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Secret proclamations of love

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It has been 3 months today since we met. Others who have been with you said our relationship might not last as long. I am still as in love with you as I was when we first met. I think you like me too. I still want to be with you every day. I shared with you my dreams of running a marathon. You didn’t run away. I shared with you some very difficult times from my childhood. I didn’t run away. I can’t wait to talk with you and tell you about my day. I’m sorry it seems one sided, I do all of the talking and you do all of the listening. I haven’t run out of things to say, sometimes I just don’t know where to start. Being a shy, private, and pensive person all my life you have somehow pried open the lock on my diary. You now hold the key that has been hidden behind a dusty corner of my mind for a decade or two. 

You see, I’ve been with another like you that left me black and blue. Yes, it’s true. My left hand really was to blame. It slid the ink that stained me. Poor penmanship, my mother would say. She made me write for hours out of science books to improve myself for you when I was a little girl. Even though my teacher said that copying out of a book was wrong. It’s a shame that you can’t see my beautiful calligraphy. 

I really hope that our relationship lasts a long time. Maybe it helps that we have a relationship that few people know about. It adds a little spice to my life. I have wanted someone like you my whole life. I’m so glad that I found you after all these years. I still have a few more secrets to share. Sshhhh….

Marathon training, less than 26.2 hours to go

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My bags are packed and I am almost ready to go. I don’t know if I will be able to sleep tonight. It has been a couple of weeks since I got a good nights sleep. I am rather exhausted. I’m sure that you have all heard that having a newborn, infant, or toddler will give you chronic sleep deprivation. Maybe you have experienced that yourself. Waking up in the middle of the night, up at the crack of dawn. Then your children hit the middle childhood years and you can finally sleep again. The perfect ages, between 5 and 10. They still want to be with you and you don’t have to lug around the stupid diaper bag. Then your kids enter their teen years and you are sleep deprived again. This time you are up late at night waiting for kids to come home or you can’t sleep because they are loud. Car seat toddlers become car drivers overnight. Then your crazy middle aged female hormones give you insomnia and you wake up at the crack of dawn. That is where I am now. I was the first one in bed last night at 10. I can’t tell you how many times I woke up. Plus my teenage son usually goes to bed right around the time I get up in the morning. He isn’t the quietest. It doesn’t help that I can hear a pin drop while sleeping. I tried, believe me. 

I didn’t tell you this earlier in the week. One of my daughter’s friends got in a car wreck this week. Her friend let some guy that she liked grab her car keys and race off in her car with her and a group of friends, but not before stashing his hash pipe under the seat. He drove quite recklessly and ended up totaling her car leaving everyone a few inches from death’s door. And this is the reason, my friends, that parents of teens don’t sleep well at night. I am happy that my driving daughter is more responsible than that, but she is not the only driver on the road. Yikes!

The weather conditions look perfect for the marathon tomorrow. I was excited to see that my hotel has a full breakfast until I called and found out it starts the same time as the marathon. Hmmmm… So I am packing some bananas, avocados, and string cheese for the morning. I am hoping that is adequate. My acid reflux has been nasty this week, so I hope that I can keep it under control. The last 10k I ran left me in a moderate level of pain the whole race. I don’t want this. I want to eat enough to keep up my endurance without having any stomach issues. I also want to drink enough to stay hydrated without having to pee at every mile. That will be a thin line. 

I spent the week wearing every running shirt I own to give me courage. This morning I plucked my eyebrows, shaved, and put a couple of blue streaks in my hair. Not near my eyes, because I worried that sweat would drip blue into my eyes and make me look like a Smurf. I cut my toenails, hopefully not for the last time. I washed and packed my outrunning my demons shirt. Compression socks? Packed. Extra running songs? Downloaded. Running watch charged? Check. Extra ear buds? Check. I am ready to go. The conditions are ideal to have a good time. And a good time is what I’ll have because I love the sport. 

I also want to thank everyone for your support. It means a lot. Also a special thanks to my husband. Thank you for supporting me taking extra time off of work to run. You always told me I needed a hobby. Thanks for the push into running and thanks for supporting my blogging. Both have been very therapeutic and have taken up gobs of my time. Until tomorrow, my friends….this is my last pre-marathon blog. Oh my! 

Up north, part 4

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You may or may not have noticed that I took a couple of days off from blogging. I am getting really close to the 3 month anniversary of my first blog. I remember reading somewhere right before starting this new adventure that statistically most people get frustrated and quit blogging after 3 months. Sorry you can’t get rid of me that easily, I just went up north for the last couple of days. 

Saturday morning I had to pick up Arabella and her BFF from Bible camp. I was running late, but thought I would be forgiven for being late since I was reading my Bible in a year app. This is on my bucket list and I am over half way done. I prefer to be a fully informed believer. Plus I had to turn around because I forgot to feed my cat. No excuse for that, I know.  By being late, I avoided a big accident on the highway. Once again, it wasn’t my time to go. 

It was a hot weekend up north. We spent tons of time in the water. I promised to try to relax and take it easy before the marathon. I told myself that I wasn’t going to be crazy and swim across the lake, so I got about half way across and turned around. Damn, I guess I did swim the lake. Oh well. Sunday soon turned into Monday and brought with it a 30 degree drop in temperature with lots of rain. So now I was forced to sit and do nothing. No more swimming. We played a lot of games and talked. 

My mom apologized to me for having a difficult childhood. She was very upset about some things that have been happening in Matt’s group home (another blog). She wanted reassurance that I would take care of Matt when she leaves this world. I told her I would even though last week I told Paul that I would like to leave this area in 6 years when we are empty nesters. Paul is an only child, although he does have stepbrothers that are in and out of prison in another state. So I guess we are stuck. 

My mom and I played cribbage this morning. I got the perfect hand. I got a jack of spades with three 5’s and a 5 of spades was cut. I texted Paul and asked him if I should frame my hand or head to the closest casino. He said my chance of getting the perfect hand was one in 216,000. What luck! But since I wasn’t able to take a shower in 3 days and had a car full of children, I thought that going to the casino might be frowned upon. Since it was a once in a lifetime hand that was dealt to me, I will just check that one off my bucket list too. After this week ends, I may have to add a few more items to my bucket list. I am considering adding triathlons… 

Real life Tetris 

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What is easier, training for a marathon or blogging about painful events in my life? In analysis, they both take approximately the same amount of time per week. I would say, without a doubt, that training for a marathon is much easier. I only feel tired and perhaps physically sore after running. I feel tired, sometimes upset, depressed, and emotionally sore after blogging. 

Is there anybody out there? Am I all alone? Where have the other siblings of the disabled gone? Have you escaped? Have I not? How can I? Why can’t I? I don’t want to do this anymore. It is too personal. The feelings are too raw. I am picking away at old poorly healed scabs. This worries me. 

I feel very overwhelmed in general. I was just notified of mandatory practices for my kids at school the next couple of weeks that conflict with other mandatory practices. When do I have time to work? What about work? We are picking up our biggest client ever the end of this week. It is great, but overwhelming. Will I be able to perform? Will I be able to handle the work? I feel like I am playing Tetris right now. Pieces falling haphazardly on other pieces and nothing fits. I am fighting to stay in control. I worry about the things I can’t control. Am I all alone?

Confessions of an inexperienced blogger

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I have been a blogger for almost a month now. I am a “cave man (mom?)” blogger. I don’t know what I am doing. I can barely figure out how to capitalize letters much less add pictures. And talking about pictures, should I add one of myself? Will people know who I am? Is that ok? I’ll be completely honest, I was going to link my blog to my Facebook account but I couldn’t figure out how to do it. But then I thought, how am I going to be completely honest if people that don’t really know me really know me. When asked if the dress makes you look fat, I usually say green really is your color. I change the subject when I really want to say that dress makes you look fat. So I decided it would be better to share all the personal experiences in my life with complete strangers. 

I’m sorry I never “liked” your blog, I did like it. Sorry I never responded to your comments, I haven’t figured out how yet. I always knew I would end up being a writer. As a child, I would sit in my room and write novels on paper. Yes, paper! Who ever thought something like this would be possible? Now I could never write fiction. My walk through life so far has been so interesting and crazy that I couldn’t be imaginative enough to make half of this crap up. I will work harder to try to figure out the technology end of blogging. These are the crazy thoughts that keep me up at 4 AM.