got ramen??

i do.

had it twice in the past week.

previously i hadn't had it in, oh, 10, 12 years???

good cheap carbs post running.

don't wanna cook?

boil water.

make ramen.

drink a post-really-hot-day beer or two.

watch an amazing movie solo while dh is working. not much else to do....(well water the parched yard at the same time)

plan your future trip to visit Gram in Maui in feb 2009.

plan to see your aunt who you haven't seen in 8 years at the same time in maui.

and blog.

highlight email of the day?

matt logelin, from the link at the right of my page about him & his daughter madeline, wrote to me today. actually answered one of his hundreds of emails per day to little old me.

i couldn't sleep last night. so i read his blog at 4am.

as i read it whenever he updates it. and by persuing a local news site for their blogs (for two reasons; one i have a news story i'm part of in a week, and two i'm co-teaching a blog class monday night and was doing a little research at 4am also) i found one local photojournalist highlighted his blog too.

so i wrote him to tell him.

and he wrote back.

wicked cool.

he has hundreds of readers all over the world. and i got a short but very nice email.

rock on matt.

peace and blogging to all. ~jd

teaching old dogs new tricks....

just got back into town....

here's a short report from the weekend away.

found my lake.


found my fire.


found my fearless-ness (for a girl who doesn't swim i take to water sports pretty readily).

mark told me for the first time this weekend that he admires my being fearless. i had no idea he thought that of me


and became part of a team and met 19 people in one day i had never seen before. (through a fellow runner who was on the team that I *do* know) sorry that there aren't any pictures of the actual dragon boats. i blanked on that. but follow this link....did i mention we took 3rd out of 15 teams and got a medal for our efforts in 3 heats of racing?? runner girl, fire girl, paddle girl ~

this weekend i learned:
how to paddle as part of a 20 member dragon boat team.


that mark likes everything bagels with butter, never cream cheese. (i've known him 9 years and never knew this until today.)

that favorite hats maybe should have your name & phone number in them if they become left in a beautiful small town. (mark's got lost the day of the races :(



that otters close up to your canoe are just as freaking cute as on land.

and that vacations are really awesome. that's a no brainer. and now i'm off to work at one job, while still on vacation at the other. peace ~jd

challenge for ya'll...

if anyone knows of a bar, fair, whatever within a 2 hour radius of the twin cities that has one of these




could you let me know?

it's for a project i hope to be part of :) really.

i've done some sleuthing and so far no luck. wisconsin places are fine too! thanks!

yes this *is* the weirdest request i have probably ever asked of anyone....but i'm counting on my friends in low (and high!) places to help me!

huge challenge for me....



i am going to be an iron girl!

i am going to do my first duathlon!

run 2 miles, bike 22, run 2 more.

with women only. hear us roar!

another medal. another finish time. another first time experience.

all in bloomington mn in september.

i'm stoked.

i'm freaked.

i'm crazy engergized right now. (could be that i totally rocked out tonight in my one mile race....PR'd at 7:45!!! for me that's crazy fast....)

this event was something i first saw over 2 years ago in a local sports paper that really piqued my interest at the very start to my running adventures.

tomorrow night is the torchlight 5K. apparently we're doing a photo shoot in wedding dresses post race for a local radio station. i really have no idea why, but coach was all over the idea when the pr dept contacted our run club. so tomorrow evenin' is all about a fun run. and yet another thing to keep me going on the path i'm on with my phenomenal team...hoo-yah to an amazing day (including of course the superhero day job of being the kids storytime gal 2 times a week again..) be well...~jd

dog tired & it's only 10:30am...

but frosty here is partly why...



what's with the big snowman? (there are people on the bottom in front of him)

he lives in north saint paul, mn. he's a cultural icon out in those parts.

like they built a highway construction project *around* him.

and this morning, i ran with my homegirl claudia on this rockin' trail for ten miles.....five out, to the snowdude, and five back.

haven't run double digits since grandma's, which for no one keeping score but me, was one month ago monday.

legs are yelling at me right now but i'll stretch em and foam roll later (fancy runner jargon for massaging the muscles out on a big foam tube i roll on on the floor).

now it's time to get on with a massive list of chores for a sunday and then kick back this pm with friends, food & wine. ah, sweet summertime....

peace..~jd

out with the old...

in with the new....

well little things.

*spruced up the page a little. looks too cluttered to me. a work in progress...since i'm actually supposed to look like i know what i'm doing in a few weeks for a class i thought i'd freshen up the decor and links....and play with a few new page attributes that Blogger is providing...

*cut/re-redded the hair.(just a few inches, but shorter than it's been in a while...)

*imagine that, i'm running some races this week. 2 new ones for me...hoping to get into grandma's half again next year, and taking part in my first 'all women on our team will wear running skirts' race in downtown mpls on wednesday. suh-wheet! even better? the latest issue of runners world *features* an article on running skirts. super suh-wheet! find part of it here... i heart skirts to run in very much...comfy & girly, and well, they are damn fun to run in...

*mark recently bought his first smoker. like weber smoker for meats. he is in boy-toy-cookery heaven...he's done a turkey, pork ribs and a brisket so far. YUM!

*the job swap with the local morning news anchor is on. the reporter will come to my storytime to read to itty bitties on Aug 6th. then 2 weeks later i'll be part of a *live* (freak out here) shoot from my library at some really early morning hour. i scored a great necklace from one of my awesome regular customers at the wine bar last night to wear for the live shoot :) she totally wanted me to...very fun~

*k, all for now...~the humble jd

happiness is...



charles schulz said it was the puppy (had that book as a kid; i think i still do somewhere on my bookshelf...) but to me it's....

*starting your day off with the first 5 kids in the door at work being 'regulars'.

seth.

gracie.

nissa.

madison.

hailey mae.

i do love my work. i do love that i can get to know these kids and that even from a really young age (less than 18 months), they can learn to know me. an almost 6 ft tall girl who tells them stories and sings songs to em. some of these kiddos i've seen come in to my libray for the past 3-5 years. some since they were only itty bitties and are now talking walking toddlers. and it's funny. i know the kids names. the mom's? not often....it's only 'nissa's mom'. but that works for them...

happiness is also:
*running with my favorite confidants, coaches and friends, on an exceedingly hot day, and ending with running through sprinklers :) like i was a small child again (if anyone can actually picture me being small!

*raspberries. fresh from the bushes. one huge bonus for july's heat is fresh raspberries...

*one of my favorite country classics (dolly) is singing in the new Target tv spot...

*big water. soon. i need my nature time.

*but first 2 races next week. a 1 mile (for grandma's next year) and a 5K the next evening.

*full moon golden in the sky at 9pm when i'm movin' the sprinkler so my dahlias and tomatoes can grow....

hope you all have some kind of happiness goin on in your lives...big or small... ~jd

nap time dreaming?

am i the only one out there that if i actually have time to take a nap, has really amazingly vivid in every detail dreams? usually good...sometimes scary....sometimes a blend of 'whoa nelly, where did *that* come from?'...

for some reason i think i sleep much harder in nap mode than in dark night time mode.

wow.

hate waking up from those sometimes.....maybe that's where the 'like a dream come true' saying comes from? hmmmm....

musings of the day...*yawn*...time to head to work....~jd

firsts....


this has been an interesting week of firsts.

*first time i've had a stomach cootie. aka something i ate over a week ago made me sick for a whole week with a lovely food borne illness. which really prevented eating (and i'm a little tired of folks thinking i'm too thin to begin with...it's just how i'm built. and have never really been big in my mind...maybe folks thought i was? anyway...it's not like i have a complex or anything ;) ...no gruesome details on the cootie, but thankfully the dr. and labs found something treatable to fix and i'm on the mend with drugs...wouldn't usually share such things but many of you knew i'd been sick so here's to getting better. to the friend i had to cancel on last minute a few days ago, i'm really sorry...let's reschedule, dude ~

*first time i've been asked to job swap with a local news anchor for a major network. haven't set the details yet with her, but it appears she will come to my library and job share with me for a day in august, and a week later i will go to the station reaaaaaaallly early and do a small interview with her. exciting, humbling and scary all at the same time. i'll post more on this as details become available...

*first time tomorrow that a) i will attend a major triathalon with real olympic athletes competing in beijing next month and b) be working a water stop at a major race. thousands are expected to take part. me & my runner girls will be pumping up the jams and havin a blast from 6am til about noon. post triathalon time will be pretty low key before waiting tables with my rockin' art friend sara around 5. stop by ursula's if you're ever up in the white bear lake area.

*in a few weeks i'll be helping a colleague and friend teach a class about bloggin'.. i told a few of my running gals about it tonight during our steamy 7 miler....in that if they (or anyone local) wants to learn to blog we're offering 2 more classes in the fall. and i'll be trying to head up teaching a class on facebook as well. should be good times and learning experiences all around...

*and to finish my weekend, i'll take my first trip out to a friend's house that i've never been to as my 2nd job usually gets in the way of social gatherings that friends host. like the bonfire she had, oh, eons ago. cheers to cooler weather ahead in the coming days and to it just being summer in the land of 10,000+ lakes...~jd

frosty pumpkins??


fall foliage....gorgeous reds, oranges, yellows on the maples...

cornstalks. hoodies. hay rides. bonfires. i love fall....

but isn't it july 6th?

working for the library means we plan out events for all ages a solid 3-4 months ahead of time. so i'm working on the storytimes, a few computer classes and other events for september, october & november.

the deadline for our fall newsletter is coming up in about a week, and while i love fall, i'm just getting used to lighting the weber on the deck, sipping a cocktail with ice clinking in the glass and watching the dahlias get taller and the tomato plants start producing in the garden...

life around our house has been pretty quiet. quinn appears to be back to 'normal' which is great but still perplexing we have no idea why he was so sick. cora's good....still a complete mama's girl. If i leave the house and mark is home, she whines for me. ellie (the black feline) loves this time of year as it means every time the back door opens, she runs out, across the deck and squeezes her pudgy-needs-to-go-on-a-diet body through the deck rail down to the heavenly yummy grass below :) bliss. until i, the mean mom, come and hoist her up and back into the house. (i'll let her have a little grass but I prefer my felines in the house). lucy turns 12 this month. I got her as a pipsqueak kitten of 8 weeks from a pet store in inver grove heights in august of 1996 when i first moved to minnesota and knew not one person. she kept me company for those first lonely months... now she's 12. And still hates to be held. but loves to be petted. on her terms. and she still *loves* deli ham. :) anytime we make sandwiches, she knows.

spent 4th of july weekend a) running a 5 mile race with friends, b) hanging out with some other close friends and c) working.

my happy realization at work yesterday was seeing that items that checked out yesterday are due in 3 weeks on july 26th. which means in 3 weeks i will be by my Mother Lake, with campfire, woods, hiking and waterfalls. and that makes me happy....

i'm considering making my blog a private read, so if you feel the need to want to be 'invited' to read it if i do put it behind the scenes, let me know. peace....~jd

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