It's All About...Birthdays and Plans

So, thoughts to begin the weekend:

• I can't believe that K is going to be FIVE YEARS OLD next week!! I can still remember hanging out in the hospital room after she'd been born, not quite believing she had arrived. And five years later? She's my roommate, my little buddy, my foot tickler, my almost-always-waker-upper-at-6AM, a big source of laughter. What a fun kid. Birthday party today is bumper bowling and a Scooby Doo cake and eight other kids and too much sugar.

I am really missing the kids lately and can hardly wait for the holiday season to get underway because it means I'll get to see them all at some point or another. This picture is from this past summer -- I keep a copy at work.

• The Walking/Running endeavor is going really quite well. I've been going almost every day in the late afternoon. With the dark coming earlier, it's getting harder to squeeze in the time outside after work during the week. I'm almost always mid-trail (it's a 2.8 mile trek) when things start to look like this:

I'm hoping to attend my first 5K Walk/Run around midnight on New Year's Eve. I am going to try, but I don't think I'll be able to quite run the whole way by then; however, I need a goal that's closer than springtime. So there it is. Instead of drinking on New Year's, I'll be running. It's actually a HUGE high, all these endorphins I get from being out and working so hard. It takes me hours to calm down afterward. Not that I'm complaining!

• Speaking of running, many time when I'm out there on the path, I see people with dogs. All shapes and sizes of dogs. They all run along. They are cute and fun and...I want one. And then my buddy from across the street comes to see me:

...and I want one even more. So I would imagine, if this enjoyment of running continues through spring, I will be the proud owner of a dog. Stop shaking your heads.

Starting an eBay project this morning, and I'd better get cracking on cleaning my room. Then there's the birthday party, then a karaoke/rehearsal evening. Tomorrow I'm going to K&K's church to hear the little one play handbells, then to a murder-mystery rehearsal in a nearby town, then home to another K Birthday celebration, and sometime in there I have to fit in a Packer football game. Next week, I get to wear my cheesehead at Ford Field. I know you'll love the pictures of that one...