Motivation Monday: Avoiding the Plague

A run in Rhode Island, February 2014

Today is Day 78 of the run streak. Last week I took advantage of warm weather and ran outside several days, getting a few 5K days in there. But mostly the streak has been one mile at a time. This morning we met some friends for a hike. I started out ahead of everyone to run a mile then meet up with the group. Mike carried an overcoat and over-pants for me because even after the run I was going to need another layer to stay warm on a hike. Yesterday I ran a mile on the treadmill then drove to farmers’ market instead of running or walking the mile to the market like I usually do. I discovered a couple weeks ago that the running to the market part isn’t so bad in sub-freezing temperatures but walking around and shopping at the market in my sweaty running clothes when it's that cold is not amazing. (It really sucks, honestly.)

I haven’t felt great for a few days. I’ve had cold symptoms that never seem to fully materialize into an actual cold or flu. As long as I don’t have a fever, though, I’ll continue to run. When my body tells me to sleep, I’m sleeping. I’m trying to drink a lot of water and eat fruits and vegetables for vitamins. But there was a day I ate nothing but muffins and I’m okay with that. (That was probably my sickest day, when I slept from one in the afternoon until seven the next morning.)

It's that time of year when New Year's resolutions, or new healthy habits, or whatever you want to call them, become endangered so soon after trying to make them because of the winter weather and all that comes with it. It's so much easier to run through the winter in San Diego than in Rhode Island. I'm going to listen to my body and rest when I need it. I'm going to listen to my experience that tells me not to brave icy sidewalks because I've fallen twice in the past year (and not even on ice, just regular sidewalks) and each fall took me out of running for a couple weeks. I can't make those decisions for anyone else, though. It's a time to get creative with treadmills and home workouts. It's a time to invest in some good gear in order to stay warm if you choose to go outside. And, really, I can't over-emphasize the importance of some good rest.

Leaving Bamako Behind

I’m going to start with a sequential order of events then try to sort out my feelings. It’s been hard for me to sit down and write this post but it is something I want to get down before I forget everything.

The week before Thanksgiving there was a terrorist attack at a hotel in Bamako. The hotel is near our house there and the attack not only changed the dynamic in the neighborhood but the entire security profile in Mali.

On December 1, the State Department put an authorized departure order in place, which is a sort of voluntary evacuation for nonessential employees and family members of all State employees in Bamako. But if you leave the country for any other reason during that time, you are not allowed back in until the order lifts.

Mike and I decided we would stay in Bamako until school let out for the Christmas holiday, then, after a family vacation, Muffin and I would return to the U.S. while Mike returned to his job in Bamako.

We had a wonderful safari vacation in Kenya. Mike and I were happy that Muffin’s last memories of Africa were fun adventures with animals, not being stressed out over bad guys in Mali.

On New Year’s Eve, we separated in Nairobi airport. Muffin and I landed in Boston the next day; Mike landed in Bamako.

The authorized departure is ongoing but even when it ends, Muffin and I will not be returning to Bamako. We’ll be staying in the U.S. until Mike’s assignment ends later this year.

It’s hard. We arrived to shocking winter cold with just a couple of suitcases and had to figure out some logistics, like winter clothes for Muffin, right away. There are loads of good things, however. We have a house, and a car, and lots of support from family and friends. Muffin is back in the same class she was in before we left for Mali, which helped her transition. The dust allergies we’d been suffering from in Bamako cleared up within a couple day of leaving there, so our physical health improved greatly. We no longer have the stress of living in the security situation in Mali.

But it’s still hard. We left with so little time to really process it. We were so sick and stressed out in the last couple of weeks in Bamako that it became difficult to say proper good-byes to all our friends, especially with all the stress of Christmas parties and other seasonal social obligations. I broke down toward the end and couldn’t really leave the house. I was so sick I couldn’t hold a conversation without coughing uncontrollably, which made me anxious and self-conscious. Muffin was visibly worried about bad guys all the time and we felt horrible about our decision to move the whole family to Mali in the first place.

We arrived to a house we’d bought but never lived in. I’ve slowly been bringing it together, but there are still days where I just sit and stare instead of put shelving together and measure closet space. I always have culture shock when I return to the U.S. but it seems doubly difficult this time. Some days all I can do is the minimum to get Muffin to school and provide decent meals. I’m running as often as I can, which is something. It’s been almost impossible to write, though. The seven hundred words or so of this post are the most I’ve written in weeks.

Friends and family members would ask me about what it was really like in Bamako during and after the attack. Eventually I caught on to a sort of glazed-over, yet slightly horrified, look in their eyes. I'd forget that I'd lived with the Bamako story for so long that it wasn't shocking to me anymore, it had become the status quo. But events like that and living in conditions like that aren't normal for most people in the U.S.

Last week I felt like I started to wake up from a fog. I feel healthier, mentally and physically. Muffin and I miss Mike but we all know this was the best decision for our family and we'll be together again soon.

So that's where we are now. We're in this weird limbo. We're waiting for Mike to come home safely. We're guilty about being healthy and eating good food. Most of our belongings are in Bamako and we can't get it back until Mike's assignment is up. I'm already tired of the U.S. and want to go back to Africa. I'm trying to get by with what I've got.

Shopping Small

As everyone in the United States is gearing up for cold weather, parades, football games, turkey, and shopping, I’m watching my friends who are artists, writers, and small business owners gear up for their busy time of year. Here are some of the Rhode Island artists and small business owners that I know and love. Some of them have online stores, some of them you might just have to go meet in person and see how wonderful they really are.

Rick Devin
Thompson's Flowers and Antiques
Amy Kristin Photography
Spoonlove Bracelets

We can’t all shop local, I understand that. And I am among the zillions of people who do love the convenience of a site like Amazon. So consider books from indie authors and small presses. You’re still helping an individual. I’ve compiled a few of my favorites from this year at my Amazon store. (Amazon Affiliates link.) 

You don’t have to wait for Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, or Snooze in Your PJs All Day Sunday (that’s a thing). You can click over to Facebook or Etsy or Amazon right now if you want to. Check the hours of your local coffee shop and an independent gift shop and pop in any time to spread some holiday cheer. They will appreciate it and you’ll know exactly where your money is going.

"Sweaty, Gross, and Super Hungry"

That's what I said to Mike one morning when he leaned in for a hug and a kiss before he left for work. I was in the midst of my run streak and had just returned from the great outdoors. It was the peak of Malian summer, sometime in April or May. Every morning I was sweaty, gross, and super hungry. Mike laughed that morning and suggested it as the title of my memoir when I eventually wrote about the run streak.

I started on Thanksgiving last year and ran at least one mile every day for 199 days, ending in mid-June. I ran in Mali -- in Bamako and Segou. I ran in Paris. I ran in Salzburg. I ran on the pedestrian path between the hotels and the airport in Munich. (Or was it Frankfurt? I don't remember now where our twenty-four hour layover was.) I ran in West Palm Beach and South Beach. I ran along Ocean Road in Narragansett. I ran by myself most days but with sometimes with Mike or other friends.

I ran on treadmills sometimes. I'd brought one with us to Mali to get me through running during the worst weather here -- the dust storms of winter followed shortly by the intense heat of summer. The treadmill shorted out the electricity in the entire downstairs of the house every time I plugged it in, and by the time someone was able to fix that problem, I'd already run through the worst weather outdoors. The dust storm days when my lungs hurt after ten minutes outside. Long runs in the May heat that I broke up by running two miles to the gym, running on the treadmill under a full-blast air conditioner, and running two miles home.

I learned that I can run one mile under almost any conditions. Bad weather, minor injuries, mild fevers, after too much cider and chèvre-stuffed galette for lunch at a Breton café in Paris. I learned that eventually one mile wasn't enough unless I was extremely tired or pressed for time and most days I was going out for at least two.

I was always hungry. Even the low-mileage days left me ravenous and I ate like crazy. Yet, I started to fit into clothes that hadn't fit me in a few months (a few years, even, after my winter hibernation in Rhode Island).

Until one injury stopped me. We were back in the U.S. I was eating like crazy because so many foods were available that we don't have in Mali. I was running every day but pain was causing me to slow down and limit myself to less than two miles. I could have run slowly through the injury, limiting myself to one ten-minute mile each day. But I'd planned to run a half marathon with some friends, friends who I hadn't seen since we'd run a half marathon together the previous year. I ended the streak so I could get some real rest. A week later I ran with my friends and came within ten minutes of my half marathon PR, which I was thrilled with considering the horrible two-hour nonstop downpour we ran through combined with still nursing the injury.

I belonged to a handful of run streak groups online. Some people congratulated me on knowing when to end the streak and concentrate on having fun with my friends instead. Others sniffed at my decision, saying they would have chosen to keep the streak alive and forego the half marathon. Whatever. I made the right choice for me at the time. (And the people who supported my decision are people I'm still in touch with regularly even though I'm not streaking any more.)

Even though I kept running regularly, I did not go back to streaking. Yet I was still in the U.S. eating as if I were still streaking and training for a half marathon. By the end of our vacation, some of those favorite clothes no longer fit.

Several months later, some of those clothes still don't fit and I know that all I have to do is commit to running one mile every day again if I want them to. Without even really thinking about it I recently found myself running every day for several days in a row -- a week, maybe 8 or 9 days, I didn't really pay attention. I felt healthy and strong again. I also felt like there's not enough food in Mali to keep me fed through another streak and we don't have plans to get to Europe or the U.S. any time soon.

But aside from the health, strength, and fitting into of favorite clothes, I also found I was extremely productive when I started every morning with a run, regardless of it being ten minutes or ten miles. I wrote my novel during those run streak days along with a number of other projects. (I'm thinking I should try to write off Strava Premium on my taxes because of my productivity during the streak.)

I'm going to take it one day at a time. I ran yesterday. I ran today. I'll probably run tomorrow but I'll make that decision in the morning.

Time to Clean Up

Last year was a year of change, transitioning from India to the United States. This is going to be my year of cleaning and purging while we stay put in one house for a while. I got a good start during the packing and unpacking last summer and fall but now that the holidays are over it's time to get back on that project.

I went through my stash fabrics and I used this tutorial for a tree skirt for the Christmas tree, this one for a scrap skirt for Muffin (photo to come once I've completed the whole outfit), and this one for a Lego bag. I have a couple winter clothes projects planned, for which I had to buy some new fabric, but once they're done it's back to the stash for spring and summer sewing.

I've put a number of books up on PaperBackSwap.com and have resisted the urge to use all my new credits to receive a bunch of replacement books.

I've been cleaning out my closet. On Friday I put a ton of clothes up on Freecycle.com and by the end of the day half of it had been picked up. Anything that's not picked up by the time Muffin goes back to school on Tuesday will go into one of the many donation bins that we pass on the drive between home and school.

I gave a little TLC to the vacuum cleaner that was put into storage in 2008 and not used since then. The filters are supposed to be washable, but they weren't washed before going into storage (whoops!) and they are beyond washing now. Black and Decker no longer makes them but still has some for sale on their site so in lieu of buying a new vacuum I bought new filters so I can delay a vacuum impulse purchase and research a good one.

I realized that now that I'm driving around in winter with a kid in the car, I really should get things checked out in a timely manner because I really, really don't want to break down in bad weather with my little companion. On that note the car is going into the mechanic shop again today.

I joined a gang... of other moms who are training for the same half marathon that I am in March. Once the kiddos are all back in school we hope to start running together again. I need that. My lungs are all dusty from the cleaning. I need fresh air on a regular basis but without motivation I won't go outside when it's cold.

Right now it feels like my full-time job is to get ready for the next move and whether I'm cleaning out my closet or getting the car fixed, everything contributes to that goal. We don't even know when the move will be or where it will be to but it is always looming. I'm still unpacking boxes from the last move. I'm making trips to the dumpster every day. I'm spending time in various stores trying to decipher the best storage solutions for things like all my stash fabrics and sewing supplies so it's more organized for the next move. I'm reducing clothing and toys and books. We put every single DVD and CD into sleeves in binders and threw out all the plastic cases, reducing our next move by several boxes and pounds.

It's going to be a long, cold winter and I resolve to put my indoor time to good use. 

How to R2-D2

This year for Halloween we had a three year old who wanted to be R2-D2, accompanied by a Princess Leia mommy and a Han Solo daddy. Leia and Han seemed easy. Buy, borrow, or steal appropriate clothing and get a fairly popular wig. R2 was going to be more of a challenge because I wanted something more charming than store bought. I searched Google Images and pinned to Pinterest. I came up with a plan:

We spent an afternoon at a craft store trying to find just the right materials: foam, felt, glue, and something to craft the headpiece from. For the headpiece we ended up with a plastic army helmet glued to the inside of a salad bowl, both from a dollar store.

We crafted.

I bought a full Princess Leia costume, complete with hair-buns wig and ended up hating everything about it. So I Freecycled it and started from scratch, changing my concept to Hoth Leia. White yoga pants on sale for $5 and a beautiful white vest and snow boots that I'll wear this winter anyway paired with a long-hair wig that my mom helped braid. Han had to buy a henley shirt and black vest, supplying his own pants and boots. We bought $5 blasters and decided to keep them fake looking by not painting them black.

Star Wars family complete!

This was Muffin's first Halloween in the United States so we had to go the extra mile for her. Although, she's only three so the extra mile didn't have to be too far. We drove to a nearby neighborhood where a friend of ours was having a small party. We trick-or-treated at about five houses then went to our friend's for pizza and "grown-up" treats. Muffin ate too much candy but she didn't have school the next day so we could have a later night than usual and manage her the next day without too much difficulty. (Friday night she slept for twelve hours.)

I'm going to skip over Thanksgiving this year -- dinner is at my aunt's house and Mike most likely won't be home for it anyway -- and jump right into Muffin's First U.S. Christmas.

Rock 'n' Roll Providence Half Marathon

Well, I did it. With so little training, I decided to show up on the morning of the Rock 'n' Roll Providence Half Marathon to see what would happen. I was going to take it slow and easy. I planned on walk breaks. I toed the line, I started an easy shuffle. And before I knew it, mile after mile was ticking by and miles four through eight were each done at a ten-minute pace without me even thinking about it. I'd told Mike to expect me to finish in two-and-a-half to three hours but I texted him after mile seven, then at miles ten and eleven with my progress.

Mike and Muffin made it just in time to see me finish in two hours and fifteen minutes.

I felt fine during the run. I kept telling myself to slow down and take it easy. I told myself to enjoy the sights and the music, and I did enjoy those things. I smiled at some of the signs and spectators along the way. I stopped to use the bathroom. I stopped to drink some Gatorade. I stopped to take a few snapshots. I kept thinking of all my laps around KBR Park in Hyderabad and all my early mornings running before the heat of the day set in. I didn't want those laps and hours to go to waste. I didn't get to run the two half marathons I'd trained for in Hyderabad but even though I may have lost the physical training from those runs, the mental training was still with me. I thought of getting to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro and about being in labor for nearly thirty hours. Running a half marathon was way, way easier than those things.

I've been paying for it since I crossed the line, however. I've hardly been able to walk and Tylenol has been my best friend. Bed time last night was the first time since Sunday that I fell asleep pain-free.

There is a movement among people who want to run a marathon to use a "training-free" training plan. If you want to run that one race and never run again, I say, sure, why not, but you're not doing yourself any favors by not giving yourself an inkling of how much pain you'll be in afterward. I wouldn't recommend anything like it unless you really know your body well. I knew I could do the distance; I've done it before at walking and at running paces. I had an idea of how much it was going to hurt afterward and I knew when to back off to make sure I didn't get injured along the way. I would not recommend this no-training strategy to someone who has never done long-distance running or racing before.

If going to the mall is U.S. consumer culture overload, then running a big race like a Rock 'n' Roll event is the running equivalent. I haven't raced in the United States in a while; the last one I did was a much smaller race, so seeing all the gear and technical running clothes on people who are more casual runners, not elites and not sponsored athletes, was kind of a shock. I have to say people run with way too much freakin' gear. And I saw a lot of evidence that it didn't really help much. Yes, I carried my phone with me with a GPS app running. I run with my phone every single time in case I need to make an emergency phone call. But I don't care about the best tech tees and running skirts. I saw people with Garmin watches, ipods, and water belts -- lots of people with all three -- and they were getting tangled up in their earbud wires; GPSes were beeping with low memories and low batteries; water bottles were popping out of fueling belts when people took off long-sleeved shirts. All those distractions just slow you down, possibly more so than if you just ran without it all. To me, too much stuff only leads to more things that could go wrong. The running isn't that hard; I think people get caught up in the self-imposed difficulties brought on by all the gear. As far as commercial industries go, the running industry is starting to annoy me almost as much as the wedding and baby industries. But that's all I'm going to say about that for now.

I'm going to continue running my own races from now on and not worry about the people around me.

Watching the race was fun and all, but she was really impress
with the free chocolate milk and bananas afterward.

"Let me explain..."

"No, it will take too long. Let me sum up." --Indigo Montoya, The Princess Bride

The fog of moving is lifting. Five weeks ago we left Hyderabad. We spent a week at one parent's house and a weekend at another before moving into our hotel room.

We got new driver's licenses. I had to take a written test and a road test. The road test examiner clearly thought I was a waste of his time; he could have been playing video games on his phone rather than making an experienced driver take a token run around the test course.

We found a place to live and we move into it in one week. We found a preschool for Muffin. I am eagerly awaiting the start of school after Labor Day; Muffin is not. I'm too tired to argue with her about it. I want to get her settled in the new house and new neighborhood first. We've been visiting the nearby playground. I'm setting up play dates with children from her new school so she sees some familiar faces on the first day. Hopefully all those things will help her a bit.

Our first shipment of stuff arrived last week, which was mostly toys for Muffin to help her feel more at home with familiar old things in new surroundings. This morning our furniture from California that was packed into storage in 2008, before we left for Burundi, arrived. We're expecting one more shipment from India and a shipment from a storage facility in Europe to arrive within the next few weeks. I'm not worried about the slow pace. I have no where to put stuff other than my dad's garage, which is now almost full. A couple weeks between shipments means I have time to sort through things rather than be overwhelmed and do nothing. As the old furniture from California was loaded into the garage this morning I was making a mental note of what can go up on Craigslist or Freecycle right away. Mike's away at training and won't be back until after we've moved into the new house. I'm hoping to have the house mostly set up by the time he comes home so the weekend will be a real vacation for him, spending time taking Muffin to the beach and playground, rather than shopping or unpacking boxes. 

And that's about it. I've been working, both paid and volunteer, whenever Muffin takes naps or watches Sesame Street. I've hardly run at all but I'm getting back into it.

I'm starting to feel like I might have some control over life in the near future.

I'm Losing the Battle Against Long Pants

Muffin and I are in a battle of who could care less (to quote Ben Folds).

 Her school has a dress code policy of girls wearing leggings or shorts under dresses and skirts. I’m fine with this; Muffin spends a lot of time in the sandbox and leggings provide extra protection from sand getting into places it shouldn’t. With the Hyderabadi style of khurtas worn over pants or leggings, Muffin has embraced the the local fashion and wears dresses with leggings and sometimes even wears jeans under her dresses. I’m okay with all that. I want her to have confidence in choosing her clothes and expressing herself.

Here’s my problem. Summer is upon us. It’s near 90 degrees (32 C) when I drop her off at school in the mornings and pushing 95 degrees (35 C) by the time I pick her up. Each day seems warmer than the previous day. Muffin is insisting on wearing ankle-length leggings or pants every day and she is a little sweatball by the time school is over. She won’t wear shorts. She won’t even consider knee-length or calf-length capri pants. Long pants, Mommy, long pants.

Last week I told her that it was the last week for wearing long pants. Starting on Monday, she would need to wear short pants to school. I have lost that battle every single morning this week. On Monday, once she was at school, I reduced her collection of leggings from about ten pairs to three. I showed her! Then I felt a bad about feeling vengeful toward a preschooler, so I took out a bunch of fabric and patterns to plan a new summer wardrobe for her; this week I've cut out a few items for her already. At Mike’s suggestion, I’m also going to trim several inches off the leggings and sneak them back onto her shelves to see if she notices they are shorter.

She’s rotated through those three pairs of leggings every day this week and today I’d had it again. We hadn’t even left the house yet and we were sweating already. I told her if she wanted to wear long pants she had to put them on herself. If she wanted my help, I was going to put shorts on her. And what do you know? She battled with a pair of leggings for a few minutes, threw them aside, picked up a pair of jeans, and put them on. I lost again. (And damn, is she smart!)

Today I’m going to hold off work on her Easter dress in order to chop and hem all of her pants into shorter lengths. It’s not as if they’re going to fit her next winter and we’re moving from Hyderabad summer to U.S. summer so other than a couple pairs of jeans and sweatpants (for chilly beach evenings in Rhode Island), she doesn’t need anything but summer clothes.

Should I be more flexible and just let her wear the damn leggings and be sweaty? Is she wearing them because she knows it annoys me so much?

Motivation Monday: Sleeping In Edition

Ha, I wish that was me these days.

I've been having so much trouble getting out of bed but my schedule is such that I'm getting treadmill runs and yoga sessions in later in the afternoon. And on the weekends we go out for runs as a family a little later in the morning. This is not how I envision myself as a runner. But I'm getting some miles in so I guess this is how it needs to be right now.

I'm signed up for two 5Ks in February but we might go away for a long weekend and skip one of them. I'm keeping my Providence half marathon in mind every time I hit the treadmill. I'm working on that base mileage, slowly but surely.

And I do mean "slowly" some days; we did over a mile at Muffin's pace on Sunday before she acquiesced to riding in the stroller. She did a sixteen-minute mile, but it took her over thirty minutes to run that mile. Lots of stops to play with dirt, drink water, and take her shoes off and put them back on.

A friend from my high school cross-country team invited me to join his Tough Mudder team in August. It sounds like fun but I don't know what the timing will be like with our arrival in the U.S. I'm keeping it in the back of my mind though, for once we know our schedule.

Motivation Monday -- HBBC Final Chapter

It's the end of HBBC. I didn't exactly end on a bang. I ended with a decent mileage week, compared to the previous weeks. I ended with my dental thing fully healed and with not actually getting sick even though I feel like I'm continuously just on the edge of having a cold. I ended with not taking advantage of cooler weather when I should have because the days are getting warmer now. I ended by signing up for two months of yoga classes (starting tomorrow), signing up for a 5K here in Hyderabad in February and a half marathon in Providence in September. Training for the half marathon begins a couple weeks before we move from India to the States, so I'm sure it won't be hectic at all. Until then, I'm working on base mileage.

I'm working on my One Little Word for the year in lieu of a resolution. I'm not going to share my word, but it's helped me through some tough times already. India has been kicking my butt lately and oddly, working out and running have been relatively simple and a constant, reliable thing. If I choose to relive some of the negative stuff, it will be in other posts, at other times.

Thirteen points this final week, for mileage and Facebook check-ins.

To cheer myself up, I cleaned out my closet and replaced some of the clothing with new running clothes, specifically, shorts that I can wear when we set foot in the States this summer.

You can see other HBBC roundups at JillConyers.com.

Motivation Monday

My Pinterest guilty inspiration for the week.

I’ve been slacking in my training. I have a ton of excuses… Mike was out of town, our housekeeper/baby-sitter needed time off, Muffin’s school was closed, I just didn’t feel like getting up early some mornings. I even skipped a long run a couple weeks ago. I have a mental block about going over ten miles. Part of it is mom guilt. My long runs are taking longer and Muffin is waking up immediately after I leave in the mornings. Saturday mornings are long and exhausting for everyone. Part of it is boredom with my running routes, but I have few choices. I’m trying to enjoy just being outside, but that doesn’t do it for me every day.

On Friday I was not running, not doing homework, and not eating properly to fuel for a Saturday long run. I was reading stupid inspirational quotes on Pinterest. But those stupid quotes got me up and out of the house Saturday morning because I felt guilty about wasting all that time and then not doing anything about it. Well, I did something. Whatever gets me out the door, right?

Instead of throwing in the towel on running, I think I’m going to sign up for a second half marathon, extending my training into September. Racing opportunities don’t come to Hyderabad often so I want to take advantage of as many races as possible to keep me motivated. As long as I don’t plan on breaking any records – which I don’t for the rest of my time here – I can plod along for thirteen miles twice, four weeks apart.

I’ve started up my online master’s classes again but I’m still finding some time for fun reading. I’m reading a lot of running and nutrition books, but I do love hiking adventures as well. I haven’t yet done my annual reading of Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods but last month I read both Up: A Mother and Daughter’s Peakbagging Adventure and Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail. I’d love to do some hiking adventure like that some day. But for the time being, I’m planning on Muffin and me and 25 Walks in Rhode Island. My parents had the book when I was growing up; I ordered a used copy from Amazon for about five dollars so I can start thumbing through it for ideas.

Which brings me to my next piece of news. Next year, we will be taking a short hiatus from overseas life and spending a year in Rhode Island. I think Muffin and I can handle twenty-five walks during that time. She loves the outdoors and I’m looking forward to sharing my childhood stomping grounds with her. I’m also looking forward to walks on the beach, road races, kayaking, and all the comforts of home. I really wanted to stay overseas longer before heading back to the United States, but Rhode Island for a year won’t be so bad.

While I'm out running the city here and feeling down, I'm trying to focus on my twenty-five walks with Muffin next year.

Operation Short Shorts

We are still enjoying our U.S. vacation. We've been in Rhode Island for some time now, where Operation Short Shorts has not been as successful as it was in Palm Beach. Call me acclimated to the Hyderabad weather, because 65 degrees and cloudy has me grabbing my running leggings or my jeans.

The weather has been great for my running times, however. Mike and I ran a 10K road race last Saturday and I finished in 55 minutes. I was hoping for under an hour so I was pleased with that. All my easy running days on my half-marathon training schedule have been less-than-10-minute miles, which is surprising to me because I was struggling to hit that mark in Hyderabad. I'm glad I'm doing the first few weeks of training here, where I can get a good base going and be motivated to continue with it when we return to Hyderabad.

We've been ticking off our list of vacation things mixed with shopping for things we can't get in Hyderabad. Test-driving new jogging strollers, eating gluten-free pizza from real pizza parlors, retail therapy at Target, going to movies. Muffin has been getting a lot of time with grandparents, aunts, and uncles and more family is flying into town this weekend.

The house we are renting doesn't have internet and has 10-channel basic cable, which was charming for about two days. After a week of damp, foggy weather, with a couple days of downpours, staying inside is becoming much less charming. We are getting outside at least once a day, but we are not spending full days at the beach or anything like that. We are spending coffee breaks each morning at the nearby Dunkin Donuts with wi-fi. We are getting a lot of reading done at night after Muffin goes to bed.

At this moment Muffin is taking her first real nap in days; Mike volunteered to stay home while I spend some alone time with a hot chocolate and Google Reader at DD. Some of the most relaxing moments of vacation have been exactly the same as relaxing moments at home.

Number One License Plate

It was about a year ago that I saw a license plate with just the number one in Rhode Island. It was the governor's car. In Rhode Island, spotting low numbers is a sport and it's the mission of many Rhode Islanders to not only spot as low a number as possible, but to get a plate with a low number. Before seeing number one, the lowest I'd seen was seven.

And now, one year later, I learned the same thing about Andhra Pradesh, the state we live in here. We saw plate number one in our neighborhood and Mike asked our driver about it. It most likely belongs to one of the richest families in the state. There's a lottery and people pay thousands of dollars to get the license plates with the lowest numbers. It's good luck to have certain numbers, and there's good money in selling good luck.

However, our driver said, he thinks the most money ever paid for a license plate was for the tag "AK 47". That's not an auspicious number. It's just cool.

At the Steak House

Yes, you heard me correctly. Steak in Hyderabad. Tender, juicy, perfectly seasoned grilled tenderloin. Decent, and even passable, steak is difficult to find here. Hindus and Muslims don't eat a lot of beef and the cows aren't raised for eating purposes. The few times we've bought beef to roast or grill ourselves it's been tough and no amount of pounding or marinating has made it tender enough to be enjoyable. And for some reason I always think of buying a steak for Friday night dinner, but you can't buy beef on Fridays (all the Muslim butcher shops are closed).

Since we arrived our driver has been pointing out Chef Inam's Steak House to me every time we pass it and one night Mike and our neighbor stopped there on the way home from work to pick up some take-away. Mike met Chef Inam, tried the steak, and has been insisting we get back there right away. Inam lived in the United States and took culinary classes at Johnson and Whales (Yay Rhode Island!) and has brought his American steak-grilling skills back to India. On Friday night I packed up Muffin, we went to pick up Mike at work, and we went at Chef Inam's for a steak.

This is not a steak house like you'll find in the United States and I can see why so many expats get their steak for take-away. It's a little hole-in-the-wall with a couple tables and plastic chairs. Inam grills on the street in front of the facade. There's a cooler full of sodas and water. It's a dive. But we pulled out our hand sanitizer and ate there anyway.

It was worth it. Mike got a French-style peppercorn-encrusted steak and I had what Inam calls his Boston steak, covered with herbs and English mustard. They were perfectly cooked (rare for Mike, medium rare for me), tender, and deliciously seasoned.

We took Muffin outside to watch the grilling. She was fascinated. We even gave her a few bits of meat to chew on. She loved it until she got a peppercorn. She was getting tired by then, so instead of her spitting-out yucky face, she screamed. Luckily the place was getting full of men talking and laughing loudly so no one else could hear her. We paid the bill and made a quick getaway.

Speaking of the bill, the steaks were about five or six dollars each and the serving was big enough to fill Mike and for me to eat half and bring the rest home.

Don't let Muffin's reaction deter you from Chef Inam's Steak House. She's just a baby. And we're the stupid parents who gave her spicy peppercorns, then stopped to take a picture of it.

Another Packout

Hooray! We recently found out that we are authorized another small packout from our vacation location in Rhode Island to Mike's training location in D.C. This solves our problem of how to get everything to D.C. But it also means quite a bit of work in figuring out what to put in this shipment and what will fit in the car. (Our previous plan was to rent a trailer and shove everything in without thinking about it too much.) We've had a rough couple of nights with the baby, but with movers arriving on Friday morning -- hopefully well ahead of any hurricanes that may be headed our way -- we are powering through the organization of crap.

As it's the last week of summer vacation, we're also trying to do all the summery things one last time, plus visit as many people as possible since they won't see Sophie for a while.

And we're doing it all during a heatwave and impending hurricane. Yay summer!

Family Planning

As in, how do we plan to get our family from Rhode Island to Washington, D.C., in two weeks? Coordinating trips like this seemed hard enough when it was just Mike, me, and a cat or two. Now we have a baby and all the baby stuff (plus one cat). The car seat alone takes up so much room in the car -- valuable real estate that previously went toward suitcases and cat carriers. And not only do we have to solve the problem of where all our stuff goes, but there's the little issue of babies needing to eat every once in a while. Mike and I can grab some cheese sticks and coffee and power through a drive. But the baby's not old enough for cheese sticks yet, so that won't work.

Despite not looking forward to the drive, I am looking forward to spending the fall in Washington. I've grown to enjoy a furnished apartment next to a metro stop, at least for short-term living. We'll be in a neighborhood I'm familiar with, walking distance to coffee shops, grocery stores, and some of our favorite restaurants. Favorite restaurants that deliver, which is such a nice, big-city convenience.

I'm also looking forward to all my time with the baby. Right now I still consider myself on vacation/maternity leave, but once we get to Washington I'll feel officially unemployed. It's the first time in my adult life that I won't have any sort of employment, and I'm planning on not working for a while. I don't even have any freelance projects in the pipeline and don't know when I'll start sniffing around for more. And because of our crazy schedule in advance of moving to India, I won't be going back to my online courses right away, either. Being a mom will keep me busy enough.

Argh. Just let me get to Washington. I don't have the energy to worry about moving to India quite yet.

The Lotus Flowers

My dad saw a photo in the newspaper and then Mike happened to run by. About a mile from our house there's a small water garden filled with large flowers:

(Click images to see them larger.)

My 39 weeks pregnant self walked the mile to the pond, sat on a big rock to rest, took photos, and walked the mile home. And then I slept for the rest of the day.

Speaking of the Fourth of July

One thing I love about New England is all the history. I remember being in California and seeing "old" towns that were established in the 1800s, thinking that's so young compared to where I grew up. The house I grew up in was older than many states. I've been thinking a lot lately about making sure the baby knows his or her roots, because my own family geneology is part of New England history.

My dad has traced his mother's ancestors back to Plymouth Plantation. At Plymouth they have a replica of the original settlement with actors playing the parts of the settlers and one summer we spent a day there, meeting our ancestor. (He supposedly was eventually asked to leave the settlement due to some shady business deals and being too friendly with Roger Williams, who was the founder of Rhode Island. Even though there's no evidence my ancestor resettled in Rhode Island, I still like to think I'm descended from one of the original Rhode Islanders.) My dad has found the graves of ancestors who fought in King Philip's War and the Revolutionary War.

And it's the Revolutionary War that I'm thinking of today. A couple weeks ago we braved the poison ivy and ticks to visit our war ancestors in the cemetery.

John Gould and Nicholas Gould (click photos for bigger)

We aren't the only country celebrating our independence from colonialism this week. Rwanda and Burundi are too. And July 1 through 3 is also the anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. It's a busy week, history-wise.

I guess I'll be reading a lot this summer

I moved from my hotel into our summer house on Sunday. It's a great little house. Clean and open. Big yard. Tree-lined street. One mile from the beach. Not really my taste in decor, but that's what you get with furnished rentals. The internet's a little wonky and the most basic cable doesn't come in regularly. However, the wireless feature for my Kindle works and there are plenty of places to sit quietly and read.

All those baby books are starting to feel like homework. I swear I'll get to that Labor and Delivery chapter of What to Expect as soon as I finish Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter.