Special (5)K Challenge

I am a walker, and have been from the time I started Junior High and was forced to trek home daily the mile and a half from school.  That’s quite a hike for a 13 year old kid who’d never walked much before.  I would complain to my parents, who both worked – necessitating the walk – but to no avail.  Sometimes I would sneak on a friend’s bus, pretending I was going to her house after school, then walk the 5 minutes home.  I never could figure out why she got to take the bus, when she lived just the other side of the main arterial.  But anyway…

Fast forward several years.  My husband – then boyfriend – took me to a nature refuge near our (then) homes, and the experience changed my life.  I discovered not only a passion for the natural world, but a love of walking that I’d never known before.  I began walking everywhere, whenever time afforded.  I couldn’t get up early enough to walk the 4 miles to work, but I walked home nearly every night.  Even during pregnancy – there I was, humpty dumpty in a business suit, stocking’ed feet stuck into two tennis shoes, heels in a bag at my side.  I thought when I walked, about life and love, and everything else.  Those walks set me right on the path to labor, and I often described the birth process just like a walk home, with a finite start, middle and end.  Walking kept me in shape, despite having gained FIFTY POUNDS that first pregnancy, and after my daughter was born, I walked all the more.  No longer tied to a work schedule, I would walk into town to meet my husband for lunch, our daughter strapped to my chest.  And when she got too big to carry, I’d push her in her stroller.  Everywhere.

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Magazine rant.

I have a love/hate relationship with magazines.  On the pro side, they’re a mindless way to pass the time, and the very best can indeed captivate as great literature.  They’re a (fairly) cheap way of indulging oneself.  They’re often chock full of helpful information, practical advice and useful tips.  And as someone who writes a food blog (that OTHER Daily Dish), they’re a treasure trove of recipes.

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The Secret Lives of Lobsters

Last week my daughter & I visited the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, a nonprofit marine science center located right in the heart of Portland’s harbor.

My daughter’s 5th grade class had been invited to participate in a special program called Lobster: Untold Tales and I was tagging along as a chaperone.  I’d never thought much about lobsters before – apart from how tasty they are – so I was interested to see what I’d been missing. After being briefed in the lobby, we were led into a state-of-the-art interactive exhibit room for our LabVenture!

As someone easily impressed by things like salt free food and wild turkeys, you can imagine how taken in I was by the (nearly) $2.5 million facility above.  With its gigantic screens and its dark lighting and shiny metal kiosks, I felt like I’d stepped right onto the set of CSI!  But instead of being ordered to stand behind the camera, the LabVenture! program is all ACTION!  Not only were we set loose in the “lab” to investigate, but we got to (hold your breath) TOUCH LOBSTERS.

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