Happy Birthday Tim!

It's a big week for that Fleming household!

Happy Birthday, Jackson!

Jackson Fleming is one year old today! It's hard to believe it's been a year already. Congratulations to Tim and Jessica, too... well done!

The Joys of Trail Running by Dr Phil Fleming aka Dr F

I love running trails! It’s a different experience form running roads or paths….but a bit more challenging at times! I needed a 20 plus mile run last Saturday and decided to run out of the St Joseph Mercy Hospital parking lot. I am a physician there, so I have access to the inside of the building to refill water bottles and use the restroom…. I had just finished rounds and had my “running bag” in the car, so I decided to do a series of runs “out and back” so I wouldn’t run out of liquids. After the first loop of 6.5 miles through the campus of EMU, I realized I probably would never do three loops, so I planned a longer one to get up to 20 miles. This run would be in the woods behind the hospital along the Huron River, eventually getting up to the Botanical Gardens along Dixboro Road, hoping to mix in some trails along the way.

In the third mile, I ran into a bit of a challenge. While ducking under an angled tree trunk crossing the path, I whanged my head hard on the tree, almost knocking myself out! I knew I should have done more of those low back stretches! Dang, I am getting old – I can’t even bend down and run at the same time! So I picked myself up and felt for the bump I knew I would find, and my hand came away covered with blood. Dang! It was getting on my new visor (I love to run with visors) and was NOT stopping easily. Since I am a physician, I knew I should “heal myself”, so I grabbed a handful of nearby old brown leaves and made a makeshift packing to stop the bleeding. I wondered if I might need stitches, but couldn’t stand the thought of getting my head shaved to get them…how would my upcoming Triathlon pictures look? So, I packed on more leaves. The rational part of my brain wondered if the dirt and mold on the leaves might not be such a good idea, but the optimist in me countered with the fact that penicillin was discovered in mold, so I would certainly be OK. After all, my last name is Fleming, and didn’t some relative of mine discover penicillin in the first place?

And so I did what any good 501er (my training group) would do: I started running again. The bleeding stopped, my head stopped aching (can you spell endorphins?) and I had a great run up to the Botanical Gardens, discovering the “secret” pathways in the University of Michigan land. These are really nice trails, and all “new territory” to me. I only tripped once on a buried barb wire fence but came up bleeding again, this time my wrist. Good thing I always scrub before I do surgery!

My plan was to refill my water bottle at the Gardens. I didn’t count on all the people there trying to escape the frenzied football fans on the Stadium side of town, or all the families trying to give their young children a taste of culture in a beautiful natural setting. So I walked in to the lobby looking like a combination of Night of the Living Dead, Rocky, and Frankenstein, and calmly asked the information booth attendant for directions to the nearest restroom. She was more than happy to get me out of sight, and when I looked in the mirror, I understood why. My beautiful new light gray visor was at least half soaked with bright red blood, my hair was sticking out like I’d been hit by lightning, and I had a nasty dark brown clot on the top of my head. Sweet! I knew I needed much more than a sink cleanup, so I refilled my water bottle, walked out, thanked the receptionist for her help, and started running again!

After a few more wrong turns in the woods behind the Gardens, I found the “secret” pathway back to the University of Michigan Recreational Land near Radrick Farms Golf Course and from there found the “secret” path along Dixboro and got back to Geddes Road. The roads never looked so good. Time for a shower, some first aid, and some fluids. Where is that Ultima, anyway? Twenty one miles, my longest run ever!

PS If any of you know of any other cool secret trails, or want to run on mine, give me a call! Next time I am bringing my first aid kit!

Happy Birthday Jenny!

Hope it's a great one!

Henry's Baptism

Hi, folks! Just wanted to let you know (well in advance!) that we have scheduled Henry's baptism. It will be at Christ the King in Ann Arbor on Saturday, November 29 at noon. If you are in town over the Thanksgiving weekend, we would love to have you there to celebrate this occasion with us. God bless,

Barbara

Family Ties

I've been thinking a lot about the family lately, and how we're spread out more and more across the world. My generation is big, and the next—and ultimately larger—generation is already growing quickly! So I wanted to find a way to give us all chance to keep up on things.

So here's the experiment: This blog is open to everyone in our family whose email address I could gather. (Thanks Barbara and Sue for the help!) And you all have access to add anyone I may have the wrong address for. Please feel free to post with anything that's going on in your lives! It can be what you're up to, things you've done, birthday wishes, pictures, anything goes—it's all our space.

A few of us already have our own blogs, and the ones I know about are in the space to the right of this post. There are two ways of automatically feeding in those blogs to this one, I put both up and poll in between to decide which we like better. Both of them display the most recent posts.

Anyone game? What have you been up to, all?




PS: I have no sense of design...please feel free to customize as you see fit!