Kangaroo

Erica referenced the kangaroo when she was referring to Mylo spread out on the bed like a sprung kangaroo the other night! It gave me a new visual to which I could relate, having seen the actual animal in it's native land only a few years ago. I am headed there again perhaps as soon as December this year.

Wednesday was getting close to the 2nd annual summer run and Team Sussex was taking full force ~thanks to all my wonderful friends help and support. Marilyn headed up the team again this year for the second year ~ with the help of "Team Mom" Bonnie Sanborn and Co- captain Cori Nickerson! Not to mention ALL my wonderful supporting friends and family ~ what an amazing event, yet again!

Wednesday was open house day and we had a lot to catch up on because the inventory is piling up faster than it can sell here on Mercer Island and Bonnie, Erica and I needed to tour the new listings so that we can keep up with what is selling and what might be good for our clients-or ourselves-Erica just bought, Bonnie just sold and is looking to purchase, and I just listed our home-so we better know the market! Thursday was Steve's birthday and I needed to write an offer and meet with our builder regarding a waterfront lot, so that took up the afternoon plus I was taking Friday off to celebrate with girlfriends, Cori's birthday, which is a whole story in itself-we took the ferry (2 cars & 10 alpha females) to Whidbey Island and hiked, ate, wine tasted, shopped, and basically had a fabulous escape day. I skated in a 7 PM Thurs night with groceries to make Steve's special dinner-forgot the candles, and the cake I left at the check out counter. I had to send Dan back to get it as it came time for desert and I scrounged up one candle that I pieced back together just long enough to sing happy birthday and cut the cake. We all retired early because the morning brings workout classes at 6 am and I had an escape day to prepare for, and a Saturday neighborhood garage sale to set up for since I knew I would be gone most of Friday. I couldn't easily bow out of the garage sale since 10% of the proceeds were dedicated to my ovarian cancer cause besides which I NEED to get rid of lots of clutter and Steve, Erica and Dan were all helping out. Rita and Larry even offered to fix dinner for us so that we could concentrate on the sale.

Steve bought a bike for his birthday, and Dan followed suit and went to pick his bike up on Saturday during the garage sale. Erica and I took turns manning the weak garage sale. We made about $20 for the day since we ended up buying a washer and dryer from the neighbors, and looking at the neighbors stuff to see if we could trade garage space with some of our stuff. Funny but I think we ended up with more stuff than we started out with. Every time I do this I swear I won't do it again, but then again, unless I can recycle it, I cannot seem to part with it.

Sue was wearing her Team Sussex hat in preparation for the run Sunday morning, and we stopped in Langley to go shopping. She had her sunglasses perched on top of her hat covering the letters SUS with the nose piece. The clerk glared at her and asked "what does your hat say?", "team SEX"? We all had a good chuckle and decided later that the idea of Team Sex would actually be a better marketing theme next year. Anyone want to join?

Sunday morning 6:30 came early needless to say, but the adrenaline from all the build up kept me going. I was going to run the 5K and Steve was going to pick up the group and walk. I ate an entire carton of blueberries, grabbed a piece of whole grain bread and banana, and headed out the door. Andrea had walked up (after doing the Torchlite run the note before) from her house to carpool with us, and we were psyched to go. As before, the rondevu at the church pumped me up as the group convened to pick up shirts and entry numbers and head out to meet at the race. Jim took pictures again this year so I will be posting some of them and we can save the rest for the party in a couple of weeks-(and the website will still be open for donations till the party, so sign on and donate and I will have your email to the invite). The race was relatively flat and I managed to catch my breath and run the whole race with one exception near the end when Erica ran up behind me from the 10K overlap and pushed me up the last hill. It was a great feeling to cross the finish line in 32 minutes. I retraced my steps to finish again with my wonderful supporting husband-thanks Steve for coming out-with bad knees, he really was encouraging-proves you don't have to be a runner to come out and support. Bonnie passed out shirts and entry numbers from early registrants, sold Team Sussex hats and rallied the team at the end of the race. It was cold and the parking lot was stagnant so we headed to Starbucks to grab our stimulants and warm up, then returned home to clean up the remains of the garage sale, ride bikes, go to Enso's 2 year old birthday party and crash. Tomorrow starts the tour de Mercer and I plan on kicking off the first leg that starts at Mercerwood at 5:30 am.