Wrapping up the Passover weekend

8:15 on Sunday night - the weekend is coming to a close, and it's been a busy one! I can't say I got in too much actual exercise, however.

Grandpa Toby came to visit with his "girlfriend" Blanche, and we made a seder last night to celebrate Passover. Now, I really am fairly clueless when it comes to Jewish traditions, since I was raised Protestant, but I made a stab at preparing the meal. I didn't even attempt to make an actual kosher meal (since none of us keeps kosher anyway), but just tried to make a nice holiday meal and served it on the good old chipped china. On the menu was lots of wine (traditionally four glasses of wine are drunk with the meal), some pre-dinner munchies (mixed nuts, apricots, carrots, celery, matzoh, haroset, and a selection of cheeses), matzoh ball soup from a Manishewitz mix (that turned out amazingly good), mixed green salad with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, baked potatoes, asparagus, grilled tuna with wasabi, and an enormous cheesecake with fresh raspberries for dessert. Everything turned out yummy and we enjoyed the evening. Maybe next year at almost three years old the girls will be able to ask the traditional "four questions" with sufficient coaching - this time, fortunately, they slept through it. Raising these girls is an evolving process, but they're going to probably be - what's the word I should use? Multi-faceted(?). I'm planning on celebrating ALL the holidays we can! Though I should add that I really favor those traditions that encourage children to actually ask questions, as opposed to swearing belief in dogma, supernatural events, and far-fetched "miracles".

The right side of my lower back had been quite painful Friday night and Saturday morning after my long swim on Friday morning, so I think I needed a couple days off. I believe it originated from a) turning my head almost exclusively to the right side to breathe; b) arching my back and lifting my head to breathe instead of using better form in rolling my body; and c) doing a little too much too soon. I'm going to try to prevent it by a) working on bilateral breathing; b) improving my form in the water and using a body roll to breathe rather than so much head/neck turning; c) abdominal strengthening (sigh); and d) swimming more regularly. Let's see if that helps. Any other ideas for me?

Today my only exercise was pushing the girls in the double babyjogger to the park with Grandpa and later a few running laps of the track at the school, which I happily quit as soon as it started to sprinkle. Call me a wimp. Back to the training schedule on Monday. Half marathon next Sunday.