I had a tough day yesterday. My endometriosis is making my life miserable as it is prone to do monthly; and I had a long day that ended with the realization that I had forgotten to send an important and time-sensitive email to a group of about 60 people. I finally got home, put the kids to bed and played around on the interwebs, mentally complaining about the stupid crap going on in my life.

And then I read that Susan had lost her battle with cancer and my perspective was rightfully shifted.

I didn’t know Susan any more than I know anyone I read daily, and we knew her death was near, but it still hit me hard and I found myself sobbing. We become so close through these computer screens, closer than outsiders realize, and things like this can remind you how real the bonds are.

Her husband asked that in leiu of flower we donate to Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research…

Or please choose to make a difference somewhere, anywhere, to anyone.

I did the easy part – I donated. The second part is harder. Susan made what I often refer to as a Ripple of Awesome and it touches so many lives that – someday – it will come full circle back to her family. Hopefully, several times over. And today I hope to add to that. I’m not going to change the world today, I’m not that naive, but I can try to at least spread joy, happiness, try to “make a difference” in whatever small ways I can. It’s really what I should be doing every day, but it’s shakeups like this that remind me of that. That redirect me. Reorient me. Point me in the direction I should be going instead of the easy path.

It’s the least I can do to show the world that these connections we make through our blogs, they are real. They can make real change in lives. These blogs allow voices like Susan’s the platform to inspire. To heal. To change. And when one of those voices is silenced, the sadness we all feel is real too.

It’s SHOW WEEK! Since E is a Junior, he was able to audition for and participate in the winter straight play. This year it’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and E is Tweedle-Dum. They also needed a few heart children for a few minor moments on stage and guess who happens to have brothers and sisters the right size? E! So, somehow, I ended up with THREE kids in this show! And I’m so proud! EEK.

The tech rehearsals started yesterday. That means when they run the show mapping out sound and lighting cues. It’s a tedious process so the little kids didn’t have to be there for that. However, they’ll be at rehearsal every night this week and the show opens on Thursday. This process has been fun as I’ve gotten to be there for a lot I wouldn’t normally be there for since E doesn’t really need hand-holding. And since I still find so much of this fascinating, I have been trying to help our more often as well. Like on Saturday when I got to watch and help hang some of the scenery drops for the show.

These shows are so amazing, how they all come together in the end. And these teenagers are taught and trained well. I just observed some of the hanging yesterday until E encouraged me to come help. I have watched them do it enough to understand the system. For example, when the students controlling the pipes (Long metal pipes going across the length of the stage that hold scenery back drops or teaser curtains or scrims) have to move it up or down they’ll yell, “Pipe coming down!” The 20+ teenagers on stage helping all say, “Thank you!” in unison meaning that they heard the warning and they’re aware. That way no one gets hurt.

The first time you’re around the stage when that happens, and you don’t know what’s going on? (Which is me most of the time since this is not my world.) It’s very cool. The teens are all very professional with these very expensive drops and scrims and everything and they know how to take care of it. It’s really amazing to watch and I was TERRIFIED that I’d be the one that screwed something up. BUT I DIDN’T!

I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again…E’s discovering this “hobby” has changed the life of EVERYONE in our family. For the better, of course. But look at all of the life experiences we’re all getting just because he chose to take drama as a freshmen! My kids are in another show, this is actually Nikki’s SECOND show thanks to E. I’m hanging scenery drops and producing musicals…it’s just amazing and I don’t know if he’ll ever understand how grateful I am that he lets us be so involved in his world.

And if you’re local? Come see the show! It’s going to be AH-MAH-ZING.

Having a supportive spouse is KEY with this new active lifestyle. Because, while I love it when we can go out together, it’s more often that he and I oblige the other their workout time by tending to the family in their absence. During the summer, the kids and I spend a lot of Saturdays alone as he trains for his races. Lately – he has weekend wakeup duty while I head out early for my long runs.

Many of you have commented to me that you don’t have as supportive of a situation. Maybe because your partner doesn’t believe in the necessities of your workouts, maybe because you’re alone and you have to depend on other family/friends to help out with the kids making it very difficult for you to find time to workout.

So I make sure to appreciate my situation. Because it’s more than just cooperative parenting that helps…

• He understands why I pay almost $2 a pack for hyped up gummi bears, when I may eat 2 packs on a long run.
• He encourages me to buy replacement shoes even though the last pair is only 3 months old.
• He doesn’t get grossed out by the black toenail threatening to fall off my big toe.
• He also doesn’t get too grossed out by my dirty clothes. Which, when mingled with his in our “workout clothes” pile can smell quite disgusting.
• He googles stretching videos for me when I’m having IT band problems and teaches me how to use the foam roller.
• He humors me while I discuss my latest miles earned and reciprocates by discussing his last bike ride.
• He doesn’t laugh at me running with blinky lights all over me. Although he really wants to. He hasn’t quite jumped on the blinky bandwagon like I have.
• He just understands that when I’m having one of those days, just getting out and running is what I need and he accommodates that. He just gets it, you know? And because I’m so prone to guilt issues, I need that encouragement to balance out the instinctual guilt that will inevitably rise when I make a “selfish” request.

I appreciate what I have and know that none of these lifestyle changes would be possible without a teammate.

Especially a teammate who loves me, otherwise the smelly running clothes would surely be a lot harder to tolerate.

BACK OFF KID…I KNOW YOUR TRICKS.

But lately, man…he has had some great hysterical moments of cuteness. I wanted to try to document them for posterity and to share them with you so that you can see what I’m dealing with over here. PURE, UNADULTERATED EVIL. Some of these statements or questions seem innocuous when you first read them, but imagine them spoken by an adorable boy with giant blue eyes and big blonde girls and you’ll see exactly what I’m dealing with over here.

• “Nikki! You are not old enough to dance sexy like that!” While watching his sister dance during GLEE. She wasn’t ‘dancing sexy’ for the record but I have gotten on her for that before.
• “We don’t say, ‘What the hell?’” At family dinner. Of course.
• “Momma, you look beautiful.”
• “Did you have a good run?” Another variation: “Did you have a good boot camp?”
• “I’ll rub your head for you…” In response to my regular headaches. His headrubs are actually quite good.
• “When I grow up, will I get boobies too?”
• “Nikki! Come see Momma’s big muscles!”
• “Momma…I don’t really like wereworlves.”
• “Can I have some privacy?” When he feels like he doesn’t really want company in the bathroom with him.

You go first. How are you doing?

FINE. I’ll go first. Let’s get the bad out of the way. My eating habits have not been adjusted like I had hoped they would. Do you like how I phrase that? Like it’s some sort of thing I’m hoping will just happen as opposed to something I might have failed at. I like to divert responsibility when at all possible.

IN MY DEFENSE…I knew this would be a rough time, the first part of the year. I knew with all of my theatre volunteer obligations (There are TWO shows being worked on at this very moment and E is in both of them and Nikki and Wes are even in one of them) that I’d be busy and a bit stressed and we ALL know what Kim does when she’s stressed. SHE EATS EVERYTHING IN ALL OF THE BOXES.

It’s been a rough four days especially. Non-stop eating and this time it wasn’t the usual 3 peanut butter sandwiches and bowls of cereal. This time I’ve been doing some REAL anxiety binging. Due to some unfortunate shopping decisions I’ve had cookies and chocolates and due to some birthday leftovers we had ice cream and cheesecake last week. I hate THREE pieces of cheesecake for LUNCH one day. Anxiety eating insanity? Has reached previously unknown heights in 2012. I’m setting new standards for stressful calories gained in one day! GO ME!

Gained a few pounds but you know what’s great? Today is FEBRUARY 1st! Perfect day for someone like me to “start over” and let February be a better month than January. WHO IS IN?

Now…my fitness on the other hand? Going well. I’ve had to miss a few boot camps due to babying of my IT band, but I’ve stayed pretty consistent with my running. I made my goal of 100 miles a month and did 106 as of yesterday. I’ve done a chunk of trail miles in all of that – some really tough ones that week including one stretch that was so steep it had a warning sign at the TOP (when I finally made it there) warning of the “Dangerous Descent” ahead.

And then yesterday I killed a hill workout at boot camp. This hill in the picture (which it seems is not that impressive to some people who look at the photo…but I’m still proud) elevates about 130ft over a 1/4 mile. It’s not super-steep, but it’s a long steady climb and I ran it SIX TIMES during our workout. Up and Down. Up and Down. SIX TIMES. I was super-proud of myself. Not only because I did it six times, but because it was kinda…well…easy. I mean, I struggled, but for the first time since we’ve been doing that workout I didn’t once consider walking. NOT EVEN ONCE.

So…100 miles for a few pounds of anxiety eating. I guess I can process the trade-off and still call it a WIN for 2012. Mainly because I’m so proud of those six hill repeats that I can’t stand letting my nightly stress eating take away any of that. SIX TIMES!

I’ve always stood by that there are no magic transformative moments, it’s a lot of baby steps forward, and baby steps backward, before you see real change. 2011 still saw me in the “IMPROVED” column and I’m planning on the final report of 2012 to say the same thing. Even if there are a few late night cheesecake binges scattered throughout the successes.

Then E turned me onto Daily Grace. And that’s when I discovered that there are people who create fresh content regularly on their own YouTube channels. WHO KNEW? It’s just like blogging, but with videos, which is why the cool kids call it…VLOGGING.

Now, I’m not buying tickets to VidCon or anything yet, but I am now subscribing to enough YouTube channels that I have something fun to watch pretty regularly. So, you know, I thought I’d share that with you. Evidently, if you have gmail, you kinda already have a YouTube channel. Mine is here and embarrassingly maps out all of my interests so clearly that I can not even try to pretend I’m cool anymore. It’s basically: Running exercises, Glee, Gay Rights, Glee, Darren Criss, Glee, Math, Glee, and Nerdfighteria. Oh, and Glee.

So…you could look at my channel and see all of the videos I’ve liked and favorited and whatever, or you could just stay here and avoid seeing that embarrassing display of Kim’s Obsession With Glee. I’ll show you some of my favorite channels without it looking like I’m a 14-year old girl!

As I mentioned first, there’s Daily Grace. Here is one of her epic cooking tutorials. By the way — Her language is probably NOT SAFE FOR WORK. She bleeps most curse words out, but STILL, watch with headphones.

Next up is the lovely Michael Buckley. I guess his main/popular channel is the What The Buck Show where he talks sassy pop culture. Man. That is the worst description ever. He talks Pop Culture with Snark and Sass. That sounds a bit better. Anyway – he loves Glee, Revenge, and Pretty Little Liars so I can overlook his love for all of those housewives shows. And while I love his WHAT THE BUCK shows, I actually like his Second Channel better. He’s more casual and he does fun stuff with his friends and we get to hang with him and his dogs. It’s just an assortment of entertainment. My favorites lately have been when he and fellow YouTuber Dan go on random adventures or do random things together. Like Gay Crafting!

Of course, you know that my channels would not be complete without my newest obsession: NERDFIGHTERS. The Vlogbrothers consist of The Fault In Our Stars author John Green and his brother Hank Green. They do great videos with one basic motive: To Rid The World Of Suck. They are currently on tour promoting the book and this has been my favorite video so far of their exploits.

And then, of course, my first ever YouTube crush (before I realized you could subscribe to channels): Vi Hart. I can not explain her in a way that does her justice, but mostly she just makes being a math geek look like the most AMAZING THING ON THE PLANET.

Now…I guess I should also point out that a certain TV show about a showchoir also has a channel where you can see behind the scenes clips and whatnot. You know…because I only favorite EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM.

I know. I know. I’m a lost cause.

What YouTube channels do you subscribe to? Who am I missing out on? Do they like Glee?

(I’ll save my bitterness about him dying at the hands of a painful cancer later.)

He often complained about things hurting as he got older. Knees especially. He said that he really only had one pace because faster or slower hurt him more. But did he ever go to the doctor about it? Nope. He just attributed to being someone who ran a lot, and who was getting older. He didn’t think any treatment or shoe or brace or tape would actually give him pain-free running. He didn’t believe that was possible for someone his age who ran regularly. He just accepted pain as fact and pushed through it.

(I’ll save my bitterness about this SAME QUALITY being what also made him miss the chance at an early diagnosis for his cancer. I mean, there are some levels of pain you should just SEE A DOCTOR ABOUT ALREADY, DAD. Jeez.)

Dad never even bought “fancy” running shoes. He’d go to Shoe Carnival or some such place and try on a few $40 pairs of shoes until he found some that felt okay and then he’d leave with them. He probably replaced them once a year or once every 9 months or so. And for a long time this made me quite cynical about how the running shoe industry seems to insist we all have special shoes (and sometimes those special shoes are “free” in order to similar barefoot running) and they usually cost AT LEAST $100. And you should replace them every 300-500 miles or every 4-6 months.

WHATEVS, dude. That’s ridiculous. I wear shoes until the tread on the bottom starts to smooth out. THEN I’ll replace them. And I’m not getting on your stupid treadmill so you can analyze my run. Just give me the cheapest pair you got and I’m OUTTA HERE.

Well…Sometimes Dad wasn’t right about everything. When I first started getting in shape in early 2011, I had a pair of Nike Pegasus 27s that I wore to boot camp most mornings. When I started training for the Cotton Row that May, I decided to get a new pair of running shoes. I went to Zappos and ordered the cheapest ones I could find. They did me okay, I guess, but I got tons of blisters and black toenails and was too stubborn to admit it was the shoes.

I donated those at the Warrior Dash in September and used my Nike Pegasus 27s to run in for awhile. I was surprised how little problems I had. Still a few blisters periodically, but nothing major. I started thinking Okay. Maybe there’s something to this whole “right shoe” thing. I was running up to 10 miles in those Nikes and not having any problems. Then, one long run in late September, my hip started hurting.

Maybe there’s something to this “lifespan” of a shoe thing, too. I mean, I had about 9 months on those Nikes at that point in time and probably a couple hundred miles plus 200+ hours of boot camp. I decided to just buy the SAME EXACT shoe again. Turns out? They had moved up to the 28s in that time so I bought those. The only color they had at Fleet Feet of those shoes in my size were Purplish and Orange. Brightest shoes I’d ever owned and ended up LOVING THEM.

They saw me through the rest of my training and my half-marathon. Then, a couple weeks ago I started having issues with my knee/hip again. I’ve just been paying special attention to my IT band to try to relieve some of that, but I also decided to calculate the miles I had on those shoes. 300+. Which is the lower end of the range they give you before a shoe breaks down. But if you consider I also do boot camp in them 5 hours a week? That’s probably the equivalent of 400-500 miles on those shoes. I finally started thinking, FINE. Maybe I do need to be good about replacing my shoes when they tell you to!

I ordered the next pair from Zappos because Fleet Feet didn’t have my size and it would take 1-2 weeks to get them. Zappos got them to me in less than 24 hours. I still chose an obnoxious color because I find I’m hooked on obnoxious shoes now. The new ones are on the left with the pink highlights. You can just see how the shape changes after 300+ miles of running in a shoe. I wish I could photograph the INSIDE of the orange one and show you how worn parts of the inside are. It’s hard for me to look at the tread of a shoes and not see it too worn and still believe that the shoe needs to be replaced, but I guess it’s what’s on the INSIDE that counts. It breaks down before the tread does and it is the key part in keeping your legs happy.

The moral of the story? Don’t be a cynic about EVERYTHING. I still don’t trust every little thing everyone tells me. I still believe some levels of pain are just part of getting older and living an active lifestyle. Hell, my knees hurt for the first few months we lived in this house because I wasn’t used to stairs. I wasn’t even running or anything yet. At least now, when I hurt, I can know it’s because I’m kicking ass as I’m getting older.

But I’m also finally willing to admit that maybe the $100 running shoes are better than the $40 shoes if you run as much as I do. And maybe replacing them every 300-500 miles is a good idea after all, even if you do that in 3-4 months. (I ran 100 miles in the month of January and that was WITH a hurt kneed I babied for a week. ONE HUNDRED MILES IN ONE MONTH HOLY CRAP I’M AWESOME.) I mean, it may have taken me a whole year to finally believe this – even when people have been telling me it all along – but, at least I finally started believing it. It’s nice to know my stubborn cynicism does have limits.

Source: FOX

I’m not a dancer. WHAT? I know, you’re totally surprised. But I love to watch dancing. I absorb every routine on So You Think You Can Dance every summer like it’s crack. I have my favorite choreographers (Wade Robson and Travis Wall) and my favorite dancers (Mark Kanemura and Mark Kanemura). So, of course I notice the dancing on Glee and in my personal, untrained opinion? Zach Woodlee, the show’s lead choreographer, is Glee’s greatest asset.

Mainly because most of these kids are not trained dancers. With the exception of Grant Gustin, Heather Morris, and Harry Shum. Yet he puts together these great ensemble numbers that I just ADORE. My most recent favorite was the Troubletones’ Section performance which incorporated a type of street dancing called waacking:

They released video of another ensemble dance number from this Tuesday’s Michael Jackson tribute. Again – he made a bunch of untrained dancers look GREAT both dancing through the halls and in a library. Two things that must complicate any routine.

I just love what he does with these kids in these environments. I love how he incorporates Artie’s wheelchair and I love how he still showcases Kevin McHale’s mad dance skills even as he’s confined to that wheelchair. I just love it all and I hate he doesn’t get as much press as he deserves. And then…of course..he’s just adorable. Look at this great Behind The Scenes clip of he and Chris Colfer.

Or this special Behind the Scenes footage featuring him doing his thang during season 2.

I just love him so much. I can’t wait to see what he does in the rest of the Michael Jackson tribute episode on Tuesday.

It seems this week that the balls I’ve dropped have fallen more towards the more severe end of that spectrum. And let me tell you – it sucks donkey balls. (OH MY GOD. Why do I keep saying, “balls”?) I have convinced myself somehow that there is no shittier person on the planet than me. And while – logically – I’m fairly certain it’s not true. (FAIRLY…) I still have made myself sick stressing out about my screw-ups this week.

I was wondering if you could make me feel better by telling me about YOUR big screw-ups. I’ll tell you about one from my past so you can appreciate the severity of the similar ones this week: Once, when I was working on my biology degree, I lost the notebook my professor used to keep track of his data in. He was monitoring certain birds near our school and he wrote down his observations in a notebook until he could log them digitally. I lost several weeks worth of his data. Now…think about the severity of that. Luckily, it was a college professor I’d never see again. Imagine the same level of severity with your best friend. That’s where I’m at this week. BIG. GIANT. OOPS.

So…what is your story? What is a mistake you made that had you feeling like the scummiest of all pond scum? I’m hoping your story will help me feel less crappy. Or at least let me know there are other people out there as crappy as I am.

Don’t let those big blue eyes fool you. He’s pure evil with big floppy blonde curls.

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I mentioned recently that Wes’s behavior been SO MUCH BETTER as he gets closer to the age of 4. I even took him to his first rehearsal for “Alice in Wonderland” the other day (He and Nikki are playing heart children in E’s play) and I was TERRIFIED that he’d be awful. But he wasn’t! He obeyed first time and amped up the “cute” factor so much that the director of the play had to coach the cast and remind them, “You will have to hold for quite some time because the audience will be Oooooh-ing and Aaaaaaahh-ing over the kids.” He was perfect!

I also mentioned there was not enough wood to knock on for that entry. THERE WAS NOT.

I went to pick him up from daycare and there was the dreaded Incident Report waiting for me. I hate those things because 9 times out of 10, my child is the one causing the incident, as opposed to the victim. Sure enough…”Wes bit one of his friends today…”

HE BIT. We stopped biting years ago…HE BIT.

Evidently this friend was at the computer and he wouldn’t give Wes a turn. So he BIT HIM. *sigh* Of course, because he is almost 4, the first thing the entire class did when I walked into the classroom was say, “WESLEY BIT SO-in-SO!!!!” Because they’re all plenty old enough to understand the severity of the incident and want to TATTLE TATTLE TATTLE about it. So, just a few short months after we (hopefully) finally lived down the reputation of having the kid that talks about the proper names for private parts ALL DAY LONG, all of the parents are now going to know our kid as The Biter.

Just wanted to share the story lest you think we were out of the woods. We are obviously not.