ShannonAlbert.com - June 2009

The kids decided that Payton would go first at piano lessons but Blake couldn't sit still while watching Payton. He was just too into the lesson to sit down and wait so he got a jump start on his lesson.

Andy got on my case last night because when we were at a neighborhood party, I kept mentioning being "busy" when talking to other people. I don't think I was wrong to mention it because it's the state we've been living for weeks now. It's our choice mostly but it doesn't make it any easier to balance.

Our current schedule includes:
- Long work days. Most of the work day spent in meetings with actual work being done in the evenings. 10-12 hour work days have returned. For now.
- Training for the half marathon. Alarm goes off at 5:45 3 days a week. Busy schedule means being up late every night so sleep is down to just 4-5 hours a night some nights.
- Getting ready for a wedding. Clothes for everybody have to be bought, gifts, etc.
- School is starting next week. School supplies, meet the teacher events, school clothes, enrollment paperwork, etc.
- Getting the house finished. We never really got our house in order after moving in so now I'm working through each room trying to finish that up this month.
- Out-of-town nearly every weekend. Since we are almost never at home on the weekends, it's hard to stay caught up on basic things like laundry, grocery shopping, etc.
- Kid activities. We "require" the kids to be involved in activities (1 at a time for Blake maximum, 2 for Payton) so they are learning things outside of school. It's fun and it's good for them but usually means we're gone a couple of evenings every week. Piano lessons for both start Thursday.
- Having a teenager. Payton is a fantastic kid but like all kids her age, friends are high priority. We spend a huge amount of time taking her places, facilitating events with her friends, having sleepovers. We sometimes have to say no but we try to say yes as much as possible. A Halloween party at our house is currently being planned and she's assigned a committee of friends to help her with it. They will begin meeting at our house soon to make some decisions.

We love every single thing on the list but having them hit all at once has been tough. Within two months it should almost all be over and maybe we'll have a chance to breathe for a bit. Just in time for the holidays.

(btw, if anybody reading is a fixer-type, I'm not looking for a fix. Just sharing what's going on in our lives.)

While Payton was out-of-town, we redid her room. I shouldn't say redid since it was never really done. She's been sleeping with a mattress on the floor because her old bed didn't fit into the new space.

This is a video I made last weekend to show my mom what we'd done and now that Payton's back, I can post it here.

On Saturday, we decided we want to go to Chuck E. Cheese while Payton's still out-of-town. Payton hates the place now but Blake likes it still. We asked Bob and family if they wanted to go so we all ended up going together.

Wanted to give a health update but was too excited to wait until tomorrow.

Last time I attempted to run 7 miles, it didn't go so well so I was dreading the re-attempt today. I made some changes to try to insure success on this run - dietary changes so I wouldn't have a bathroom emergency, I went at 5 a.m. when the temps were in the 70s, drank plenty of water beforehand, etc....and it worked! It wasn't really hard at all and I can definitely imagine adding on more mileage in the coming weeks.

This week I ran a total of 16 miles which is my first mileage increase in about a month. Weight loss tends to come when I increase mileage so I lost 2 pounds this week which brings my overall weight loss total to 15 lbs.

Feeling very good about the health situation right now which is a nice change from the past couple of weeks. Hopefully the next 7 weeks leading up to the half-marathon will be equally as successful.