Happy St. Patrick's Day

There's two big reasons why today is a big day in the Stapleton household. First. it is St. Patrick's Day, which in the Stapleton family, is a Holy Day of Obligation. Not to go to church, mind you, but to have as much fun as possible on the 17th of March. St. Patrick was incredibly important to my grandfather, who was both a Patrick and Irish, so a double whammy there. He looked forward to the holiday so much that he had a green shamrock that counted down the days until the next St. Patrick's Day. When I stayed with him in Florida, it was my Very Important Job to move the numbers every day.

Now, when I was at Villanova and we were (usually) in the midst of NCAA March Madness, having as much fun as possible on St. Patrick's Day usually meant drinking green beer early in the morning and continuing on until... well, I feel there's no need to go into specifics, as my mother reads this online journal and I don't want to horrify her... but to my friends and comrades who knew me then I say, "Cheers" and "Slainte!"

As Tim continues to work in the Axis of Evil, it was left to the boys and me to celebrate the day. We did so by making a Chocolate Guinness Cake. Now anyone who has ever cooked with children will know that cooking together isn't really in the same league of fun as making your teeth green from the green beer, but the end result was fantastic, which we all thoroughly enjoyed.

The second reason why today is such a big day here is that it is now exactly a month until the London Marathon. Following my success with the 18-mile run on Sunday, I'm feeling pretty good about getting around. I now know that I will be slow, but as Tim likes to say, "Slow and steady wins the race." My goal is still to beat Oprah's marathon time of 4 hours, 29 minutes, but while I am cautiously optimistic that I'll be able to beat it, I'm just not sure.

Finally, in other news, Villanova plays in the first round of the NCAA Tournament tomorrow, its first appearance since 1999. In the spirit of St. Patrick and my Grandpa Stapleton-- all that is good, fun and noble-- I say, "Go Nova!"