Sporty

GIRL ON THE RUN: Sunday morning, Annabelle and I headed down the hill to Renton Stadium. It was the starting point for the Girls on the Run 5K event. Annabelle and others have been training for about 10 weeks for the event. 

I dropped her off at about 8:30 for a start time of 10 a.m. Then, I went home and rousted Christian and CJ, and the three of us went down to a hillside just west of the Renton Municipal Airport, as racers would be passing by on both sides of our lookout spot.

CJ was the first one to spy Annabelle. We waved and shouted encouragement as they headed north up the road running along the west side of the airport. 

Once they had passed, we switched our attention to the opposite direction, as the runners would be looping back by, this time running on the sidewalk and street (which was cordoned off). 

FINALE: On Saturday afternoon, Annabelle played her last Ultimate (Frisbee) game of the season. She got to be one of the team captains and go out for the coin toss before the game. 

The other team was really fun to watch - great passers and catchers, really good at moving the disc down the field. 

I think Annabelle and her teammates finished at a little below .500 for the year. That's actually pretty darn good for them, considering the first year, this group had exactly zero victories. Last year they had a couple, and this year they definitely were competitive most of the time. 

CHECKING IN: Sunday afternoon, it was time to check on the health of the hive. 

The bees have been busy, of course. There's even propolis (that waxy looking stuff) on the top grid of the hive now.

We have two beekeepers' suits. Bee and CJ take turns donning them. This week was Annabelle's turn. CJ and I kept a close watch. Below, Annabelle removes one of the racks from the top portion of the hive. The bees really haven't done anything with that part of the hive yet. They're still filling out the bottom racks. 

 Can you see the honey glistening in the combs?

 These little plugs are mostly future drones.

 We caught a glimpse of our queen. 

Check out this corner chock full o' honey! CJ stuck a finger in and sampled some! He said it tasted like honey. :)  So that's good news. 

DIRTY WORK: This morning we tackled a nasty project. Probably my least favorite housekeeping job. But I was tired of swearing every time I opened the fridge. 

That's right. It was refrigerator cleaning day.

CJ was *super* helpful in the endeavor. He's actually a really excellent cleaner overall. I always tell him that he has the cleanest room of any teenager I've ever known.

Anyway, here are a few of his tips for cleaning out your fridge. 

Cleaning refrigerators is important because it is important to organize one's consumable products in an easy-to-find manner. Often times, if a refrigerator goes long enough without undergoing a cleaning or examination, the contents can become disorganized. Disorganization makes it easy for food to rot unnoticed. Needless to say, it is wrong for food to rot when it can be consumed instead - leaving perfectly good food to rot constitutes a waste.

In order to clean a fridge, a large number of the fridge's contents need to be brought outside of the fridge, and determined whether or not they are still good (this is usually determined by checking the "Best By" date printed on the package). Food that is past its "Best By" date should usually be composted, and containers of food that is still good can be combined into the container of the older product (for example: Two cans of Vegenaise were combined into one during our recent fridge-clean, with all the Vegenaise being put into the older container).

Lastly, it is important that food be organized by category (examples: Dairy, beverages, "pickly stuff", et cetera).

Here's hoping we can stick to our new-and-improved refrigerator process.  

I honestly think there could be a successful business model for a company that just cleans fridges.