Mi Vida Mocha Coffee soaked ramblings from my ordinary life.

So I must be one.
First, I hate running. I always said I would only run if chased, and even then, I’d probably just lay down and let the chaser catch me. I find running incredibly boring. And now I find myself up early every morning (6 days a week!) running. I may need my head checked, since I also registered to run a 5k.
I must be nuts.
I have no idea how marathon runners do it! My morning runs are only 2-3 miles and the only way I’m even doing that much is by distracting myself in some way so my brain is not completely numbed by the boredom of running. I need music or something. This morning, I had to charge the music device. I occupied my brain by composing elements of this blog post and arguing with myself about whether I should stop at 2 miles or push on for 3 (stopped at 2-such a quitter). I may need to just find myself a new running route. Currently, I have a nice 1 mile loop I run 2-3 times. The problem is, the end of each lap is basically my driveway. Every lap gives me the opportunity to quit. Each time I don’t, I mentally pat myself on the back and occupy my brain for a few seconds with thoughts of how much good the additional running is doing me.
Because that is the ONLY reason I run. The results are awesome. I have a big butt (and I cannot lie), big thighs too. Running is the fastest way I’ve found to slim and tone those suckers down. Amazing, actually. 6 solid days of 2 mile runs and the difference was noticeable. And not just to me. See, I have a picture in my head of what I want my body to look like and I’m pretty realistic about it. I’ll never be tall or boney/skinney and that’s fine. But I want lean, toned legs (and butt too…) and running is making that happen quick. I wish skating did for my body what running does, because I could skate all day and be happy the whole time. Unfortunately skating does not remodel my body that way (although it’s still great exercise). So I guess I’ll keep pushing myself, running, and maybe one day I’ll find that instead of fighting myself not to quit, I’ll have run that 3 miles and not noticed my driveway at all.

Mi Vida Mocha, and I am a speeder.  It’s been about 25 minutes since I was last speeding, and although I try (somewhat), I’m sure I will be speeding again later today.

I can’t seem to help myself. If my car is moving, and I’m in the driver’s seat, I am most likely speeding. I think it’s another one of those things I inherited from my father; green eyes, hair with some red and blond (and a touch of curl), poor spelling, and a lead foot. At least I didn’t get his nose.

I remember riding home from my favorite aunt’s house with my dad. He drove the back roads, rather than the highway and one of the connector streets was pretty curvy and all down hill. There were caution signs, advising that the road was unsafe over 25mph. Dad always took it at 50mph and I loved every second of it. Once, we were rushing to the hospital with my aunt in the car as well. Poor aunt kept asking how fast he was driving. Dad just kept telling her not to look at the speedometer. I couldn’t resist peeking at it from the back seat. He was doing over 100mph.

I don’t drive that fast (except on very rare occasions, when I’m really really pissed). I also don’t speed at night. I’m a little on the night blind side and I find that I naturally do the speed limit when it’s dark. I do make a concentrated effort not to speed in residential neighborhoods. It really hacks me off when people fly down my street so it would be pretty hypocritical if I were doing the exact same thing. I try not to be a douche like that. Highways and main drags? All bets are off. Oh, I’ve gotten better over the years. I try to keep it within the state troopers’ tolerance level of around 10mph over the limit (although in areas that I know are cop free? Um, I drive it like I stole it). I can’t afford speeding tickets or increased insurance premiums (and this is just one of the many ways I know I’m getting old…sigh). In the past, I’ve come within a couple of points of losing my license (all speeding tickets) and I carried higher risk insurance for a bit as well. The Husband would have a fit if I reverted back to that trend. He totally grew out of his speed demon stage.

My dad always said his father drove like an old man, even when he was quite young. The Boy may take after that portion of the family. I think my father-in-law was more of a Sally Safe Driver too. The Boy has totally ratted me out on multiple occasions. The best being on a Sunday morning when I took him with me to a photo shoot for roller derby at a prominent city landmark. Afterwards, the whole team drove to practice at a local rink. Roller girls in multiple cars driving down the highway = a race. The Boy called The Husband mid-trip to inform him that, “Mommy is going 85 on the highway.” I claimed he was seeing the speedo wrong due to his angle of vision and I wasn’t going that fast (I was actually going more like 87…)

And I’m a horrible parent. Yes, I speed with my kid in the car.

I never felt unsafe with my dad flying down the road. I’d like to think it’s the same for The Boy. I don’t weave in and out of traffic. I try not to ride people’s ass too much (The Husband would dispute this, we have very different tolerance levels for tailgating, I think). I’ve never been pulled over with The Boy in the car (knock on wood). Perhaps I’m setting a bad example and setting him up for an early suspension of his driver’s license (I’m gonna pin the blame on The Husband if that happens, purely history repeating itself). The Boy does have a very strong sense of right and wrong (at a later date, I’ll have to blog about that…hysterical). Maybe he’s way smarter than mom here, and he will be that teenager that all the other parents want their kid to ride with. Perhaps what I do has less influence on him than I flatter myself that it does.

That would probably be a good thing, right?

I think spell check was invented with me in mind. I am the most atrocious speller. It’s totally messed up too. I’m a reader and a word nerd. But I can’t spell anything! It’s really embarrassing. On occasion, my boss will happen to be standing over my shoulder as I type an email to a patient. I’m great with grammar and all that jazz, the emails don’t look like they are coming from some uneducated bumpkin, but I wonder what he thinks when he sees me misspell things. If I should ever forget to click the spell check before hitting send— Yikes.

I think I must come by it honestly. My dad always carried a pocket dictionary in the breast pocket of his work shirt. Every day. He also kept a little folded piece of paper in that same pocket with certain words written on it that he used commonly and might misspell. He also had to have the same type of pen anytime he wrote anything and bought them by the box at Staples. Holy Cow, I just realized how much I resemble him in some of my tendencies (you should ask The Husband about the check book pen).

I actually had a teacher in the eighth grade mention that I might have a learning disability where spelling is concerned. I remember at the time, I was hurt, embarrassed and infuriated by her suggestion. However, as time has passed, I realize that she could have been on to something and there is no shame in having a learning difficulty. Maybe I would have taken her observation better had she not been rather judgemental and somewhat loony. Old Lady M. just might have been right. Who’d a thought?

(i totally had 6 misspellings in this post before I ran the spell checker)

I love pumpkin. I think I may be a pumpkin-aholic. Pumpkin coffees and pastries. Pumpkin bread and pie. OMG, fall is fabulous just because of this! (although the cooler weather and awesome leaves help too). I’m pretty sure everything tastes better if it’s flavored with pumpkin. I know I’ve already mentioned that I love to bake and pumpkin pie is one of my faves to whip up. I’m actually masochistic enough to make the crust from scratch. I go in, all gung-ho, super excited by the prospect of the picture perfect, flaky pastry crust. Then, I’m slapped by cold hard reality.

Making pie crust sucks. It’s either too sticky and won’t come off the surface (or the rolling pin) or it’s too dry and falls apart and rips when I try to put it in the pie pan. I ultimately end up with a crust and it always tastes great (at least I think so and everyone else seems to agree.  I hope they aren’t just being nice…) But it never looks anything like the  picture I have in my head. I certainly don’t burn the edges or anything like that, but I never have a nice, even, decoratively crimped edge. I’m lucky to have edges at all in some places. Oh well, I’ll keep trying and hopefully one day my results will match what I see in my head.

This year, I also would like to make a pumpkin cheesecake. I. Love. Cheesecake. I don’t think I’ve met one yet that wasn’t completely amazing. I also love making cheesecakes. Fancy, takes more than an hour just to put together cheesecakes (and then they get to bake for at least that long, talk about a project). I really wanted to do this last year, but I had just started school, plus the whole 2 job thing and I just never had the time. I really really hope I can pull it off this year, even tho the situation is still pretty much the same. I can give up some sleep for cheesecake.

I’m also crazy for pumpkin carving. What a dork, right? One Pumpkin Master’s kit and I’m hooked for life. I’m not talented and/or creative enough to design and make my own templates or anything like that, but boy can I find some great ones on the Internet. In the past, I usually like to do about 4 pumpkins. At least one Halloween cat (my black cat obsession is probably a bit sad), a cartoony one for The Boy, and other stuff that just strikes my fancy for the year. The last couple years I’ve slacked a bit and it bums me out. One year it was because I traveled with the roller derby team the weekends before Halloween and I just couldn’t find the time to do any more than 2 I think. Last year it was again the work and school situation. I did carve up a foam pumpkin a couple years ago with a great scene from, “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”. That helps pad out my yearly carvings. I love Peanuts movies, especially that one, and they have always been The Boy’s favorites too. I think I’m gonna get another foam ‘kin this year too. I need to figure out what template I’d like to keep as a permanent decoration each Halloween. There’s another Charlie Brown that I’ve done in the past that’s one of my absolute faves as well, but 2 CB’s every year could be over kill. I might have to find a great cat pattern and do that in foam to keep. The Husband will just lovethat. He knows I’m a wack-job, he should be used to it.

I’m gonna have to go through my old pics and post some of my past ‘kins. I’m such a geek about them. I totally run out of patience and rush the job but thankfully, being lit by a candle on a dark night sure does hide flaws well! I also really need to start taking pics of my finished baked goods, just to have them. I can nerd it up even more.

Aaaahhh, fall. Let’s get this ball rolling!