Ungroomed

It was a whole weekend of ungrooming with some hilarious parts and some not so funny parts.  First, the bad.

Right now in particular I feel very ungroomed.  I really wanted to get on a sponsored triathlon team this winter and have been unable to find one that wanted me. Or, at least, had room for me.  Like no team was willing to take a chance to push this motivated top third age grouper into podium speeds by providing some coaching, equipment, and team motivation when I could also help push the other members as well.  I know my limitations and I know what it takes to push through them.  I'm taking suggestions here people.  Anything you can send me about a sponsored triathlon team would be very helpful.

Also I'm feeling literally very ungroomed.  I haven't shaved my legs since IMFL, and that's practically a crime.  And after this weekend my hair's the longest it's been in months and I need to shave my face and trim the claws too.  I totally skipped the Monday Morning Naked Weight today by just penciling in "Unacceptable - Easter Candy" and leaving it at that.  Maybe a good shave will be exactly what it takes to get my act in gear.  There's nothing like an extra 15 lbs glistening on a freshly hairless body to create some motivation.

Also my mom took a bad spill in the garden a couple of weeks ago.  Now that she's through the worst of it I feel comfortable mentioning the story, but she fell backwards trying to get a rock out of the ground and broke her right arm near the elbow trying to brace herself from the fall.  The break was so close to the elbow that it affected movement in the socket, so after a 2 hour surgery on thursday she now has a third of an artificial elbow installed to replace the bone that broke off.  She starts physical therapy on Monday to rehab the joint, and while it has all been incredibly painful so far, the PT is supposed to be the beginning of the end.  It's only going to get better from here.  Mom was a runner for many years so her bones are much stronger than many other women her age who never did regular exercise.  Still this is when it is really tough for me to be four hours away.  I want to be there to drive her to the PT appointments if needed, and help her plant the rest of the garden.  What a good supportive son should be able to do.  It's tough.

We were supposed to go back to Greenville for Easter, but she did not need a house full of kids while she was trying to recover from the surgery.  So soon enough we'll get back down there.  Instead we went down to the Lake to visit Kelley's mom in SC. They live on Lake Murray in Prosperity SC.  I had Friday as a client holiday at work, so we went down Thursday night.  Friday the fun started.

 I brought some running gear but didn't actually do anything.  We slept in, played around the lake, put a fire in the fire pit and made s'mores, and just had a great relaxing time playing around the lake.

Evil Genius around a fire is generally not a good idea.

Bigun is a girl gone fishin'.  She's so natural around the lake.

Kelley around the campfire making a s'more

What's better than eating a S'More with your grandfather?  Sunday was Gene's 70th birthday

I got in on some of the action too.

The paddleboat.  Let me tell you about the paddleboat. First, the name on the side of the thing actually calls it a "Pedal Boat", so something is screwy there.

Bigun and I getting my workout in

There's an island out in the middle of the lake off of the point where the house is.  The kids love the paddleboat because they get out in the middle of the water with some safety.  Of course they can't reach the pedals yet, so the adult that gets them out there has to do all of the work.  I always want to swim around the island because it looks like a good distance for an open water swim when the water is warm enough and I need to OWS training.  This time boating around the island would have to do. 

They don't usually take the paddleboat into that stretch of water.  I was feeling brave. Apparently, so was someone else.  Bigun and I paddle out to the island, and as we are coming around it looks like someone is actually on the island.  Then I see plaid and blue fabric flying around.  Paddleboats are very quiet, so apparently we had disturbed them when we came into sight.  And apparently, um, well, they had been "spring breaking" on the island.  Looked like a nice setup too, blanket, wine, picnic, etc.  But the guy was only wearing plaid shorts and the girl was only wearing a blue shirt.  She didn't have time to get any pants on by the time we turned the corner.  I kept telling Bigun not to stare, and she kept ignoring me.  Nothing says "outdoor loving" like a man with his 6 year old daughter paddleboating by in the afterglow.  On the other side of the island there was his boat.  We finished the circle and made it back to shore where Kelley and I had a good laugh about that one.  Hilarious!  Never expected to find that on the other side of the island!

Friday night the kids dyed the easter eggs and everyone had fun.

The Grand Decorators

better lighting.  Great shot!

The girls got to throw some bowls at Gene's pottery shed too

Bigun wore my headlamp from the Umstead 100 race all weekend and loved it.  Here it's covered in mud from the pottery.

Do you think these kids enjoy hanging out around the lake?  Yea, I think they do.

Saturday I had to take off and head to the mountains for the day.  Our tenants had moved out of the Banner Elk mountain house, so I needed to go inspect it and meet with the realtor to sign the listing agreement.  Also since I hadn't been up there in several years it should have been nice to just get into the mountains.  What I found was a complete disaster.

I mean, we should have some good rental karma.  When we were tenants the worst thing we ever did was plant a few new trees in the yard.  We always paid the rent on time.  I don't understand the mentality where these people think this kind of behavior is acceptable.  Our house was well trashed. Literally, the garage was full of trash.  So was the deck.  But beyond that, the guy had left ceiling fans sitting on the floor.  Light fixtures and switches had been removed leaving exposed electrical wires hanging out of the walls.  Fan blades are usually reversible, and some were installed with mismatched colors.  I mean, when these people moved in three years ago I had completely redone the electrical and installed new switches, fans, and fixtures.  This was not anything that needed to be changed.  There was two exterior doors, each with a deadbolt and handle that were keyed the same.  Lots of doorknobs were missing, including a deadbolt and handle from one of the exterior doors!  One of the bedroom doors had been smashed open.  Closet doors were missing entirely.  Even if the place was cleaned, it is still trashed.

Trash everywhere.  They killed the deck.

This new window was never trimmed out.

This screen door used to be attached

The prick neighbor put up a fence with a terminal post that overlaps our garage door by 2 feet.  What a dick!

I really like the realtor I found.  She knows exactly how to handle this "special" property and has a plan to get it sold.  I'm going to follow her advice and hope for a quick sale.  Seriously, they say the two best days to own a boat are the day you buy it and the day you sell it.  The 2nd happiest day we own this house will be the day it sells.

That view never gets old.  I'm always happy to be there.

Street view of the house behind those apple trees

Me and the view from the church across the street.

After dealing with that house crap I headed over to Boone for a bit, these cars we got last year still don't have ASU stickers.  And I had to hit up my favorite restaurant Macado's.

Can you see the face on Grandfather Mountain there?

Few things can beat a three day weekend.  Sunday was the Easter holiday, Gene's 70th birthday, and Bigun lost her second tooth.

The easter baskets were filled with toys and candy

And, of course, ASU t-shirts.  EG was a bit less excited about her t-shirt.

Her adult tooth on the bottom has already come in so it doesn't look like there's much of a gap there.  But she's lost 2 bottom teeth now.

Sunday of course we started up a campfire out by the lake and made some more s'mores.  This time Evil Genius wanted to go on the paddleboat around the island, so I had to take her out there.  The difference between the two kids?  When I took Bigun in the paddleboat around the island we saw naked co-eds.  With EG?  Duck dookie.  There's a flock of black and wood ducks that roost on the island, so there were maybe 30 ducks in the trees.  As we came around the back side of the island I saw several of them make droppings into the lake.  It's still cool to watch the ducks fly and dive for fish.  but the crap was just funny.

We drove back to Raleigh after lunch and got here just in time to bathe the kids and get them to bed.  A few more hours of weekend would have been nice.  I missed the Masters entirely and I really enjoy watching it every year.  It was a great tourney too.  Go Bubba! 

All in all, it was an incredible weekend filled with family, fun, mountains, lake, and everything in between.