Randy in the US, whose blog I read, sent me a really nice Thanksgiving prayer he wrote. Randy writes very well, and if you read his blog, you’ll agree he has an excellent turn of phrase. Anyway, he asked if we have a Thanksgiving here in Oz. We don’t, but you know, I reckon we should. There’s a lot to be thankful for. Good friends (both here and cyber-), good health, a roof over our head… we could be a whole lot worse off.

Went to club tonight and they had a 3k time trial. I gave it a shot but it was hard going. The weights class I did yesterday morning and the physio exercises I did last night made my butt and thighs really sore.  The good thing was, no knee pain at all. Woo hoo. I taped it and I think I got it right this time. I will keep doing my physio exercises and start very slowly ramping things up again.

The club has started to do some stuff for the children. Nothing heavy, nothing too serious, but maybe a little fun training at the start of the night, and a 800m time trial once a month. Hubby and I loaded the kidlets up with a Garmin and set it to virtual partner. Told the kidlets to stick with the little man, to stop them hooning off and being stuffed after 100m. It worked a treat, with both of them finishing the 800m around the 5 minute mark, and not stopping at all while they ran. They were pleased. They both want to do a little better but are a bit young for anything heavy, and frankly, I don’t think they want anything too hard.

Yet another late night. Can’t seem to get to bed before 11.30pm or so these days.

Funny how if you skip blogging for a week or so, it’s easy to overlook getting back to it. So, here I am with a coffee and ten minutes peace, and resolving not to be such a slacko in future.

We’ve just finished cleaning up the bulk of the yard from the huge storm a couple of weeks ago, and the council has removed all the bits and pieces from the footpath. It was a doozy of a storm, and they say it’s going to be a stormy summer.

Haven’t been doing much running with my dodgy knee, but last Sunday did 6km with no pain, so I have a pile of exercises from the physio to do, and I’ll be taping my knee in future. Looking forward to getting back into it; Guinness is losing some of that lovely muscle definition in his hind legs.

I have, however, been doing the fitness classes up at the Leisure Centre - $4 plus free child minding and the kidlets really like it there. There’s one instructor, Belinda, and she’s quite tough, but it’s a great workout for the money.

Hubby is still a bit lame, so on the weekend while I did my run, he and the kidlets came with me on their bikes. It was nice.

Found this beaut little video on youtube, if you’ve got a spare 15 minutes, it’s well worth a look:

That’s the other issue with not blogging regularly, I can’t remember all the fantastic exciting fun things I’ve done. Unless, of course, I haven’t actually done any fantastic, exciting fun things at all!

Can’t believe it’s Friday already!!I have no idea where the week has gone, and I think that means I’m getting older.

I was at the physio on Monday, had a very good report on my knee. He thinks I should be fixed very quickly, based on the improvement he’s seen in a week. He told me I could go out for 7-8km now and see how things go. On Tuesday, Miss 8 was throwing a tantrum that would put a 2 year old to shame (hormones? already?), then my sister in law came over for a coffee. Love her dearly but was ready to scream. So, as you do, I grabbed my dog and headed out at dusk.

The first thing I noticed is that it’s very hard to pick up Guinness poo when it’s dark. The second thing I noticed was a very distinctive pop behind my right knee at around 4.5km. It was a bit sore, nothing major, but thinking a pop wasn’t really good, I walked home. I iced it and Voltaren gel’d it (is gel’d a verb?) before bed, and woke up feeling quite stiff and a bit uncomfortable. I decided I’d take it easy and avoid running and fitness classes until my next visit with Craig on Monday.

After a brisk walk and a stretch at club on Thursday night, it was feeling really good, so I think it maybe hopefully isn’t anything too major.  It feels very good right now, I feel I could probably go for a run, but that may well be the anaesthetic effects of a nice bottle of rose. Typical though, the sore bit that I went to the physio for is excellent, just when I do something else. Is it at all possible to run uninjured?

I have found something to torment the kidlets with in the car if they don’t behave. Demis Roussos. Yep, they’d rather hear me sing. I don’t mind a little Demis, and it only takes the mere threat of putting on the CD, and they stop their squabbling immediately.

Busy weekend again. I’m working in the morning, we’re hoping to take the dogs hiking in the afternoon, and Sunday morning is the club monthly 8k handicap run; I’ll be doing the timing. Sunday afternoon sees Miss 8 (nearly 9, she keeps reminding me) at a Guides function, and we may think about hiring the DVD Mamma Mia for Sunday night. What is it about young folk that makes them want to be older than they are? Wait til she’s my age, she’ll be hanging on to every year by the skin of her teeth (is that the right metaphor?)

Off to refill my glass and watch Taggart on the ABC.

Drove to work yesterday and pulled up after about 5 minutes on the road - the 4 wheel drive in front of me had collected a young roo which was distressed and bleeding on the road. After absolutely no help from an interfering elderly lady, the driver and I managed to get it into the boot of my car, so I could take it to work and euthanase it.

Two minutes after leaving there, I pulled over again to check on a ringtail possum who had been hit. She was dead so I checked her pouch. Empty. Unfortunately, it looks like she had been carrying two big fully furred joeys on her back, and they were both dead on the road not far from her. A really sad start to the morning.

I briefly toyed with the idea of gassing the roo rather than using lethabarb, then bringing it home to feed to the dogs. Eeew, I can see everyone thinking, but my dogs love roo meat. Logistics got the better of me - we had a full day of appointments  so not a lot of time, and I don’t think a scalpel blade would be very effective at preparing it. So I just did the deed the usual way.

We took all the dogs to Bribie Island with Heleen and her puppy Miesje, and they all had a ball running off leash and playing in the shallows. Sherbet was hilarious, he was so fast and agile. A great thunderstorm hit on the way home, which was challenging because  visibility was poor and the roadworks made it hard to see where to go.

Today was a leisurely day - pancakes for breakfast, then took the dogs a  walk. Hubby went to help at a Scouts sausage sizzle, so the kidlets grabbed their bikes and we took Guinness for a  5k run. It was nice, it’s been a while since they came out with me. Miss 8 is very keen to do it again.

Back to the physio tomorrow. The knee is good but I’ve been doing all the exercises. Not religously twice a day as I should have been, a bit short of time here and there, but aiming for at least once a day. We’ll see what the verdict is tomorrow.

Hubby is back to work tomorrow too, after a week off. That would be hard. Kidlets will be back into schoolwork again too. That will probably be harder, LOL. I’ll have to dig my whip out.

I’m quite sure I’ve been losing my mind of late. Firstly I showed up for a doctors appointment late because I forgot the time of the appointment, and had to reschedule. Next I went to have coffee with Emma, and showed up at 10.30am.  Shame, we were supposed to meet at 10am. Lastly, I showed up to my rescheduled doctors appointment with no purse. I was starting to feel a bit concerned, but I think it’s just that there’s so much in my head, that there’s no room for anything else. I need to start using some sort of diary, I think.

I went to the physio on Wednesday. The only part of my running apparatus that is okay is my arms. Sigh. It was like the old “leg bone connected to the knee bone” song - the feetbone are stuffed which makes my shin bones stuffed, which then makes my hamstrings and hips stuffed.  So, I’ve got strengthening exercises to do and I can only run 3-5km at a time. Given it will take some time to recover, then some time to regain fitness, it may be a bit optimistic to be considering the Great Ocean Road marathon next year. Oh well, it’s not going anywhere, it’ll be there in 2010.

Did 5km at club on Thursday night with Hubby. Between the two of us we’re like a pair of worn out horses ready for the knackery. Seeing Ron made me realise I may not be doing the Somerset Trail run on the 6th December. I’ve been waiting for his group Narangba Runners to have that run on a Saturday I’m not working, and it happens, and I’m lame. Oh well, Hubby should be able to do it this time.

I’ve just finished reading a book called To The Edge - A Man, Death Valley and the Mystery of Endurance that I borrowed from the local library. It was a good read.

It’s so hot today, I find I’m not very productive when it’s so warm. Some may say that I’m not very productive at the best of times . We’ll take the dogs a walk when it’s cooler. I’m working tomorrow; after two weeks off it’s going to be a bit strange.

Again, it’s been over a week since my last blog post.  Life is hectic as the end of year approaches. I really seem to wind down and it’s more tiring to maintain the usual activity level for both myself and the kidlets. I figure while Miss 8 is at Girl Guides and Master 6 is watching a movie, and Hubby is out running, I’d grab a chardonnay and update things a bit.

Our distance ed teacher has said the kidlets have done enough work in term 3 to carry them through this term so they really don’t need to do much to finish off the year. Here I was thinking we hadn’t done quite enough! We’ll still plod on because it will stand us in good stead for next year but it’s great to have the pressure off. I’m always reluctant to switch off completely because it means it’s harder to ramp them up again.

I’ve not been running a whole lot because my knee has been niggling. Nothing specific but just a bit achy. We went to the Sunshine Coast for the weekend and I had to go for a run along the foreshore and by 8km it was quite uncomfortable, so I walked home and I have an appointment for the physio for tomorrow afternoon. It feels like my kneecap isn’t tracking right. Hopefully it’ll be sorted out soon.

While we were up there we went up to Noosa, it was the triathlon weekend and we watched the Asics 5k bolt. So fast!! We also caught up with Lee and Assunta and ended up chatting - Assunta is a paramedic and has been posted to Noosa to scrape bike riders off the road after a spill. Hubby reckons I could put road wheels on my new mountain bike and give the Bribie tri series a shot, but I’m hesitant for two reasons. I doubt I could swim very far at this point and I don’t want to spend $$ on road wheels for my bike if I’m not going to use them again. Still, it does look like  fun!!

I have, however, been doing some strength training. The personal trainer at the Leisure Centre where the kidlets do sport once a week does a session for Trudie and I, and we also go to another fitness session there during the course of the week. For the second session, they offer free childminding and the kidlets love it. That place is a hidden gem. It’s near impossible to get school aged children minded at a fitness facility so until now, it’s meant that I really can’t do classes. Both sessions are a good workout.

Went to a wedding on Friday afternoon, a couple who met through running and hit it off and got married. It was really nice, we haven’t been to a wedding in ages. Our friends are either like us and have been married forever, or have divorced and will never marry again. I really enjoyed it.

It’s time for the night orienteering series to start again, and there’s a bike orienteering on Bribie Island next Sunday which sounds like lots of fun. It all helps to keep the kidlets active.

We’re also thinking about Kokoda again. With Petrea in our team, we’re not a Caboolture Road Runners team so will have to raise our own sponsorship money and the longer we have to do that, the easier it will be.

I need to get dinner made. If there is one thing that I loathe, it’s thinking about and preparing dinner. Mind you, if that’s all I have to worry about in life, I’m doing pretty good .