Work, Swim, Books, & Veggies

Got going pretty early today (as usual for a school day).  MMNW wasn't too awful considering my love affair with all things mashed potato this weekend.  It was 181.0.  Got the lunches made and did some car shuffling so mine could get new brakes (yikes, yet another bill after new tires last week).  Then off to Columbia to knock out the last of the drafting edits on four surveys and then wrote two flood elevation certificates.  Almost got those finished and still had time to visit a little before dashing off for some pool time.

It was officially my last visit to the ARC for a while.  I am going to go next week and sign up for a YMCA membership here in town so I don't have to drive 45 min to a pool.  But truthfully, the $84 punch card (20 visits) got me through a lot of swimming (with some trips to the local outdoor pool in between plus swimming in the Osage River and a couple of lakes over the summer, too).  The lap lanes weren't too busy so I was able to jump right in and get started and actually didn't have to share today until the last couple hundred yards.  Warm up felt strong, but I got tired earlier than I had expected.  Did some different drills here and there and mixed it up.  Felt stronger again toward the end and swam a few faster laps.  Maybe once we are doing the Y thing, I can get one of my kids to do some video work for me.  I don't have anything waterproof to get underwater footage, but at least I can see what I look like from above water.  Swam for 35 min. 

Afterwards, I went to the library.  I wanted to see if it would be a hassle to get a library card for the Daniel Boone system (it wasn't - they have an agreement with my library).  The Columbia library has A LOT more books - tons on running and triathlon that I had my greedy little eyes on.  Many were checked out, but I scored a few.  I have been on a bit of a reading kick lately (especially when my husband was working nights and I could have my bedside lamp on as much as I wanted).  In the last few months, I've read "Born to Run", "Run Like a Girl", "A Race Like No Other", and "The Perfect Mile".  I enjoyed each of them in different ways.  I feel like I am the last to read almost everything - coming to the party kind of late, I guess.  Let me know if you want to know more about any of these.  I'm really trying to save money by not always buying books (used to do this all the time - total Amazon addict).  So I am very pleased to be able to get them for free from the library. 

Came home and checked the mail.  Stoked to find my latest Ebay purchase (Santa scored me some cycling tights that are really nice and a compression top that I'm happy about, but will take me some time to get used to).  I resolved to stick some of these fun items back to wait to be under my tree (or otherwise the kids would wonder if I'd been bad).  So into the "gift closet" they went.  Did some other puttering and soon the kids were home and we were knee deep in 5th and 2nd grade homework.  I was starving having had a granola bar (trail mix kind) for breakfast and a banana and some carrots for "lunch" (ie. snack).  So I made my dinner at 4 PM - another round of my stir fry (mushrooms, red and green peppers, red onion and zuchinni with a little butter and parmesan). 

More and more homework while I whipped up a batch of brownies for the St. Nicholas bake sale tomorrow.  Glad I only got one and bagged up the rest!  Yikes they were good!  Still need to figure out what St. Nick will leave in the shoes.  I usually am more prepared, but this holiday season is really sneaking up on me.  I am nowhere near ready for any of it.  Cards?  Gifts?  Menu?  Ack!  Oh well, as my grandma always used to say, "This too shall pass."  Better figure out if I have to make a Walmart run.