Tired in advance..

just thinking about the 21miler coming up sometime this weekend is making me sleepy. Have fun storming the Castle...

In the last 2 weeks....

I have managed to break our eldest heart twice after we met two shelter dogs that didn't turn out to be right for our family. Tears were shed. I managed to notice that I have a meatball on toothpicks running around our house who I thoughtfully named butterball (wow, those christmas PJ are not flattering E2, but the thought of a meatball on toothpicks running around the house made me laugh so hard I peed my pants). I managed to eat an entire bag of dark chocolate pretzels in hopes that my larger butt would slow the descent into K's regressive behavior. It didn't work, but they were delish. I managed to frighten myself by realizing how often T and I end up on the same page these days. I managed to bury myself in paperwork and puppy finding last weekend so much so that I forgot the post office was closed on monday. I managed to send the blue footed boo-bie through the car wash cause I couldn't see out the windows any longer and if you got within 5' of it you could taste the salt. Besides, its always fun to see k's look of terror turn to a glee-ful squeal when the colored soap hits her window. I even managed to wash the kitchen floor in the last two weeks! yah ME (for washing the kitchen floor, not so much for eating all the chocolate)!

19miles and we Collide..

Lyrics from "Collide" by Howie Day

The dawn is breaking
A light shining through
You're barely waking
And I'm tangled up in you

..
I worry I won't see your face
Light up again

Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the wrong words seem to rhyme
Out the doubt the fills your mind
I somehow find
You and I collide

19 miles on the road. Knees are sore. 2 miles more than 17. My heart still soars. 2 miles less than 21. Still such a long way more. 6 weeks to my personal 50k. 6 weeks closer to the day when you and I may finally collide.

For those that I love that I already see, and to those I love I've not yet met. I can't do much. But I can run. I run for time to pass, run for praise (to him the gives me strength), run for healing, for you...

1770 miles done. 8,014 more to go.

Peace

10 Things you Might not Know about J

10. I love milk. As in LOVE milk! The colder the better and I absolutely hate soda. I think I drank so much milk one time that I gave myself a kidney stone. When my dr. suggested I needed more calcium in my diet I had to laugh. Once I relayed the kidney stone story, he changed his mind.

9. I reverse-sneak my kids (if that is a word). There I admitted it. The kids, especially the boys are notorious for sneaking into our bedroom in the middle of the night, crawling into bed and then snoring in our faces. I wait for them to fall asleep in our bed, then sneaking out of our room and into their bunk bed. After a peaceful night sleep with the stuffed animals, the first thing I usually hear is someone asking where mama disappeared to as the last place they tend to look is in their own bedroom.....

8. I ate a pringle covered in ants on our honeymoon. It was dark and I didn't realize it until I felt them crawling on my hand. They were crunchy.

7. When we first bought our house, it needed painting. So we bought a ladder and I spent all summer on an extension ladder painting the exterior. Its starting to peel again and I am starting to wonder how I managed to paint it the first time around and still be here to tell the story.

6. I secretly wish I had a closet full of shoes like Carrie on SITC, but wonder how long it would take me to break my ankle hiking around a construction site in my
Man.olos.

5. I am convinced that most things women "claim" to be a result of child bearing are not. They just don't want to admit they are getting old. Case in point, I never birthed a child however a. My beautiful blonde hair is now a shade of dirty dish water b. I have a pooch c. I pee my pants when I laugh too hard.

4. Speaking of old, I am now jealous of women who are in their early thirties as someone pointed out to me the other day that I am now "pushing forty". Luckily I discovered a time machine.

3. I caught a 10" diameter plate of barf the other night at our favorite restaurant totally unnoticed by anyone sitting around us. The hard part was trying to figure out what to do with it after the vomit machine (AKA E2) finally turned off. Needless to say I ran into the owner on the way to the dishpan. Oh so embarrassing

2. I have had 2 ticks on two separate occasions decide that my left cheek was an ideal location to set up shop, and I am not talking about the cheeks on my face. Both time I had to call in reinforcements (AKA T) to get the confounded thing out as I am not a Circ-de-Solie performer people!

1. I can't think of anything else. So much for the build up......

These tired legs...

No rain, no snow, nor wind chill temps shall keep a runner from his routes...

Despite two blizzards, impassable bike paths. I've managed to keep up my weekly runs. I had to resort to street running, and some loops (gosh I hate running loops), but I've stuck with it. Each run bring a new challenge. Sometimes is the elements. Sometimes its a heavy load on the mind. Sometimes its the Indian food from the night before (OMG did I just write that?!?)

Only 44 days until the Lakefront 50k. Last week was a cutback week. So now its back to business. I'm not really following a training program, but I do know that I need to get a couple 20+ milers in. So now, besides a tired mind and legs, I need to plot a course for about 17 miles, and find the time to do it, since its no longer possible to get those sorts of distances in on Saturday mornings. At least not in snowy conditions.

Why bother to share this? Since I'm running with a few people in mind, I thought it good to share my madness. Or at least my dedication to it. Peace..

Prayer of St. Gianna

God our Father we praise You and we bless you because in Saint Gianna Beretta Molla you have given us one who witnessed to the Gospel as a young women, as a wife, as a mother, and as a doctor. We thank you because through the gift of her life we can learn to welcome and honor every human person.

You, Lord Jesus, were for Gianna a splendid example.
She learned to recognize you in the beauty of nature.
As she was questioning her choice of vocation she went
in search of you and the best way to serve you.
Through her married love she became a sign of
your love for the Church and for humanity.
Like you, the Good Samaritan, she cared for everyone
who was sick, small or weak. Following your example,
out of love she gave herself entirely,
generating new life.


Holy Spirit, Source of every perfection, give us wisdom, intelligence, and courage so that, following the example of Saint Gianna and through her intercession, we may know how to place ourselves at the service of each person we meet in our personal, family and professional lives, and thus grow in love and holiness.

Amen.

Colombian Names

If you know our family personally, you know that we have chosen to keep the given names of all three of our adoptive children and have only added middle names when there was not one. While 2 of the three are not the easiest names to pronounce and we are constantly correcting people, and people either assume our oldest son's name is a last name or drop the "s" at the end, I can't imagine calling them by any other name. E1's school is just as diverse name-wise. The first time we toured the building, I remember thinking to myself, goodness! they will fit right in here with so many cool and unique names above the coat hooks. So you can imagine my excitement when I saw a post from a Colombian Culture blog we read about Uncommon Colombian Names. The Registrduría in Colombia says that there are 1,691,862 Colombians with completely unique names -- no one else in the country shares their name, and possibly, no one else in the world. Based on the article, naming a child with a completly unique name is a more common practice among folks with lower incomes, while middle and upper classes have gone back to using really Spanish sounding names which would have been considered old school back in the 1980's. Here are some of the most exotic names:

Yicelub, Saub, Irlandesa, Saude, Jhewer, Jheyaa, Cometa Haley, Alka Seltzer, Mickey Mouse Jusayú, Gallina Ipuana, Cine, Helicóptero, María Perra, Ministro y Chorizo Epinayú.

So, we might just end up with a daughter whose name is totally unique to anyone in the world, and knowing me, I will probably take that as sign from up above.....so long as it isn't Alka Seltzer!