I'm finally taking a moment to sing the praises of the website http://www.mapmyride.com Earlier this summer, some friends of mine decided that they wanted to start getting together for a weekly bike ride and asked if I wanted to come along. It sounded like a good opportunity to ride a bike like a grown-up again (ie. without the kids along, at a pace faster than, oh, 5 miles an hour, LOL), and a chance for weekly Mom Time and some exercise. Three of us have continued regularly throughout the summer, periodically joined by another couple of friends.
I think the thing I'm enjoying most about our rides is seeing the progress that I'm making. Our very first ride was just under 10 miles, and it honestly seemed challenging to me. I remember the last mile back felt rrreeeaaalllly long. We've gradually pushed further each week, riding a little longer, pedaling a little harder. A couple of weeks ago I was somehow talked into riding 16 miles. I don't think I'd ever ridden 16 miles before. It took us an hour and a half. The following week we did a short little ride because schedules were tight, but we wanted to get a ride in. This past week we did a 20 mile ride, in the same amount of time that we'd done the 16 miles two weeks earlier. This time I was physically exhausted when we sat down for chips and salsa (did I mention that these rides frequently come to a close at a mexican restaurant? Margaritas optional). Surprisingly my legs weren't the least bit sore the next day. I'm continually amazed at what my big ol' flabby body is capable of. This of course makes me overly cocky, and I start to develop grandiose ideas, like "well, if I can ride 16 miles, I can probably do the STP (Seattle-to-Portland) next year!". Never mind that the STP is a two-day, nearly 200 mile ride. And then, probably due to oxygen deprivation endured on said rides, I find myself expressing these ideas out loud to people who initially scoff at the notion, but are then running with it one week later. Who are these people???
The question that comes up now is: how do we continue to ride through the winter in the rainy pacific northwest? When I woke up this morning my first thought was wondering whether I should get up and go for a ride while my family was still sleeping soundly. I swear, I'm not making that up - a bike ride was my first coherent thought (followed very quickly by: must.make.coffee.), but then I got out of bed and noticed that it was pouring down rain outside. This could be problematic, and I'm sure there's some kind of solution to the problem, likely involving more flexibility in both my schedule (ie. trying to ride during breaks in the weather), and my mindset (ie. rain will not kill me). My desire to ride does not currently outweigh my desire to avoid looking and feeling like a drowned rat.
Long story short: mapmyride is a great site for both tracking your own bike rides, and searching for rides in your area. You can also enter rides you complete into your personal training log, and it will figure out your average mph, and calories burned. As a mtn. biker, one of hubby's favorites is the elevation scale that shows elevation gains and loss in a graph for your whole ride. We have a trail we like to ride that contains a hill we affectionately refer to as The Wall, and seen on the elevation scale, it's clear why! We've only used the free components of mapmyride, but they also offer other benefits with a paid subscription (like actually being able to print out your route).
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Investing bug
Do any of you invest in the stock market? The realm of finance has always intimidated me, and hubby too, to some extent. We are overly cautious wusses when it comes to investing and trying to grow our money.
Some events took place in hubby's family recently that caused me to take another look at stocks, and I decided to invest some "fake" money into a few that I was interested in. Just dabble a little to see what this is all about. I really like the yahoo finance tool for following investments. I can track daily ups and downs, as well as how I'm doing in each stock overall, and my portfolio collectively. You can look at charts and graphs for varying lengths of time, and put it against a graph of the market's performance for the same time frame. I also like that it pulls up headlines pertaining to companies and business sectors that you own stock in.
The fun part is that my portfolio is up 12% in the first month! My lowest performing stock is finally on the plus side as of yesterday, and a couple of my stocks are doing better than 20%. This is really addictive! And also really safe - ridiculously safe since I didn't actually make any money during this time, yet I could have made almost $700. Anyone have any advice for taking the plunge with *real* money?
Some events took place in hubby's family recently that caused me to take another look at stocks, and I decided to invest some "fake" money into a few that I was interested in. Just dabble a little to see what this is all about. I really like the yahoo finance tool for following investments. I can track daily ups and downs, as well as how I'm doing in each stock overall, and my portfolio collectively. You can look at charts and graphs for varying lengths of time, and put it against a graph of the market's performance for the same time frame. I also like that it pulls up headlines pertaining to companies and business sectors that you own stock in.
The fun part is that my portfolio is up 12% in the first month! My lowest performing stock is finally on the plus side as of yesterday, and a couple of my stocks are doing better than 20%. This is really addictive! And also really safe - ridiculously safe since I didn't actually make any money during this time, yet I could have made almost $700. Anyone have any advice for taking the plunge with *real* money?
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Don't play with your food
Andrew, singing during lunch today:
"The Fritos have given this land to us,
No need to fuss,
They know what they're doing.
We know that they will take care of us,
if we just follow them."
Veggie Tales fans everywhere are cringing at this very moment. I'm a bit taken aback myself!
"The Fritos have given this land to us,
No need to fuss,
They know what they're doing.
We know that they will take care of us,
if we just follow them."
Veggie Tales fans everywhere are cringing at this very moment. I'm a bit taken aback myself!
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Getting caught up on photos
Ninth Birthday
Fancy New Bike
Kids playing with the hydrangeas in our yard
Isn't he handsome?
Fancy New Bike
Kids playing with the hydrangeas in our yard
Isn't he handsome?
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Parents want kids to have good social skills
Results of a new survey completed for Hasbro Inc. have been released - Raising Happy Kids: Survey Highlights The Importance of Teaching Children Good Social Skills From the article:
"Parents have come to recognize social skills, more than mere niceties for everyday life, are the base for raising 'great kids' who ultimately become successful, confident and happy adults," says Stacy DeBroff, CEO of Mom Central. "These skills, which include listening, being polite and knowing how to share, shape how a child will be perceived by their peers, teachers, adults, and ultimately employers."
Seems reasonable.
Despite the overwhelming significance they place on social skills, today's parents find it a constant struggle to teach their kids proper manners and necessary socialization techniques.
This has been one of my arguments for homeschooling - that the extra time I end up having with my kids allows me to model appropriate behaviors, point out others modeling good behaviors, and help correct inappropriate behaviors as they are happening.
"While parents understand the need for behavior correction, it can become frustrating," said DeBroff. "Especially with the added time pressures of a typical busy family schedule. We don't want to spend what limited time we do have being the 'bad guy' and constantly correcting our children's behavior."
And I imagine it would be incredibly frustrating to feel like the limited time I had with my children outside of school were spent harping on them about their poor manners. It's part of my same argument up above - I want to enjoy my kids' company, not spend those couple of hours each day correcting what's wrong with them. LOL - instead I spend the entire day correcting them! Only joking... a little. ;P
"As preschools and kindergartens turn to an increasingly academic curriculum, the necessity is that children come into the classroom with basic social skills in place," says DeBroff.
So this illustrates two things: one, that the role of the school is to teach academics. That's fine, but it blows the pants off the Socialization issue that opponents always seem to bring up as an argument against homeschooling. Two, maybe sending A. to kindergarten isn't quite the right approach. LOL
Oh, and I'm sure it comes as no surprise that Hasbro has now created a game to help teach kids social skills....
"Parents have come to recognize social skills, more than mere niceties for everyday life, are the base for raising 'great kids' who ultimately become successful, confident and happy adults," says Stacy DeBroff, CEO of Mom Central. "These skills, which include listening, being polite and knowing how to share, shape how a child will be perceived by their peers, teachers, adults, and ultimately employers."
Seems reasonable.
Despite the overwhelming significance they place on social skills, today's parents find it a constant struggle to teach their kids proper manners and necessary socialization techniques.
This has been one of my arguments for homeschooling - that the extra time I end up having with my kids allows me to model appropriate behaviors, point out others modeling good behaviors, and help correct inappropriate behaviors as they are happening.
"While parents understand the need for behavior correction, it can become frustrating," said DeBroff. "Especially with the added time pressures of a typical busy family schedule. We don't want to spend what limited time we do have being the 'bad guy' and constantly correcting our children's behavior."
And I imagine it would be incredibly frustrating to feel like the limited time I had with my children outside of school were spent harping on them about their poor manners. It's part of my same argument up above - I want to enjoy my kids' company, not spend those couple of hours each day correcting what's wrong with them. LOL - instead I spend the entire day correcting them! Only joking... a little. ;P
"As preschools and kindergartens turn to an increasingly academic curriculum, the necessity is that children come into the classroom with basic social skills in place," says DeBroff.
So this illustrates two things: one, that the role of the school is to teach academics. That's fine, but it blows the pants off the Socialization issue that opponents always seem to bring up as an argument against homeschooling. Two, maybe sending A. to kindergarten isn't quite the right approach. LOL
Oh, and I'm sure it comes as no surprise that Hasbro has now created a game to help teach kids social skills....
Monday, August 4, 2008
What a weird, schizophrenic kind of day
N. started day camp today! This is the daycamp through the Humane Society. The ratio of campers to counselors is really low - her group has three girls in it altogether, and one of them had to leave early in the day. The remaining girl is a friend of hers, and together they got to meet their cat mascot "Ashley". They have been charged with the duty of getting Ashley adopted by Friday. N came home with all sorts of buttons/pins with Ashley's name and picture on them so that family and friends can wear her kitty face around town and try to get her a new home. Apparently she's a very sweet, adult, calico kitty, very good with kids, and quite the snuggler. She'll make a great pet for someone... not us. (Kila? LOL) They started out the day clicker training dogs, and later in the day a veterinarian came by and gave them each a stethoscope to take home. They used the scope to listen to a puppies heartbeat. Pretty fun stuff.
After dropping N off at camp, Lil' A. and I went over to get him registered for kindergarten. As luck would have it, they only have an AM kindergarten available for half-day. That was my last "out" by the way - I'd been saying that if they couldn't get him into AM, then we wouldn't do it. Looks like kindergarten is a go. This is supposed to be an easy thing, right? I mean, parents do this all the time and don't feel all conflicted about it, don't they?
So my intent with A. going to kindergarten for 2.5 hours/day is kind of twofold. First of all, it will give me some dedicated one-on-one time with N. Five years ago, when we first stepped foot into the world of homeschooling, I'd projected that this school year would be the one where she was finally working independently, heck - at least reading independently, and I'd be able to devote some more time to A. The reality is that N. is still struggling with reading, writing, and spelling, and I really want to get her over the hurdle this year with some focused work. So far I've not found a good way to either separate the kids from each other long enough to give me the time of day, without grumbling that a). it's not fair that one gets to do school with me while the other has to do something else, or b). it's not fair that the other gets to play instead of doing school. Surely some homeschooling parent holds the answer to this conundrum.
Secondly, it's time for A. to just grow up already! Kidding. Kidding. Really. Mostly. Okay, in truth we're kind of sending him to the sharks. He gets along great with his sister, and has been making more friends in the past few months with some boys he sees regularly, but he really can't deal with more than one kid at a time. He basically gets up and walks away once there are more kids involved. For a long time I thought he didn't like to play with other kids, period, but was relieved to see him finally building some friendships. We've also had the experience of him not dealing well with groups of kids when he's been in swimming, and gymnastics. He doesn't like for other kids to be in his space, or to be too loud, nor does he like it when they don't follow the teacher's directions. All of these things cause him to completely shut down physically, mentally, and emotionally. I guess part of what I want to see is if giving him more opportunities to try to work through that will somehow give him the skills to at least manage his reactions in a different way. Oh, I didn't mention that one of his more common reactions now is to bite himself on the arm or hand, and to punch himself in the head. Yeah. So kindergarten could be interesting. At least we're not afraid to pull him out and homeschool him. Though if they could have him reading before we did that, that would be pretty cool - the reading thing hasn't gone well with kid #1.
So I get kid #2 signed up at the local grade school, and then I came home to work on my outline for homeschooling kid #1 this year. Do you see how I'm bouncing from one extreme to the next here? This is going to be a really strange year.
After dropping N off at camp, Lil' A. and I went over to get him registered for kindergarten. As luck would have it, they only have an AM kindergarten available for half-day. That was my last "out" by the way - I'd been saying that if they couldn't get him into AM, then we wouldn't do it. Looks like kindergarten is a go. This is supposed to be an easy thing, right? I mean, parents do this all the time and don't feel all conflicted about it, don't they?
So my intent with A. going to kindergarten for 2.5 hours/day is kind of twofold. First of all, it will give me some dedicated one-on-one time with N. Five years ago, when we first stepped foot into the world of homeschooling, I'd projected that this school year would be the one where she was finally working independently, heck - at least reading independently, and I'd be able to devote some more time to A. The reality is that N. is still struggling with reading, writing, and spelling, and I really want to get her over the hurdle this year with some focused work. So far I've not found a good way to either separate the kids from each other long enough to give me the time of day, without grumbling that a). it's not fair that one gets to do school with me while the other has to do something else, or b). it's not fair that the other gets to play instead of doing school. Surely some homeschooling parent holds the answer to this conundrum.
Secondly, it's time for A. to just grow up already! Kidding. Kidding. Really. Mostly. Okay, in truth we're kind of sending him to the sharks. He gets along great with his sister, and has been making more friends in the past few months with some boys he sees regularly, but he really can't deal with more than one kid at a time. He basically gets up and walks away once there are more kids involved. For a long time I thought he didn't like to play with other kids, period, but was relieved to see him finally building some friendships. We've also had the experience of him not dealing well with groups of kids when he's been in swimming, and gymnastics. He doesn't like for other kids to be in his space, or to be too loud, nor does he like it when they don't follow the teacher's directions. All of these things cause him to completely shut down physically, mentally, and emotionally. I guess part of what I want to see is if giving him more opportunities to try to work through that will somehow give him the skills to at least manage his reactions in a different way. Oh, I didn't mention that one of his more common reactions now is to bite himself on the arm or hand, and to punch himself in the head. Yeah. So kindergarten could be interesting. At least we're not afraid to pull him out and homeschool him. Though if they could have him reading before we did that, that would be pretty cool - the reading thing hasn't gone well with kid #1.
So I get kid #2 signed up at the local grade school, and then I came home to work on my outline for homeschooling kid #1 this year. Do you see how I'm bouncing from one extreme to the next here? This is going to be a really strange year.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
I love coffee.
Nothing to add to that. I haven't even poured my first cup yet, but I'm in the living room on the laptop, and I can smell my fresh brewed coffee waiting for me. Life is good.
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