Allergy Woes

Spring allergies are here. We were okay for the first couple weeks, but the sneezing has escalated over the last several days. The yellow coat of dust on cars became noticeable over the weekend. There's a box of tissues in every room, sometimes two. I line the children up for Alavert before breakfast.

Everyone's tired, and easily winded. We have matching purple circles under our eyes. B1 had to break out the inhaler for his asthma. Story time is limited to 10-15 minutes, regardless of where we are in the chapter, due to scratchy throat.

Best news of the week is the weather. There may be some heavy storms, which is not great, but the rain is so very welcome. I selfishly don't even care about the benefit of four consecutive days of rainy weather on the long-term regional drought. Four days of rain means four days of pollen being washed away. Four days closer to the end of extremely high pollen counts.

Four days of rain also means B1 and I have a chance to catch our breath before the ING Half Marathon on Sunday. I'll be running the half - though running might be more walk/run after the week of upper respiratory ick. B1 will be finishing his half. His middle school participated in ING Run for Something Better, and the kids get to finish up their batch of shorter runs with the final 1.1 mile on the half/marathon course. I'm quite proud of B1. He got rather excited about the running, and I'm pretty sure he's over 20 miles for the last several weeks. Hopefully, this excitement will continue into the future.

Since there's not a lot of running for a couple of days, what with the not being able to breathe and all, I'm playing indoors. Trying out a bit of upper body work with the yoga and core. Using a 15 lb kettlebell. So far, I like it. It's rather fun to swing it around, especially if picturing the cartoon "strongman" in my head while doing so. Only thing I'm not so happy about is when the weight slams into or rests on my wrists during a few of the exercises. My hands may be large, almost to the point of being man hands, but I have itty-bitty wrists that are like toothpicks in comparison.