Half Marathon?

I've decided to down-grade and train for a half-marathon rather than the full, because November 9th is really not that far away and I have some other "big projects" going on right now. Will you still respect me in the morning?

My First Query Letter

Composing the Query Letter was difficult for me, because this topic is so broad and so important to me that I had a hard time narrowing down the ideas that I'd like to cover. I got the query letter posted to my classmates the last day of our vacation from the hotel room while David was swimming with the kids. Only the instructor has responded so far, but her comments have encouraged me to keep going with this. She said that it's an excellent query letter on a very important topic and she has no "nudges" for me or suggestions on how to make the query letter better. She said it's ready to go. Just for fun, here's my letter:

Dear Mrs. Magazine Editor:

Women hear a lot these days about hormone replacement therapy as it relates to dropping estrogen levels and menopause, but we don't hear enough about hormone imblance and the havoc it can cause in the years (as many as 20 years!) leading up to the "change of life."

In a 1200-word article, I will share first-hand experience and research, as well as expert knowledge, about the signs and symptoms of endocrine hormone imbalance in pre-menopausal women and practical steps to take to restore balance and vitality to feel and live well. Topics covered include:

• How to communicate clearly with your healthcare provider about what ails you, even if your symptoms seem vague and difficult to articulate
• The science that shows that physical and psychological complaints of PMS are often the result of low progesterone, not low estrogen
• The many "estrogen-like" substances and stressors abundant in our environment that further tip estrogen into excess and throw the hormones off-balance
• Once one hormone imbalance is detected (e.g. low progesterone) very often additional hormone imbalances will surface, (e.g. low thyroid and low adrenals) as a woman's endocrine system is an intricate and connected web of functions
• Over-the-counter hormone support in the form of vitamins, supplements, herbs, nutrition, and exercise
• The difference between synthetic and bio-identical hormone therapies and which treatment experts recommend

I am a thirty-four year old mother of two whose life for the last few years has been riddled with bone-crunching fatigue, depression, foggy thinking, irritability, pre-menstral tension and acne, and general malaise that is rooted in at least three endocrine hormone imbalances. Through extensive research, tenacity, patience, a willingness to try new treatments, and an attitude that feeling well again is worth the effort and money, I am finally getting a grip on my personal hormone hell. If you are interested in my sharing what I've learned and am learning with other pre-menopausal women, please contact me at the e-mail address or phone number that is listed below.

Sincerely,

Sarah L. Knows-A-Lot-About-This-Stuff

Writing Class Update

So, I'm halfway through this online magazine writing class that I'm taking for the second time. I enrolled five years ago when I was pregnant with Grace and read all of the material but didn't complete any of the assignments. This time I'm completing the assignments and am taking everything seriously in hopes of publishing some articles and maybe even making a little extra money.

One of the first assignments was to brainstorm 50 topics on which to write. Then we narrowed our list down to our top 10 and posted our list for feedback. Here's my list (in no particular order).

1. PMS: A lot of it IS all in your head
2. The truth about why married people have affairs
3. What is "Sensory Integration Disorder" and how to help a child who struggles with it
4. Your son loves to dress up in girls' clothes: now what?
5. Hormone balance: what every woman between the ages of 30-50 needs to know. (It may not be what you think)
6. 10 toys that you can find around your house (without spending a dime at Toys-R-Us) that will delight your baby or toddler
7. Why it's important (and possible) for many moms to work full-time and serve the role as primary caregiver
8. It's 12:00 PM: Do you know who's reading your blog?
9. 5 steps to a perfect weekend camping trip
10. The top 5 reasons reading to young children will help them in the long run.

Fellow classmates and the instructor commented on my list and people said they loved the titles and would read the articles just based on them. One person especially liked #1 and #5, another liked #4 and doesn't even have children. The instructor said she tried to pick a favorite but said all of the topics were her favorite. These are topics that I either know a lot about or know someone who does. (I don't know first-hand about #2, but I work with a PhD whose life work is about this topic, so I thought about interviewing him).

I settled on developing #5, and so the next step is to "bubble" the main idea into topics and sub-topics that become the body of your article. Most magazine articles are written after being "queried," so the query letter was the next assignment.

Road Trip, Part 2

Driving Day #2, Owensboro, KY to Urbana, Illinois. So we left the reunion at about 5:00 PM and only drove about four hours to Urbana, Illinois. Can't remember anything of note about the drive, but, oddly, we have several connections to Urbana-Champaign and the University of Illinois. Dr. Jonathan Fineberg, art historian and featured speaker at The Lucy Daniels Foundation's (where I work) annual lecture on art and psychoanalysis this past Feb. is from U of Illinois. Also, it's the homeplace of Allison Krauss, one of my favorite singers, and David Foster Wallace, one of David's favorite authors. But the real thrill was checking into the Holiday Inn Express. I knew, I just knew that the young man taking down my address would comment when he heard that I lived in Chapel Hill, NC. He did, and I said, "Yep, 2005. Men's Basketball Championship." It felt really good.

Driving Day #3, Urbana, IL to Perry, IA. Again, not much to report on the drive. We stopped at McDonald's for a Happy Meal and another "Cars" toy. Grace flipped out over getting a yellow punch buggy, and Johnny was quite jealous, you could tell.

So, we arrived at Grandma Mo's and David's sister Sandy (the one who lost her husband recently) had all of this stuff ready for the kids: a kiddie pool, water guns, water balloons, beach balls, buckets, sidewalk chalk. It was really great. And even better, Sandy played with and entertained the kids the rest of the day.

We spent the 4th of July like you'd expect in small-town America: we dressed in red, white and blue, walked to the corner to watch the town's parade, got a lot of candy thrown at us, went back home to swim and visit with family in the backyard, then had a cookout/picnic outside before fireworks. The highlight of the parade were the monstrous John Deere tractors, a sight we just haven't seen in the Chapel Hill parades.

The next few days in Iowa were filled with great food, eating ice cream every single day, going out to lunch with the ladies, having dinner with David's niece and nephew and their children, (who dubbed Johnny the "naughty man." He had a new little chainsaw toy, so I thought it was funnier to call him the "naughty tree cutter."),watching Romantic Comedies with David's mom, going to the big mall and pretty much taking it easy. They have this frilly Victorian tea room that the "girls" went to for lunch one day, and we decided that Grace was old enough to go. She did great, but leading up to it, Johnny caught wind that Grace was getting to do something he wasn't, so, of course, he insisted that he wanted to go to the tea room, too. Talk about a bull in a china shop. There's this hip coffee shop in the ghost-like downtown in Perry, and we all had time in the morning for an outing, so I told Johnny that he was going to get to go to the tea room after all. At the coffee shop, I ordered caffeine-free hot tea (with an ice cube) for Johnny and Grace, and they both felt really big. We got away with making Johnny think he had been to the tea room and therefore had not missed out on anything that Grace got to do that he didn't.

Johnny was climbing a chair and slipped and landed on the spout of a sippy cup and cut his eyelid right at the brow bone. It didn't bleed for long, so we didn't go to the ER but it's going to leave a scar. David and I call those "near misses." The day after we left Iowa, David's dad fell and cut his eyelid open and did have to go to the ER and get 15 stitches!!

Driving Day #4, Perry, IA to Indianapolis, IN, Still no DVD player (but we knew we could pull over at any time and buy one) and we're all starting to get on each other's nerves. Johnny broke my sunglasses, again, and I wonder: do I keep buying $3 sunglasses because Johnny keeps breaking them, or do they keep breaking because they're $3 sunglasses? We try to stop every three hours, but because of all of the coffee and water that David consumes first thing in the morning, we end up stopping every hour. I get ticked at this, so the next thing I know, David is relieving himself in a gatorade bottle. We tell the kids that they can pick out a toy under $5 at each three-hour stop, and we relish in the greatness of Walgreens and inexpensive toys. Johnny is thrilled with his toy motorcycle and declares that he wants a motorcycle for his third birthday (that is just around the corner). Grace gets a little stuffed pony that makes a jingly noise when you press it, and we have to listen to the jingle ad-nauseum.

On David's shift in the backseat between the kids, he draws pictures and makes up silly stories. We all laugh a lot. On my shift in the backseat, I rediscover the magic of oragami paper folding and with the colored construction paper that I smartly packed, I create balloons, boxes, and paper cranes. The kids are amazed.

There's more whining, crying, and screaming on this leg of the trip but we make it to Indianapolis with the knowledge that we'll be sleeping in our own beds the following night.

Driving Day #4, Last Day-Indianapolis, IN to Chapel Hill, NC. This day was the toughest, hands down, and I gave up trying to keep the car in any shape of clean. Pretzels were spilled everywhere, candy wrappers too but it was almost over. David and I pressed on, looking forward to the Venti Starbucks coffee we would both get in Buckley, WV. David finally popped a DVD into his laptop for the kids, but realized he hadn't charged his laptop up and only had 24 minutes of power. We all got punchy at the very end, but in a good, fun way. Remember the songs, "Great big gobs of greasy, grimey, gopher guts?" and "When you're climbing up a poll, and you feel something roll...?" We all laughed at those, and I don't know which I enjoyed more: making the kids laugh, or David laugh. We listened to a lot of songs, over and over. Johnny's most requested: "Up" by Shania Twain, and Grace's: "Yellow Submarine."

Our time together was so intense for those 45 hours in the car together and the trip in general, that it was very tough for everyone to get back to their schedules yesterday. Johnny broke my heart crying yesterday morning, because he just didn't want to go to school. I managed to talk him down from his sobs, but when it was time to climb back into his carseat, even though this time it was only a 10-minute drive, he started sobbing again. I don't blame him. I didn't want to go back to work myself.

For better and for worse, I hope the kids remember the trip for a long time. I know I will.


Albert Paley

Tales From the All-American Road Trip

Ahh, I'm back from a ten-day road trip to America's heartland. First to Owensboro, KY, (birthplace of Johnny Depp and the world's best barbeque), for a mini reunion with my mom's two sisters, their children and their children, and then on to Perry, IA, the quintessential midwestern small town, to spend a few days with David's family. Forty-five (45) hours spent driving in the Honda CRV, with no DVD player, and we managed to get back home with minimal shouting, pinching, flipping, crying, ignoring, and relieving our bladders in creative ways. The kids did pretty well too. I'm waiting on the pictures, so check back for updates. A recap of the highlights, the lowlights, and the headlights:

Day One: Chapel Hill to Owensboro, 13 hours. David and I decided that we would breakdown and buy the double DVD player, but when I went to pay at Sam's Club on the eve before our trip, my card (for my account at work) was denied. Forget it. Didn't have time to waste going to Best Buy. We always pass a Super Target and like-minded stores along I-40 near Knoxville, TN, so we planned to drive the first leg sans entertainment from the Wiggles, Elmo, anything Disney or Dora or Blue's Clues. First leg of the trip, pretty good. We were fresh. We were happy. The kids napped. Got to the Super Target in Knoxville, only to learn they did not have any double DVD players in stock. About to purchase a $200 single player that might not provide optimal viewing pleasure for both Grace and Johnny, I said to David, "STOP! Let's wait and buy the one we really want in KY."

Arrived at my first cousin's house in KY to be greeted by happy young people, great food, and an inviting pool. Saturday is the day on which to report, however, because it was as near a perfect day as I can remember. We started the day off with coffee, yummy breakfast treats, a leisurely dip in the pool and alternating turns on the GameBoy dance machine game that is all the rage. Have you tried that thing? You watch a tv screen while listening to a fast-paced dance beat and have to move your feet to the left, to the right, up, down, at the exact time that the corresponding arrow hits its target. Sound confusing? It is. But it's quite addictive once you get the hang of it. At 11:30 AM, I was invited to go to a quilt show with my Aunt Sadie, and while I didn't want to miss any of the reunion action back at the house, I did enjoy the opportunity to spend time with her and get a deeper peek into her creative world of designing and crafting breathtaking works of art. The quilt she's making for Grace is stunning. I can't wait until it's finished and here in this house.


While we were at the quilt show, another mini-van load of cousins arrived and after a quick lunch, it didn't take long for the kids to organize a game of "block war" down in the basement. You know those cardboard play blocks that are life-sized (but not as hard and dangerous)? Well, the idea in block war is for each team to construct a shield and fort out of whatever is handy in the basement. After teams of boys verses girls were decided, we basically started flinging blocks across the threshold as hard as we could. The game was to go on until someone cried. After working up a legitimate sweat hurling blocks for the girls' team, I realized I was the only cousin in my generation that was playing the game. In other words, I was the only "grown up," the only kid with kids partaking in the surprisingly fun (and difficult) game. No one cried, but something called us all upstairs.

A few hours later, the final group of cousins, aunts and uncles came so that by 4:00 PM, all 26 people were present. 21 of the 26 slept right there in the house, like one big slumber party. After block war, we all swam, jumped on the trampoline, ate, challenged each other at "dance party" and had an all-around good time. After dessert, we took three car loads out to "the farm" to light off fireworks, as we were banned from lighting them off in their backyard. Last year, the neighbor's hosta plants got burned to a crisp by an errant bottle rocket. We needed wide open spaces. We sat on bricks to watch the show. Unfortunately, my kids, being the youngest, got out-of-control tired and scared, so our car left early. When everyone returned, the teenaged kids organized a game of Capture the Flag and insisted that the parents (including me) play along. We started at 1o:30 PM and had so much fun that we wanted to play a second round, but the homeowner, my first cousin, had to say no as it was 11:30 PM and we were hooping and hollering and she thought aforementioned hosta-plant-owner neighbor would have something else on us to call the police about. I reassured everyone, no worries, the evening was young, and I initiated an all-ages game of charades. After acting out such titles as "Who Let the Dogs Out," "Mr. Roboto," and "Napoleon Dynamite," the only task remaining for the evening was to wait for little Sam (age 10) to fall asleep so we could put shaving cream on his hand and tickle his forehead so he would wipe his face with his hands and get shaving cream all over it. This event was also initiated and organized by me. Sam didn't fall asleep until 2:00 AM, and the shaving cream was so darn loud coming out, that we girls (me and the younger generation) blew it by laughing so loud that the prank didn't totally work. No worries, I reasurred again, we'd get Sam in the morning by putting stickers on his forehead or by taping a sign on his back that said, "Ask me if I like cheese."

I went to sleep not even that tired, like I could last all night with my cousins' kids, coming up with ways to have totally enjoyable good, clean fun.