, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
7. 7 When doubled, punch down dough and let rest 5 minutes.
8. 8 Roll out on floured surface into a 15 x 20 inch rectangle.
9. 9 To prepare filling: Spread dough with 1/2 cup melted butter.
10. 10 Mix together 1 1/2 cups sugar and cinnamon; sprinkle over buttered dough.
11. 11 Sprinkle with walnuts and raisins, if desired.
12. 12 Roll up jellyroll-fashion and pinch edge together to seal.
13. 13 Cut into 12 slices.
14. 14 Coat bottom of a 13-by-9-inch baking pan and an 8-inch square pan with remaining 1/2 cup melted butter, then sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup sugar.
15. 15 Place cinnamon roll slices close together in pans.
16. 16 Let rise in warm place until dough is doubled in bulk,about 45 minutes.
17. 17 Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
18. 18 Bake 25 to 30 minutes, or until rolls are nicely browned.
19. 19 Cool rolls slightly.
20. 20 To prepare glaze: Meanwhile, in medium bowl, mix melted butter, powdered sugar and vanilla; add hot water 1 Tbsp at a time until glaze reaches desired spreading consistency.
21. 21 Spread over slightly cooled rolls.
22. 

Pobre Joelito

We love Joel. He is always happy, and always fun to have around. But this past week was sort of an emotional roller coaster for him.

He was born with a condition called Pectus Excavatum. Basically, the cartilage of his chest wall is causing the sternum to grow down toward his spine rather than level with the ribcage. This causes a big indentation in his chest. It has become more noticeable as he has grown, and will continue to deepen as he grows even more.

We went to OHSU to have a specialist look at Joel, and they recommended a corrective surgery called the Nuss Bar procedure. Basically, they made small incisions on the side, and shove a metal bar under his ribcage that forces the sternum into the correct position. The bar is left in for a year or so, and then removed as an out-patient procedure.

A CT scan was done, showing that Joel's heart was shoved out of its proper place, his lungs were restricted by the shape of his ribcage, and that the dimension between his sternum and spine was in the severe/moderate range for this defect. I spoke with our insurance company, they said that Joel would definitely be covered for this surgery based on those criteria, and we scheduled his surgery.

That date was for 6AM yesterday. Joel went to school last Thursday thinking it was his last day for the year. He cleaned out his locker, said goodbye to his friends and teachers. He turned in all the work that the teachers had given him to do to finish up his year. He even gave up his solo in the upcoming choir concert because he would be recovering from his surgery.

And then it happened. We found out last Friday that our insurance company decided that they wanted Joel to undergo two more tests before they would preauthorize his surgery. He has to have pulmonary testing, and an EKG to see how his lungs and heart are functioning. After this, then they will pay for the surgery.

So the surgery is postponed.

But poor Joel. He spent Friday sort of like Rapunzel from Tangled. You know the scene were she finally leaves the tower, and she goes between running around screaming about how fun it is and lying in fetal position crying because she will be in so much trouble? Joel went between happy and laughing about the irony of his situation, to sobbing uncontrollably thinking about going back to school and facing everyone again. Their last day is June 17th, so it's not like it was just another week of school. If that was the case, I would have let him just be done.

I let him stay home yesterday, and he said he would be fine to go today and face everybody. But it took him about 30 minutes to get in the car, and another 20 minutes to get out of the car once we were at school. Again, laughing and then crying. But I made him go.

He gets to miss tomorrow for his pulmonary tests, and I promised him sour patch kids and DQ after school if he made it through the day with a smile on his face. We'll see what happens.

Where did this pectus thing come from? I have no idea. Nobody in my family has it. Nobody in Mark's family has it. But 4 of our 5 boys have it--2 are very minor, and one other as severe as Joel's. I'd like to see the Punnett squares explaining that one. 80%? We defy the laws of genetics.