He's Home!

I brought home the little kitten on Thursday and he's settling in rather well. He's just a tiny thing, but not at all timid. As soon as he was released from the cat carrier, he started investigating the room where we're keeping him. I tried to feed him, thinking that he'd be starving after his big adventure at the vet. Much to my chagrin, he turned his nose up at the food. That didn't bode well for a raw food diet for him.

I needn't have worried. This kitten chows down in a major way. Purring loudly and kneading his paws (which look a little on the large size), he puts his face in the bowl and doesn't raise it until he's done, slurping happily all the while. He is not a neat eater, though. Food sticks to his whiskers; when he shakes his head, the food bits go flying.

He has also become very bouncy. He runs (and runs smack into furniture) and pounces with abandon on his mice, my hands and feed, the furniture legs... I don't think he's going to be good with yarn, though. He's very interested in playing with shoelaces, so the fiber room is going to be off-limits for a good long while.

I haven't introduced him to Emma yet. She smells him and has seen him from afar but hasn't reacted, other than being a bit subdued. I'll start the face-to-face introduction after I get the all-clear from the vet on Tuesday (I think he has a slight upper respiratory infection).

And again, no pictures of anything. Tom took the new camera to Wyoming where he's running this race today. I managed to get a couple of picture of the kitten on the old camera before the batteries died. He's hard to photograph, though, because he's always on the move.

That's it for now. I've got to make a couple of dishes for a dinner tomorrow night and it's getting late.

Have a great weekend!

A Surprise

Ha! Two posts in one weekend...can you believe it? But that's not the surprise.

This is.

Yep, that's our new kitty. Or it will be when we finalize the adoption on Wednesday and pick him up on Thursday. His shelter name is Patrick, but I doubt that we'll keep that name. It's too serious of a name for an energetic kitten. It will be interesting trying to introduce him to Emma. And he's so tiny. I'm afraid he'll get lost in our house. I think we're going to have to make the basement off-limits to him until he grows up.

Running
Today we revisited the four-mile section of the Dickey Ridge Trail that finished our 23-mile run a couple of weeks ago. However, we ran it in reverse which meant that we had to run uphill for four miles (about 1000 feet of elevation gain) to the Visitor's Center. Oof. My running was mostly walking, although at times I managed to do the "Haleakala shuffle," walking 10 steps, then running 10 steps. The trip up took about 55 minutes; the return trip took 35 minutes. It was a fun run.

And then on Thursday, Tom takes off for Sheridan, Wyoming to run the Big Horn 50 Miler. However, the race director had to make a last minute change to the course because there's too much snow at the original starting place (like 10 feet of the stuff)! It sounds like the run is going to be full of creek crossings and shoe-sucking mud. Oh what fun!

Knitting
Nada. No pictures, either. It's a theme.

All for now!

Too Long Gone, or Running, Running, Running...

Well, I have been AWOL for a long time. Sorry 'bout that. Everything is fine. In addition to adjusting to my life as a runner, work has gotten quite busy and the last thing I want to do when I get home at night is to log on to a computer again.

I suspect blogging will be hit and miss for the rest of the year. Weekend mornings (formerly prime blogging time) are spent running long distances and the afternoons are dedicated to chores (or recovering from running long distances) and the evenings are dedicated to eating and sleeping (and maybe knitting if I'm still functional). I will, however, try to update the blog whenever possible. We'll see how that goes. Based on my track record after returning from Belize, I'm not optimistic.

So, Belize. For a preview of some of our pictures, go here. I haven't updated the sailing blog either. Bad, bad Libran!

Knitting
Yes, there has been knitting. I finished the Tibetan socks, except for the weaving in of the ends. I've reached the toe on the long-neglected Monkey socks. I'm somewhere in the middle of a simple shawl. Nope, no pictures yet. Yes, there will be pictures at some point.

Running
The training has been going well. I'm increasing my mileage and completed a 23-mile trail run a couple of weeks ago. It was a blast! Then the heat and humidity hit us hard (it felt like we went from April straight to August), making running any distance miserable. Nonetheless, with 23 miles behind me, I think I'm well on my way to being able to complete the JFK 50 in November. Registration opens July 1 and that's when I've said I would commit. I'll be committing to a fall marathon as well, most likely Baltimore. Woo hoo!

Meme
I don't often participate in one of these, but it sounded like fun. I lifted it from Anne. Here goes:

Here are the rules:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into the mosaic maker (link below).

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

My results:



1. Road to Shagai, Teri, 2. Mal loves his broccoli, 3. Downy Woodpecker At Bethel, Muskoka, Ontario, 4. Blue ice cave at the Jostedalsbreen glacier, 5. Alton Brown, 6. Cosmopolitan, 7. 20061212-vs-6536, 8. molta cioccolata tapioca, 9. Old and wise, 10. Life, 11. Quiet*, 12. TLHS1

Use Mosaic Maker to make your own.

All for now...have a great weekend!