Catching Up And a Truth Game!

I haven't been around blogland much in the last week and a day or two, but I couldn't even tell you why. I haven't really been that busy, but if you give me a minute, I'm sure I can come up with a few good excuses. Let's see...

Oh! I've been cleaning my house more than usual lately as we had overnight guests last weekend (with toddlers!) and I had a friend over for lunch yesterday. Neither parties have seen the house since way before the construction even started, so of course, I had to make good first impressions. Now I'm thinking that I should schedule visitors every three or four days so that I'm compelled to maintain this level of clean and tidy. ;)

What else? I've been making an honest effort to work out again at 5-6 days a week instead of the 3-4 that I was doing in the last two months or so. I realize now how lucky I was when I could workout every day at 9 am after getting the girls off to school. Now that I need to stay home during the days to take care of my father-in-law who can't be left home alone anymore, I have to workout out every Saturday and Sunday--or at least try, and try to get in as many early morning workouts as possible before my husband leaves for work during the week. So now I'm getting up three days a week by 5:30 am to go to the gym, which is forcing me to go to bed earlier at night, which in turn cuts into my usual reading and blogging time. You'd think I'd be in such awesome shape by now... grrr.

I've still been running one morning by myself (although not this week, because I'm resting a minor shin injury), and on Saturdays either by myself, with my running partner or with my husband. Running solo isn't anywhere near as fun as running with someone and is a lot harder! My online running friend, Shawn a.k.a. doodlegirl, once told me that solo runs should count as double the miles and I totally agree! Running with my partner is great because we talk the whole time, which is a nice distraction from how hard running is. Running with my husband is great, too, because, well... he's my husband! I simply love doing stuff with him. Plus in that 45 minutes we can have a conversation without being interrupted by children or his dad. Plus he's really nice to look at. He totally lets me set the pace for the run and doesn't put any pressure on me at all. I do that all by myself. I keep thinking I'm holding him back (the fact that he falls behind or runs ahead to take pictures or video of me and then is by my side a minute later hardly out of breath kinda makes it obvious that I'm not the same level), so I'm constantly playing tug of war with myself in my head about my pace. One minute, I'm relaxed about it, and the next minute I feel inadequate that I'm slow and can't run any faster for him. I'm like that when we cycle together, too. It's such a waste of mental energy on my part. I really have to learn to let that go and just have fun. I just can't help that I still want to impress him after all these years. ;)

My husband took this photo of me on our last run together. Lovely conditions. :)

Lovely backside, too. Hence the need to run.

And then run some more.

I've also been reading, which is always good. I'm almost finished with the last Lily Bard mystery book by Charlaine Harris. I love this series and am going to be sad in about 100 pages because then I'll be finished with the series. I told Angie on twitter yesterday that Lily Bard ranks right up there with Mercy Thompson as a favorite heroine, and if you know me, that says A LOT.

So as you can see, I haven't been unusually busy after all. I think sometimes I just lose my blogging momentum out of nowhere and it takes a week or more to get back into it. I seem to be the only one who does that!

Anyway, if I haven't lost your attention by rambling on and on about myself and you're still reading this... How about we play a little game? I got tagged by Tracy last week on game about telling the truth. Or telling lies, depending on how you look at it.

I've come up with a list of 10 statements about myself. Only TWO of them are true and the rest are lies. You have to guess which two statements are true.

To make it even more fun for you, I'm going to throw in prizes!

{Which I meant to do back in December for my two year blog anniversary but I missed it. Doh!}

Anyone who guesses the correct TWO true statements about me will be entered in a drawing for one of the following prizes:

• A $7 gift card to Dunkin' Donuts or Starbucks. (winner's choice)
• A new book from TheBookDepository up to $7.
• Two gently used books from my prize shelf on Shelfari, which will be updated with more books by next week. (US or Canada only for this one)

Everyone else who leaves a guess is entered in a drawing to win a homemade book thong made by me. I'm too lazy to go take a picture of a book thong and upload it. Maybe I'll do it later. A book thong is basically a bookmark made with thin ribbon and beads at either end. It's very pretty.

Game Rules:

• Leave a comment below indicating which TWO statements you think are TRUE about me.
• Contest will close on Wednesday, March 17, 2010 by 11:59 pm EST.
• Answers will be revealed and winners announced the following day.
• Leave your email address in your comment if it is not available on your blog or blog profile so I can contact you if you win.
• Winners have three days to claim their prize before I chose another winner.

Truth or Lie?

1. I spent my summers as a kid on eastern Long Island, NY where I spent days "working" on my grandfather's fishing boat.

2. I have only been out of the country once, when I visited the Philippines with my husband the year after we were married.

3. Both of my daughters have my mother-in-law's first name as their middle name.

4. I met my husband in college when he was my TA in physics and I was his student.

5. I have never beat my husband in Scrabble.

6. The only state I have ever vacationed in twice is Utah.

7. I was on the track team in high school.

8. I have my bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and my master's degree in business management.

9. I recently reconnected with my best friend from childhood with whom I was friends when we were 4 years old for the first time on Facebook.

10. I had a part time job in high school working in my town's public library shelving books and making sure the card catalog was properly alphabetized.

(Raise your hand if you actually remember card catalogs?!)

Good luck! :)