Emerging

Hello, Reader!

I am just now emerging from the other side of a very steep mountain followed by a very deep and dark hole.  The first was a week without Brian who was traveling for work.  The latter was the following week full of lousy weather and sick kids.  Not terribly sick.  Just sick enough to leave us homebound.

I can do sick kids with nice weather.  (You sleep, I'll be in the backyard.)  I can do crappy weather with healthy kids. (Let's do a Target run!)  But I cannot do both.  I become moody, depressed, incapable and short with everyone.

I am back down to my pre-babies weight.  It's the fastest I've ever lost my pregnancy weight.

"Yes," Brian told me, "But you didn't do it the right way."

He's right.

It's the I'm-thin-because-I'm-run-ragged look.  I hate that.  I want to be strong, fit, and healthy.  (Isn't it funny how once you're out of your 20s you could care less what size you are and instead just strive for overall health.  I love that!)

After quite the hiatus due to illness and weather I resumed my Couch to 5K program on Monday morning.  And because that felt so good, I got up and did another set again this morning.

When choosing my running route I used to avoid a certain busy street that is about three blocks from our house.  Even though that car-packed road provided the perfect running terrain (not too flat, not too hilly) I didn't want passersby to judge me.  Was I running to slow?  Did I look funny?  Did they think I was a wuss during the walking portions of my interval training?

It was like I could feel them all laughing at me.

Now I don't care.  I run that road for blocks and blocks!  I've grown four babies in my body in six years.  What else do I really need to prove?  I'm not a runner.  But I run anyway.  And then sometimes I walk.

I missed Lucy's birthday on the ol' blog and I feel bad about that.  As much as this is a place for me to write it's also a great memory keeper and now I feel guilty about having a big gap on either side of her fourth birthday.

The morning of her birthday she picked this blue gingham dress.  And then she asked me to curl her hair.  After I took this picture of her I gasped at her beauty.  It will end up being one of her better assets in life, I think.  Hopefully it will distract people from her otherwise stubborn and defiant tendencies.

I kid, only a little.  I'm still bitter about her disappearing on me at the grocery store when we went to order her birthday cake.  That should have been a whole post by itself because she was later found wandering in and out of cars in the parking lot by a cart boy.

But look how pretty!  She says cute things too.

And finally, the installation of my new blog design has been delayed.  Again.  It's out of my control so I just have to sit back and wait like everyone else.  Until then things might start to look a little shabby around here. It's one of the reasons I've been waiting so long to write a post.

I kept thinking that I wanted to start fresh.  I would write when everything is shiny and new again.

But regardless of design, it turns out that the part where I press buttons and words appear on the screen still works perfectly.  And that's the most important part anyway.

So I write.  With gaps of time in between.  But still, I will write.  Now and always.