Free as a bird (and bored stiff!)

My hectic week came to an end early this morning as my husband and I dropped off our kids for their week of school camp.  This means that we are now free agents until next Saturday.  It's a rather weird feeling and not one with which I am entirely comfortable.

I'm a control freak.  I'm badly organised at it, but still it is inbuilt.  I'm not coping well with my kids growing up.  My son will be 12 next Saturday and my daughter is 10.  When I was 10 I was already staying home by myself for short periods, I was very mature for my age.  But, I worry that my kids aren't ready for that kind of independence yet (and by law in the UK, they are not allowed to stay home by themselves until the age of 14).  But even small things like going to the shop around the corner (quite literally RIGHT around the corner from our house!), I worry about them!  There comes a time when a mother needs to let go and let the children grow up - and well, this week is sort of my time.

Many parents would be reading this thinking "Are you crazy?!  You've got a week alone without kids to worry about - you should be celebrating!".  And while it is nice to just worry about yourself for a time, after a while you really miss the silly things they do and just them being around!  So, that's my emotional rant out of the way!  As the title suggests, I've spent A LOT of time on the internet today!  No kids around does something strange to a person - suddenly you realise that you can do precisely anything that you would like to do - and you can't think of anything to do except sit and go on the computer!

Still, today was not a total loss.  I took my husband and my father in law out for a carvery lunch today.  It was very indulgent and delicious and wonderful, I must say, to have a roast dinner on a Sunday that was not prepared by me!  I came home and fiddled around on the Mac for a while.  I've been looking for a decent graphics program for general photo editing as well as something that would enable me to design a snazzy logo for the blog.  I downloaded a couple of free applications and proceeded to mess around with those for hours, not really achieving anything in particular.

I did my first training session of the 5k programme week three at 4 o'clock.  I was reallllly nervous about doing that one.  This week's programme consists of:

This was the first time I would be running for three minutes in the programme.  It was SO windy outside and Murphy's Law states that when running, of course it will always be a head wind and it was!  I just took the pace verrrrryyy slow and kept going.  Thankfully it seemed most of my running intervals were either on level ground or downhill, which was useful given the headwind.  Here are my stats:

I won't say that I found it easy, but I'm pleased that I managed to complete it without walking during the runs.

On Thursday night and Friday night I took to running at the field opposite my house.  The local boy's football team (soccer team, we call it football here in England!) train there, but it is quite a large area, so I just run/walk around the perimeter.  I could not believe how much harder it is running on a grassy field!  It is easily 10 times harder than running on asphalt!  I might mix up my training a bit and do a bit of my running on the field and a bit on the road (sidewalk - of course!).

Well, I'm off to Pinterest to find a good chocolate cake recipe for my son's birthday.  I was very proud of him this week - his school was competing in the Independent School Association's Festival of Sport this week and on Friday the boys competed in the basketball tournament.  Basketball is only really getting started over here, which may seem strange to my American friends.  I grew up in Indiana, so basketball is in my blood!  Anyway - his team won the gold medal!  I'm so proud of my boy!  He may have been born in England, but he's a true Hoosier :-) and he's very proud of his achievement (and shiny gold medal!).

PS - I did a sneaky cheeky weigh in this morning and I've lost four pounds this week!  Not quite sure how I pulled that one off, but will just say thank you very much!