Standing on your own two feet

I think the greatest gift a friend can give you is the courage to believe in yourself. To find inspiration within YOURSELF. We're not born with this. Many of us need to have someone else to impress, to be accountable to, because we just can't rely on ourselves.

I started running last August with the couch to 5k program. I was done by December, and by done I mean I quit. There were legitimate reasons, a baby who only napped 45 minutes, new school demands by the kindergartner, the crazies of a 2 year old. But really, I quit, because I wasn't enough to keep myself going.

Then my beyond-awesome friend started a running group for people just like me: moms who had never run before. I immediately said I couldn't do it. I started to run again on my own, but it wasn't the same. And then I woke up. I realized I could do it and that I needed to do it. At first a lot of it was that I wanted to be a part of this group, I wanted to be with these people. I wanted my happy runner friend to be proud of me.

On paper it looks like I haven't come that far. I've only run 3 races since then, all of them 5Ks. I'm not training for a half marathon. I'm not much faster (33:18 my first race, 29:40 my last). One of my friends commented the other night that I had been increasing my distance, and now that I did the 6 miles don't I think I can do twice that? I naturally scoffed. But I've been thinking a lot about it. A year ago I thought there was no way I could actually run 3 miles. Now? I *know* that with the training I could run a half-marathon. Or even a marathon. I *know* that if I wanted to do it, I could do it. I just don't want to. I don't have the hours to train, I try to balance my life with other things (reading, writing, those stinky kids). Sure, I'd like to do it with them, but that's not a reason to do it. Not the right reason. So, even though I'm not running as fast or as far, I think I've come a million miles from where I was last year. I'm not training for anything but I continue to run 3-4 times a week. And I'm doing it for me. I'm not running to fit in, I'm not running to make friends, I'm running for myself. And when it comes right down to it, whether you're running in a group or alone, you've got to be able to stand on your own two feet.

Like I said, the greatest gift someone can give you is the courage to believe in yourself. I am so tremendously grateful to my happy runner friend for giving it to me.

Coming out

I'm coming out.

Of the closet.

The running closet, that is. 

I know. I've been doing this running thing since March, or well, really since September when I started (and failed) the Couch to 5k. And I know I ran my first 5k in June. And here it is, the last week in July, and I am just now coming out. When I first started in September I did it because of my friends was so happy, so in LOVE with running, that I wanted to experience that. But it wasn't the right time for me. Chewie and I were still struggling with our routine (i.e. naps) and school had just started. So I quickly failed. But I kept getting on that treadmill. Then in March when my happy running friend organized a group of moms to train them to run a 5k, I thought it would be good to try again and it would help in my friendship quest. I followed my directions and ran what I was supposed to run (for the most part). I did the race, peed my pants, and decided to keep getting on the treadmill and going outside for my weekly Sunday run and I was proud of that. The last few weeks I've been doing less mileage because I have a MILLION things to do and just not enough time. And I was okay with that. And then. 

And then.

Last Thursday night I went for an evening run with my strong running mama friends. It. Was. Awesome. I ran 3.5 miles (okay, 3.49) and it was great. It was nice to run without the sun shining in my eyes, but it was more than that. It was so nice running with these people. They pushed me to continue when I would have given up on my own. They made it fun. They made it awesome. 

Since then I have registered to run another race (in my hometown! in August), I've upped my miles on the treadmill again, I've researched yoga for runners and am waiting for my Yoga-teacher sister to get me a plan so I can do some cross-training to help me improve, and I've reached out to people to find a running partner closer to home. Through the magic of the internets and social media I have actually found one and will be doing a run with her on Sunday. (My strong running mamas don't live in my town and while I would definitely drive to where they are again, it's nice to have somebody right here so I don't have to add a 25 minute drive to the time I need coverage for the kids.)

And I realized that I am, without a doubt, a Runner now. If I were to get pregnant tomorrow (which I am absolutely not) I would still keep running. That is HUGE for me. I want to have some more time and get some more miles in so that I feel absolutely comfortable running while pregnant, so I won't be running for two anytime soon. That's okay. I'm having fun running for one. For me.

I have a MILLION things to do, who doesn't?, so I need to rearrange my life/schedule a little bit. I go out every Sunday morning for a run on my road. This past Sunday I also wrote my examiner articles for the week so all I had to do was publish them. I'm planning on running Monday, Wednesday, Friday and then doing the yoga and some strength weight training on Tuesday, Thursday. I need to get up earlier in the morning and make better use of my evening time so that I can devote my nap time and not feel overwhelmed because of laundry or dishes or the dogs. I fritter a lot of time away during the day, 5 minutes here and there checking facebook and whatnot because I think it's only 5 minutes. But it adds up. That's 5 minutes I could fold the laundry still sitting in the basket in my bedroom. I think that if I stay on target I can make this work. And if I can't, well, don't look at my toilet when you pee in it because I'll be running and not cleaning it.

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This might be rambly

Feel free to get yourself a drink and pee first. Or you know, skip reading altogether. :-)

Things are going really well. 

It's amazing how a simple change in perspective can change things. But it's more than that. I think for a long time that I always had this picture in my head of what happiness was and how I had to get there. I always needed more. When Vader and I were first together I needed to get married in order to be happy. When we got married, I needed a house. When I got a house, I needed a dog (or two). When I got the dogs, I needed a baby. When I had one baby, I needed another. And so on and so forth. In addition to that I had this vision of my life's path--drinking a cup of tea while my kids and Shinesalot's kids played. I put all of my friendship eggs in that one basket. And when that was taken away from me I was pretty much devastated because my life's happiness depended on that. 

A new friend's signature is this quote : Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.  ~Abraham Lincoln

I think this is the key element. I always relied on outside events or other people to determine my happiness. And those things are not reliable. The only person I can truly rely on is myself. (Of course I can rely on my husband, but not to keep me happy.) I am the only person who can truly keep myself happy. And by happiness I don't mean the blissfully ideal happiness I once thought of... I mean a more realistic down-to-earth happiness. 

I've made a new friend and although she has some sadness in her life right now I think it's going wonderfully. And on Friday our neighbor-friend is bringing her kids to my bi-weekly big kid playdate. I have a close friendship with someone I never would have expected but we chat a lot (when my kids don't interfere and her job doesn't interfere). I have great co-workers. I'm trying to spread out my friendship eggs instead of concentrating them in just one person and I think it's working. I think I resisted making real friends out of some kind of loyalty to Shinesalot, that I would be betraying our friendship if I let myself be friends with other people. But I can't think like that anymore. Shinesalot will always be my best friend forever but I need local friends too. And not just local playdates but local *friends*. 

And since my life-changing attitude my luck is changing too. Of course it's not to my luck, just my perception of it, but whatever. The couch is being delivered on Thursday--the day we were scheduled to go to the beach with my meetup. I was afraid we'd miss it so I asked my new local friend if she wanted to go on Tuesday with just us. We met there and I brought my mother's helper and it was wonderful. SkyWalker had a great time without me. The Princess and the little jobber swam in the water and held hands occasionally and I talked to my friend and I let myself just be happy in the moment. It was a great day. And what's happened? Looks like it's going to thunderstorm all day on Thursday. We got our beach day in perfectly. And normally I would be upset about rain ruining my plans... but I could use the rain to fill up the pool and not drain my well dry! It's all how you look at things. 

Today I babysat a 2 1/2 year old for the first time. Trainboy has been mentioned here before... and SkyWalker did GREAT. He's so much better one on one. He played so nicely and talked to him and played WITH him. There were no arguments or awkward moments at all. It went really well and I think it helped us as much as his mom! 

The only thing not going well right now is the Princess is refusing to take a second nap. I think I'll have to get her up for snack and try again after. I've let her whine for quite a bit now and she's just not giving up. Despite her rubbing her eyes and being cranky. I will be glad when these molars are done! 

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I am a mystery

But we all knew that right?

The jedi and I went to the foot doctor yesterday. He could not replicate the pain there (no surprise. I can't either. It just happens). So I had an x-ray done and will go back in 2 weeks and hopefully the x-ray will give us a clue as to what is wrong with my foot. I am at the point that I can deal with being in pain. Most of being a mom is being in a pain in one way or another, but I don't want to find out 2 years from now that I've been walking around with something really wrong and then I have to get my foot replaced with a robotic one. Actually, that would be cool.

We also went to the state park 5 minutes from my house yesterday for a picnic lunch. They are now on summer hours so it cost us $6 to park! I had planned weekly picnics for my meetup, but I canceled half of them. That's a lot to expect people to pay every week, especially with gas being so high. We still have our weekly lunches at the town park (that draws more people anyway).

We picked up my dress from the tailor today. After I paid I noticed a safety pin at the bottom. I said, "What's the safety pin for?" She looked at it. Looked at her paperwork and then started making one excuse after the other.... she forgot to hem the dress! I could have worked with a loose top, but the floor length dress needed to be knee-length!! We went to the library and wasted an hour while she hemmed it and then picked it. She did not get a tip.

Either Bagel is going to love me or The Nice Librarian is going to hate me. It's a good thing there are 5 weeks in July because I need 3 of them off. We're getting the floors refinished the first week so the kids and I will have to stay on LI. The next week my sister is getting married. And then the last week Shinesalot is coming for a visit and staying at my house. I'm just part-time. It doesn't cost anything to have someone else work for me. I still just feel guilty though. I have to remember all the times the part-timers didn't work when I was full-time.

I just had the loveliest conversation with a friend I usually only talk to online. She actually stayed here way past her leaving time. It reminded me how nice it is to talk to a friend (albeit at work) without interruptions. Well, there were interruptions but they were easily resolved and not of the "I need to poop" or "I want to watch Dora" nature.

I've been working on a potty training bookmark for the new parenting section. I'm prettifying it now. Who would have thought a couple of years ago that I would be doing this? I was THE teen librarian for quite a while. It's so funny how things change.

I had more but I lost it. I need a snacky-snack.

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Curious George

We had a Curious George birthday party for SkyWalker's first birthday. He didn't know who CG was and didn't care, but we liked monkeys. Sometime within the last year when Nana was visiting she read him a Winnie the Pooh story that was a bit too long for me... so I suggested a CG story from his book, A Treasury of Curious George.

A Treasury of Curious George

All of a sudden he loved CG. We had to read it every night. We got sick of reading the same stories over and over and there are only so many books I'm going to check out of the library, so we asked for two more books for his 3rd birthday. The New Adventures of Curious George and the Complete Adventures of Curious George. When I started looking into it I discovered the one we had, the Treasure one was not "original". They were newer stories. As are the New Adventures. And some reviews were all "boo, these are not originals and therefore bad". So I decided to get the Complete Adventures too since those stories are the originals from 60 years ago. Guess what? They are LONG, meandering, and boring. I much prefer the newer CG stories when the title of the story actually has something to do with the plot. In CG Flies a Kite he starts out kicking a ball, then he lets some rabbits out of a cage and loses a bunny and has to find the bunny, then he goes fishing, then he finally flies a kite and gets blown away and has to be rescued by the Man in the Yellow Hat who never properly supervises him anyway. It's 50 some odd pages and I'm looking for the damn kite the entire time. I can't believe that *I'm* saying that, but for bedtime read alouds I groan every time he reaches for the Complete Adventures and wants to read CG goes to the hospital for the 50 millionth time.

I just realized that I better get a book to bring to the hospital with me on Monday, particularly since I am staying with the Princess by myself Monday night. I don't know how much sleeping I'll be able to do. I need a nice fluffy book that doesn't require much focus...I don't think I did any reading when SkyWalker had his surgery but that was only a couple of hours and wasn't an overnight recovery. I still can't believe that this is happening on Monday. It's good to get it over with and I'm glad I don't have to worry about Thanksgiving getting messed up. But it just seems so soon. Then again we've known this was a possibility since my 20 week ultrasound.

The best friend is moved out of her house. I passed it today on my way to work and managed not to cry. She's been 8 minutes away for so long now...and now she's not and this is just the first part. I don't want to even think about next month, and therefore I am not.

So I think I have indirectly gotten my closure*. It's sad that nearly 7 years of friendship is just over like that, but I guess that's just the way it is.

*Note, I am NOT talking about best friend. Silly people.

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