Happy Easter!

What? You don't think that looks like an Easter image?

Well... Let me explain... It has been a very exciting Easter for us so far! My boys (5 and 6 years old) have been understandably quite excited about Easter. They went to bed as fired up as if it were Christmas. For years, they have been awesome going to sleep and sleeping all night before Christmas and Easter. We have always told them that if they are awake Santa and the Easter Bunny will not come. So they go right to sleep, sleep like rocks and awaken promptly at 5:00 am for the joy of the holiday. Not this Easter. This morning at 1:30 am my husband and I were awakened by the blaring sound of our house alarm. Our little mischievious ones had woken up, seen they had some loot, and decided to check for any plastic eggs filled with goodies outside. Heh. Within minutes a squad car comes blaring down the street, lights and sirens on. Sorry officer, just some over-zealous little boys. :) Imagine how hard it is going back to sleep once you know all of the goodies are downstairs. Seeing how exhausted they are today, I'm not sure they did! The good news is that I now know our alarm monitoring system works and that the cops get here quickly!!

Ah the excitement.

This morning we made lambropsomo (Greek Easter bread) and the corned beef and cabbage is in the crock pot. I know, I know, I am a holiday behind. BUT, we had corned beef that we never made due to some crazy scheduling this week. And at least the bread is rising as I write and the red eggs are ready. Christos Anesti!

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Now, on to March Madness: I actually have 3 brackets filled out. One family pool, one work pool and a running pool. I am doing despicably in the first 2, but fortunately am kicking butt in my running pool. In fact right now, the standings have Miss Mindi as numero uno. Why is this important? Because we end it with a race! It is actually really cool. We all fill out our brackets and send our 5K PR to the organizer. We will run the 5K race a couple of days after the finals. The way it works is the person with the slowest PR starts first, second slowest, and so on. The idea is to have a crowded, exciting finish. But, the cool thing is that the amount of points you get for your bracket you get to add to your PR time, thereby giving you a few more valuable seconds, a decided advantage. Last year I came in second to last in the brackets. Not so helpful (although I did come in 2nd in the race!). Anyway, out of the 3 brackets, this one is the most fun, so I am happy I am doing better so far. I know it is early, but I will take it!

.......

This snow is for the birds. (And actually, after reading Salty's blog this morning, I am realizing that birds would be nice, but it is too damn cold here for them yet). The good news is that yesterday I had a good run anyway. I knew I had to go into work and wanted to run in the morning first. Unfortunately, there were a good 2-3 inches of snow on the roads, making for crap running conditions (yes, I am officially turning into a big wuss). The treadmill was not appearing all too inviting either. SO I decided to work and hope the roads cleared by the time I got home as it was supposed to be 40 degrees. Well, I ended up stuck in a war room reviewing documents for a little over 8 hours. If you don't know what a war room is, be glad for it. And when I say documents, I mean 12 banker's boxes full of completely unorganized, loose documents which I was supposed to organize, create a timeline of what the heck happened, and craft some genious legal arguments in an attempt to recover some $25-$50 million. Not to be fooled, this is among the most unglamorous of legal work. It is scrub work. Loads of fun. My lower back was achy and I was cranky because I had not run in almost THREE days due to weather and my crazy schedule this week. BUT, when I got home, the roads were nice and clear. I ran six pretty easy, with the last mile at a 7:30 pace. It wasn't a prescribed workout, just get the kinks out and have a little fun at the end. It was cool. So here is how my week has played out:

Mon: rest

Tue: 2.5 am (9:30 pace on the treadmill - I just couldn't stand it any longer than that) / 5.67 pm (9:17)

Wed: 5.67 easy (9:24 - I played hooky from work in the afternoon to run outside! :))

Thu: unplanned rest due to schedule

Fri: unplanned rest due to snow and reluctance to go on the TM (read: slacker)

Sat: 6 (8:46)

Sun: 12.14 very slow (9:38).

Total: 32 miles

So I was a bit of a slacker, but as busy as we were this week, I refuse to feel bad about it. I didn't fall too far off track. Next week is a new week. :)

Have a great Easter. If you don't celebrate Easter, have a kick @ss Sunday.