Yesterday was a Swim and Run – 1750 yard Swim, then 10 minute “jog” and 30 minute “run easy.”

The swim was pretty fun – I really like that pool. It’s frustrating because I still take SO many strokes to get across the pool, though I feel confident. I know it’s because I don’t kick. It was COLD getting in the pool – I had to share the lane a couple of times, but most of the time I had the lane to myself. It does warm up once you get swimming, but they had rock salt on the pool deck, because it was in the high 30s – brrrr! (for here – I know, I’m a weather wuss.)

Did the Run on the treadmill, because no way I was going to head out with wet hair on the road. I did the 10 minute warmup, and then reset the treadmill (because it only lets you go 30 minutes at a pop) for the run. I did what Stu Mittleman said, and made sure the “elevation” was at 2.0, and then ran consistently at 5.0  (5 miles per hour) which felt FAST – I wanted to quit a bunch of times. This means that I only covered 2.5 miles at the end of the 1/2 hour. I always feel like a big loser when I stop, because all the training schedules say that this “should be” 4 miles. I’m always at like 1/2 of what the schedule says I ’should’ be doing. I worked a lot at trying to roll on the “outside” of my foot, because every time I see a picture of myself I am “winging” my foot (using that term as you would for a horse). I don’t run with my foot going straight back. It looks bizarre on photographs – but I know that I’ve been doing this for a while because I have a photo from the Big Sur Marathon and I think another from the S.F. Marathon both back in 2001-2002, where I am doing the exact same thing.

Playlist:
Here It Goes Again, OK-Go
Material Girl, Madonna
Buttons, Pussycat Dolls/Snoop Dog
Fanfare for the Common Man, London Symphony Orchestra
Keep The Car Running, Arcade Fire
I Don’t Care, Fall Out Boy
This Ain’t a Scene it’s an Arms Race, Fall Out Boy
Vaya Mi Gente, Juzt 2 Brothers
I Want You To Want Me, Cheap Trick
Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding, Elton John
In These Shoes?, Kirsty McColl
Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting, Elton John
Cold Hearted Snake, Paula Abdul
Single Ladies, Beyonce
Check On It, Destiny’s Child
Paper and Fire, John Cougar Mellencamp
Valerie
She’s Ugly From The Front, Lyle Lovett
My Give A Damn’s Busted, Jo Dee Messina
Hung Up, Madonna
Don’t Say You Love Me, Natalie Imbruglia
Brass In Pocket, Pretenders
Don’t Say You Love Me, Pretenders

Today is a Bike Trainer set and then a Run. I just realized it’s 2:00 right now, H is out getting me “lunch” (which I should wait for) but I’m supposed to be somewhere at 4:00 and I have to work out. Crapola. I guess I’d better get going, and leave him a note to say that I’m sorry, can’t eat what he went out to get me. I also have to make dinner for him to put in. Dang. I’m really late. Was going to put in the bike and run set and the playlist, but no time – mebbe lateah!

[this is a note I just sent to Coach Helen, cc'ing, of course, Head Coach Dave. With respect to what I just blogged about - the fact Coach Dave said I had to have "stiffer shoes."]

Dear Coach Helen:

As you know I want to be sure I do well on the Ironman, and I was concerned today during the bike. You know I’m already afraid of clipless pedals, but then I was afraid I had the wrong bendy shoes and didn’t want to let Coach Dave down. He really cares a lot about the team and wants the best for us.

Do you think these shoes would work better? I know they are a lot less flexible and I am just not sure. You are the expert.

Warmest,
Sandy (“Shep”) Shepard

Feisty found this great website – check it out, VERY Bond Girl! The gal who is running this has decided to wear the same “little black dress” every day for the year (7 identical dresses, rather, for laundry purposes), and accessorize it differently every day.

Check it out!  The Uniform Project.

After reading the April issue of Vanity Fair magazine about Bernie Madoff, Iceland going bankrupt, and the like, this Episode continues on from where Episode 11 left off – Finances, Debt, Wealth, and the like. I know that it sounds a bit like I’m in a wind tunnel – something is “up” with my microphone, and Levelator, etc. didn’t fix it. I admit it’s been a while and I have a new computer…so perhaps I pushed a wrong button here or there. Please let me know what you think of this Episode - I do these for your comments! I’m getting the next one ready, but if you are curious about anything in particular, ask…and ye shall receive (as best as this Bond Grrl can answer)

Click below to listen…

 

 Fempowerment Episode 12: Money, Honey - A Chat About Finances [25:27m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The article below appeared in The Age (a Melbourne newspaper) yesterday. It was sent to me by a Bond Girl down “under.” If you have the time to read it, its an incredible story.  As they say in Australia, I don’t know “how I would go” in the same situation!

I now understand the word ‘firestorm’

Luke van den Berk is the caretaker of a 33-hectare Kinglake West property, owned by the Macedonian Church. When the firestorm hit, he was trapped in the house with his children — sons Aaron, 13 and Khyle, 12, and daughter Brodee, 16 — and his girlfriend, Lois MacDonald, 42. This is their story

THERE wasn’t much warning.

I’m on a good basis with the national park rangers … they are over the fence from me. Ranger Tony Fitzgerald was giving us updates on what was happening, but as we got our last update we could hear the fire coming up the ridge behind us. He went down the hill of the national park on one of the tourist roads and came back up and said the fires were 700 metres away. He said: “You can leave now if you want to. If you want to stay we will help you out if we can.”

We decided to stay in the house. Within three minutes the flames were 30 to 40 metres high. There were horizontal sparks and embers — the wind was just incredible. The word “firestorm” — I have a clear understanding of it now.

We were inside the house and the noise outside was incredible. Sparks and embers were bashing up against the roof and the windows, the fence had caught fire, the woodpile against the house caught fire.

Then the windows started exploding — it sounded like a 747 taking off. It was broad daylight but it went dark because there was so much smoke and stuff — it just went dark.

The house was on fire. I had three attempts at getting everyone out safely — they were all in the lounge room. I kept going outside to see if we could get a decent path out, but the radiant heat was the killer. The first two times I went out, the radiant heat just forced me back in the house.

At that point I knew I had to wait for that initial part of the storm to pass over. Unfortunately, it consumed the house while we were in it. I shut all the bedroom doors.

We lost two cats and five kittens — I had to shut the bedroom door and we listened to them die. We saved our little dog, Cougar. It was traumatic for the kids. I had to shut the door because the windows had exploded and the bedrooms were on fire.

I made my third attempt at going outside. The radiant heat had passed a little, and I just thought, “We have to get out.” I had buckets of water outside. I took them in and got sheets and towels, dipped them into the water and wrapped everyone up over their heads and their faces and told them we had to go.

When we were 100 metres from the house, the roof collapsed. That was one or two minutes after we got out.

We ran out into the street. There were flames everywhere. You just looked down the street and there was devastation. It was like the army came in and bombed the whole thing with napalm.

We were running down the street. Gas cylinders were exploding. A lot of the cylinders had safety features on them … apparently when a gas cylinder heats up, a valve releases and all the gas comes out of the cylinder, so there was lots of shhhh noises.

A lot of cars were exploding — it was like a war zone. We had to step over power lines, go under power lines, there were power poles falling over in front of us, trees coming down everywhere.

And the noise — all I can compare it to is the sound of a 747 taking off. We were running down the street and the radiant heat was getting at us. We had to keep moving. If you stood still you would have shrivelled.

We ran down the street for about a kilometre — there was just no one, no one to help. My girlfriend was going, “Where the hell are the fire brigade?” I said, “We are on our own, we have got to go.” I just had to keep them going, I said, “Keep going, keep going, faster.”

We got to one house about a kilometre away and there was someone there spraying water on it. We took refuge in their house. There was a lady inside. We were probably there for about 10 minutes.

I was popping in and out of the house because I was paranoid about what was going to happen. His pump stopped working and then his balcony caught fire and I just went back in and said, “We gotta go.” My girlfriend didn’t want to leave. I started swearing: “We have got to go f—ing now.” We got the kids and the dog and we left … we left those people there. Fortunately we caught up with them at the third house we got to — our final refuge.

We went to another house where a man was watering down his house. He had his son with him. He told us to get inside and we felt quite safe. He was outside running round, wetting it all down. Then another 10 minutes went past and he said, “I can’t save it — we’ve got to go.”

We had to go only 50 metres over the road to the third house. It was owned by a lady who was a CFA member and she had left the firefighting front to come home and save her home. She was really well set up. She had fire pumps.

The kids sheltered in the basement part of the house — they were very traumatised. My daughter was having an asthma attack at that point. We had no medication and we had to get her down low on the floor because it was all full of smoke under the house as well. I just had to talk her through it, telling her, “You have just got to calm down, you have to breathe through it slowly, just relax, we are safe now.”

When she was feeling a bit better I went out and helped the men. We were there for about half an hour until the bulk of the flames had left. Then we were just going around the house blacking out spot fires.

We stayed there for probably about an hour and then went to the local CFA and slept on the floor there for the night.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

These fires were most likely set by people – arson. I heard on the news the other day that their Prime Minister (believe it was) stated that when (not if) they catch the folks who did this, they’ll consider it mass murder. I couldn’t agree more.

If you would like to donate to help specifically towards the Victoria Bush Fire, here is a link to the Red Cross’s appeal for the crisis.

[continuation of my grandfather's typewritten notes; see previous post for title page and page 1]

Some of the artillery, having been drafting, came by and got sore and they wrote to the Boston Herald and they printed it, that while we enlisted, wedid it to escape the draft, and so we could choose the Signal Corps, the “least dangerous” branch. A few days later our Major Fanning, who after the war was Chief of Operations at Filene’s station, had a letter printed in the Herald where he said “in response to the artillery” he had looked up on Company A and found that all but one were under 21 and that the “one” was over 30, so they wouldn’t have been drafted as the draft age was 21 to 30. Furthermore, the enlistee could choose his branch, and “these boys” chose the Signal Corps, the second most ~dangerous~ in the Army – the Engineers being the first, most dangerous. That statistics showed that the Signal Corps was eleven times more dangerous than the Artillery! That shut them up, but we had to take up the stones as it created bad feeling. I have a picture of those stones.

We practiced the semaphore and wigwag and had two sending sets. One on the end of a truck powered by the engine. It was an old white Truck and the transmission had an extra speed to turn the generator. The other was a hand generator which turned like a grind stone (very hard).

We were supposed to be mounted, and eventually the horses came, “direct from the West” as we were told. None of us, or very few, knew anything about horses, so everyone tried to pick a horse as lethargic looking as possible. As a matter of fact, T. W. Harris’ horse “Two Bits” stopped during a ride, lay down, and went to sleep. T.W. got off and I guess waited until the horse woke up. My horse “Pegasus” never did anything, but a slow walk, for which I was thankful, until one day two of us met a motorcycle. In spite of all we could do, our horses turned around, took after the motorcycle, and passed him. He later said he was going 25 miles per hour. The horses headed for the barn and when nearly there, made a right angle turn at full speed. I wasn’t ready for that so made only part of the turn and landed on a pile of ice. My companion, can’t remember who he was, wasn’t as fortunate. He stuck on until the horse entered the barn, when a beam over the door struck him full in the face and knocked him unconscious. No bones broken though.

One other horse incident. On Christmas Day 1917, I was on “stable duty” (detail) and had to see that no horse or mule was loose. Usually several were and they had to be tied up. I started to enter one stall and got kicked in the knee, doubling it backwards (I thought) but I landed in the opposite stall, the only empty one of the 36. I don’t like to think what would have happened had I landed in the stall of another horse.

That winter of 1917 was cold. Once I saw the thermometer 55 below zero. I have a picture of the boys wearing their overcoats and trying to keep warm near the “furnace” in the center of the barracks.

It’s hard to keep up with everything.

I know, you know, right?

Doesn’t it seem like the second you turn your attention to one thing, another falls off the table? (It’s likely that our tables are too full…me especially…but I’m not going there right now.)

I’m certainly not immune. When I was working on the book, and $, etc., my weight zoomed up to unprecedented heights. (I’m currently in a neighborhood Biggest Loser contest – ask me about it if you’re interested!) I start watching my weight, and get involved in a business with good potential to make $ and be fun (SendOutCards, which I have blogged about before), and everything else suffers – most assuredly my podcasting and blogging.

Because, dear readers, most of you don’t comment (though I get a lot of emails), it often feels as if this is just an online diary – which of course blogging basically started out to be. And I suck at keeping diaries. I figure I know what I’m thinking and doing – and writing it down is just an extra time-step that often eludes me.

Sure – I have a lot to say…but if it’s just to myself, why do it?

I have a podcast that I did MONTHS ago – it’s a nice interview with a CPA gal from Canada. I had some issues with the volumes between us (she speaks very softly) and about 1/2 way through editing it, I quit. That’s awful. I’m up early today to get it out (even if it kills me, as they say) – to get back on the wagon.

I know most of us are in the same boat – $ is tight, time is tighter. I don’t even get to read my favorite blogs any more – because I’m keeping 3 different businesses afloat. Because this one isn’t really generating any $ (royalties are not big rent-payers, and coaching is the first thing people cut when things get rough), it gets the least attention. I remember when all this was fun enough to sustain “just because.”

I was speaking with Lisa Quinn of ABC-TV the other day, and she said that when she started to focus on her new book, her blog just stalled. There are only so many hours.

OK, that’s enough whingeing. No pictures, no links, no tags, no categories, etc. Just how I feel right now.

OK who do you know that would have a Google Alert for “Granny Panties”?  Um, that would be me…

And check out this faboo blog – no no, it’s not just faboo because they’re quoting my book (wink). It’s my new subscription in iGoogle!

- Solitaire

Hey Grrls!

OK – I suck. Yes, it’s true, I know. I not only have a fantastic interview podcast that is still 1/2 edited, but I haven’t even posted in the blog. Bad me. Bad bad me.

As ya’ll know, I’ve been trying to replace my law firm income with SendOutCards. I have also been to 2 conventions (eWomenNetwork, and the SendOutCards convention), plus I was on ABC again (link, next blog). But it’s the first that’s really the culprit.

If you’re going to change the way that you make your $, sometimes, other things suffer. It wasn’t going to be my relationship with my James – so (pitiful sigh) it’s my relationship with ya’ll. Forgive me?

I am actually a little amazed to report that last month, my SOC income was more than my law firm income! Yes! People are so interested in this system. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go to YourCardShark.com and send a card on me – or listen to the podcast about it and then go try it out.)

AND – talk about Beach Money (again, go check out that last podcast…) we’re on our way to Hawaii, so I’m crammin’ in work so I can play!

I miss you guys, that’s the truth. I’ve gotten a number of emails and such – book is selling well, thanks – and the SendOutCards is going REALLY well!

I’m going to try to get out about 4 blog postings today, and then be as better-as-I-can when we get back from our holiday. But until then – I apologize, ya’ll rock, and keep it up! Don’t stop readin’ and listenin’ – I’d miss you!

Yes yes, can you tell, it’s “catch up on blogs” day!  The Glam Flash newsletter from Glam.com ran a great article that details feng shui color tips, which I don’t really go into in my podcasts, book or blog. Have a look – it’s well written and follows what I know as well. I didn’t poke around the site all that much in their “what is feng shui” so they might be trying to sell you something on Tarot.com (which is the link that comes from Glam.com) – always beware, of course, but have fun!

Yes, fine, so you know now that I’m way behind on my reading… so sue me…

 DoshDosh.com is an online forum that I really enjoy. I just read an article on re-thinking Comments on Blogs that was great and I wanted to pass on, and in particular a comment by Wendi Kelly at Life’s Little Inspirations.  She said:

“…I am often one to leave a comment if for no other reason then I don’t like to be a lurker, or leave you thinking it was a boring or bad article when I really enjoyed it. I am a newer blogger and it feels weird to me to have 36-40 ( or whatever– the ratio is the point) views on a post one day and then four or five comments. I feel like…hey? Why won’t they talk to me? So I want to make sure I at least say hi, I stopped by and this is what I thought.”

I completely agree with this. I am a little stunned that I have had pretty much no comments since I started up again, after publishing my book. It’s the weirdest thing. I see that folks view, but don’t comment.

It certainly could be that I’m not doing it, either. I will often pull up blogs when I’m on the run, scroll through them on my Blackberry, and because it’s a PITA to comment through the Crackberry, I “say” I will comment later, and never do.

So, a May Resolution is to try to be a better Commenter myself… in the hopes of attracting the same!

Sent to me by one of my Baby Bond Grrrls — love this — the bottom (that “send this to everyone you know”) even made me laugh because of the REASON you should send it on — so I kept it in.  Enjoy! (PS: I bolded my favorite part :-) )

POSITION: Mother, Mom , Mama, Mommy, Momma, Ma Mami, Mamita,Mammy, Mamacita 

JOB DESCRIPTION: Long term, team players needed, for challenging permanent work in an often chaotic environment. Candidates must possess excellent communication and organizational skills and be willing to work variable hours, which will include evenings and weekends and frequent 24 hour shifts on call. Some overnight travel required, including trips to primitive camping sites on rainy weekends and endless sports tournaments in far away cities. Travel expenses not reimbursed. Extensive courier duties also required.

RESPONSIBILITIES: The rest of your life. Must be willing to be hated, at least temporarily, until someone needs $5. Must be willing to bite tongue repeatedly. Also, must possess the physical stamina of a pack mule and be able to go from zero to 60 mph in three seconds flat in case, this time, the screams from the backyard are not someone just crying wolf. Must be willing to face stimulating technical challenges, such as small gadget repair, mysteriously sluggish toilets and stuck zippers. Must screen phone calls, maintain calendars and coordinate production of multiple homework projects. Must have ability to plan and organize social gatherings for clients of all ages and mental outlooks. Must be willing to be indispensable one minute, an embarrassment the next. Must handle assembly and product safety testing of a half million cheap, plastic toys, and battery operated devices. Must always hope for the best but be prepared for the worst. Must assume final, complete accountability for the quality of the end product. Responsibilities also include floor maintenance and janitorial work throughout the facility. 

POSSIBILITY FOR ADVANCEMENT & PROMOTION:
Virtually none. Your job is to remain in the same position for years, without complaining, constantly retraining and updating your skills, so that those in your charge can ultimately surpass you.
WAGES AND COMPENSATION: Get this! You pay them! Offering frequent raises and bonuses. A balloon payment is due when they turn 18 because of the assumption that college will help them become financially independent. When you die, you give them whatever is left. The oddest thing about this reverse-salary scheme is that you actually enjoy it and wish you could only do more.

BENEFITS: While no health or dental insurance, no pension, no tuition reimbursement, no paid holidays and no stock options are offered; this job supplies limitless opportunities for personal growth and free hugs for life if you play y our cards right.

Forward this on to all the Moms you know, in appreciation for everything they do on a daily basis, and let them know they are appreciated. Plus, being a mother, I’m too tired to type everyone’s name