Halling Go To Alaska

May 23 "It's a hand trumpet, Mommy."  Can you tell her sister was thrilled to be sitting next to it? May 24 I'm a sucker for office supplies.  I'm an even bigger sucker for a deal. Two pens and a handy dandy holder for both? $2.99 plus tax.  May 25 She was swinging my Build-A-Bear monkey at the park.  The wind was blowing.  She looks like such a big kid.  How did she get to be a big kid so soon? May 26 I'm stuck on the clouds.  They are now gone. I miss their texture. May 27 (picture taking fail) May 28 Clouds, again.  Do you see the rain falling in the middle of the picture?  This is 5 minutes from my house.  May 29 My sweet Pumpkin cat.   Jaime and I share a cat.   Although when she lives with Jaime, they call her Chloe. And whatever. I know Jaime lives in North Carolina and I'm in Nevada.  Pumpkin/Chloe is magical.

So Beth is just throwing challenges at us lately that I love.  We have had magnificent clouds and skies lately.  So much so that I think in the past week that sky pictures probably make up 90% of the pictures I've taken.  So, without further ado...my beautiful Nevada skies. I love the angle of this next one.  And last but not least (and I'm cheating a little bit here - this was taken last week) Looking forward to what everyone else captured, as usual!

I love good quotes, but I never remember them long enough to write them down.  Or I think I will remember that because it's such an awesome quote.  And then I never do. But the one quote I try to live by daily is the one you probably learned in kindergarten.  At least I did.  I'm not sure they are teaching it anymore because it might be too...churchy? preachy? Not really sure. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Can you imagine if everyone acted this way?  We'd probably live on a much happier planet. ********************************************************************************** Do you have a good quote you want to share?  I'd love to hear it, and so would Jade .  Link up!

So Jade over at Tasting Grace  sent me this award yesterday.  I'm tickled that she chose me.  Especially since I don't feel like I've been doing much blogging lately other than pictures.  But thanks, Jade.  Really, an award from you is very humbling.   The "rules" are of course first and foremost to thank the one giving it to you.  (check).  Then write about 7 random facts about you.  (Damn, this is going to be hard. All my random facts are over on my '100 things' page.  I'm going to have to dig deep.) And the last thing is to pass the award on.  We'll see how inspired I am by the end.  So without further ado, random facts about Kirsten. I love running.  I know big shocker there.  But I've always loved running.  I ran my first race when I was 5 or 6 and it was 5 miles.  My dad "ran" it with me.  I'm sure how he managed to run at my pace for that many miles.  It has always been my go-to sport when I've felt slovenly.  Although

Monday Got some Skull Candy ear buds.  I got purple in honor of running for Team in Training.  Tuesday Sass at her swim practice. I think she wore herself out! Wednesday I love this picture.  The clouds casting a shadow on the hills. Thursday  These lights amuse me.  They are the ones at the pool.   They remind of the solar system projects from elementary school. Friday  I got to hold 3-day-old baby sweetness!!  Oh my, he is sweet! Saturday After I asked her to take my bra off, she asked me when she would get boobs big enough for a bra.  Uhm, all too soon, baby. All too soon.  Yes, I realize I'm missing Sunday.  Not sure how the day passed without taking a picture.

I loved this challenge.  I've been striving to find "the" depth of field picture that just speaks to me.  Luckily I had lots of opportunity this past weekend to find the pictures I wanted to.  On Saturday I boarded a bus to California's Amador County wine country and visited 4 different wineries with a friend. These were so bright and beautiful and simple. The colors!! Perfection! I took about 20 pictures of this door trying to get this perspective.  I love this one.  This was another one that was may favorite of about 20.   I think it's the burst of orange.   I can't wait to see all the beautiful pictures everyone else is going to post over at Beth's.

I'm not sure about you, but adrenaline is an amazing thing.  Life since last September and then more so since January, has been a whirlwind.  I've been going *constantly* with kid activities, eye appointments, church obligations (that are voluntary and I will not be doing them next year), work, training for the half marathon, fundraising for LLS (YAY, I've reached my minimum and have exceeded it), and you know what? I was worn out.  I knew I was worn out.  Even fun things I had scheduled, the thought of doing those things wore me out. So here I am in week 2 of my schedule lightening up and I'm exhausted every.single.morning.  Usually I can blame it on taking my anti-vertigo drugs too late in the evening (I take them at night because they make me sleepy), but last night I didn't take them because I was up past midnight from a board meeting and working and Sweet Pea had preschool this morning.  I knew if I took the drugs I would be dragging my rear out of bed this mor

May 9 My Mother's Day sign lovingly made by all three girls. May 10 Yes, this would be snow. In May.  I was not happy. May 11 My snuggle buddy - Bear. May 12 We had amazing clouds.  I took about a million pictures of them.  I love the road, the mountains, and the clouds/sky in this one.  May 13 Oh, Melissa!!  This one's for you. I'm thinking Montana might still be open.  May 14 My Daisy is now a Brownie!! You don't think she's happy, do you? May 15 The winery where I *enjoyed* my first port.   Yum-o!!

I haven't mentioned a bunch about it lately, but my oldest, the 9yo, she's a gymnast.  She and her four teammates (all 8 or 9yo) started competing this year.  As expected some of the girls are better at certain skills than others.  And of course, I'd be remiss to add that there is one girl (we'll call her Rose) who is just plain awesome.  She has the natural talent, the body type, and the drive to work hard and be the best.  At the last meet I was surprised that my 9yo got a higher score on the vault than Rose - because usually Rose has her chit together and kicks butt.  Anyway.  In the last month SmartyPants has come home from practice a couple of times saying that Rose and "Beth" have been talking about "Indy" and saying how she should just quit the team because she's not as good, and Indy is just going to hurt the team when competition start back up in the fall, etc.  In other words, being really catty.  SmartyPants was telling me about all th

Yellow.  I tried to find it in places other than nature...since I've been taking a lot of pictures of mountains, clouds, snow and other mother nature-y kind of things. A plastic chain in the parking lot at T's office.  Supposed to keep people from parking on the dirt instead of in the parking spots.  This was the section that was still standing.  An adjacent section was broken on the ground, probably caused by someone backing up into it. Nothing like a worn label in an elevator.   Poor little fraying, peeling label. Check out the other yellow captured and shared at Beth's. 

Ten Reasons I Love My Family (family = those who fit the description as follows; which can include friends and possibly exclude blood relatives.) I have their unwavering support - even when they might disagree with me.  If they know I believe in what I'm doing, they offer their 100% support w/o criticism.  I enjoy their company - ranging from hanging out and not saying much to enjoying an activity together.  They can make me laugh - from the kids being silly to a look crossing someone's face.  It can lead to easing the tension and break up the craziness of the day, reminding me to have fun. They make contact just to say "hi, how's it going?"  They cook for me.  I don't enjoy cooking.  I only do it because my family needs nourishment.  When the cooking is done for me, I feel relieved.  They make me think and re-evaluate, especially the kids.  Why am I doing things the way I am? Should I be doing it that way? They help me be a better person.  I try harder to be

Sunday Race bib, shirt, and medal.  Aside from the ankle, it was a great run.  Monday Love the clouds and mountains in this one.  Tuesday Mother's Day card and pictures of the girls that went in the mail for my Granny -  mother of 7, grandmother of 9, great-grandmother of 3 - who turns 89 this year! Wednesday  Look at the pretty weeds in our front yard! Thursday  This caught my eye - something about the red and the green together.  I was dropping Sass off at T's office so he could take her to swim practice after work.  Friday  Sass at the park. I love when I catch them mid step and in the air. Saturday  This was the day I didn't take any pictures.  We had friends over for dinner.   They took this one of T and I.  Aww. Aren't we cute? 

I obviously haven't been around here much in the last week.  I've been nursing my ankle back to health after my run last Sunday.  I've been busy finalizing activities that ended last week.  I've also been working more and trying to break even.  That damn bank account never seems to have enough cash in it.  Can someone help me out with that? No? Okay, fine.  So I'm going for random. I woke up to a screaming 4yo being taunted by the 7yo.  Yelled at children including "dammit" before my eyes were barely open.  Mother's Day did get better.  Coffee was made, church was pleasant with all kids, visited grandparents, drank more coffee.  Got homemade presents and cards.   My ankle feels 100% better today.  Can't wait until I run tomorrow. I've missed it!!  The half marathon in San Diego is in 4 weeks!! Can.not.wait to see those I've met and meet those sisters I haven't yet met.  So excited.  Although the weekend is going to go by WAY too fast. I

This week's challenge from Beth was to capture spring from a different perspective.  Here are "normal" signs of spring - which compared to last week's snow, are definitely different. Baby strawberries.  Hopefully we have raised the sides of the garden bed enough so the bunnies won't eat them this year.  Looking up into the new leaves of one of our trees in the backyard. And this is the bouquet that the 9yo picked for her room. Check out what everyone else's spring looks like...this week!

My worst fear.  It's family.  It's isolation.  It's emptiness. How would I cope if I lost those closest to me? How would I react if I lost a child? Or my husband.  Or my parents.  I fear that part of me wouldn't cope.  Wouldn't accept reality.  But my biggest fear within the fear is that I would be criticized for not grieving "right" and this would bring isolation. I fear being alone. Jade is hosting.  Check her out. She's awesome.

If you've paid any attention to me on twitter you'd know that I was a smidge nervous about this half.  Why was I nervous? Well my first scheduled 12-mile training run that I finished in Texas a week or so ago was not a happy run for me.  In fact, the self-proclaimed it's-easier-for-me-to-keep-running-rather-than-do-walk/run-intervals ran 6 miles and then walked/ran the last 6.  They were hard miles.  I wanted to wuss out at 10 miles.  I felt fatigued and unmotivated.  I'm not sure if I felt that I let myself down or I let my girls down.  You see, this whole Team in Training idea was mine.  I was so excited when The Sisterhood decided to start running.  'Cuz running is my thang.  I've always enjoyed it.  And I've felt responsible to hold up my end of the bargain - being the "good running role model". So Saturday night I was talking to T and told him that I needed his running mojo for the morning.  I needed the mojo that allowed him to run in leather