Julie Isphording Responds

Wow - I was personally contacted by a local hero! Julie Isphording is a former Olympic runner and member of the first ever Women’s Olympic Marathon Team. She used to host an inspiring and empowering local radio show of which I was an avid listener until the radio station changed formats. Now she is a local champion of health. You can visit her websites at http://www.thehealthystuff.com and http://www.lindnercenterofhope.org where she is now a consultant.

In my last post, I noted an email that I sent to the Thanksgiving Day Race. Roman's Grandpa said that the shirt design kind of looked like a swastika... I didn't even make the connection until he said that, so I recommended a new shirt design for next year. Imagine my excitement when Julie Isphording PERSONALLY contacted me! See her response below:

Hi E.
So sorry about that. No one else said anything so I'm not too worried.
And there's a new t-shirt design every year. And this was our top
selling t-shirt.

You're recommendation will happen.

j

Julie Isphording
Consultant, External Affairs
The Lindner Center of Hope
www.lindnercenterofhope.org
Author, Get Healthy Get Happy
www.thehealthystuff.com

I'm so pleased that she personally took the time to respond to my email. Her book Get Healthy, Get Happy is on my Christmas list.

Happy Post Thanksgiving!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and were able to give thanks for the blessings in your lives. I had a great day!

I signed up to walk the Cincinnati Thanksgiving Day Race a little over a month ago. I needed some inspiration to get myself to the gym. And there's nothing like burning off the Thanksgiving Day meal beforehand! I walked three miles every other day, with longer walks on the weekends to train.

The race started at 9 and I left home at 7:40 - enough time to get downtown, park and have time to stretch and maybe find a port-o-john. Apparently, 11,490 left home at the same time, because there was no parking to be found. At 8:50, I called Roman, crying, because I was so stressed out about the situation. At 8:55, I found a (probably illegal) spot and darted to the start line. I took the steps up to Second Street two at a time. What I saw was 11,490 people lined up to start their race. It was 13 minutes into the race before I crossed the start line. Ah well, it gave me some time to get my ipod ready to go. I made a playlist just for the race. When I finally got to the starting line, I hit play, and the Black Eyed Peas kicked off my run (yes, I couldn't help but run even though I trained to walk - the excitement was too much!)

Let's Get It Started, in here... And the base keep runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and...

It was a fantastic day for the race. The sun was shining, and I had The Cult, Kaiser Chiefs, Foo Fighters and Devo getting me through the first mile. Here are some of the views from the run:











The Verdin Bell Museum, where Roman and I got married.

(Big Show, Royal Crescent Mob)











me!

(Mas y Mas, Los Lobos)














Welcome to Kentucky!

(Viva Las Vegas, Elvis Presley)













The water stop was in the shade, which led to an icy ground. I saw several people wipe out.

(American Idiot, Green Day)











View of Cincinnati

(Cleveland Rocks, Presidents of the United States)








My shadow at mile 5.

(Hella Good, No Doubt)











The finish line! MY official time was 1:23:12

(Respect, Aretha Franklin)












After the race I found my car (it took a while), drove home, got cleaned up and we were off to Roman's grandma & Grandpa's house for turkey. We arrived at 1:05 - five minutes after the official lunch start time. But the rolls weren't done, so we were actually early. We settled at the table with his family. Roman's grandpa sat right across from me. He was really interested in my race and liked my shirt a lot. However, today, I had to write this letter to the race organizers:

I had a wonderful time at the race yesterday. The weather was perfect, and I was happy to burn off the calories before dinner! I proudly wore my race shirt to my husband's grandparents house for dinner. My 85-year-old Grandpa-in-law said he liked my shirt. The colors were nice, he said. Imagine my shock when he then said, "You know what that shirt kind of reminds me of?" I put my fork down, because as a WWII veteran, he's always got something interesting to say. "A swastika!"

I recommend a different shirt design for next year. :)

Cleocatra Powell

It's been well over a month now, and I'm just ready to talk about this. I wanted to let you all know that we lost our baby, Cleocatra on October 7. She had developed asthma about two years ago. Roman and I worked very closely with our vet to make sure she had whatever medications we could find for her. I even learned how to give shots. Sadly, she had a very severe asthma attack on the morning of the 7th. It's been an extremely hard time for both Roman and me.

Cleo adoped us in 1995, right after my kitty, Burt passed away at 19. She had so many unique traits. When she was a kitten, she didn't stop meowing as she ate! It sounded like, "rowl-rowl-reowl" as she chewed. She bonded with me in her early years when I didn't have a job. She followed me wherever I went through our apartment, and then through our house.

In 1998, Roman and I both had jobs out of the house and felt bad about leaving Cleo alone, so Allie adoped us! It took Cleo a while to get used to her aunt (we have biological proof that Cleo is, indeed, Allie's niece), but they soon became almost inseparable. Cleo taught Allie the ropes of drinking out of the faucet and setting up residence in empty boxes. Cleo acted like she didn't want another cat around, but when we thought we weren't around, we'd see her giving Allie a bath. They grew to love each other, and we'd often find them cuddled together when we'd come home from work.

Cleo was a very neat cat. Odd she would have picked me in that regard. Every time after we fed her, and she finished eating, she would scrape around the plate to make sure no scraps were left. She did the every time she ate. When we'd leave her with the vet when we were on vacation, they always commented about how she'd clean up her food area!

In 1998, Roman and I moved into our house. We had a lot of friends and family helping us move everything, and my cousin Ben took care of Cleo and Allie. Of course, he was a teenager and didn't want to move heavy things, so he and the girls camped out in the upstairs bathroom - effectively allowing them to slowly adapt without encountering the chaos of the move.

A few years later, Roman and I found ourselves awakening to strange noises in the middle of the night. It sounded like a cat in a lot of pain. A little background - our laundry area is in our basement. Because Cleo was an indoor kitty, she especially liked the (literally) full basement with all its places to hide. To our delight, the late-night noises turned out to be Cleo. What we discovered is that she would "kill" our dirty socks in the laundry pile and then bring them all the way upstairs to us as gifts! Those of you unfamiliar with cat behavior - outdoor cats typically kill rodents, rabbits (as in Burt on Easter), etc and bring them to you as "gifts." It's totally out of love. There were mornings where we'd wake up and find 10 socks around the bed, on the stairs, in the kitchen - she loved us a lot!

We were content with our two kitties until 2003, when Indy found us. It was July 4th, he was a scrawny kitten in our flowerbed, and since it was a holiday, no Vet's offices were open. We had to keep him overnight, and he kinda grew on us! Cleo was more accepting, and Allie was the more apprehensive of the girls. But oh, how he loved his girlfriends. He especially liked Cleo. Ever since Indy joined our family, he's been all kitten. He wanted to play with Cleo all the time, and by "play," I mean tackle. She hated it. We felt awful about the screeches, and we did everything we could to let them both know they were loved, despite the age and temperament difference.

Time heals all wounds, I hear. Allie and Indy had a definite adjustment period. For weeks, they would look for her, sniffing around the area where she had her last asthma attack. I couldn't even change the bedsheets for the longest time - I knew it held Cleo's smell and would comfort them to some degree. It's taken Roman and me this long to not cry every single day. The love and support we received from friends and family (and even friends' family) was so overwhelming. To know we have so many people in our lives who understand how tragic a loss this was for us made us feel blessed. We don't have kids, and we really do love our cats as part of our family. They each have unique personalities, just as we humans do. The people who supported us through this are truly special to us. We thank each and every one of you.

We will miss Cleo so much. Roman and I discussed so many memorial options, and eventually decided upon cremation. It was me that couldn't part with her. I wanted an urn with a photo, and Roman picked out the exact one. She's with us now, on a shelf upstairs. I still haven't picked out the perfect photo, but I did give her my red Nike running socks. Apparently they were her favorites, because they have the most teeth holes!

We thank all of you for your kind thoughts and understanding. She was our first baby, and we will miss her so much.

And We're Off!

The Aronoff

Last Friday, we went to the Aronoff to see "Hairspray." I was so taken with this view from inside the theatre. Below is a nighttime shot from outside the theatre. The lights and the angles were beautiful. The show was hilarious, and I highly recommend it to everyone!

K

I have a K!

Two letters down in my alphabet project.

This was taken as a raw image, on Sunday, October 20. I was at Molly Malone's in Covington watching some great bands play for the Fix Up Steve's House event. I looked out the window (I had to sit next to an open window because people were smoking), and I saw the K in the sky.

I'll post some of the band images (of Tupelo Honey) as soon as I can. I got a few good ones with my new lens, but I want to take some time (probably this weekend) to see what kind of quality I can get having used the raw setting.

Apperarently, I also had a few too many. I texted a bunch of my friends the following picture:


















I got some responses, but the only picture response I received was from Mom, who, THANK GOODNESS, pulled over to take this picture:

Oleo Lord

This was taken on the way up to the north Dayton area. If you're not familiar with this ginormous sculpture, here's a youtube video with a song from Haywood Banks - it's actually quite funny. The performance is from the Bob & Tom show. I also found this blog, "the son of god blog, as interpreted by his web creationist."

Q

I gave myself an assignment: Shoot the Alphabet. I am proud to present "Q"

This shot was taken during a 4-mile walk I'd planned on taking, but this time, I took my camera. It was a few days after Hurricane Ike hit Ohio - yes, Ohio! - and I didn't expect to be going for a HIKE instead of a walk. But it made for an interesting time, and a good workout!

Other images from the walk....

Allie likes the new bookshelf

It's been a while. I'm starting back in August and will be posting pictures from the past few months in the next few days.

We got a bookshelf for the bedroom. I saw one I liked at Target, but I didn't want to buy anything until we checked out IKEA. After spending an entire afternoon at IKEA, we went to Target to buy the shelf. When we got it home, took it out of the box and started assembling it, Roman noticed one of the sides was broken. ARGH! Another three hours out of my life later, we exchanged it, and Roman assembled it.

Here you can see the shelf we were obviously NOT allowed to put books on. It's Allie's. :)

We are all happy

I did not win one of these. But I could have if I'd really wanted to. Really.

I'm coming back, really.

I think the mission to Guatemala, the subsequent illness, learning I'm allergic to my cats and the new job have had a toll!

But I'm coming back. Really. I have all kinds of fun pictures to post including this one I took when I visited Amy in Akron.

But for today, Roman and I are going to Kings Island to celebrate our 11th anniversary!

There's No Place Like Home

One of my biggest fears is natural disasters. I'm especially afraid of tornadoes. As I write this, I'm sitting in my basement, all bloody.

I came home from work today with the hope of taking a nap. I'm exhausted for a variety of reasons - work, PMS, not getting enough sleep because our weather alarm kept going off last night. I spent a good chunk of the night in the bathroom with the window open - listening for a calm before a train sound.

Tonight, I just wanted to sleep. It was rainy today, but it was also sunny! As soon as I turned on the TV to see if Barack Obama had picked a running mate, Derek said it would be like this:

Take cover if you live in Indiana, and hey Erin, in Maineville - get yourself and your cats into your basement. NOW!

Of course, I obliged.

If you know cats, you know that herding them is an exercise in futility. One cat is pretty easy to get into the basement, two is so-so, but three is a bloody mess. Cleo has asthma, so she was all - do I really have to move out of my bed? It's so inconvenient... Indy is a fraidy-cat, so when he saw the basement door, flashes of last night entered his mind, and he started crying. (At least he didn't pee on me like he did last night).

Then there was Agile Allie. Man, does she need a pedicure! After she wriggled her way free and escaped my grip the first time, I found her, tried to wrap her up in my shirt, but she still managed to reach around and get me good.

I finally made it to the basement, our power is still on (hence the wireless connection to blogger), the TV has switched from weather to Extra, and the kitties are starting to look like they'll forgive me.

After the storm's blown over, I'm going to pour myself a glass of wine, give the kitties some Whiska Lickens treats as a bribe to love me again, and get out the hydrogen peroxide and bandaids to treat all the puncture wounds on my back and shoulders.

I'm a little tired of this weather!

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

I've been busy. Very, very busy. Something, God knows what, motivated me to plant a gazillion tomato and vegetable seeds this year. And after a couple months, I had to do something with ALL OF THEM... The seed tray above is just one tray of seedlings. Imagine me having FIVE of the same, all full of plants ready to be transplanted! Every year, around the same time (dark, dreary January), I find myself craving a fresh tomato. About that same time, I start receiving Seed Catalogs from the Marketing Wonders of the World. My favorite is from Burpee. Every year, new varieties of georgous plants appear in the first few pages. Some of them are tomatoes. The new one that caught my eye this year was Italian Ice. I love tiny, bite-sized tomatoes, and this one sounded like heaven! And it's white - I've never seen a white tomato! I had to have it.

Another thing that I had to do this year was buy disease-resistant seeds. I've been using the same plot of land, year after year, to grow tomatoes. You're not supposed to do that... I said to myself - I'll just put fresh topsoil, compost and manure (yes, cow poop) on the plot. That didn't work either. For the last few years, my tomato plants developed diseases beyond my control. This year is going to be different. Almost all of my tomato plants are highly disease-resistant. Not critter-resistant. That's an entirely other pain in my bum.

All of this to say that I over-bought with the seeds. I think I ended up with about 13 different types of tomato plants, onion, herb, eggplant, pepper and some flower seeds. My teeny greenhouse was overflowing with seedlings! This picture doesn't even do justice to the quantity of plants that overtook my deck, which is not pictured. Roman is threatening an intervention if I don't control my obsession soon.

There's something so rewarding, though, about a teeny-tiny seed developing into a ginormous plant with enough fruit to feed a family. The idea of that keeps me growing these things year after year. It's soothing to play in the dirt and see what grows.

This year, though, I wanted to do something special with my plants. In a couple days, I'll post what I did. Now, however, I have to get ready to meet friends for dinner.

I'm Getting A Dutch/French Oven.

I just need help picking a color. I have a favorite, but I'm afraid it may be dated in a couple years. Somehow, I think all the color options may be dated in a couple years.

A ton of recipes I've read call for cooking on the stovetop then moving the food into the oven. I have no tool that can accommodate these recipes. The straw that broke my back came a week & a half ago while trying to make baked beans from scratch. The recipe said it made four servings, so I tripled it. Now... dry beans expand. A LOT. I ended up using three of my Corningware dishes, and I had to tend to the beans very frequently to make sure they stayed moist in the oven.

According to Cook's Illustrated, the best one to get is Le Creuset - the 7.25 quart one. They're pricy, but from the reviews I've seen, they'll outlast me.

So now, the biggest decision of all... COLOR. Cast your votes on the following:



BLACK









CARIBBEAN







CHERRY RED









CHESTNUT








COBALT







DIJON









DUNE








FLAME








KIWI





Ok. Vote!

Hello, Sprout!

I love Spring. Not only does it mean more exposure to sunlight, but it means the beginning of the growing season: flowers, trees, fresh vegetables. It's a rebirth of everything that went dormant during the winter, including me.

Those of you that know me know that about this time every year (since about 2000), I start a bunch of flowers and vegetables from seed. There's something soooo wonderfully fulfilling about putting one teenie-tiny seed into a peat pellet, watching it sprout, and then reaping the rewards of an entire summer-full of fresh vegetables. From one little seed!

I also plant annuals, including coleus and wave petunias, which start as such tiny little seeds (smaller than a pinpoint) and yet grow into ginormous colorful plants. The petunias are particularly difficult to germinate, but this year, I think I may have discovered the trick... Due to an unseasonable frost last week, I brought my seed trays inside - away from my outdoor mini greenhouse, put them in our half-bath, left the lights on and brought in an additional three-bulb lamp. The seeds LOVED it. Even more seedlings emerged in the small, warm room. So many that I'll be able to transplant them into new little peat pellets to create even more plants!

So seriously, if you want any plants, let me know. I'm going to have more than I can handle. And if you give me a dollar (or more!) for every high-yielding plant, I'll donate it to Give the Gift of Sight.

Picture of the Week

Here's the fam. Those of us that could got together Sunday. The occasion was that my cousin Ben is taking off Wednesday for the Army boot camp. He entered the Reserves last week with the rank of Specialist. He was assigned to the 100th Division Army Band at Ft. Knox. That's him towards the middle left with the Army cap on. Somehow, I do believe that he won't get sent into combat. He and his dad made good arguments to the fact.

Family's important to me. And I think I'm probably the unofficial family photographer. Every time we all get together, we take a group photo, and I think I've trained them all to sit still for me for about two to three pictures. :)

As I've mentioned previously, I love to cook. For this event, I got to make some pork barbecue, corn bread, baked and green beans. Roman made some cookies for desert that were REALLY good.

Everybody had a good time - as we typicaly do when the family gets together.

We all wish Ben the best.

New Cookbook!

I love to cook. I don't have a lot of time to do it, but when I do, I really enjoy it. Most of the time when I cook a meal, it's on the weekends when I have more time. Last weekend, I cooked barbecue pork in my crock-pot because Roman brought me some awesome barbecue sauce from his recent trip to Memphis.

The crock-pot recipes I have feed an army, so we had friends over to help us eat it all (Molly, Jason and Xavier). I also made cornbread for the first time. I was amazes at how easy it was to make! I made it from a recipe out of the cookbook that Molly gave me for Christmas. The book was on my amazon.com wishlist because Jackie recommended it to me. And I LOVE it. I read it periodically and learn more and more about cooking technique. Something I never learned growing up.

I admit that I love reading recipes as much as (or more than) I like to cook. I recently went to Half-Price Books and hit the jackpot. I found Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill cookbook for $10 and Nigella Lawson's book, "Nigella Bites" for $10. I think that both of them are incredibly talented, and I was so excited at my find.

We were visiting family today, and during the drive, I was able to finally read Nigella Bites. I love her style! I've seen her shows on Food Network, but this is the first cookbook of hers I've owned. It definitely won't be the last. Her writing style is so friendly, and her recipes are so easy and yummy-sounding. I can't WAIT to try them!

Simply said, I'd highly recommend this cookbook to anyone who likes to cook. I'll eventually write more about her recipes that I try. But if you're anything like me and are a cookbook junkie more than you even cook, this is one to get!

"I Have the Blue One?"

I had so much fun coloring Easter eggs yesterday with Xavier and his mom & dad (Molly & jason). Anyone that knows Xavier remembers his "blue" phase from about two years ago. No, he wasn't sad, rather everything to him was the color blue!

"What color is that [red] baloon, Xavier?"

"Boo."

"What color is the grass?"

"Boo."

"What color is your daddy's hair?"

Trick question. Daddy doesn't have any hair. But it was still, always to him, boo.

Xavier still likes his blue, and these days, he's added Dash and bowling to his favorite things. So yesterday, it came as no surprise that he really wanted to hold that blue egg before it was dry.

"I have the blue one? I have the blue one? I have the blue one?" he said repeatedly as soon-to-be-four-year-olds will when they think they're not being heard. He got so upset when he was told no and stared so longingly at that egg.

I think he finally got over it and moved on when he saw his mom blow-drying a plastic wrapper around an egg. It was funny to see him with the hair dryer, watching the egg roll all over the table. He laughed and laughed and laughed and finally forgot all about that blue egg.

My birds.

Roman tries to tell me they're not MY birds, but I'm not havin' any of that. They dine at the outdoor table I set for them. They're my guests who leave empty sunflower seed shells all over my back yard. And that's ok - they need to eat! Because of all that snow we were getting, I was worried about them, so I kept their bellies full. And took lots of pictures with my new lens - the one I picked up at B&H Photo in New York a couple weeks ago..