Just keep swimming...Just keep swimming.... - Dori

I've started swimming this semester at Cleveland State's Busbey Natatorium. Isn't it beautiful? They have a 10 meter! Crazy. I never thought I would swim at a pool with a 10 meter platform, but CSU has one, and I am a student, and therefore I get to use the pool and the Rec Center for free.

After all that's happened in the last few years, I want to (and now am able) to start exercising again. I've thought about what I should do, and when I hear my friends and family talk about the marathons they've run or are training for, I think I would like to do that just for the shear glory of it. But, my knee problems remind me that running is not my cup of tea.

Every time I see these diving boards I get a wistful feeling and sigh about diving again. Then I remember when I dislocated my right knee cap doing a front double my senior year in high school, and when I broke my foot diving in Guatemala (which I am now mostly recovered from).

But SWIMMING. Swimming can be for me. It is certainly not as terrifying or as exhilarating as diving, and doesn't seem as glorious as a marathon. But it feels good, doesn't hurt my knees, and it is a great work out.

So, I am trying to swim about 3-4 times a week for 30 minutes without stopping. My current goal to work up to is to swim a kilometer in about 30 min. without stopping. (1000 meters or 10 long laps of the pool). It may not seem like a lot to some people, but for me it is a good goal. I think it might take me a while, but I've set my mind to it, and usually when that happens, somehow I can do it!

In the Olympics, they have 10 km marathon swims. Maybe I can work up to that someday. 10,000 meters (100 long laps....currently that sounds impossible, but we'll see).

Scout gave me a scare!

Well, we have had our cat, Scout, now for 8 months, and she has found a place in our hearts. We love having her around. She is great comical entertainment (the picture above shows her in one of the very strange poses she likes to sleep in.) and she is friendly, follows me around the house, eats when we eat, sits on your lap. All in all, she is a great cat!

Last night, Seth and I were shutting our storm windows, and we were also going to take down our air conditioning unit from our 2nd story bedroom window. The unit is very heavy, and the window is hard to open and often gets stuck. Seth pulled out the unit and started for the basement asking me to come open the basement door. I did so, but saw that the window (with no screen) was completely open. I was a little worried about Scout because she is always so curious and wants to go outside, but then I thought that she isn't stupid enough to jump from a second story window. By the time I got back upstairs, I had forgotten about it, and started cleaning up, shut the storm window and the regular window with great difficulty.

I was resting on our bed, and then I thought I saw Scouts face in the window, frantic with panic. For a split second, I thought I must be imagining this, because if I had already shut the window, how could she be holding herself from falling. I was absolutely alarmed, and yelled "Seth, Scout's outside!!!" "She is?" Then, instead of helping me, he runs away to who knows where.

So, with strength that I didn't seem to have when working with this window before, I ripped open both window, and dragged Scout inside. It just so happened there is a small, steep ledge that I didn't know was under our window, and somehow she had jumped out of the window onto it, and became alarmed after I shut the window. Her heart was beating so fast, but mine was beating faster. Then I hear Seth's voice from outside, "Emily, where is she?" I guess he misunderstood me, and didn't think she had jumped out the window, but somehow got out some other way.

Well, that was our crazy experience from last night. It was quite shocking and took me a good few minutes to recover. Hope you got a laugh out of it!


Scout is incredibly clean for how much she rolls around on the floor, especially when in crazy mode. In this video (which I took in May) she was in a crazy rolling around mood, but she often forgets what she's doing to clean herself and then goes right back to rolling.

Shepard Cook-Out

Last Saturday, we had a Shepard cook-out at our place. My Aunts Laura, Candi, Linda and Diane, Uncle Scott, and cousins Christine and Josh, and second cousin Cohen all came up to visit us from Columbus, OH (2 and a half hours away). I love hosting parties at my house! It was so nice of them to come, and I was so excited to show them our house, which (in my opinion) is getting more beautiful by the day! I just finished the swags for the dining room that same day thanks to my friend Taylor who helped so much. Thanks Taylor! (You can kind of see one of the swags behind Candi in this picture.

We played a really fun big group game called Cranium Wow. In the picture above, my Aunt Diane is drawing something with her eyes closed and the team members have to guess what it is within the time limit. I love Seth's confused look. You do lots of different activities similar to pictionary, charades, Taboo and more! I love that game. That was a great Christmas present my family gave us. This is the winning team. We were ahead the whole game, and somehow at the very end, they pulled ahead of us. I am sure my Aunt Laura attributes it to when we had to spell "bandwidth" backwards as a team. Spelling backward as a team is hard to do!

Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of Josh because he was apparently really tired, and took a 3 hour nap. :) Anyways, we had a great lunch, told stories, had some political debates (you know, the usual for a Shepard gathering) and had so much fun we decided to get pizza and a movie. We picked up the pizza and a couple movies from the Red Box, got home and ate. Somehow, we started telling stories about eating hot peppers. Candi and Diane win for the funniest stories. Diane ate one bite of an extremely hot pepper, and had an allergic reaction and got hives all over her! How terrible. I stay away from spicy things whenever possible.

Soon after we ate I fell terribly ill. It was very sad, I couldn't come back downstairs, so everyone went home and we didn't get to watch the movie together. I also didn't get to say thanks or goodbye. Other than getting so sick, it was a very fun day. Thanks Shepards!

(P.S. we did try to watch the movie "New in Town" with Renee Zellweger and Harry Connick Jr. and I loved it! I highly recommend it).