ketchup

No, not that kind. But if you live in the Midwest, you undoubtedly pronounce it the same as the real title of this post, "Catch Up". I have taken a few of those Facebook "What part of the country does your speech say you're from" quizzes and I always get a solid "Upper Midwest". Hmm.

Okay, so this summer has been beyond busy. I thought the past two summers when we have had a wedding each year would have won, but this year beat them both. We traveled a bit: Chicago for a funeral, Michigan for the 4th, Chicago again for Emmy's and Aly's Rock'n'Roll Half Marathon, a fun weekend getaway to Iowa City (yes, really, Iowa City - who knew?!), and then Dwight had a weekend in North Dakota for his annual poker trip.

Dwight and Brody were each running their first race on July 4th in the G-Rap

if only that little boy could get a little more love...

at the Bean. we spent all day walking around downtown, when Emmy and Aly had a half-marathon to run the next day. they now know better for next time!

One of our long weekends was hosting friends for our annual member-guest tournament at Oak Hills for the 20th year in a row. And the guys won their flight - check out those trophies. Wine may or may not have been drunk out of them... And the green jackets are from when they won the whole tourney back in 2000. As they say every year, no matter how they finish, at least they have the green jackets.

they never have to plan their outfits

We had family come home! All the kids, plus Dwight's mom and sister made for a full house. It was crowded, busy, noisy, cluttered, and utterly wonderful. Seeing great-grandma meet Brody was pretty special.

With all the travel and all the company, plus work - more on that later - this past weekend was the first time in eight weekends that we didn't have one thing on the calendar. It was absolutely wonderful. We went to the farmer's market downtown, had lunch out, afternoon cocktails - just major relaxing. But as full as our schedule has been, the old fitness routine has fallen by the wayside. It really helps me to have a race to be training for, I guess, since this is the email I got from Jawbone this week:

seriously, it's a gift

After running pretty hard to catch that wagon I fell off of some weeks ago (actually, I don't think I've caught it yet, but it is definitely in my sights), here are today's meals:

breakfast

sargento light string cheese wrapped in deli ham, cukes, grape tomatoes

afternoon snack

damn fine chicken from Nom Nom Paleo (really, that's the name!), baked potato, carrot and kohlrabi sticks, and my sister-in-laws's incredible pickled green beans

So about that job... I love what I do, but I had an epiphany when I wanted to go to Chicago for the girls' marathon. Most of the kids (except Tim), my grandbaby, and my sisters were going to be there, and there was a possibility I might not get to go because of work. It ended up being no problem, and to be honest, I have never NOT gotten time off that I needed, but there have been plenty of times that I just haven't asked. I haven't golfed hardly at all the past two summers, and while I do miss the golf, I really miss my girlfriends. My bike is collecting cobwebs, I could go on and on. I realize I am in a nice position in that we don't need my salary, so to be fair to Evereve (formerly Hot Mama), I turned in my resignation a few weeks ago, effective September 25. I wanted to give them enough time to find someone good, and enough time for me to train that person. So if you're in Omaha and want to be an inventory specialist, or know someone who does, I can hook you up!

New beginnings...