Fun Monday-A Day in The Life of Hula

Sarah is our host this week, and she has an interesting assignment for us. Here it is:

I would like you to take your camera (or your artistic talents!) on a day tour with you. I want to know where you go, what you get up to on a “normal” day (disclaimer - it doesn’t have to be “normal”!). All the details you would consider boring!

Well, get ready to be underwhelmed Sarah, that's all I can say. My days are full, but I don't think of them as particularly interesting. I chose Saturday, since I refrain from blogging about work. Here goes:

6:15am-Alarm goes off. Normally, I sleep in until 9am on a Saturday, if possible, because I wake during the week at 5:30am, and rising early does NOT come easily to me. I need a little catch up sleep on the weekend. I rose early this Saturday because I was running in a race. It was chilly. Brrr. Needed to wear the Under Armor pants instead of shorts. I moisturized and ate a little yogurt. You really don't want to rise at the last minute and dash off to a race because even for short distances you need to get up early enough to get your metabolism going and um....clean out your system so that um...pooping is not an issue during the race. Don't laugh. 'Tis true. Ask any racer, especially the marathoners.

7:30am-Arrive at the race site. It was near the city's downtown flood wall, and with the sleepy sunshine creeping above the Ohio River, it was beautiful. I picked up my race packet, pinned on my number and stretched. I last raced two weeks ago and was embarrassed at my horrible performance. A third of the way into the race, I was huffing and puffing and kicking myself for prepping so poorly. I staggered across the finish line determined to get my butt back on the wagon. My goal for yesterday's race was to shave off five minutes and get my pace back to where it should be. In other words, quit piddling around and sweat. I did. I didn't place yesterday, but my time was MUCH better than last time, and I will probably be in the top 5 of women in my age category when all the times are posted. I felt really good about the run, and had a good time. I saw several people I know. Here was my friend and neighbor M. crossing the finish line. She 's the one in the blue shirt. She races in the 60-69 age category, and I love that she's out there gettin' it. She placed second on her division. Yea M.! One of my favorite parts of any race day is the youth race. Kids under fourteen do a one mile race, and they are sooo cute.

They run their guts out for the whole race, and they're so proud when they finish. Some of them are as young as two years old, and their little legs are hardly long enough to get them down the street. If you ever need to be uplifted, go to any 5k in your city and watch the youth race. Stand near the finish line, and I guarantee it will make you smile, smile, smile. It made me belly giggle yesterday.

12pm-Arrived back home where Hubby was knee deep in the middle of holding a yard sale... Er...his "man sale". Everything in the yard sale was stuff for men; tools, scrap lumber, a lawn mower, even a friend's old car. Need a 1985 Pontiac? We can hook you up. Here is a sample of what was left when I got home.

He got rid of a fair amount of junk that had been cluttering up the garages, so that was good. I jumped out of my running clothes and into some jeans and a sweatshirt for a trip to the grocery store with Teen Angel. First we stopped at McDonald's because we were starved. I ate the first quarter pounder I've had in probably five years. 1190 milligrams of sodium, oh my!! Faster than you can say medium fries, we were done with lunch and pulling into the grocery store. Teen Angel and I tag teamed in order to knock out a week's worth of groceries of us and Mama J. and Papa T.. She took their list. I took ours, and we dashed through Wal-Mart. And let me take just a moment to talk about Wal-Mart. Last week we made a family decision to quit going to Wal-Mart for weekly groceries. We chose to return to our old friend Kroger in order to save money and break the habit of buying extra crap we don't need. I can't buy a shirt at Kroger, and I'm just tired of spending a fortune on groceries. I saved $23 by going to Kroger, without any coupons, and the produce was much better. Well, yesterday we went back to Wal-Mart because our time was limited, and we needed more household and personal hygiene stuff than food. We need to get it all done in one trip, so we went to Wal-Mart. Next week, it's back to Kroger, WITH coupons. We were in Papa T.'s old pickup truck because the yard sale prevented us from getting any other vehicle out of the driveway.

See Mama J.'s Frosted Flakes? Since her spelling has gone to hell in a hand basket lately, she calls these "Frosty Flackers" on her grocery list. We laugh about that every week. That and the vanille Assure. And can you believe how much toilet paper costs these days? Gee whiz. Get it? Whizz? Sorry.

2pm-Back home and groceries are put away. Hubby was wrapping up the yard sale, and I had to shower and change clothes AGAIN, this time for an interview with the local TV station regarding an issue at work. Someone claiming to be with our company was calling customers and asking them for their credit card numbers. Knowing they would shoot the interview from the chest up, I put a suit jacket on top of my jeans and t-shirt and headed for the TV station.

4:30pm-Sans suit jacket, me and the rest of the Hula-gen gang piled into the van and headed to a local hospital to see a family member in ICU.

Because we could only go into the hospital room one or two at a time, we were at the hospital for a loooong time. That was the third stinkin' time I've been to the hospital this week, and I'm not done yet. I really hate the hospital. Too much dying going on there. I have a lot of respect for the people who work there, though. It's a tough job healing people. We were worn out and starved by the time we left the hospital at 6:45pm.

7pm-No one, and I mean NO ONE, in our city eats at home on a Saturday night. Trying to get into a restaurant after 4pm on a Saturday is a nightmare. We stopped at two places, checking on the wait for a table and had no luck. Someone in this family, and I'm not naming any names, but he's about 6'4" and gray haired, was getting cran-ky, and no one wanted to make a decision about where to eat. Are we the only people who do that? Get in the car and fail to come to a decision about where to eat? Grrrr. I hate that. Finally, I said "That's it! Pull in across the street. There are empty spaces in that parking lot, and I'm sure we can get in there." We did, and that's how we ended up here.And you know what? It was pretty good. I had the salmon, and it was mighty tasty as Papa T. says. By the time we finished dinner, I was dying for my pajamas, a cold glass of iced tea, and my recliner. And that's exactly what we did, went home and got in the recliner. I was in bed by 10:10pm and wasn't even upset that I couldn't stay awake to see what Saturday Night Live was doing about the presidential election this week. And ya' know what? That's pretty much a typical Saturday for me, running too much and fighting to stay awake past 10 o'clock. Oh, how things have changed since I was 21 years old.