Life Is Beautiful

I sure wish that I had more time to write!  However, just like anything, you make time for what you want to make time for.  I've decided that training for a Marathon is more important than writing, hence, not much going on the blog, lately. I did get a "long" run in yesterday.  I ran by feel (without techy feedback) and did a little over 8 miles nice and comfy at a slow rate.  This gave me well over an hour and a half to think about things as I run solo.  I don't listen to music until I feel like it, in this case the last few miles. The notion that I run to express myself came to mind.  Though not in the way that you can express yourself through art or through, say, flair... I was thinking more of the result of expression. The "what comes out" of the act of expression. When I run, I think.  I consider.  I mull over.  Sometimes I feel convicted of something I'm not doing quite right.  Sometimes I float back in time to a sad pl...

Our son read a book this summer called " Do Hard Things ."  I intended to read it as well, but admittedly, only got as far as the forward - but the forward was written by Chuck Norris so I get a few points, right?  As a book written to rally the teenage consciousness to do more than simply get by, it was right up Liam's alley.  Somehow, our oldest son got the picture in the last couple of years that life is what you make it - and it's not your own.  God gives you a finite number of days to do His work and His work ain't easy. The title of this book came to mind lately as I spoke with someone who has set some long-ish (a year to two) term goals to get out of a career that they would like to change and pay off debt.  I thought of this phrase again when I had a panic attack going to the Freshman Football Jamboree on Saturday morning.  Every cell in my body was screaming not to walk down those very steep  bleachers at Seacrest Field.  After I w...

I am constantly amazed when I see people smoking. How can you STILL not know how bad that is for you!? I started smoking when I was 14 and puffed away until age 29. When I was 20 or so, smoking was outlawed in public places in my state. At age 23, my Dad died of lung cancer from smoking. I continued to struggle and puff away until, finally, the Lord removed my desire to smoke. No kidding. I'll tell the story some time - it's kooky...and if you ever smoked, you'd know my quitting couldn't be from any other power. Anywho - as an athlete, now - when I run through a cloud of cigarette smoke, it makes me gag. It's not just the stinky smell, and toxic fumes, but I get a little miffed. I NEED my lungs! I understand (and care) that my lungs take in oxygen and it is passed on to my muscles. My muscles (my heart!) are needed to use those legs for running and biking, and my arms for swimming. My lungs might be the most important organ in my body for all of the ac...

Today I feel BETTER! To be more precise, this evening I feel better. I did get up and go in to work around 6:30. Those darn hives spread out to make me look all sunburned yesterday and weren't much better this morning. I managed to scoot into work, get a dent made in the payables, organize payroll and scoot out of there. I felt like my skin was on fire! So I went home and pointed the fan on me and slipped into a Benedryl induced coma for an hour. Mom came and got the big kids yesterday (that woman really does love me) and hubby is off on Fridays, so I got to just relax and recover for once. Pulled myself up and went to Physical Therapy. When she pulled the dressing out of my wound, it didn't feel like she was pulling out yards and yards of it this time. The whirlpool bath still stung like crazy, but when she was packing the dressing back in there (cringe) it wasn't as bad. And...as you can see, she didn't wrap it as bulky, so I can type with the other hand a bi...