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Wednesday, 28 September 2011

  • Twice the fun...

    I've been photographing these twins since they were two. They are four now and I'm looking forward to many more years to come.

    I met this family totally randomly while they were visiting our area. We've kept in touch and look forward to our annual visits.

    We met up at the beach this morning not knowing that it would be the hottest day of the year (80+) with huge waves and a super high tide.

    It wasn't an official shoot, just for fun, so that's what we did...we had fun.

     

     

    I made sure I was in a couple of the shots this year...

     

     

    It was simply a delightful way to start the day.

     

    Children are a heritage from the LORD... (Psalm 127:3)


     

Monday, 26 September 2011

  • 56 is the new 55...

    I've been a runner since I was in high school. Both my brothers were cross-country runners. My dad started running when he was in his fifties (and was still running up until three weeks before he died at age 85). My sister runs with her group on weekly basis, so I guess you could say that running runs in our family.

    The only time I haven't run consistently was during the twenty-something years I was raising my kids. About a year ago, after a broken ankle incident, I started training again. The group I joined started off with a 20 minute run and progressed by 5 minutes a week up until the 5K we were training for. It was called the Turkey Trot and was the first race I had entered since the early 1980's. It was also the first race I've ever medaled, by placing 3rd in my age group (55-59). Wow, age definitely has its advantages. Because I was the youngest in my age group, I now have four more years to move up to first place. HA! we'll see...

     

    The next training group was for a 10K, but I failed to complete the session due to shoulder surgery. bummer.

    In the spring I trained with the group for the Wharf-to-Wharf race, which I think is eight miles...not sure. I finished the training but didn't do the race because I had already signed up to be part of a triathlon team at another race the next weekend. Even though I didn't run the W-2-W, I took photos of as many of my group as I could find among the 15,000 runners. That was a lot fun cuz not only did I see my training buddies, but I saw a bunch of other people I knew. It's a huge local race which I hope to do next year.

    The Sandman Triathlon, was a great experience for me. My team was made up of Romain (swimmer, who was actually filling in for my friend who couldn't participate at the last minute), my friend Chyrel (cyclist), and me (runner).

     

    We all did better times than we each expected and finished in a respectable 1 hr, 50 min. I had so much adrenaline in me that, while I was waiting for Chyrel to come in on the bike, I thought I was going to pass out. Then I took off so fast that a half-mile into the run I thought I was going to puke. When I realized I was running a pace two minutes faster than I should be, I slowed down a bit and raced responsibly after that.

    The best part of the race was when I realized I could catch up with my running buddy, Andrea, who happens to be my son Tommy's girlfriend. We had been training together for the run, although she was also training to participate in the tri all by herself. So, she had already swam and biked and was about 5 minutes ahead of me on the run. She had been keeping an eye on me behind her, but as she approached the finish line she stopped looking back. In that last 100 yards I sprinted up to her, and we crossed the line at the exact same time. That was super sweet.

     

    These days I'm training with my group for the Nike Women's Half Marathon in San Francisco in October, just a few weeks away. It's exhilarating to run with such great people for so many miles. You sure get to know each other when you have uninterrupted conversation for 1 - 2 hours. I'd say the average age in our group is maybe...40 years old. I guess I surprised a few people last week when I told them I was turning 56 today. I had to laugh cuz I realized I'm one of the oldest in the group.

    I hope I'll always have the chance to surprise people with my age...you know, someday after a hard workout, I want to be able to say something like, oh yes, I'll be 78 next week. I see women in their 70's and even 80's in such incredible shape...I seriously want to be like them when I grow up.

    ~56, and going strong...thanks to God's grace, loving family, and great friends.


    ...my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace. (Acts 20:24)

     

     

Saturday, 24 September 2011

  • Just another reason to keep on prayin'...

    My 25-year-old son is a professional triathlete. It wouldn't matter if he was 50 years old, I'd still be nervous for him when he races.

    Today he was racing in Buffalo, NY, poised to finish in the top ten after winning two consecutive triathlons here in California. Unfortunately, during the swim he was kicked violently in the head. Regardless, he got on his bike, still with the lead pack, determined to continue. Spectators said later, that he was swerving dangerously close to the other cyclists, apparently due to the fact that he was blacking out. Fortunately, he's a smart guy, even when he's half-conscious, so he made the decision to stop racing before setting off a multiple-crash scene.

    Tommy's had a rough time of it this past season, but no matter what he comes out with smile on his face and determination to learn from the experience and take it to the top next time. He was as bummed as any of us about today's turn of events, but he chose humor to recover none-the-less. A few hours after today's race, he tweeted a funny story about how he and his racing buddy took a wrong turn on their bikes as they were going to the race site, and they found themselves on the freeway by mistake. I can just hear him laughing...

    I just love this guy. He's an inspiration for choosing the positive and turning potential failure into what it is: a perfect learning opportunity.

    So. Why be nervous? The boy's gonna be all right.

    The only problem is...I'm a mom. What can I say?

Friday, 23 September 2011

  • Slowing down...

    I've tried several times to come back to Xanga, in lieu of documenting my life on Facebook, but each time I've gone back. But this time, I don't know... for all it's addicting qualities, I have to say FB is getting too noisy. I mean, do I really need to be fed the details of every one of my friend's comments to people I don't even know?

    Now they'll be rolling out a new FB called Timeline which looks cool, but truthfully, I'm not that cool of a person. I don't even have a cell phone. We're still stuck with dial-up and very little (almost zero) cell reception at our house. I don't have an ipad or ipod or kindle or anything even remotely cool like that. As far as I know, Pandora still owns a box that shouldn't be opened and Spotify is what I might do when I get taco sauce on my white blouse. But the new FB will have all these things attached to it in a format that documents our lives in a timeline form. Well, shoot, we've been doing that here on Xanga for years already.

    So maybe it's time to quiet things down a bit and get back to my online community roots. I just wish Xanga pages weren't so hard for my connection to load. But like I tell people about our dial up (besides that it's faster than smoke signals), is that it's taught me how to stop and smell the internet roses.

Sunday, 03 July 2011

  • back to the future

    good grief, i haven't written anything here for a very long time. for some reason i keep my xanga account, but i don't ever visit cuz it takes to darn long to load up on my stupid dial up connection, which those of you who know me know is my only choice, so if you don't know me don't start giving me all the alternatives that i already know about but can't use.

    since last fall, george has gone out on disability from a back injury and i have been thru a shoulder surgery and rehab. we were quite the pair for a while...both of us laid out either on the couch or the floor watching every season of Seinfeld since the beginning. i'm pretty much back in business now, running almost daily, training for a triathlon at the end of the month, which i'll be part of a team, the runner of course. george is headed for surgery in a couple of months before he'll be able to go back to work.

    my mom fell and broke her pelvis two days after her 88th birthday in April. that pretty much consumed all my time for about 6 weeks while she rehabed before being released back to her own apartment. sure glad that's over. she uses a walker now, but is pretty unsure of herself. she's gotten pretty confused, not knowing what day it is or what time of day it is. i find it difficult to get over to visit her as often as i should. *sigh* gotta work on that.

    tommy moved in with his gf in january. andrea is a sweet girl that we are getting to know slowly. she and i are running together which gives us plenty of time to talk, which i just love.

    i can hear fireworks in the distance...it's the night before the 4th of July. i need to get some sleep tonight since we'll be in the Aptos parade tomorrow. the youth group designed costumes to promote our hot dog give-away at church, so while george is leading the singing, the kids will be dancing around in hot dog, ketchup and mustard outfits. sooo funny...sooo aptos parade.

    so till next time...have a great summer.

     

     

mommyfish

  • Visit mommyfish's Xanga Site
    • Name: Nancy
    • Location: Santa Cruz, California, United States
    • Birthday: 9/26/1955
    • Gender: Female
    • Member Since: 3/21/2005
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About Me

  • Married 27 years with two adult kids. I run a small photo business with my husband, and actually started taking photos myself about six years ago when my husband bought me my own camera cuz he was tired of me telling him what pictures he should be taking.