Glacier Bay, Alaska
Doing what I love!

Progress Chart

Things I've done thus far:

Lose at Least 40 Pounds (9.5 so far)

The trainer is working. I know I am definitely trading fat for muscle! The scale is not moving so much yet, but I feel STRONG... er.

(-8.5 so far)
3/29: Okay, I've lost the same damned 5 pounds over and over and am getting nowhere. I'm pulling out the big guns and am now working with a trainer 2X a week. Hey at least my bank account is lighter.

Last night I swam 10 laps... training for my last 40 hour push!! To see the full challenge, see "THE Birthday Challenge" post over to the left.

This will be my hardest "challenge" by far!

Volunteer 40 Hours (14 so far)
1 hour making cupcakes for kids' school
1 hour at the Valentines parties
12 hours for Too Cool Racing... Slacker and I set up and ran the ropes portion of the course

See 40 Live Bands (21 bands so far... thank you SXSW!)

We saw the GO GOs yep, of Beauty and the Beat fame... from the 80s! They're a bunch of 40 something moms like me! Slacker was probably the youngest one there, but it was a whole bunch of fun to listen to them play their old album live from start to finish. I'd forgotten all that!
Slacker will have to help me name my bands.

South by South Congress: Slacker's boss has a band. That band was supposed to be playing in a parking lot down by a little jewelry gallery place on South Congress. So, we showed up, and there were some Christmas lights on a fence (backdrop for the stage?) and some people milling about inside this little gallery. I didn't want to get out. Are you kidding me? It looked like a private party. Slacker convinced me to go in to just see. Well, we kind of stuck our heads in first and saw a bunch of people sitting around with guitars. One guy (young and not real uh...clean?) had a harmonica... one guy had a box and some drummer's brushes. Well, they started to play songs one by one and sing. And before they'd gone one refrain, there would be drums, people singing along, a harmonica piping in here and there, guitars adding solos and they ROCKED! They were all so good. I was so excited and so there! This was the BEST music by far of SXSW. Now mostly because it was quite cosy and interactive, but I loved it. I was a little annoyed when the two kids in the first band cranked up their amps. And btw, slacker's boss' band no-showed. doh!

(10 so far)
This is one of my favorite challenges! It's the live music capital of the world!!
3/11/06 Cross Canadian Ragweed!!! We took the kids to the rodeo to watch Extreme Bullriding. What a hoot! We got autographs from the cowboys and then enjoyed the music of Cross Canadian. I really liked them. It's a sort of rockin' country type music.
3/5/06 Bonnie Bishop at the Saxon Pub (www.thesaxonpub.com). Slacker and I went to the Saxon with our good friend Sue and Paul. We didn't know who Bonnie Bishop was, but were delighted! She could sing anything from her originals, love songs, blues, country. She had a great voice and fun demeanor. The Saxon pub is so intimiate. Definitely one of my favorite places to see music. We were sorry to see her leave the stage!
WC Clark took the stage after Bonnie. I don't even have to say much. He's a great blues guy. Old black singer/guitar/songwriter with a scruffy dirty looking all white band. But they can play the blues!
Wideawake: Loved them
Greatness in Tragedy: These guys were fun... I think maybe from Houston? They had a drummer with bright red hair that was very large and he did some major headbanging! I felt a little old, but liked them when they weren't screaming.
the chick band, gotta find her name... but I didn't enjoy.
Reckless Kelly: After the Ice Bats... they were pretty decent and the areana was practically empty. A great way to see live music is to go watch a fun game of hockey and stay!
Bob Schnieder: At the Paramount Theatre. What an AWESOME show! Unplugged. Just him and guitar. Got to see what he was about.
Jason Mraz At the Paramount, just after Bob. Jason's style is different, and it is so cool to see these guys acoustically. REALLY enjoyed this performance too. I have to admit that we Austinites, sort of cheered for our local dude a little harder than the outsider. Both wonderful. Way to go Slacker for getting those tickets lined up.
The Bagpiper We hired a piper for Irish Slacker's big birthday recently. And since it was in my house and was certainly live and loud, it's going on the books. It was so much fun and such a great touch to the party. People are still talking about it. If you need a good piper for an engagement in Austin, I recommend Nick Classen (http://www.falkensteincastle.com/bag_pipes_for_your_wedding.htm) he's friendly too!,
Music at the road house Bastrop After setting up a ropes course for a local adventure race (www.toocoolracing.com) we stepped into the Roadhouse, just out the front gates of Bastrop State Park for a great burger! (best I've had in years on homemade jalapeno bun) There was a guy playing a guitar and singin for wine in the corner of the roadhouse. Not sure about the talent, but it was fun to hear live music while we scarfed our burgers.

Kayak/Bike 40 miles with the boys (DONE!)

8/13/06: The boys have officially been introduced to Mountain Biking in a big way! They rock! We rode about 4 miles at Walnut Creek on Saturday. Fireball (his chosen nickname) on his little bike, and Bushy-head (chosen nickname) on his mountain bike. We took the semi flat paths. Fireball wiped out at least 3 times and popped back up bloody and dirty and tear free! We then put him on the tail-gator and crazy Irish step dad pulled him around the harder part of the course. I was AMAZED. Bushy-head was awesome. No fear! Fireball hooted and hollered too and he had a blast! Mom just followed with a huge grin on my face!

Sunday we were no holds barred and took them to Rocky Hill Ranch. The tail-gator was attached and out we went. 3.5 hours and 10.5 miles and one ENDO (by Mom) later we returned to the car. The boys did great. There was no balking even on the intermediate trails. Mom goofed and did an endo after a tentative go at a downhill that everyone else had already done. I was just giving them a lesson in "how to fall like a pro." My kids are amazing and they ROCK, but my shoulder kind of hurts! :-)

4/7: We packed up the kids and went to Town Lake! We kayaked down to Congress Avenue Bridge to watch the bats! They are so cool, and even better from the water! It was dark and the little one layed back in the seyvlor and napped on the way back, but the big one said it was the coolest kayaking ever with the big moon and the glassy water and the darkness.

3/26: We biked up to the school and jumped speed bumps and biked around the playground. We stopped to play tetherball. Being short is definitely a disadvantage in that game... hee hee, but I'm taller than the kids!! Mean mom.


(Currently ~18.5 miles done)
We've had many a bike adventure lately. My favorite was the night park off road ralley! We put lights on bikes and kids an headed to our neighborhood park where we even put little bitz on his big kid bike. It's almost tooo big... he's stubborn like his mom and fearless like well, his stepdad, and he took that big ol bike and careened down the hills and tried really hard to keep up with the big bro who loves to race around on his mountain bike.

We've also done many miles at the grand parent's ranch.

3/11/06 Town Lake, Austin, TX We kayaked 3.5 miles with the boys. They switched boats several times and we did have multiple water wars. The water was COLD, but it was fun and we all had a blast. This is one of my favorite challenges.


Raise $4000 for a charity (or $2000 each for two charities)
I've chosen:
The Burkhart Foundation: http://www.educ.ttu.edu/edsp/burkhartproject/
This is a foundation set up by a friend of my dad's at Texas Tech University... I know, I know... but it is the center for autism research and education. I've a nephew and friends with kids who have this condition in varying degrees. We have so far to go to understand and try to figure out what causes this heartbreaking illness.

I also plan to raise money to benefit breast cancer research and survival. We've all been affected by this disease and we just need to keep looking for that cure.

Commit 40 acts of random kindness (senseless beauty counts too) (3)
I fed a stranger's parking meter the other day when it was flashing empty!

(2 done)

Handed half of my lunch to a homeless guy on the corner, who immediately sat down and inhaled it.

Handed a bunch of leftover candy and gum to the regular on the corner who is always smiling and waving. When she said thank you, I realized that my bubble gum and candy choice might not have been the best choice... there weren't many teeth available, but maybe she can trade for something.

Write 40 letters to make the world a better place (5 done)

I think that if you thank people for good service, they'll keep passing it out to everyone... and that makes the world a better place. If you don't get good service and you let them know, then that also makes a difference.

Wrote a thank you note to Brian Hoover with Avant Garde Jewelers. He was so nice and customer and idiot friendly. He can get great prices on diamonds too. I highly recommend him.
www.avantgardejewelers.com His mom works in the tiny shop. It's a great place.

Overhead Door Company also went above and beyond and they got a thank you too!


I've found a place on the web to be heard about the human trafficking and slavery problem. The website is called http://www.iabolish.com/. I've sent several email letters to congress, Bush and to the embassies of many countries where this problem is not even an underground issue. We have slaves in the U.S. today! Please check out the website. It doesn't take much to be heard.

Try 40 new things
1. Bison: I ate bison! On Valentines at Hudson's on the Bend, I ordered the Bison and loved it!
2. Two 5ks in a weekend. Neither of which I'd ever participated in. Saturday March, 4, we did the Texas Independence 5k... a fun little race downtown with about 100 participants. Sunday March 5th, a friend and I enjoyed the bagel run! There were over 800 people at that one.
3. GeoCaching!! now this is cool! Slacker takes the cake! He bought this little travel bug thing. There's a website www.geocaching.com that tells you where all the cache's are. We found several in our area of Austin. We loaded the kids and some neighbor kids and took off on our adventure. You use a gps and go look for this little treasure. You can take something out of the cache as long as you leave something in it's stead. We left our little travel bug which is attached to a little leprechaun key ring. His hope is to get into a cache in Ireland. We can track this little guy as people take him from cache to cache and log it on the net. Interesting little fun family thing to do!
4. New restaurant... does that count? La Traviata on Congress. A cool little (really little) cafe. I had the chicken gargonzola salad... way too strong for me, but the others who tasted it loved it. Everyone else oohed and ahhed over their meals.
5. Traveled to Ireland in May. We spent a couple of weeks in Ireland with Bryan's family. What a beautiful place!
6. Traveled to St. Thomas, the Virgin Islands in June!
7. Scuba dove with my son Brady!
8. Saw a real wild sea turtle swimming by.
9.Went on a NIGHT scuba dive.
10. Kayaked Caddo Lake with Bryan... what a wonderful interesting place!
11. Snorkeled with Cade in the Carribean.
12. Found a geo cache on St. Thomas.
13. Ate Mushroom Soup.
14. Ate Carrot Soup.
15. Found a geocache in the Mourne Mountains in Ireland.
16. Drank Smithwicks in an Irish Pub.
17. Attended a real Irish Wedding.
18. Saw my real live wild Alligator from a kayak at Caddo Lake
19. Ran 2 5ks in one weekend (one Saturday and one Sunday)
20. Ate real fish and chips from a chippie on the way home from the pub at 3a.m.
21. Drove on the British side of the road in a car that had the steering wheel on the wrong side!
22. Kissed the Blarney Stone.

Make 4 pieces of Art (Still Planning this one)

THE Birthday Challenge from start to finish!
This is my first blog ever. I'm a little hesitant, a little embarrassed... a tiny bit excited.

This blog is about my 40/40 Birthday Challenge. I actually started my challenge a few months ago... way back in November. That would be 40 weeks before my 40th birthday. I haven't been hittin' it too hard and I'm starting to panic. Maybe this is a good way to get my rear in gear.

What is my birthday challenge? It's totally ambitious, but I think it will make turning 40 an accomplishment - a celebration!! It will also be a way for me to inspire others who are out of shape, down, feeling useless and goal-less. It's a way to give back! There's no better way to feel good. Just do something good for the world and if nothing else goes well that day, or even that year, you'll have served a higher purpose.

Here's my challenge:

Sarah’s 40/40 Birthday Challenge!!

In the 40 weeks preceding: (Starts November 21st, 2005)

Lose at least 40 pounds (or start losing those 40 pounds!!!)
Volunteer 40 hours
See 40 Live Bands
Kayak/Bike 40 miles with the boys
Raise $4000 for charity
Commit 40 acts of random kindness (senseless beauty counts too)
Write 40 letters to make the world a better place
Try 40 new things
Make 4 pieces of Art


In the last 40 hours: (Weekend of August 25th?)

40 miles of Mountain Biking with 40 kisses involved
Find 40 Orienteering points at Bastrop State Park
Break randomly into song 40 times
40 birthday spankings/love pats from the kids
Lift 4000 pounds of weights
400 crunches or pushups (or any combination thereof)
40 laps in a pool
Drink 4 Shiner Bocks
Drink 4 Frozen Margaritas
Give/Receive 40 hugs

Have a 40th Birthday Bash with 40 friends and Family! (and stay awake for at least 40 minutes of the fun)…


Wish me luck. I've done lots of things so far and I'll post as I can to catch us up to where I am in the challenge!