Saturday, October 31, 2009

Happy Halloween!
















Happy Halloween! I can't believe it is the end of October. I ran 5 miles (843 miles) this morning before the snow started to fall.  It started to snow about the time I arrived home and by noon we had a white blanket covering the city. It turned to rain a little later. Skender played basketball today. Their team is improving every game and it is great to watch them having so much fun. Skender decided this year to make his own costume by taking bits and pieces from old costumes and painting his face with a final touch of a screw glued to his forehead! Very scary. I have had about 30 - 40 kids and almost all of them were Aboriginal kids. They had great costumes,  a few really cool homemade costumes that must have taken a great deal of work to put together. I had all my cool Halloween decorations out, including my shaking skull along the path that begins to loudly rattle when someone walks by. Always catches the kids off guard and they run like crazy to get away from it :) I love Halloween! I am almost out of candy at 7:15PM, I have a habit of giving too much too early and running out of candy for the older kids.  

Friday, October 30, 2009

Nearing the end of October


























I ran 4 miles this afternoon (838 miles). It was nice and I felt like running further but my right knee began to bother me. I have had knee trouble all week. Each time I run over  8 miles I end up with an injury. Strangely it is a new problem each time. Hopefully this is just a small problem and not something I'm going to struggle with for a few weeks. 

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Last days of grant writing


















I ran 5 miles (834 miles) this afternoon. It was nice again, a bit cool but a perfect day for running. We had our civic elections yesterday and the existing city councillors were all returned to City Hall. The election turn out was 6% less than our last civic election. Only 25% of eligible voters voted which is pretty dismal. I consulted with Skender and cast my vote. Only one of the people we voted for failed to get in so we're pretty happy with the election outcome.
We are two days away from submitting our Fire Fighter Mentorship grant. It is about 1.3 million dollars over 5 years. I love this project and I think we may have a good chance of being awarded the funding. If we get the grant it will mean a whole lot of work with some great people and a great program. Cross your fingers that the research gods are with us!   I can't wait to submit the grant because it is the last of three big work tasks that I have had to do in the past four months. I've had no time off except the odd day to clean my house and I can't wait until I can rest, read a good novel, and go out with friends without worrying about ALL THE WORK I have to get done : )