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Dianne De Jesus, Facebook friend and former colleague, was the first to figure out what was wrong with the pictures of my Dad I posted last week. That officially makes her Most Observant ToadMama Fan.

So, what’s with the image? His hat is missing its brim. Apparently, Dad decided the hat was dirty, so he washed it. I’m thinking he’d probably washed it before, and have no idea why the bill came off.

Mom thought it was pretty funny. Dad, being a good sport, probably thought so, too.

But I bet he misses his hat.

This is why I want to go to the DC Zoo!

This guy gets some very cool pictures there. Of many types of critters.

Check out his stuff at Nikographer.

This week has sucked the big one. Mostly because of work stuff. I won’t bore you with the details. I’ll just keep it short and say I’ve been quite irritated, or crabby as some might say.

On a positive note… my Dad sent me a dozen steamed blue crabs on Monday night (he works part-time for a crab house, i.e., place that sells crabs and other seafood). I was out with the girls (Shannon and Amy) and couldn’t do anything with them that evening. So I picked them last night.

They were BIG. How big? See for yourself…

Crabs like these would sell for close to $100 per dozen in a restaurant.

I didn’t finish until around 10:00 PM, so I haven’t talked to Dad yet to tell him just how lovely these crustaceans were. And how full. I got 6 packed cups of blue crab meat for my efforts. That’s like 2 pounds. And crab meat of this quality, especially from blue crabs, is not only hard to come by, but also very expensive.

We’re going to be eating some really good fried crab cakes sometime real soon.

Thanks, Dad!

Today is Father’s Day. Undoubtedly, the Moms will be thinking, “Huh, she didn’t do a Mother’s Day post.” Which is true. Sorry, Moms. But I’m a Mom, too, and took that day off.

Anyway… here are the kids Hubby and I parented together.

This is just one of the pictures taken by Jaime Gibbons of Jaime Gibbons Photography fame. The photo shoot was my Mother’s Day gift from the kids. Eric (19 1/2) is standing in the back with Shannon (30) seated on the left and Amy (28) seated on the right. (As soon as my MIL tells me what sizes she needs, I’ll order my prints.)

Here’s another…

Wanna see the rest? They’re here. She did a great job.

And here we are with our expanded nuclear family on Christmas Eve, 2008.

I could be cliched and blame Hubby’s gray hair on the kids, but most of it is probably ’cause of me. And why poke fun? I love Hubby’s gray hair.

And how could I forget my Dad?

It’s funny how much of this training stuff is mental. To me, running three miles seems daunting. But running for 30 minutes sounds easy. Right? Well, if I jog for 30 minutes straight, I’ll have likely covered at least two, maybe three miles. Depending on my pace of course.

If this training regimen was laid out in miles, I probably wouldn’t be doing this. Especially considering where I was when I started. Not that I’m ready for a marathon or anything, but I’m a good bit better off than I was when I started.

Take this morning. I actually wanted to get out there and train. I think it’s because I was curious to see if I could actually do three, five-minute jogs.

And you know what? I did. It made me feel pretty good. It may sound pathetic to some folks, but I’m working in baby steps here. In my opinion, I’m doing well.

So well, in fact, that I decided to go ahead and buy some new running apparel. The first item on the list was real running shorts. The kind with a liner, so I can ditch the drawers while running. I hate having to peel off sweaty underwear (sorry for that scary mental image).

I bought some new shoes, too. I actually bought the shoes over the Internet because I could save $35 by doing so. That’s a lot. And the place I got them was offering free shipping and free return shipping, so it was a win-win situation. Hopefully, they’ll arrive next week.

Speaking of next week… Monday, my regimen changes to jog 10/walk 5, repeating once (a total of 30 minutes), three days a week.

I’ll be sure to let you know how it goes.

It was hot and humid AGAIN today. When I went out for my walk at 12:15, it was 70 degrees with 87% humidity. I’ll try to stop whining about it. Promise.

But when I was halfway through my walk, I saw a Robin bathing in a puddle.

My first thought? Aw, that poor Robin needs to go hang out at my house so he can use a real birdbath (above).

My second thought? That puddle looks pretty refreshing. Maybe I should splash right on through.

It was tempting, but I didn’t do it. Maybe another day…