Michael & Liz are Bloggable

Every year, Liz likes to hype the gifts she has for me and she did the same this year. They were awesome and I will certainly enjoy them (a necklace for my Tortuga coconut shell pendant, Ireland and England soccer t-shirts, and some 25 pound weights). But not only did she hype the gifts, she hyped what she said would be my "birthday dessert". I had several guesses, but I didn't really even come close because I had never had it before.

Anyone who knows me, knows I'm very easy to please when it comes to dessert. When I go to a restaurant, and feel like dessert, all I want is a warm/hot brownie with ice cream on top. It's that simple, and it's that awesome. It really can't be beat. Well Liz happened to find a recipe online for a "Chocolate Cobbler" and she was pretty much right on target when she thought I might like that. So last night she made it and oh... my... gosh was it amazing! I had seconds it was so good. Here's a pic with the ice cream in the background we put on top:


It's got a gooey bottom made of chocolate syrup type stuff and then the top was a chocolate cake type taste. This will now be named my "Birthday Dessert". So ridiculously good, it would please me to have this every year.

Thanks Liz!

"Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands -- and then eat just one of the pieces." - Judith Viorst

Gryffin graduated from his Pet Obedience class this morning. I am so very proud of him.

There were 5 other dogs in the class and he and another dog (a boxer) were hands down the two best dogs in the class. It was astounding how the first day he was just all over the place and difficult to work with and during the last class he sat there just observing what was going on and wouldn't even blink when another dog barked or whined at him. Liz came to the last class with me to see what we do, and she said "He's a completely different dog".

Liz was actually so impressed she is thinking about taking Daisy for the same class.

Where did Gryffin improve the most? When we used to go for walks, he used to have a horrible problem passing other dogs. He would growl, whine, bark, and pull as hard as he could to get to the other dogs. It was embarrassing how terrible his temper tantrums like that were. Nowadays when we pass other dogs he still pulls a little to go to them but no longer makes noises. The teacher said he would make the noises because he was afraid so it was a coping mechanism to show aggression. By teaching him that other dogs are good things and he should be happy to see them, it has made him much calmer around other animals and people.

So what commands does Gryffin know now? He knew some of these before but most of them he's mastered.

• Sit
  
• Come
• Down (lay down)
• Leave it
• Stay
• Watch (teaching him to make eye contact with you and to pay attention)
• OK (release word)
• And his marker word: "Good boy!"

Like I mentioned though, his biggest change is just in his general behavior. Teaching him to remain calm around stressful situations.

The one command he knows the best is "Stay". He was the best of any dog at that. I could tell him to stay and then go walk around the room and leave him sitting there for 30 seconds or more, and he would keep watching me and stay exactly where he was. It was impressive.

At the end of the class, the teacher came up to us and said that she would recommend Gryffin take the advanced obedience class next if we were interested. It's the Canine Good Citizen class which is super exciting because it's something I've always wanted to do with Gryffin. I knew he was smart, but he's just excelling like I never thought he would. So it looks as though my boy is going to graduate school. He's going to get his PhD.

Go Gryffindor!

Or, I need the advice of someone who has been doing this gardening thing for more than 3 months. Anyone out there?

I haven't been blogging nearly as much about the garden as I intended, but as a quick update, we are eating things from it! Mainly zucchini, peppers, and cherry tomatoes. Potatoes are ready to come out of the ground, so I'll work on that this weekend.

When this gardening adventure began, we had two neighbors tell us to watch out for the birds eating our tomatoes. Um...what? I don't know why, but I didn't believe them. And neither did the guy at the greenhouse who sold us the tomato plants. Take a look at our poor little tomatoes:


They've only starting eating the lowest ones closest to the ground, so hopefully the highest tomatoes will survive? Lesson learned - next year we will just have to be careful and protect them with netting.

This is where I really need some tomato advice. What in the world is this??


This is happening to both the Big Boy and Roma tomatoes, both ripe and unripe. Is there something wrong with the soil? Did I not water them right? Some tomatoes are still doing fine so I have no explanation for this.

In pepper news, does anyone have a good recipe for hot banana peppers? Because I have a million that I don't want to take off the plants yet because I'm clueless. I can put them on pizza, and make salsa. But without the nice tomatoes I was hoping for, I don't think salsa is coming anytime soon.

This was quite a surprise when I went out to the garden yesterday - the first pumpkin! The pumpkin vines have completely taken over the garden, but with the help of a trellis we built a few weeks ago they are growing up now instead of on the ground.


Other lessons learned:

• Don't plant so many cucumbers. I really don't love them myself, and Michael doesn't eat them...no idea what I was thinking but there are a lot ready to be picked.
• Don't plant lettuce next year. Or spinach...or any greens for that matter. With this heat and humidity I had a very small timeframe where I could harvest them. When the humidity spiked they bolted up to about 3 feet tall...yuck.

Any other advice?

One thing I am not as a person is a crazy outgoing social butterfly. Shocker, I know. There are times when I can handle social environments but more often than not, I am the exact opposite. I tend to be really quiet when surrounded by people, and that can be exaggerated when I don't know anyone. Sometimes it can come off as rude, but socializing with strangers is not a talent I possess.

This morning I donated platelets and seeing as it was 7:30AM, I was crazy tired from staying up late watching the Lakers/Celtics game. I wanted to be left alone, sit in my chair, watch my movie, and donate some blood. It was too early for social interaction. However, when I arrived, there were already a few donors sitting waiting their turn. So I sat down and waited as well.

One of the donors was just talking everyone's ear off. It's like he didn't get the social clue that being talkative at that time of morning wasn't cool. People at the gym sometimes do this, sorry but I can't talk, I'm running here. But the other donor's gave in, and were nice back. He wasn't being rude, but instead he was showering everyone with his happy and loud attitude, which I found annoying at 7:30AM. As I sat there, he continued to look at me as well as the other donor's saying random comments to get us to talk to him. I never responded and I think he got the clue that I wasn't interested in interaction.

I wasn't being mean, it was more just me turning my attention in another direction so that he understood I wasn't interested in conversing. When we finished donating, we found ourselves sitting at the snack table where he continued his social way with the volunteer working there. So I continued my quiet cold shoulder.

All day I had been wondering whether I was rude or justified? It was a self assessment situation for me. Sometimes I can small talk, but I shouldn't be forced into it. When I got home and found the quote of the day on my computer, I feel it cleared up how I felt:

"A bore is a man who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company."

All I wanted was my solitude, any company would have been a bore.

Say what you will about soccer (love it or hate it), but one thing has become undeniably clear, the World Cup is the greatest sporting event ever created.

I one time heard Jerry Seinfeld say in one of his stand-up bits that he "likes any sport where nations are involved", and I totally agree. The Super Bowl is great, the World Series is great, but lets be honest, we're a self-involved country. We don't involve other countries in these events. I'm sure there are some sumo wrestlers who would be capable of filling out an offensive line. But other countries just aren't involved to make that the best event ever. The baseball classic(you probably haven't heard of it either) is pretty cool where each nation plays each other but none of these events touch the scale of the World Cup. The Olympics are a close second, but I have a problem with all the irrelevant sports being involved. The World Cup has everything the Olympics has without the irrelevance.

Here are my thoughts:

Almost every country capable to be involved makes an effort to compete. There were 204 teams entered into the qualifying rounds. What we're seeing now is the remaining 32 teams competing in one location for the title. Ironically there are only 195 countries in the world. That's because places like "Puerto Rico" and "Greenland" don't count as official countries but still have teams. There were actually only 4 eligible teams in the world (Bhutan, Brunei, Laos, and the Philippines) that did not enter the competition. What were they thinking?

Every country has an opportunity. The qualification process is lengthy, detailed, and fair. The USA started qualifying rounds in June 2008 and played almost 25 or 30 games before being admitted to the tournament.

Is there any doubt these are the best players in the world? My problem with the Olympics is that I just don't buy that these athletes are the best in the world. I give bobsled as the best example, is this guy really the best we have to offer? He looks like he just woke up and decided he wanted to do it one day. Funny side note, he was a computer science major, maybe I could be a bobsledder? If you are a world class soccer player, you are absolutely going to be a part of the World Cup. If you are a world class bobsledder, you may not even know it.

The excitement of the World Cup cannot be matched by any sport. The first game of the tournament was South Africa against Mexico. If you didn't get goosebumps when the South African forward ripped the ball into the upper corner to take a 1-0 lead and have 94,000 people go nuts, you might be dead inside.

Every game is once in a lifetime to the players. After the Ghana and Slovenia games ended, a few players from those teams fell to their knees in tears. When's the last time you saw that in any other sport. They hadn't even done anything! They just won the first game in their 4 team round robin group stage. That emotion never happens in the wild card round of the NFL playoffs or the first round of the NBA playoffs. Just to win 1 teeny tiny little game in the World Cup is more than they could have ever asked for in their life. That's the kind of passion I want to watch in a sport.

I think the last point is just that I love watching soccer so much. There is nothing more exciting than seeing a player score a goal on another country. The World Cup just incorporates everything you'd want from a sporting event, international inclusion, player passion, and elite competition.

"Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion."

KA CHUGA!!!



KA CHUGA!!!

BELLS. SIRENS. WHISTLES. HORNS. SUCCESS!

That just happened.

In case you can't read that, it's 166.8!! That brings me to a total of 30 pounds lost this year. 15.3% of my body weight. It's the first time since high school that my BMI (24.6) says that I am a normal weight and not "overweight". Now granted, I was never really overweight, but I don't like statistics out there saying otherwise.

I will say another thing. This weigh-in is a little deceiving. I just ran 12 miles in the sweltering heat outside. It was 85 degrees when I finished and with the humidity and the sun beating down, the weather report says it feels like 95. I've never sweat so much in my life. I ran the first 5 miles faster than I ever have before at 39:36, and then just crashed on the last 7 miles. I ran and walked back and forth a lot and finished in roughly 1:50. The goal of any run though is just to finish. When I woke up I weighed 174.4 so really this is just 8 pounds of water weight that I lost. I don't care though.

None of my pants fit anymore.

"To be someone you've never been before, you can't keep doing the things you've always done."

I'm finishing all my posts with a quote, it adds conclusion and inspiration at the same time.

Donald Miller is an author who also writes a blog. A couple days ago he made this post that really stuck with me. Not only because his point is so true, but the inability to admit a mistake is a big pet peeve of mine (right next to lying and punctuality).

Here is the blog post, I highly recommend it.

The most important point he makes is this, it's spot on:

If you’re a leader and you’re wrong, admit it. People will respect you. Admit it and show remorse. And if you follow a leader who struggles admitting they are wrong, DO NOT FOLLOW THEM. We all make mistakes, and people who admit their mistakes are in touch with their humanity, and those who don’t are simply delusional. And if they are not willing to pay for their mistakes, you better believe they are going to make those around them pay.

The reason for the blog post is the incident with the umpire who cost the Detroit pitcher his perfect game. After the game the umpire came out and apologized and admitted to the blown call. Who's mad at Joyce now? Can't help but like the guy, he's got integrity.

I can't exclaim enough how happy I am right now about my running and weight goals. It's one thing to say you want to accomplish something. It's a whole other thing to do it. This was one goal that I just had to walk the walk on, not just talk the talk.

This morning I went out for an 11.2 mile run and finished in 1:35. My run is basically a 5 mile loop around the Parkwood neighborhood, then the 1.2 mile run around our neighborhood, then the 5 mile loop again. Both 5 mile legs took me 42:30 and the 1.2 mile leg took me 10 minutes. Of course I'm looking to smoke that later, but this morning it was crazy humid, going fast wasn't an option.

But what makes me even more excited is to see my post run weight. I came in, drank about 16 ounces of water, rested for a bit, then went up and showered. I weighed 172.4. Which puts me only 2.4 pounds away from my goal weight. 23.6 pounds lost so far this year. I'm not saying that when I get there I will just stop trying to lose weight cold turkey, but it will no longer be a priority to me. I felt like 170 or lower and I'm perfectly happy and healthy. Anything lower is just icing on my running cake.

Ugh. I'm super double thrilled.