Wheels

We've been learning a new dance for this semester.  It is called One Set of Wheels.  Our faithful, maroon colored car spends a lot of time driving between parking lots it seems.  We're lucky that all of us work relatively close to each other.  Jonathan works a  half a mile from our house and about the same from where I work.  Tanner goes to school about a mile from my office, so between the three of us, two bikes and a car we manage an intricate dance of schedules.

We have occasional missteps.  Like the time Jonathan forgot to pick up Georgianna, or the time two girls were sick on a day that absolutely NO one could take off of work (they ended up sleeping in the cafeteria at my office), or the time that Tanner forgot that he had classes.  So far, we've successfully rolled with the mishaps, and no one has crashed and burned.

A typical Monday sees Tanner dropping off the girls while I bike to work.  Then he swings by my work, drops off the car, grabs the bike and goes to school.  Jonathan (who usually bikes to work at about 5:00am) then walks to my work to pick up the car.  He then picks up Georgianna, Kate and Reagan.  They come to my office when I get off of work.  I take the car home, finish making the dinner that Jonathan started and then I get ready to teach (from 5:30 to 8:00) while Jonathan walks back to his work, gets his bike and rides off into the blue yonder.  Tanner bikes home if he gets out of evening classes early enough.  If not, then he calls me, and I pack the girls into the car after I finish teaching, and we go to pick Tanner up.

As you can see, this requires that we all not forget where we are suppose to go.  We've had a couple of Mondays that see me running/walking home so that I can get there in time to teach my first lesson (1.5 miles in less than 30 minutes requires a bit of jogging).  We've also had a few Mondays where Jonathan has wandered into my office wondering where the car is.  Luckily, my bike has been there and I have an extra set of keys, so he was able to bike to the car, lock up the bike and still pick up the girls.

The week does get easier as long as you count as a positive the fact that on Tuesdays and Thursdays I have to bike to work and back home because nobody can pick me up because Tanner has classes at 5:20, Jonathan works at 5:25, and I teach lessons from 5:30 to 8:00.  Yup, that's an easy day.  At least the car just goes back and forth between home, school and A&M.

All this crazy wheel turning is making me wish I had a moped, but that won't fit 3 children, will it?

Bikes, cars and mopeds

I'm surprised that most people don't consider A&M to have  "diversified" campus.  I wonder if they've ever visited the campus, because trust me we are diviersified. 

Just look at the car park.  We have BMW's both black and white.  There are rows of Mercedes in tan and gray.  We've got Harleys (mainly black, but some are definitely mixed color).  We've got mopeds imported from Japan and Italy.  With names like Suzuki and Vespa, it's obvious that our reach is worldwide.  And then we have bikes.  We've got road bikes, leisure bikes, touring bikes, mountain bikes and dirt bikes.  Of course they tend to have names like Schwinn, but still, it adds to our diversity. Plus we've got hybrid bikes as well, some of them have basket carriers and trailer attached to them which indicates a more domesticated rider.

So, all in all, I think A&M is very diversified, representing all sorts of nationalities, ethnic backgrounds and cultures.  Just take a look at the car park.

Run, baby, run...

I often wonder if people set out to be runners, or if they often, like me, just happen to fall into the habbit.  I could blame a lot of things, people and/or events for this obsession, but the truth of the matter is that I was chatting with a friend who wanted to run something called a 5k.  She asked me to run it with her.  I said, "sure as long as you don't mind me hobbling along because I am NOT a runner."

One smart phone, two 5k traing apps and four 5k's later, I'm still pretty sure I'm NOT a runner.  Granted I've figured out how to run a mile without stopping.  If you consider that I've never, ever done that, not even in my ultra-pre-child-uber-skinny years, then running a whole mile is pretty momentous.  The fact that I often run two miles without stopping is also mind staggering to me.  I express no confidence in ever being able to run something akin to a marathon, but I don't mind aiming for 6 or 7 miles.

Those types of thoughts make me wonder if I've suddenly turned into a runner.  The fact that I find running humor funny also makes me apprehensive that I might be crossing the line from normal human being to crazed fanatical running unit.  Other proof that I might be crossing the normalcy line is the fact that I want everyone to join me.  I'm looking for a family fun run so that the girls can run with me.  I'm impatiently waiting for summer so that Tanner can start training.  I try to convince non-runners and never-have-run to try it, just for little while...pleeeeeeaaaaassssseeee!

I wish I had discovered the running bug earlier in my life.  I regret missing out on all of the runs that I could have done.  Then I settle down and remind myself that I am NOT a runner.  I'm just a normal, human that likes to pound a little pavement and considers a short 1 mile run a warm up to a serious workout.