Think of life as a terminal illness, because, if you do, you will live it with joy and passion, as it ought to be lived. -Anna Quindlen

Just had to share this picture. I take notoriously bad photos. Usually, for some reason, if I'm posing, my eyes are half closed like I'm stoned. But, hey! Before the girls sang happy birthday to me, I took a halfway decent picture...or so it appeared on the tiny little digital camera screen. Imagine my delight,upon receiving the 4x6 print, at seeing my perfectly FINE, perfectly SIGHTED daughter posing with her eyes crossed. Little turd. I'm sure her guardian angel got a HUGE kick out of that one.

Can't go wrong with chocolate cake and diet coke. I was thinking that since I had such a good race Sunday, I should make that my carbo-loading pre-race meal on a regular basis. Or not.

One more race this weekend. Lake St. Louis triathlon short course ( web). Field of 750. Practice day was last sunday, and boy was it a good thing I dragged myself out of bed that morning. Hopefully got all the kinks out. 1/4 mile swim in the lake was great for about 200 yards. Then, for some reason I couldn't put my face in the water. I KNEW it was nerves but it's a little more of a mental challenge to get over that fact when you're alone in a large body of dark water. After about a minute I was able to continue and ended up doing fine...just glad it wasn't during a race! Everyone talks about that happening....but I didn't expect it to happen to me! Found Tori, chatted, and got ready to ride the course...but I had a flat AGAIN. I have never flatted on a course. I DO manage to cause a flat while pumping up my tubes on a disturbingly regular basis. Drat! Good news is I can now change a flat in less than 15 minutes. But I'm so covered in black grease that it looks like I got run over by a truck. Ride went fine. Since Tori ran 17 miles the day before she wasn't going to run (whatever...slacker) so off I went. Kinda fun, lots of people out there without the pressure of race day. Run went well, out and back, out is up hill and back is downhill (woohoo). Goals again are to finish in the top half of my age group. And obviously not drown myself in the lake.