The Friday Four, Part 30

~1~

So I'm one of those lame moms who always - and I really mean always - forgets to get the first-day-of-school picture of the kids bright-eyed and bushy-tailed before school starts.  Today I did manage to get one when they got home, and it only took a dozen tries and a bribe of warm chocolate chip cookies to get them to look this good:

First day of school!

~2~

Our garden is (over-)producing numerous varieties of tomatoes and squash, so I really need to get busy canning and otherwise using them all up.  I generally can some stewed tomatoes, maybe some salsa.  I have a great zucchini relish recipe courtesy of some friends from church.  And I try to give away as much squash as humanly possible.  Any other suggestions on what to do with all this produce?

Anyone want some squash?  Anyone?

~3~

(I just snagged this pic, so you can't
actually click on it to ask a question.
Click on the link to the right instead.)

The "Ask a Mormon" feature on Spokane Faith & Values just went up last Wednesday and it's already generated quite a few interesting questions, which I'm trying to work through as quickly as I can around everything else I have going on.  My first two columns have already been published.  One about capital punishment and another about cremation.  (Don't worry - the other ones so far don't have anything to do with death!)

Feel free to submit a question if you'd like to!

~4~

Last week I officially finished the Couch to 5K program and then I ran my first official 5K on Labor Day. Except I was late, so I didn't really get to warm up and I think I might have shin splints now, and someone removed one of the arrows along the route so a bunch of us missed a turn and ended up running only about 2.5 miles instead of a full 5K. And because of missing that turn, I had a monster hill to go up and I could only run half of it, had to walk the rest. Honestly, I'm a little disappointed.

But on the bright(?) side, an older gentleman who was running near me asked if my mom and dad were waiting for me at the finish line. When I laughed and said my husband and children were, he did a double take and said, "I must have mistaken you for someone else. I thought you were one of the youth in my ward. You don't look old enough to have a husband and kids." 35, folks. I'm 35. But I guess I look 16 when I'm red-faced and running?

(And I "forgot" the camera so, no, you don't get to see pictures of my sweaty, stinky, gasping red-faced self!)