My Goal by 30

So I hate to run. I have always hated to run. When I was in middle school/high school, I would think about the sprints at the end of every practice; I would be filled with dread. In softball, I worry that I may hit the ball too far (this NEVER happens anymore) and I would have to run around all the bases. Now in boot camp, I don't mind the lifting stuff, but I worry about the running. Sprints or distance, I hate it all.

Now I am getting ready to have a milestone birthday. I turn 30 in December and I have decided that I want to be a runner by then. Not a crazy runner, who runs all the time, but just someone who can go out and jog a few miles (I don't know 3 maybe?, 5, or 8) and feel good about it. It just so happens that Ben turns 30 much faster than I do and he has the same goal.

So I started a couch to 5 K program. I knew that I was further advanced than week 1 but I decided that just the act of making myself run would be good. It is working, I can't say that I am loving it but I am loving the feeling of accomplishing something.

Summer Time

It is official, yesterday was the kids last day of school. Of course I am not done with work for the summer yet but everything changes. I have a week without students and then they come back for summer school. That is about the perfect amount of time without them....by the time they come back, I am ready to see them again.

Additionally, I am teaching a class at Missouri State this summer, I need to start spending some of my time prepping that class. I am pretty excited about it. I think I am going to teach it this fall as well. The class is Introduction to Special Education for people getting their masters in counseling, sped, or secondary/elementary education.

To kick off the summer perfectly, the weather is gorgeous. I am going to spend the weekend outside!

Friendship

I have always had a really close group of friends. For the most part, we have been friends since we were little kids. We have added people here and there and spouses have been inducted in but the core is the same. When I think back on undergrad I think that my experiences were different from most because I went to school around here and the group was still connected (although this is where several of them added in). Don't get my wrong. I loved college and would not pass up the memories made by our friends during that time. There were TONS of late nights at Potters House, Monday night football, parties at the apartment, camping trips, baseball games etc. However, I didn't really branch out. I stayed close only with our group.



When I moved to Oklahoma for grad school, I was scared to death....but our cohort was close and I quickly made some super great friends. I still consider many of those people great friends (even though I am really bad at keeping in touch..sorry!). We have some amazing memories of conferences, crazy road trips, and great parties. When I went to Fort Worth, the same thing happened. Awesome friendships. I can not imagine my life had I not moved to these places and made such great friends (if you were not included in the pictures, sorry, I pulled the ones that were easy for me to get to) :)





Now that I am back in Missouri, I find myself falling back into the old pattern of "I don't need any new friends, it is hard enough keeping up with the ones I have." However, today was a rough day for me. I was emotional and felt like everything was going wrong. I got an unexpected pick-me-up when I had lunch with some of my co-workers. We were just chatting about everyday things and I started thinking....these people are my friends, we share personal information with one another, have common beliefs, etc. Basically, this entire thought process boiled down to this: I need to do more to nurture my friendships both old ones that I know will last forever and may be taken for granted, and new ones that need more attention! This will be one of my new goals and we all know how I love goal setting...

Expressing Thanks

I feel like I am pretty good about being grateful for the multiple blessings in my life. I am aware of how lucky I am and I realize (most of the time) that these things are a direct blessing from God. What I am not very great about is recognizing when my prayers get answered and then immediately giving thanks.

Sometimes when I am struggling, I wonder about how effective prayer is. I think we have all been there (or at least I hope I am not the only one). Where something is so bad that it feels my prayer is irrelevant. Specifically, I really struggle with this when someone has been diagnosed with a terminal illness; I keep praying but the person keeps moving closer to the end of life here on Earth. During times like this, I recognize that God is in control and that I can not understand his ways.....but I get to the point where I don't feel as though my prayer makes any difference. Although I go through phases like this; for the most part I strongly believe in prayer and just don't recognize the answers.

At the beginning of every year, my church (Northpoint) always really pushes "self feeding" also called quiet time. Each January, the church makes journals with reading plans to help each member of the congregation during quiet time. At the front of this journal there is a prayer list with a place for answers. At the beginning of the year (Jan-March) I was really good about using this journal. Once I began this blog, I quit using the journal and have instead been journalling privately on here. Well this morning I pulled out that journal so I could see what I needed to read next. I started glancing over the prayer request page and the number of prayers that have been answered is amazing!!! When I look through the list, I realize that not only did I ever acknowledge that these have been answered but I defiantly have not expressed thanks to the one who answered them.

So this is one very small part of my acknowledging how awesome it is to have a God that answers our prayers....

Live in the Now?

Sometimes I wonder if I am always just looking forward to the next thing instead of enjoying the moment. It seems like I am always excited about the weekend, the summer, or the next big event. The thing is my day to day life is great, why don't I just live in the present?

For instance, it has been so beautiful outside lately. I have been planting and watering my flowers, taking my dog for long walks, and playing softball. All things I love...BUT instead all I can think about is school letting out (even though I love my job), going to the lake, river, camping, baseball etc. Mentioning all of the things that I do during the summer just makes me smile. Maybe that is one time each year that I do live in the "now". Do I love the summer so much because I stay in the present or is it really just that great?

Here is a picture to show one reason the summer is SO WONDERFUL!

The First Published One...

Well it is Easter Sunday and I woke up early because Molly was of course whining to get out of her cage (even though I am sure she did not need to). I thought about going back to bed but found myself setting up a new blog instead.

What is the purpose of this blog? Well I have no idea. I know that I love reading Elissa's and I want something to document our lives. I know that I used to be really good at writing in my journal but don't ever do it anymore so this would give me a way to do that.

It feels strange to be up on Easter Sunday and not go to church but we went yesterday at 3 instead. It was a really good services and I could not believe how packed it was. Tommy talked about how if you truly believe in the resurrection then you have to live by it. It can't be something that you just keep tucked away for heaven protection. Thank you God for sending your son to die for us!!!

Pretty soon I need to start cooking, we are going over to Clay and Elissa's for a Easter potluck. I have not been this excited about Easter in a long time and I think it is because Margaret is going to look for Easter eggs and I think it will be so so cute!

Ben has been really sick lately, he has been running a high fever all week (like 104 at one point). Yesterday was the first day he left the house since Wednesday. Hopefully he is on the mend.