Catch up
Dare I admit to it? I will be a, "willing to step down at any moment," PTA president. I hope all goes smoothly! We have 5 more nights to sleep before the marathon. Yes, there are six nights, but I really probably won't sleep much on Saturday. I am mucho excited and pretty nervous. This will be my 3rd trained for, 2nd run marathon. I missed one due to injury 3 weeks before the race. I would love to run even a second faster than I did the last one. We'll see though. Adam and I have some pre-race strategy, but we often deviate from plans.
We had a family night the other day and we bought an air popper. Heidi had asked if we ate air popped popcorn and I had to reply with a negative, because we either pop it in a pan with oil or eat microwaved popcorn. I love air popped popcorn, and so created the means to eat it. Sebastian laughed so hard as the popcorn built up and then poured out of the shoot. I decided that his laughter was worth every penny I paid for the over-priced air popper (because I bought it at Smiths.) We also had rootbeer floats, and all shared one large Hershey bar. We played games, including hide and seek. We each took our turn counting to 10, and then we had a girls hiding and counting team and a boys. We watched Bambi 2 and Aeonflux (I don't know if I spelled that correctly?). We had a nice evening. Funny, Adam and I were suppose to have a date night, but I decided we should stay home as a family, because our family time kind of got pushed out of the schedule and replaced by work. Adam's job is a take it while you can get it, and Saturday he took it and today, on Memorial Day, he woke up and decided he would take the day off since his schedule was free, but then he ended up writing 2 offers! We had a nice dinner together though it was late it was awesome, and not just the not so warm food. I'd trade a hot meal for the conversation that we enjoyed with our kids and the bedtime routine we had except Sebastian who is sitting on my lap right now, because he took a nap after Superman, which he started with his friend Luke this afternoon. He slept from like 5-8, oops! That's O.K. because he'll sleep in tomorrow. I just wish I could. Blast the stinkin' marathon. Only 2 more runs until the big day. Next week I suppose I'll be wishing I could be running. Or maybe I'll just be relieved.
Job and my two lessons this weekend.
My husand, myself and our children joined some friends in Zion this last weekend. We had a wonderful, relaxed weekend. Someone shared the story of Job with all of us. In the story Job had 3 daughters and 7 sons. The story teller had mentioned afterwards that he ended gearing it more towards the kids, which I think was fabulous. It's not like we can't learn adult lessons from children's stories. I looked at my own life and think what do I have to be upset about most of the time. I get so flustered and my lot isn't even a fraction of the terrible that Job must have gone through. I need to remember that! I've watched our kids a lot this weekend and friends have redirected my attention when I have lost sight and almost missed something I wouldn't want to have missed. At one point this weekend, our son, Sebastian was feeding his friend, Loredana, Cheetos. One at a time, it was stinkin' adorable! I missed this part, but I guess he was making chomping noises and she held his face with both hands and gave him a scolding that you would expect of a girlfriend or wife. Mind you these two kids are only four, but I wanted to write about this. You just never know what the future may hold, and wouldn't it be awesome to share this story with them in 20 years. Maybe as they are marrying another or possibly each other. They are both the sweetest kids. Really, we had 16 kids in the cabin this weekend and none of them got out of hand. They are all such well behaved children! I am thankful for good friends, good times, and well behaved children, which I believe is a direct result of the love their parents have for them, even in the tough decisions! I had to make one of those. On our way up the hill to the swing that swoops out over the ledge, Sebastian was warned that if he whined one more time about going first that he would not only not get to swing first, but that we would go back down the hill and he wouldn't swing at all. Unfortunately, he did it, he crossed the line from which you can not go back and I had to stick to my guns and turn him away from the swing and head back to the cabin. IT SUCKED! Discipline is not easy to receive, but I think it's even harder to give sometimes. Knowing that I hadn't had a scare on the swing yet, Adam, doubled back and took my place as the disciplinarian. I continued up the hill with our friends. In a few minutes, Adam and Sebastian could be seen coming our direction. I commented to a friend about how Daddy sure was nice and the friend said something about how we don't always get what we deserve. Another lesson for me. Adam had, had a talk with him and showed him undeserved mercy. When it cam etime for Sebastian to swing, he was scared and didn't end up swinging anyways. After the swing we all headed down and took a ride in one of the boats together. Adam admitted that he really like the paddle boats. Maybe someday I'll live on a lake and we will have to get one, I really like them too. I'm not sure if I like them more than the canoes, but then if I'm buying property on a lake, I could probably have one of each. One day work my legs in the paddle boat, and the other work my arms in the canoe. What a life that would be!
Time to smell the roses again!
Well, Shotsie's roses are in full bloom again. Less than a month ago it seems was pruning time. I watched the roses get cut back to frighteningly ugly stubs. Every week more and more green leaves grew. Then one day there were buds, and days later beautiful, sweet smelling roses. These are the kind that you stop to smell in the middle of an important run. I gave other roses a chance to compete this year, and yet Shotsie's roses outshone them all. Really I guess they really aren't Shotsie's roses. It's her husband that cares for them, though they may have been planted for her and being cared for out of love for Shotsie, at least that's the romantic spin I'm taking. When I breathe in their aroma, I swear that I have a renewed energy, and the last tenth of a mile home I float. My mansion is going to have beautiful scented roses. The kind that you can smell on a slightly humid day from a hundred feet away. I don't have roses in our yard, but last night walking a friend to her car, I was able to appreciate the scent that stirred as I walked out our front door, from our rosemary bush and the other blooming desert landscape plants. I am so thankful for the color and smell that I can appreciate in my own yard as well.
Reading, Running, and Squeezing in the Kids
The other day the kids and I went to the park. There was a small cluster of jungle gym equipment provided amoung the hills of lush grass and shady trees. My kids went down the slide once or twice and the rest of the time they spent running through the grass with their shoes off. They spent a lot of time petting a little-not-so-old ladies dog, named Sam and talking with the lady. I enjoyed watching them so much so that I barely read even a page in my book. I just sat beneath a shady tree and dug my toes into the cool grass. I got up a few times, once to meet Sam and his owner and a couple of times to chase the kids in a game of tag or to scoup them up while I'm still strong enough and their small enough for me to do it effortlessly. I want to be a mom they remember as yes a reader, but also one who put the book down to run through the grass and hang like a weakling from the first rung of the monkey bars (O.K. so I can't get any farther). I like the fact that our kids know that Adam and I are active and enjoy doing things with them and not only watching each other, but joining in things together. The other day I had fallen asleep on the swing watching Adam and the kids play and Adam told Sebastian he needed to wake me up. Sebastian said, "No, daddy stay and play, don't wake up mommy, you are just going to run." That broke my heart. I was already feeling selfish about running, thinking that it was just taking up to much family time. We won't be training for a marathon again for a while. We can keep up our physical fitness, and enjoy an occasional 5K with the kids. We want to enjoy them while we can. I know our kids are only 4 and 6, but I also knowt the 6 years I have had kids have flown by. Heck, when they are in college I will only be in my forties. I can run marathons and read War and Peace then. Until then, after the marathon that I've already trained 5 months for we will only run for fun and fitness and read books that I can put down and run away from to catch my kids on a grassy hillside in a Summerlin park or wherever our journeys may take us.
I'd say I'm a Peach.
A friend and I are reading a book together titled, Fruit of the Spirit. In our reading I decided to put myself in a peach catagory. I'm sometimes sweet, I bruise easily and rot quickly. I'm pretty fuzzy too. I do love peaches! I have a coconut friend and several other fruity varieties. Some friends are harder to read. This same book asked what layers you would want to peel off to be a fruit more like the fruit of the Spirit. I looked at myself and admitted that I do get easily offended and put up defensive walls to protect myself. I am working on this, actually God is working on it in me. The book asked the question, "What did you want to be when you grew up when you were a kid?" I couldn't answer that question. I don't know for sure that I could answer that question even now. I would like to teach, but I am a mom first and foremost and I know that being a mom is the most important thing God had in store for me. My marriage is an important base for being a mom, and the love that Adam and I share is one of the best things that I can demonstrate for my kids. So, even when my kids say oooh, yuck when we kiss I'd rather that they see it than not. Maybe they can grow up and be blessed to have someone who loves them as much as I know Adam loves me and know what it is to love someone so much that you cry when you read about husbands and wives being separated in Uncle Tom's Cabin, when they are old enough to read it, even if they are mooshy gooshy peaches like their momma.
