Real boys wear pink!

Hayden's new obsession is the Cirque du Soleil show "La Nouba" at Downtown Disney. Dressing up has also become one of his new loves, so he decided that he absolutely HAS to be the Green Bird character from the show. The Green Bird has a pointy hat with 2 antennae at the top, a purple and yellow shirt, purple and yellow tights, some sort of tutu, yellow and red socks, and yellow shoes. Oh, and his face is painted white. Here is Hayden's interpretation of the Green Bird:

The skirt was originally some sort of headdress that he made at camp this past summer. The mask is in lieu of paint because it's way less messy. And the socks are our collaborative creation:

We went to Publix one Friday night and I let him pick out the colors of Kool-Aid he thought were Green Bird sock worthy - Cherry and Lemonade. I put one end of the hank in one pot and the other end in another. My goal was to have yellow, red and white stripes. When I started these socks last Friday night (yes - finished in a week! woot!), Mike said, "They look a little girlie." Obviously some of the yarn wasn't submersed well in the Cherry pot (wow, that sounds a little nasty!) and came out a little pink. Oh well. Hayden likes pink and looks good wearing it.

(He controlled this photo shoot. He kept getting into poses then saying, "Take a picture? Let me see!")

I finished these in record time - 1 week from start to finish. I never have made socks that fast, even on bigger needles! Part of my motivation was him being totally up my butt - "But where are your Green Bird socks?" They fit perfectly right now but in hindsight I should've made them a little longer so he could get a little more wear out of them. He's really enjoying them right now, though, so I guess that's all that matters. He wore them to drum lessons today, along with his white long-sleeve t-shirt with red stripes across the chest, madras plaid shorts and yellow and blue Crocs. My son, the fashion plate.

In other knitting news, I turned in my donation to the Jewish Community Center's silent auction this past Thursday morning:

(I'm going to start a fashion trend of wearing a pretty lace shawl with workout clothes!)

The infamous Kimono Shawl from Folk Shawls book by Cheryl Oberle. The yarn is Jaggerspun wool/silk blend. I used size 5 Addi Turbo lace needles and did only 14 repeats of the pattern. The pattern calls for 25 repeats, but I didn't have that much yarn. (The yarn was from my stash. One complete ball and about 3/4 of another one.) The shawl turned out to be a good size, IMHO, so I can't imagine how big it would be with 11 more repeats! I really like it and hope that it can bring in some good money. Every time I knit lace I really enjoy it; unfortunately I don't dress up enough to warrant many lace shawls.

Next topic: exercise. The triathlon season is coming to a close, and I did not do one single race. I did my share of volunteering and coaching, though! It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, standing on the sidelines and cheering everyone else on, but I am ready to go into next season healthy and primed to kick some serious ass. My ankle is still funky so I don't run very far or very fast (tried to push it at a Labor Day 5k race and ended up in pain the rest of the week - my time was still 4 minutes slower than my last 5k, so the pain wasn't even worth it) and I can't wear fins at swim practice, but I can do other things. I teach 3 Spin classes, 2 Bootcamp classes, and 2 strength classes each week. Those are my clients'/students' workouts; as far as my own, I've been focusing on strength. This past week started yet another 6-week stint in Chains hell, and I'm working once a week with a trainer who makes my legs feel like they're going to explode. (Yes, I'm a trainer myself so it sounds funny for me to work with a trainer. I know how to work out and I do it on my own a couple of times a week, but I really want that burn that you get when someone else is pushing you harder than you normally push yourself.) My goal is to become Super Buff Woman over the next 5 months, then turn my focus back to triathlon training and develop speed. I've already got races picked out - 2-3 sprints, 2-3 Olympics and 1 half-Ironman - and I hope that my planning will produce a lean, mean triathlon machine that'll make every woman 35-39 shake in their tri suits!

On a sour note: we found out on Tuesday that Rudy, our 13-year old Jack Russell terrier, has liver cancer. Tuesday was also my birthday - happy freakin' birthday to me. (That day I also had a fender bender in my new Mini Cooper convertible and tore a hole in the right side of my front bumper.) It's pretty widespread, so his days are numbered. We've had Rudy since he fit in the palm of my hand. This is a tough thing to deal with. We're trying to just enjoy him as long as possible, but the reality is that "as long as possible" isn't going to be that long. But maybe it will. He's an incredible dog and has amazed the vet time and time again. He actually died on Monday morning (went into cardiac arrest at the vet - they were able to revive him, then had to tell us what had happened in the examination room and ask us what we wanted them to do if it happened again) and was pretty bad off the rest of the day. Before we took him home that afternoon, the vet said if he didn't make any progress in the next 24 hours we'd have to talk about what to do. The next morning he was standing up on his own, walking from the bedroom to the laundry room. In the last couple of days he's jumped off both the bed and the couch, and has gotten up the step to the front porch on his own. He's trying his hardest to hang on.

(Old picture. Hayden's hair is much much more unruly these days.)