The Payneful Old Runner

When I was in my 30's I enjoyed running and competed in a number of 5K and 10K races in Louisiana.  I was on the AT&T Corporate Cup Team that ran in a 10K starting and ending at the Super Dome as well as running another 10K through the French Quarter.  It definitely kept the weight off and also added to my tee shirt collection.   Many of the small town food fests in southern Louisiana had a race associated with it so it was a fun thing to do on the weekends.  After moving to Memphis, life became more complicated and,  although I did some jogging to keep in shape, my racing career ended.   Even the jogging ended within a year after moving to Leiper's Fork near Franklin, TN.  My racing career was resurrected this past spring when I "accepted" an invitation by my daughter Rachel to run with her and several other family members in the St. Jude 1/2 Marathon in Memphis in December.   My training started slowly but once I retired in July, reality set in and I started to get serious about preparing for this race.  Since I do better with short term goals, I registered and ran in a local 10K race in September and then Rachel (yep, the daughter that talked me into all this), again talked me, as well as others in my family, to form a team and run in a turkey trot 5K race on Thanksgiving day.  She even made team tee shirts for our team ("No Payne, No Gain" was our slogan) and it was a lot of fun running with the family.    I actually completed the St. Jude 1/2 Marathon on December 1st placing 19/39 in my age group.  I will be the first to confess that I am much slower than when I ran 30 years ago (I wonder if the twenty extra pounds might also have something to do with it?) but I actually am starting to enjoy running again.  Rachel and I have registered for the Little Rock 1/2 Marathon in March and might even run in the St. Jude again next year.  Below are a few pictures of my resurrected running career.

 Team "No Payne - No Gain" just before the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day in Franklin, TN.  Included in the picture:  Me, Becky, Rachel, Eric (son-in-law), Tim (son-in-law), Cassie and her son, Caleb.

 Myself and my son, Justin, before the St. Jude 1/2 Marathon in Memphis

 My daughter, Rachel, and me after completing St. Jude.

 Rachel, me and Justin after completing St. Jude

 The entire extended family members who started and completed the 1/2 Marathon: Mandy (daughter-in- law), Bill Bellican (Mandy's dad), me, Justin, Rachel, Eric

I was hungry after the race and they kept on giving me free food.  What was I to do?

The family history of George our pet opossum

Since the Spring of 2011, my yard has been the play area of a family of opossum  that have created some fun but also some frustration.   One member of this little family was found in our outside trash can and almost ended up at the landfill.  Unfortunately, one began  digging up the yard so, it had to go.   Below is the brief family history of George, our family opossum.

I am not sure if this is George at conception but it was a strange sight to see early one morning

 I was at the landfill about ready to unload one of the trash cans, when I looked into the trash can and found our little George.  Why I brought George home to show Becky is a mystery.

A picture of George in his new temporary home after I trapped him for digging up my yard.

Our last picture of George before I drove him off to his new home about a mile from my yard.  George, I don't ever want to see your ugly face in my yard.  Now my next project is getting rid of my mole family.

What Was I Thinking?

A number of years ago I began collecting different volumes of the John MacArthur New Testament Commentary as they were released but the purchasing soon was taken over by my family as an easy birthday, Father's Day or Christmas gift for me.  Earlier this year, I finally was able to obtain a book shelf for my office in which I could display all the volumes for easy access.  I confess that I haven't used them as much as I had planned but occasionally pulled a volume out when preparing to teach a Sunday School lesson.  One day in last December, I was doing something at my desk when I glanced over at the commentary series and again thought that I really should be using the special gift from my family.  So a decision was made to start reading them and a reading schedule was created that will have me complete the entire current series by February 2014.  To date I have finished four volumes and just started a fifth (I & II Thessalonians - thank you again Justin and Mandy for this Christmas 2006 gift).   I just wanted to thank my family for this wonderful gift and to let them know it is being used.  The picture shows my reading list for the next few years.  Something to do in my retirement.

My Pool Sprung a Leak

Last fall I noticed that the water level in the pool was dropping faster than normal, and apparently there was a leak somewhere.  I spent sometime in the cold water trying to find it but no luck and then the process of what to do next began.  As all of your know, the pool came with the house and, initially, we were excited about our children and their families using it.  My parents had a water front lake house that we all enjoyed for many years, so this would be the same but maybe a little bit smaller.  It was great for the first couple of years but then the visits to swim lessened as the grand kids got older and other life's activities crowded out the visits to swim.  Becky and I began to consider replacing the pool with a much smaller "adult" option just for the two of us to enjoy which would cut down the maintenance cost considerably.  We had many of these discussions swimming in the pool in the evenings, just the two of us,  while enjoying one or two adult beverages, enjoying the sunsets, enjoying the full moon rising and even enjoying watching the bats flying overhead.  Then it came to us,  the heck with the grand kids, we are keeping the pool for ourselves.  So last month we had the liner replaced and by the end of the week, the pool was filled with water and ready for the season.  I'm just kidding about the heck with the grand kids comment, but we discovered that we actually enjoy using it ourselves and will probably use it even more this summer with my upcoming retirement.  The water temperature is almost ready so start making plans to come over and swim in the "new" pool at Nonie and Pops house. 

The pool being drained before the old liner can be removed.

Almost finished getting the water out

Cutting the old liner into sections and removing it

The liner sits on a layer of sand so the sand had to be levelled

The new liner (isn't it a bright blue?)  is installed and water is slowly added to form it into the correct shape.  The temperature had to be at least 70 degrees before the new liner can be installed so it would stretch.

The Sins of My Youth

As you all know, I am fair skinned and sunburn easily.  When I was a kid, I just knew that the first trip to the pool or beach was going to cause a bad sun burn but then I tanned (sort of) and had fun in the sun without putting on any sunscreen protection.  Even in college, I accepted the same pattern of burn and then tan.  That all changed when I was told as a young father that I had skin cancer and had several small areas of skin on my shoulder removed.   Sunscreen became my best friend from that time forward and I have been generally pretty careful about protecting my tender skin from the evil sun.  Unfortunately for the last four years I have been going to a dermatologist who has removed cancerous skin from my face and back and have gone through two treatments to remove areas of pre-cancer from my face.  Those treatments, apparently, did not do the job so a stronger treatment was prescribed two weeks ago.  It has done the job and the following pictures should prove my point.  The red areas indicate sun damage and the treatment is bacically destroying the sun damaged skin which should be replaced with healthy skin during the healing process.  I will stop the twice daily medication tomorrow and have a scheduled follow-up appointment this coming Monday.

I am sending these pictures as a warning to all my offspring that they may want to be careful this summer and cover themselves and the kids with a lot of sunscreen.  

I am back

After some encouragement from Katie and technical advise from Cassie (thanks girls), I am back as a blogger.  Earlier today I posted a blog  about our recent trip to see Mimi but then realized that the email distribution list was no longer there.  So I have gone to the new format and, hopefully, you will get an email concerning this blog and then can go to my blog page to see the earlier blog about Mimi.   The crew is almost finished putting in the new pool liner and the next step is to fill the pool.  Picture on that post to follow. 

March Trip to VA

Becky and I drove to Charlottesville, VA to see my mother for several days earlier this month and also visited my father's gravesite at South Plains Presbyterian Chuch.  The new administration building of the church has been completed and the church appears to be growing.  I have been encouraged by Katie to get back into blogging so will try to do better.  Mom has lost some weight but, otherwise, is doing well at 96.