Smug Marrieds: Name Your Elements

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I've spent the better part of this weekend reading The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin. I'm reading it on my iPad, so I find myself highlighting sections and taking online notes, mainly because I can. (I rarely go back and read the passages I've outlined, but hold faith that someday the habit may come in handy.)

Inspired by Rubin to do a better job of connecting and engaging the loved ones in my life, I decided to start a conversation based on a paragraph in the book that resonated with me. When neither cat seemed keen on analyzing the finer points of the passage, I went in search of Blair.

"Let me read this to you," I said flopping down on the bed. Blair was barely visible behind a mound of shirts he was ironing. (I'm a wife, not a maid. Don't judge me.) "This is about why it's important to grow and try new things."

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Smug Marrieds: Blairism

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Earlier this evening: We're sitting in a booth across from each other, eating Chinese food. There is a large red scratch on the side of my nose.

Blair: What happened to your nose?

Dena (self-consciously touching the red mark): I accidentally scratched myself.

Blair: Sugah, you gotta be careful when you're picking your nose. You could hurt yourself. 

Oh. My. God. I spit out a fortune cooking, laughing.

Cheers,

Dena

Looking For A Few Good Halloween Ideas

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My nephew's revenge for the vegetarian meal I made to counteract all the sugarYikes! The spooky season is upon us and Blair and I have yet to decide what our theme will be this year. We take great pride in being "that house" that always has the cheesy Halloween theme going on. In years past we've done everything from hauling in tons of sand to make a beach for a pirate theme to creating a Frankenstein monster operated by pulleys that sat up when kids approached, scaring them to death. (God, I love this holiday! Only time I can be intentionally mean to kids and no one calls me on it.) Headless horseman. Probably my favorite costume we've ever done.

Given our shared love of the The Walking Dead tv series, I'm leaning toward a zombie theme. But I'm open to suggestion. The only thing we won't do is political (scary as that may be). We like to keep it traditional with monsters and blood, eyeballs and gore. 

Thoughts?

Cheers,

Some years we keep it sweet...Dena

Hinson Lake 24-Hour Run: The Recap

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Number of hours on course: 16 hours, 33 minutes

Number of laps completed: 41

Total mileage: 62

I started crying around lap 37. 

Not an all out sobbing. More just a few silent tears streaking down my face combined with some sniffles. By this time it was around 11 pm and Blair was with me on the course, wearing the headlamp so I could see where I was going. My left ankle felt like it was broken and my right hip flexor, for which I'd received a massage around 7 pm when it locked on me, was acting up again. Soreness I could take, but my ankles felt... scary bad. Like maybe I was doing permanent damage to them. It had taken me 40 minutes to complete the last mile and a half lap. I was so done. 

Beside me in the dark, Blair either couldn't see that I was crying or--and this was brilliant on his part if he did know--he ignored it. "You're fine," he said, over and over. "You've got this. Keep going." 

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