My Proudest Moment

This was my proudest moment of the year thus far!

That was me on Sunday right after I crossed the finish line at the San Diego Rock n' Roll Half Marathon. I don't feel like I can put into words the affect this experience had on me. Besides being incredibly proud of raising $3,100 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and being incredibly proud of finishing a half marathon, I feel like I left this past weekend a changed person. I have never been a part of something that was so inspiring and so full of energy. Every time I ran past someone (I know, I was surprised that I ran past anyone! ha ha) that had pictures all over the back of their shirts of their honored patients, or mothers or fathers or sisters or brothers that they were running in memory of or in support of, I felt inspired. When I thought of the OVER $155 million dollars that has been raised over the past 13 years from this race to support the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, I felt humbled to be a part of it. But mostly, I felt proud to be a part of something so important. Proud that I didn't quit. Proud that I ran the whole first SEVEN miles, walk/ran the next five and then somehow RAN that last mile. Proud that I was very conscious to take everything in from start to finish that day.

I thought a lot about my cousin Lisa during the race. She was the inspiration for me to sign up for this journey in the first place. I thought about her husband and her kids and her sister and her father and her nieces and nephew. I thought about how unfair it is that she isn't here anymore. I wanted to cry every time I saw someone running with a picture of a child on their shirt that said in memory of. I couldn't help thinking what if that was me? What if that was my husband? Or even worse for me... what if that was my child? And then I ran harder. I looked around at all of the amazing scenery around me. I soaked in the beauty of San Diego. I thought about how all of these people around me were running or walking this race because their lives had been touched by cancer in some way. It seemed so unfair that there were SO many people to run in support of or in memory of. And then I stopped feeling so sad and just felt blessed that all of these thirty nine THOUSAND people in this race felt moved enough to contribute to this fight against cancer. I cried during that last mile as I started to realize all that I had just accomplished. All that everyone there had accomplished. I missed my husband and I missed my son. I wished so badly that they could have been there in that moment... not so that they could be proud of me, but so that I could hug them and tell them I love them and tell them how blessed I feel to have them in my life... because never have I been so aware of that feeling. Never have I realized how careful I need to be not to take my family, my friends and the comforts of my life for granted.

When I crossed the finish line, all I could hear was my friend Lauren yelling my name! She had flown across the country from Massachusetts to meet me in San Diego. She got up at 6:30 a.m., took trolleys, shuttle buses and probably walked about four miles that day so that she could be at two places along the race course and at the finish line! She totally ignored the barrier and jumped right into the finishers lane so that she could take my picture and give me a hug and whip a bottle of water out of her bag and tell me how great I looked for just finishing 13.1 miles! Lauren is one of my very best and oldest friends. We don't see each other often enough and our friendship needed this weekend. I love her for many reasons, but on Sunday morning, I loved her for decorating the mirror in our bathroom like this...

It was 3:30 a.m. and I was already starting to cry reading all of the little inspirational sayings she had written on the little stars! I picked one out of the bunch to stick to the back of my race number. I looked down at it several times during the race to remind myself of the person I am trying to become and all of the changes I've been working on in my life this year. There were several times where just looking at that little star made all the difference in my race.

She also gave me a card and a little silver wish token with a star cut out. I made a wish much bigger than myself and then tied it to my sneaker and gave that day my all.



Now I'm back home, realizing that my body hates me every time I try and stand up and walk, and just trying to figure out how to keep this experience with me. How to remember how I felt on Sunday and how to build on the emotions that I'm still experiencing from the weekend. I know that I want to run another half marathon. That is FOR SURE something I never thought I'd say! I want to be able to run the whole 13.1 miles next time. I know that I want to donate more of my time to causes that keep me humbled and remind me of my place in this world. But most of all, I don't want to take anything in my life for granted... ever.

June

I can not believe that I'm already on the 6th month of my resolutions! I'm getting a slow start to the month because I'm busy getting ready to leave tomorrow for SAN DIEGO! Yippee!!! I'm so excited! I'm going to be doing the Rock n' Roll half marathon with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team in Training. My goal is to complete the race. I am going to be doing run/walk intervals for the whole 13.1 miles. I'm okay with this. At first I felt like I needed to be able to run the whole thing in order to feel like I truly succeeded at it, but I've come to terms with the fact that my body wasn't ready for that, and I've come a long way endurance wise since I started training!

I was supposed to do the half marathon in Myrtle Beach back in February, but it was cancelled due to snow. Since then, I've lost 15 lbs, so I think that has really helped me feel better while running and put less stress on my shins. I had a lot of problems with shin splints when I was training for Myrtle Beach.

I think that the thing I'm most proud of is that thanks to the generosity of my friends and family, I raised over $3,000!!!!! I am still just amazed at that amount!

So, tomorrow I'm going to take care of a few small things on my list before I leave (i.e. the things that only involve phone calls) and then I will be heading out to sunny California at noon! I'm feeling a little anxious about the race, sad to be leaving my family, but VERY excited to meet one of my best friend's from High School in San Diego! She's flying out tomorrow from Massachusetts to be my cheering squad. I am so grateful she is coming. However, this will be the longest that I've ever been away from Andy, and that's going to be really hard. BUT... we will have a laptop and a webcam so I can Skype with my little guy!

I'm going to try really hard to just soak this whole experience in and just give it my all on Sunday! So, if you are reading this and could say a little prayer or word of encouragement, I'd really appreciate it! The weather is supposed to be perfect ... no fluke snow storms! I'm ready to put my hard work to the test!

Busy, Busy Weekend!

Well, although I didn't get a blog post up over the weekend... I was very busy! I've started a few of the bigger projects on my list... but since my camera is out of batteries at the moment... those posts will have to wait until tomorrow. (hint hint Matt... a good gift idea for me...rechargeable batteries!... for any gift giving event OTHER than our anniversary!)

I hope that everyone had a great Mother's Day! Mine was very nice. Anytime I get to spend the day with Matt and Andy I have a nice time. (Plus... I got a Kitchen Aid Immersion Blender! Yippee! Remember when I hinted about it here?? I honestly had NO CLUE what they had gotten for me! Especially since Matt told me not to go in the garage (because that was where he had put it) I thought it had to be something too big to put in the house! ha ha Oh, and it's RED!!! swoon!

Some major accomplishments this weekend... I finished an eight mile run/walk on Saturday morning! I'm getting really nervous about my race! Eek! I can't believe it's less than a month away!!!! I also started to tackle the landscaping in the front yard... more on that in another post... AND... we started potty training! (I'll post more on that later as well!)

The thing I'm crossing off my list tonight has been nagging me for almost five years. That's right... FIVE!

I finally updated my e-mail address with USAA. Okay, I am really REALLY slack on some things. We have our auto and home owner's insurance with USAA. We have always had our insurance with them, like, before we got married. So, I changed my e-mail address when I got married. Yes, that was OVER four and a half years ago. I NEVER UPDATED MY E-MAIL WITH THEM! I'm sure you are thinking who cares?! Well, they honestly send me a letter every three months telling me that they have correspondence waiting for me online and could I please update my e-mail address because their e-mails to me keep getting returned. So, they have wasted at least EIGHTEEN pieces of paper, envelopes and postage on asking me to PUH-LEEZE update my e-mail address. So, what do I do instead? I log on... to my account... you know, where I would have to go to UPDATE MY E-MAIL ADDRESS... and I read the correspondence and then go on my merry little way. So, finally, on Friday night, I updated my e-mail address. This took all of ... ohhhhh... 5 seconds. Literally. After I signed in, it took 5 seconds. I felt a little stupid. But...at least it's done. Four and a half years late.

Team In Training

At the beginning of September, I signed up with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team in Training program to run a half marathon. Having not run in years I was pretty much starting from scratch. I trained and raised over $2,500 and was super excited for my race in February...
and then was super let down when it randomly SNOWED in Myrtle Beach the night before the race.

However, I wasn't feeling let down for long! Once I found out what my other options were for Team in Training events, I realized I could go to San Diego!!! I've never been there! I'm really super duper excited to run the Rock n' Roll Half Marathon in June! And, as luck would have it, one of my best friends from high school is able to come with me! It was perfect timing because she has a conference out there for work just two days after my race. I was a little nervous about signing on for San Diego because it's an additional financial commitment, but I feel confident I can raise the rest of the money needed.

I've been getting up at 5:00 a.m. most mornings and going to the gym to do my runs. I've lost 15 lbs since the weekend that I would have run in Myrtle Beach. I'm eating better. I'm feeling better running. BUT... I haven't been fundraising. I hadn't even updated my Team in Training donation page since Myrtle Beach. I don't know why I have been so slack on that!

I knew I couldn't leave it to the end of May, so I wanted to make sure it was one of the first things I crossed off my list for this month. I also added a widget to my Facebook page and to this blog. I was blown away by the generosity of friends and family before the Myrtle Beach race date. I raised more money than I ever thought I would. I'm hoping that I can raise the remaining money needed by finding a local business or corporate sponsor to make a donation. Any support (financial or prayers!) is greatly appreciated!

Team in Training is an AWESOME organization and I highly recommend joining for an event near you if you are interested. You won't regret it! I only have 1 month (eek!) until I go to San Diego and I can't wait!!!

Volunteering

One of the resolutions that is going to stat showing up more and more over the coming months will be volunteering. I used to volunteer with different organizations a lot. Over the past several years, not so much. It is an area of my life that I would like to start becoming a lot more active in, especially volunteering for organizations that I feel strongly about.

This month's volunteering resolution was simply to ask about volunteering in the nursery at our church. I'm starting with this one because it is partly self-serving. I'm hoping that by volunteering in the nursery, that I can help my son transition to being left there during church service. We are blessed to attend a church that offers a 30 minute family service every Sunday, so that is the one we have been going to, and just bringing Andy with us. His separation anxiety is very heightened right now, and my husband and I both know we would not be able to sit comfortably through church knowing he would be so upset the whole time he was in the nursery. So, we go to the family service, but I am still keeping him occupied for 30 minutes, trying to keep him quiet, chasing after him, etc. I don't feel like I am getting what I want or need out of church every week. My hope is, that after several weeks of being in the nursery with him, we'll be able to leave him in there and attend the 9:00 a.m. worship service and then I can still volunteer during other services as needed.

I was thrilled that they seemed excited about me wanting to volunteer. Apparently the two women who work in the nursery are paid employees (which I did not realize) so it will be nice for them to have a "back up" person, or just some additional help. I need to take an online course and then I'm going to shadow during the 9:00 a.m. service this coming Sunday. I'm hoping that this will be something good for myself, and will help my son.

I have totally given up on taking him to the nursery at the gym for now. I've been going to the gym four mornings a week at 5:00 a.m. so that I can be back before my husband leaves for work in the morning. Surprisingly, I like this set up! The only issue that I had last week was that I couldn't quite get my sleep schedule right, so I kept taking naps in the afternoon because I was so tired and then didn't get anything done AND couldn't fall asleep early enough that night and the whole cycle started all over again! Hopefully I'll be more on track this week!

Ovedue Mail

I'll start this post with a great big... SIGH... I am THE WORST when it comes to keeping up with mail. I'm bad at sending it. I'm bad at sorting it. Sometimes I'm even bad at just plain remembering to go get it (although the anticipation of new Netflix movies is helping with this). But, I'm by far the worst at taking care of any mail that comes that I am supposed to fill out and mail back. I don't know why. These things never take more than two minutes a piece and the postage is always paid for, but I will honestly set things aside for MONTHS. The problem is that I don't actually forget about them. I remember that I need to do it... and then I just don't. So, this kind of stuff always stresses me out.

This month I have three mail related items on my list. I need to mail April birthday cards and mail gifts that we have had sitting at our house for a while (one has been here since August). Today I took care of filling out the census and our USAA survey and mailing them both back. One said that it was required by the Federal Government that I participate and the other said that my participation would affect our homeowners insurance renewal rates... so... today I filled them both out and mailed them. I think it took all of FIVE minutes total to fill them both out and put them in their respective envelopes and another two to three minutes to walk to the mailbox. VERY difficult. I really need to stop being so slack on this kind of stuff!

In other news, I started the month off on the right foot and got up at 5:00 a.m. and went to the gym. My neighbor came with me! I liked the extra motivation. After all, I couldn't just leave her standing in her driveway waiting on me at 5:10 in the morning! That would have been a pretty cruel April Fool's joke! She's coming with me again tomorrow though, so I'm grateful to have a friend to go workout with.

Alright, I'm off to watch a movie with the hubby and get to bed! Five a.m. comes around awfully quick!

Rainy Day = TOTAL Laziness!

CLEARLY I have zero motivation today. I just got up from the table after wasting my sons entire nap on the computer, and this is what my kitchen and living room look like. Nice. Yes, that is a half emptied dishwasher and a load of unfolded clothes on the couch.

I did, however, manage to cross something off my list. I went to Walmart and bought a $2 trash can and put it in my laundry room. Wow. That took so much effort I needed to do absolutely nothing productive for the next 3 hours. My husband will be happy. He would like it if we had a trash can in every single room in our house, along with a laundry basket. Okay, so I admit, I hate having to take the lint out of the dryer and throw it away in the kitchen. It's like a 10 foot walk from the laundry room to the trash can. And the lint is so heavy, that it really is a nuisance! Just kidding. But seriously, we needed a trash can in the laundry room. And now it's done. Checking it off the list!

To be fair to myself, I haven't been TOTALLY lazy today. I did go to the gym this morning and run/walk 3 miles on the treadmill. I ran for 2 minutes and walked for 1 minute on and off for the first 2.75 miles and then I ran the last quarter of a mile at a faster pace. My logic was that the faster I ran, the sooner I'd get done and could go save my son from the gym nursery. He acts like I've abandoned him for life when I leave him in there. It's sooooo pitiful. I think it's just as painful for me as he acts like it is for him. He's never crying when I leave (well, today was only the second day he's gone with me)because I always sneak out when he isn't looking, but when I go in to get him, he's sitting on the lady's lap with big teary eyes and when he SEES me... you would think one of the other kids just pummeled him when no one was looking! He starts BAWLING! The lady assures me he has not cried like that the whole time. Just more fussing until she has him sit on her lap. I know it's for dramatic effect.... 'Mom, don't ever leave me in this horrible place with all these fun toys and doting nursery attendant ever EVER again!!!!' He never gets left anywhere, and I feel bad, but I also feel like he can learn to spend 45 minutes in the nursery so I can work out and then spend an hour in the church nursery on Sundays so that we can stop going to the family and children's service and start going to the regular service.

I have no idea how long this adjustment is supposed to take, but I'm going 3 days a week with him and I'm going to give him a few weeks. If he doesn't get used to it by then, then I guess I will go back to going to the gym at night and try again when he's a little older. It's just harder to go at night because it's easier to come up with excuses during the day for why I shouldn't go to the gym, and honestly, by the time my husband gets home from work, I'm just plain tired.

Now that I posted a picture of my kitchen I feel like I need to go clean it!!!

Team in Training

Tonight crossed two more things off my list. They really went hand in hand, so I figured I'd better just knock them both out at the same time! I have posted before about joining the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team in Training. I was supposed to run the Myrtle Beach half marathon on February 13th, but it snowed the overnight before the race...the first time it has snowed there in TEN years...and so they cancelled it at 10:00 p.m. the night before. At the time I was feeling really down about it. Partly because I was really excited and partly because I was ready to have it completed! It was something I'd been anticipating for a while and had been feeling a little anxious about. I was having trouble seeing a positive outcome on our way back from Myrtle Beach the next day. That was mostly due to the unknown. I wasn't sure what race I would be running in, or what options Team in Training was going to offer to us. After all, I had raised almost $2,600 thanks to the very generous donations from family and friends and I felt obligated to complete a half marathon... ANYWHERE!

Well, this has probably turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Instead of Myrtle Beach, I will now be going to run the Rock n' Roll half marathon in San Diego in June!!! I only need to raise $400 more to go to San Diego and I know I can do it. I also know how much I will benefit from the additional training. I was going to complete the race in Myrtle Beach by doing run/walk intervals, however, with 14 additional weeks to train, my new goal is to be able to run the entire race. I'm excited about recommitting to my training.

Unfortunately, my husband can't come with me to San Diego, but one of my best friend's from high school has a conference for work just 2 hours away the week after the race, so she's flying out early to come with me and one of my best friends from college just won a $250 gift certificate on Southwest Airlines for donating old bridesmaid dresses to charity, so I'm hoping (fingers crossed!) that she decides to use it to come to San Diego too!!! Either way, it will be a great time and an experience that I know will be one I will look back on fondly.

So, tonight I filled out all the new paperwork to be able to do the race in San Diego and took it to the mail box. Then I typed up and printed out my donation request letter for Matt's boss. He had mentioned to Matt that they could make a corporate donation if I submitted a letter. So, that is now sitting on the counter with Matt's wallet, cell phone and keys to take to work with him in the morning.

It feels good to cross those two things off my list and recommit myself to such an important cause!

Not What I had Planned

Well, that picture is the scene from the balcony of our hotel in Myrtle Beach on Saturday morning! Yup! Snow! The first time it has snowed there in TEN YEARS! What are the odds it would happen over night before my half marathon? Well, we found out at 10:30 p.m. Friday night that the race was cancelled. I was really bummed. I had been so excited and nervous and anxious for February 13th to get here. So, now I'm not sure what race I'll be running in. The two races for the spring season with Team in Training are in San Diego and Seattle. I'm not sure I can make either of those two trips and I know that the fundraising minimums are higher. I think they are going to try and find another race for us to enter that is within driving distance. Of course I would LOVE to go to San Diego, since I've never been, so I'm (not so) secretly going to look into making that one work, but not get my hopes up!

One lesson learned this weekend: Do not bring your 17 month old to stay in the same hotel room with you the night before a race. Well, not if you want to get any sleep anyway! Ha! This was a good practice run to know what NOT to do for the real thing!

Totally Nervous!

Well, I'm done packing to head to Myrtle Beach and run in my very first half marathon tomorrow! I'm running with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team in Training. I am super proud of the fact that I raised $2,595! Now, all I have to do is finish that race! The thing that is going to make it interesting is that Myrtle Beach is expecting 2-4 inches of snow tonight and it's supposed to be 28 degrees, windy and still snowing at race start tomorrow! Eeek! I went to THREE stores today trying to find some thin gloves to throw away when I warmed up during the race and no one sold gloves! How bizzare! I'm not throwing away my good ski gloves, so my Dad suggested I put 2 old socks on my hands! ha ha That is my plan. Hopefully they won't have to cancel the race. This is a really exciting challenge in my life, and the first thing I've followed through on in a really long time.

Okay, so I've actually started on my closet. I'll finish it this weekend and write about it in my next post. I'm not sure what else I'm going to tackle this weekend. I guess it depends if my entire body feels like jello or not after tomorrow!

Team in Training

Well, I'm pleased to say that I FINALLY got my Team in Training support letters mailed out yesterday. That was for sure something that I should have done back in September, but just kept putting it off and putting it off. I even had all of the letters printed at the end of November and all of the mailing labels printed & stamps purchased at the beginning of December, but for some reason just kept procrastinating.
I'm running my first half marathon in February with Team in Training (http://www.teamintraining.com/). It's an awesome program that raises money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. My cousin Lisa passed away at the end of August after a 9 year battle with breast cancer. I am running in memory of her. I wish that they had a similar program here for breast cancer research, but Team in Training was the closest thing I could find. I'm actually really nervous about my run. I know I'll be doing run/walk intervals for the whole race, and I'm okay with that, but I'm still pretty anxious. I'm about half way to my fundraising goal, so I'm hoping that I can raise the rest of the money through donations from family and friends after they receive my support letters. If not, I'll start approaching local businesses for donation requests.
I'm proud of myself for signing up and following through on this. There hasn't been a whole lot that I feel like I've actually followed through on in the last several years. I'm hoping the changes I've been making recently are the start to finally breaking that pattern.
I have to say, it feels really good to finally cross something off my list that I should have done a while ago... I'm hoping that feeling will become addicting and I'll start clearing out my severe back log of "to-do" items!