• My Kid Has Mad Skillz

    The Shotgun Club

    As I am being driven around the massive high school parking lot by my newly-permitted-to-drive son, I keep an eye on the road with him. I make sure both of his hands are holding on to the wheel. I answer questions and give gentle instruction when he needs it. It’s a nice, quiet slice of quality time that we don’t often get, so I focus on the enjoyment of it and not on the messes that await me when we return home. After a little while, my eyes shift to the side and I notice another car on the other side of the parking lot, making large circles and figure…

  • Working On My Fitness

    I Nearly Gave Myself Whiplash With This One.

    Remember how I started the C25K program? Remember how I said that I wasn’t planning on doing a 5K, that my only goal was to finish the program? Yeah, about that… I changed my mind…again. I will be doing the Blogher 5K in New York’s Central Park this August*, because how great will THAT be, to do a 5K in one of the most fabulous places in the entire world? Go big or go home, you know? Hold me. *With one of my roomies, Michelle. Anyone else doing it? ©2010 Suburban Scrawl

  • Working On My Fitness

    I Always Said I’d Never Do The Couch To 5K Program. (Never Say Never)

    I have never liked running, ever in my life. Even as a kid, I don’t recall enjoying a simple, quick run across a field just to meet a friend. The required mile-long runs in P.E. class when I was a teenager? I dreaded those days immensely. Plus? I was nearly always last coming back. As an adult, I also despise running. How much? Well, as I told a friend on Facebook this week, I hate running with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. That’s pretty deep-seated, don’t you think? So it makes TOTAL sense that, when I decided that my routine needed shaking up (again), I settled on…running. The…

  • Family Fun,  Fun in Chicago,  Working On My Fitness

    If Not Now, When?

    Normally we don’t get up for less than $10,000 a day, but on Sunday we got up at O’Dark Thirty (3:15 a.m.) for one of the few other reasons we’d ever get out of bed at that time: Bike the Drive! Bike the Drive is an annual bike ride (duh) in downtown Chicago on Lake Shore Drive, which is one of the busiest (and most beautifully equipped with spectacular views) streets in town. The organizers close the LSD (yes, we really call it that) to cars for the morning, and it’s a phenomenal experience. The total distance, if you do the whole thing, is thirty miles. The last time we…