Long week

Especially since it's only Tuesday!  We picked a bad week to move.  I have two parent nights at school, one was Monday, one is Wednesday, those go from 6 - 9.  Track practice is still going strong every day from 3:00/3:30 - 4:30/5:00, and we have a meet on Thursday at 4.  Maybe this weekend we'll actually be able to get more done.  At least we have the kitchen all unpacked and put away.  Now if only we had the other rooms squared away too.  Unfortunately, we don't have a bedroom set yet, so we can't move anything up to the bedroom, which is causing the rest of the rooms to be a mess of half unpacked boxes.  We also need a desk to get the extra room set up as an office.  Hopefully though, there will be more time next week, since it's V A C A T I O N week.  Woo woo! Which also means the marathon is on Monday.  I'm not sure if we're going to watch it.  Stanley Steamer is coming to clean the floors on Monday, so we might not get out there.  I'm undecided if I want to watch it anyways.  Boston is the one marathon that I really want to run someday, and preferably on my own accord, not under fundraising.  Speaking of marathons, I put my name in for the Chicago lottery.  I figured I might as well see what happens, and if I get in, then good for me.  If not, oh well, not a big deal.  But it could be fun to run Chicago.  While we're on the topic of running too, the track team is showing significant improvements.  All the girls on the long distance side have gotten their mile times down under 10:00. Two of the girls are down under 7:00.  Seems like my training is really working, so I'm happy with that.  I feel a win coming on in the future.
Obviously there's still a lot to do and very little time, so updating is going to be slow for a few more days/weeks, but I swear I'll get back on it when I start running more again.  Which I should probably do soon considering there's a half coming up at the end of May.  It would be nice to get my time down to a 1:50.  We'll see.

And now, please enjoy these pictures from the closing.

Just left the lawyer's office, after waiting 3+ hours for the sellers to Fed-Ex the signed papers over. 

First night in the new house

Still undecided on whether or not I like this picture.

Moving on up...

As long as everything goes fine tomorrow morning, we should be moving by the afternoon.  I say should be, because you just never know.  This whole closing thing seems to be a bit more difficult to nail down than it should be.  The sellers don't seem to be on top of their game and the whole townhouse thing is making it more complicated than it would be if it were just a single family house.  Not to mention we just got the final numbers today around noon, which left very little time for gettig cashier's checks/money transfers.  Thank goodness the track meet was cancelled and I was able to miss practice to get that done.  I would have felt bad skipping a meet, but since it was postponed, I figured the house stuff took top priority this time.  Sorry track team.  I promise I'll be back on Saturday.
Packing seems to be mostly done, except for things that Ryan doesn't want to put into boxes, because he thinks it will be easier to move out of them.  I don't know, I'm not a professional packer, so I'm going along with it, because really, who cares.  It's not like we can't come back here for our other stuff if necessary.  Plus, there's an issue with the gas being turned on at the new house, so we might have to come back here to shower for the weekend anyways.  Because apparently whenever we move, we can't just move into a place with a ready and working shower, there always has to be a problem.  Now that everything is basically all set though, I just keep thinking of all the things we need to replace.  It seems to be a never ending list at this point.  Anyways, moving will keep me busy for a few days, then there's meetings and parent's nights at work, so who knows when the next time I'll get to update will be.  Not like I follow a schedule for updating anyways, as you all know.  But, until next time, here are some fantastic new pictures to enjoy.

Mostly packed

Medal selfie before they got packed away

More posters

I'm not sure how I feel about this whole poster situation.  By which I mean, I'm not sure if I like this one or not.

Long distance workouts....because it needed decorations

Selfies with Nala.  We ran 2 miles and then I dropped her off so I could finish off 1 mile of hill repeats.  It was miserable.  Awesomely miserable.  

True story

And my old friends the three hitchhiking ghosts.

Spring-ish

The past two days have been nice in the weather department.  I mean, nice enough to be outside without freezing your face off, so that's Spring in my book.  I've been taking the track team out for neighborhood runs when we're not at the actual track so I'm glad the weather is cooperating.  Today I tried to take the girls for a 2 mile run. Key word there is definitely tried.  Out of the 20 girls that are running long distance, 1 made it the entire 2 miles with me.  Yes. ONE.  She managed to come from behind in the middle of the first mile, catch up to the front, and keep up until the end.  What happened to the other 19 you ask?  Well. 3 said they got lost. (We ran in a full circle and then a straight out and back down the street by the high school, so you be judge of that excuse...) 10 stopped at the front of the school and eventually figured out that we were in the back and the other 4 straggled in sporadically with various excuses and two other girls must have missed the entire memo about the course because they ran the same 1.5 loop two times.  Good for them for that ambition, unfortunately, they weren't super fast at it.  At least they got in a good workout.  I was a little irritated at the girls who "didn't know what we were doing" because I felt like that was just an excuse because they didn't feel like working.  As far as I'm concerned, if you're not going to work hard at practice, don't bother wasting the time.  After all, we only have 30 uniforms available, so we're going to end up having to have a bunch of girls sit out anyways.  Just another joy of an urban school district. But, as irritating as it is to see them give up so easily, I will say this.  They keep coming back, they keep attempting the workouts, and they all did the core and the punishment workout without much complaining.  So at least they have that going for them!
Outside of track, day 2 of MCAS was today.  I think my fifth grade friends did fairly well.  It seemed like the entire fifth grade was working straight up to the end of the school day bell, so that's got to be a good sign, right? Before we started this morning I played the Rocky speech from the newest Rocky movie.  You know, the one where he talks about how "it's not how hard you hit, it's how hard you get hit and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done. How much you can take and keep moving forward...You have to be willing to take the hits..."  To the average reader it might not seem like it would have made a difference, but I am convinced it home with the one student who I was really aiming it for.  I've never seen him work as hard as he did today.  So, even if it only really inspired that one student, that's enough for me.  Tomorrow the 4th grade is doing their long write.  EEP.  But then there's no school Friday, so at leas there's that to look forward too.  I might try to get in a 6 mile run on Friday morning if possible, as long as it's not raining.  Supposedly it's going to be in the mid-50s, so that would be some ideal running weather.
Still looking for summer work, so if you or anyone you know needs a tutor, remember to stop by my website Gibbs Tutoring.  Right now I'm pretty open as far as scheduling goes, so get in while you still can!

And now some theme pictures.  This month's theme: The Haunted Mansion.  Special focus on forced perspective for buildings.  When I figure that out, I'll add the actual mansion to the background of the first picture.

Beware of hitchhiking ghosts - Phineas, Ezra, and Gus.

Haunted Mansion wall-paper design. So cool.