a life beyond running shoes.

it has been about 15 years since i have read jane eyre . after having read the eyre affair , my book group thought it would be fun to go back and read the original even though we were breaking one of our rules: we try to read things no one has read yet. while i missed the discussion, i just read along anyway. i found myself, once again, terribly upset when i reached my stop on the subway and had to put my book away. i was enraptured with jane and rochester, devastated about bertha, and perterbed by st. john. but i was engrossed in the book like i don't remember being when i read it in high school. i loved it. it is funny how many people i have talked to about this book and how many really love it or how many reread it every couple of years. perhaps, it will become that for me. anyway....I LOVED IT!

my husband was out of town last week for a few nights. then, we had a crazy weekend...really crazy. think wedding with indian food and zytego music reception ... SO FUN.... pumpkin carving.... preaching (twice)...and jet lag. and none of that was counting the boys. well, we decided to escape to the catskills for a night away as a family. it rained the whole time but two kid movies, some books, and a woodburning stove made it a nice trip. here we are throwing rocks in the creek...the only time we were outside. when we woke on tuesday morning it was snowing. it was actually raining slush but it looked like snow. it was nice not to be plagued with how much laundry and sweeping there was to do from last week's survival mode... and just nice to have family time. AND i wish we had video of the boy's dance party..... at 22 weeks, baby girl is kicking up a storm.

fall has come upon us here in the northeast.... and i love it! we took the family apple picking yesterday and had a ball. just about an hour outside of the city are apple orchards. this happens to be one of the oldest in the area... 1860s. wow! the weather was spectacular! temperatures right at 60 degrees, sun shining, yummy ripe apples. i think husband had as much fun picking as the boys did eating. we also learned a valuable lesson.....don't start baking apple pie at 6:00 at night. it turns out very badly when it is not finished and little boys have to go to bed. let's say tantrums were flying....tears everywhere.... and that was just the husband (just kidding!). needless to say, we had apple pie for breakfast this morning. peanut has decided now that he doesn't really like apple pie - just the crust.... after all that... really?!

that is what he is saying, "ready, set, go." i have two boys..... all they want to do is run, jump, tackle, and play. okay, it's not entirely true. they both love books, music, play dough, paint, and markers. little bit would choose the playground over almost any activity. well, maybe his scooter or if he was taller - his brother's bike. they love to go, go, go.... it is hard for me that i have had to so significantly had to slow down.

so, i guess we will find out! it is a girl... what on earth am i going to do with a girl? the parenting adventure continues..... i felt like it was a girl based on the difference of the pregnancy (still throwing up), but i think i assumed it would be another boy. we are thrilled and completely stumped on the idea of coming up with a girl name. completely!! don't get any ideas that she will have a name soon.

last night for dinner i thought i had a grand slam kid-friendly, budget-friendly perfect dinner. roasted a whole chicken for dinner on friday night. sunday night, made bbq chicken pizza with home-made pizza dough, caramelized red onion and smoked cheddar cheese (on the adult side not the kid side - allergy factor). here was the vote: parents - major hit! kids - major failure. THEY HATED IT!!!! what?! tonight, i made pork chops, couscous, and green beans. they cleaned their plates.... so strange. they both asked for more green beans..... just plain weird!

this is a great article to read. one of my respected reading endeavors ... michael pollan.... wrote in today's new york times magazine, " farmer in chief: what the next president can and should do to remake the way we grow and eat food." addressed to the president elect - who ever that might be. of course, i find this all very interesting - especially since it is my dream to have my own vegetable, herb garden & compost pile in my backyard - but it is a good summation of his political/ethical agenda.... and for those not wanting to read his book the omnivore's dilemma (which you should read anyway but it has taken me a year to get through) it gets to the heart of some of his arguments. anyway, just thought i would pass that along. especially since i have not figured out how to get two kids and a pregnant belly to the farmer's markets.... i just read about it now.

than just finger paint. i guess with a 21 month old i should expect this but it still catches me off guard sometimes. it was everywhere!!!! i managed to get some off before the bath as to avoid them getting bluer from the water but failed to get it all out of his hair . but, they had fun!

it is a strange phenom to be pregnant all over again. it is not like i crave anything weird... or at least not anything that i didn't like before. for example, i have always loved pickles... i just like them more now. but i don't do the crazy crave pickles and ice cream. no. not me. i am 19 weeks tomorrow. we get to find out gender in a week. i am still throwing up. if past experience tells anything this should have stopped about 7 weeks ago. it has to be a girl... right?! two things that seem to make my stomach and soul happy..... avocados. not sure why. but i love them and have to limit myself to one a day. crazy. root beer floats. husband has willingly been recruited to be the king float maker. we have actually started comparing types of ice creams with types of root beer. so far, we have concluded that boylans root beer and breyers ice cream make a winning combination. YUM.....

our church community gave us a house warming party on sunday. this was great incentive to finish up all the major projects.... floors, walls, bedroom, ceiling, etc. my hubbie worked so hard.... what a trooper! we had 51 adults, 18 kids, and one neighbor..... what an outpouring of of support & love. here is one table of food: christian and mary made all the food - grilled flank steak, grilled figs with blue cheese and prosciutto, artichoke dip, homemade bread sticks, hummus, corn salsa, roasted peppers, tomatoes & goat cheese with olives, crab cakes, and that really is just the tip of the ice berg. it was amazing!!!! here are some pics of the house: we even painted the stairs from poop brown to black: we have an entry way: our kids area in the dining room: (ikea rocks!) our bedroom: showcasing our new bed (our first headboard in seven years of marriage. we can actually read in bed and not roll away from the wall). here are the floors & baseboards. what is just not communi...

over the last month, i started teaching again.... well, the semester started. this means, i get to ride the subway and read. i finished one book that i started this summer, another that i started over labor day, and two that are young adult. here is the recap: peeled by joan bauer (who goes to our church...how fun is that). a quick read on the subway, but i actually stayed up past my 10 o'clock bedtime to finish. i really enjoyed it. for young adult fiction, i was engaged..... even with the ghost story premise. hope was here by joan bauer (her newbery honor book). i too finished quickly but enjoyed. i was sad when my stop on the train came and it was time to walk with my nose out of the book. my life in france by julia child. so i love her. i can't cook french but i really enjoyed her story of falling in love with cooking...and not until she was past 30! she really is a fascinating lady. i even ordered her mastering the art of french cooking because i was just im...

my baby is getting big....not the baby in my tummy (that is a whole other post). little bit's personality & vocabulary are exploding. he is trying so hard to keep up with his big brother. he loves the guitar & singing..... and mary poppins ...well, the song parts. he is a pro at the scooter and adds new words to his lexicon every day.

i think it has officially been a month since i have posted. wow. times flies when you feel as if you are under water... but emerge i shall. last saturday was our inaugural trip to the ER. little bit feel down some friends stairs and busted his lip. it ended up not being as bad as we thought it might have been. they glued it up, gave us an antibiotic and sent us home....three hours later. here is the patient.... it was hard to capture the true essence of the incident. it looked worse on the inside of his mouth. he is fine now.... no worse for the wear.

as of monday, i am through my first trimester with sweet baby #3. the sweet children will out number the adults come the beginning of march. as john likes to comment about my day to day coping skills, "her body is betraying her" as i adjust to pregnancy and surviving with two small children. i still can't find our flash drive to upload pictures....i'll work on it. it requires clearing off the computer desk which exists in the middle of the living room due to the plaster/drywall work being done to patch up the hole from the toilet leak. supposedly the new hardwood floors are supposed to arrive this week.....which means we could potentially move out of the office and back into our bedroom in a couple of weeks!!! the small pleasures in life!

If you're the "average" person, you've only read SIX, according to the National Endowment for the Arts. my friend, scribbling suit , has read 43. now that is impressive..those crazy english teacher types! So, here's what you do: Copy onto your blog. Bold the books you have read. Italicize the books you intend to read. Underline or change the color of books you love. Then bug those people who have only read six of these. 1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen 2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien 3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte 4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 6 The Bible 7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte 8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (in two weeks i will have read for my book club) 9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman 10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens 11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy 13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller 14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (I'...

it is always more than we think it is going to be. here is the ceiling where the plumber fixed the leak.... we still have to fix the plaster. THEN there is our bedroom floor.... all those dark spots.... we think are cat urine... from the 20 that lived here before we did. heat and humidity don't work well with cat pee smell. we will be replacing it all including the sub floor. what fun, what fun.

cute kids. a special trip to the happiest place on earth... a place where baby brother did not come! sweet family olympics. g'parents & g'kids. (there are 8 g'kids)

so here are some fun facts from our vacation in florida..... we got home saturday. 19 days in florida. 14 days with daddy. 1 kitchen repainted (while the boys & i were gone). 1 living room painted. 6 days at the beach. 1 head gash. 2 busted lips (same child). 104.6 fever.... the high reached. 9 of 12 adults sick with cold (the other 3 got it later). 2 runs.... lame! 4 books read.... 3 by stephanie meyer. 2 hours of swim lessons spent entirely in tears. 7 cousins. 7 years of marriage - happy anniversary to us. 34 years of life - happy birthday to me. 1 game of tug 'o war. 1 egg in spoon race. 1 three-legged-race. 1 sandcastle building contest. 1 shotput. 1 game of holding your breath.... i was terrible. 1 water relay with inner tubes and all. 1 sweet family olympics. 1 hole in the ceiling from leaking plumbing.... welcome home! pictures to come!

friday night was our latest book club. while i thought it was going to be a bust discussion-wise, i knew we would all find the read delightful. i would not constitute our discussion as riveting but more discovery. we all learned little things about this clever and witty book from each other. such as character names: braxton hicks victor analogy liz bennett jack schitt bowden cable (reference to a bike cable) mycroft (sherlock holmes' brother) and much more......there were laugh-out-loud moments. we all loved our heroine (thursday next). it really is a book that compiles all genres.... and wittingly. i highly recommend for a fun, quick read. and who doesn't love the idea of actually meeting mr. rochester from jane eyre ?!

i can't believe that the boys are getting this big.... this is our street.... that is a pedal-less bike, yes, the little one is riding a scooter.