Just joking.

Ben's been out of town for 6 days now. Yesterday, my aunt and I went to a schmancy maternity boutique that had those pads in the dressing room-- you know, a giant half-watermelon that you velcro on to see how you'll look in the clothes when you're full term. Anyway, my aunt said it would be hilarious if we took a photo of me like this and sent it to Ben with a "get home fast, baby got big!"
His response? "For real? That is crazy. I've only been gone 5 days" and then he called. I looked at my aunt and asked if I should tell him, she said yes. We told him the truth, but he TOTALLY bought it.

Made it to ride trail at Palos last night. Some parts are still getting worse and worse from people riding wet, but it was pretty good. I used to be able to ride the whole park in my middle ring, but now I'm getting increasingly used to shifting to the granny ring. At least I'm still doing it. Skipped the run in the pouring rain this morning. Looking forward to trail work tomorrow and a quiet mother's day in Milwaukee on Sunday.

Welcome back, fair weather runners!

Ah, spring. When I go from being the only person on the dark icy sidewalk at 6:30am to being surrounded by runners. I'll admit, more than once I've wondered if I woke up an hour late and was going to be late for work. It's so light out, there are so many people out... there must be something wrong, right? It's sort of funny to me. What did these people do all winter to work out?

It's also sort of sad this year, because whereas most years I'm in peak form (at least for running) by now, this year I'm doing a sort of shuffle/run, which will clearly only get worse and most likely add the word "waddle." I think I could easily be downgraded to "jogger" at this point. Whatever, I'm still out there. Whether or not the 2009 marathon shirt I run in gets stuck on top of my belly and rides up, making any fair weather runner wonder where I got the shirt from since I clearly couldn't make it through a marathon.

I planted cilantro, basil, and tomatoes on the balcony last weekend, and moved the pot of mint outside. The chives somehow made it through the winter and re-sprouted. Last year we didn't get much out of the pepper and tomato plants, possibly because we put too many in each pot. This year I put one big, healthy organic beefsteak tomato plant in the pot that last year held 4-- hopefully that'll help. The cilantro looks delicate, as it always does, but hopefully with more watering and a little love we'll have a more productive "garden."

Killin' it.

With Ben out of town, it's just us girls around the house. That means we get a LOT done. Hours that I'd usually spend gazing longingly into Ben's eyes are now spent on the trail, or the balcony garden, or the dvd workout, or shopping for a new pillow.

Saturday I did indeed get to Kettle. After dropping Ben off at the airport at 6am, I wasn't so sure- nobody had shown an interest in coming with and driving 3 hrs round-trip to ride my pregnant ass around alone didn't sound quite smart or pleasant. Last minute I get a text from Al saying the boys wanted to come, and by 11am we were a full car headed North. Jason Henry met us there, and so Al and Jason slaughtered it on their singlespeeds while Jacob, Evan, and I hung back and just enjoyed the day. I hadn't been on the blue loop since the WEMS race last year and liked it a lot- I forgot, though, how some areas just have no good line through the rocks. There was some new build-up of switchbacks down to a sweet rock jump where you could just whip the bike through the turns and fly... that I liked. Oh, and we got custard afterward. SCORE.

Sunday was get-it-done day, which included trips to collect sundry small items that had been on my list forever. I had a preggers moment at Old Navy that was pretty funny, though. Went to exchange a bday gift from my sister at Old Navy and they credited her card for the item without asking me. I clearly wanted to EXCHANGE for the pile in front of me, but now not only did my sister know I had a problem with her gift, I also no longer had the $ to get the stuff I was exchanging for! Didn't take long and the manager came, looked at my irate/edgy self and the pile of maternity clothes and said "we'll just take it as a loss." In other words, refunded my sister AND me! Are we THAT hard to deal with?

Either way, I'm about halfway done being pregnant. I laugh every time I use the Wii fit because my fitness goal was "gain 25 lb." Every time I gain a pound it says "great!" Well, it all seems great till you have to haul that weight around on a run. 4 this morning, and little pinches and pains in various leg tendons and joints tell me that the extra weight is going to become taxing.