0-13.1 miles in less than a year

Dani and I are now officially half-marathoners!

We dragged ourselves out of bed at 5:30 a.m., rolled to the shuttle bus, napped to aspen grove and then huddled in the heated tent. I forced myself to eat a cliff bar and most of that carbohydrate goo they gave us in our packet. Searching for porta-potties under a starry night sky and trying to nap on asphalt both sent Dani and I reeling back to our Red Rock Relay days...[nostalgic gaze into the distance]...

At 9:00 a.m. we lined up with approximately 2,300 other costume-bedeckt crazy people and started down the canyon. The first few miles were chaos. People everywhere! One girl fell early on and broke her wrist. A few people here and there started walking after about two miles.

I ran with Dani for about 5-6 miles. Neither of us ran with an iPod. It was a beautiful fall day and there were a lot of entertaining people/costumes to look at and think about.

2 hours and five minutes after taking off from the Stewart Falls parking lot, Dani finished. Ten minutes after that I finished. My legs felt really good, my lungs/heart felt really good, but my right ankle really hurt. I didn't sprain it, but it seems like some sort of deep tendon bruise.

At the end, Kit, Rachel, and Dani were waiting and cheering for me! It felt great! Then we went to celebrate at Five Guys. There's nothing like burning 1500 calories and then gaining them back again in one sitting. :-)

yes. YES.

Excerpt from the book on entrepreneurship that I am reading:

"Individuals need life structure. A life lacking in comprehensive structure is an aimless wreck. The absence of structure breeds breakdown. Structure provides the relatively fixed points of reference we need."

This is key. This is why school is so comforting. This is why busy days are better than lazy days. This is why not being in school is so ominous--the structure disappears into nebulous "intentions" to accomplish life goals. Transition is hard because structures change.

I identify with this because I find great comfort in consistent processes and try to implement them in my life wherever possible.

And while structure is something I need, the good news is it is also something that I know how to create. (You should see my google calendar...)

Alvin Toffler, The Third Wave. Quoted in The E-Myth Revisited, by Michael Gerber.

a snippet of my thoughts on a normal day

Oh. my. days.

Cute Boy is so stinkin cute.

It's ridic-a-lous.
He makes me smile. A lot.

That is all.

I want to start a business

I am sitting in my women entrepreneur lecture series class, thinking, "I could do that. I could do this."

Details to come of course.

Sunday blog on faith

One of my favorite things to do on Sunday is write in my journal or write on my blog. A la "Harry Potter," it's very peaceful for me to extract my thoughts and capture them in writing.

We had a wonderful church block today, kicked off with a talk by my former roommate Rachelle on faith--one of my favorite topics! She said a lot of very insightful things, but her comparison of her experience learning new, scary moves as a young gymnast to taking leaps of faith in our lives really stuck with me.

She described preparing to do a back handspring on the balance beam and being absolutely terrified. It was difficult for her to even comprehend literally throwing herself backwards into the unknown, not knowing if her hands would find the beam, worried about being off balance; wondering if her hands would buckle and not support her. It was quite literally a leap of faith. And it was terrifying.

But she related another gymnastic experience that taught her something else. She was learning a new flip on the floor. As soon as she bounced off the floor she knew something was wrong--her rotation speed made it impossible for her feet to find the floor before her head did. She was headed for certain disaster.

Then, before she knew it, she had stopped moving. Her feet were still up and her head was close to the floor, but she wasn't flying through the air anymore. Her coach, who was spotting her while she learned something new, recognized that she wasn't going to make it and caught her midair before she could get hurt.

Heavenly Father is our coach. Rachelle understood intellectually the gymnastic moves she was trying to learn, but she couldn't fully understand until she experienced them. And she couldn't learn what she needed to until she decided to take a literal leap of faith. Then, before she could fall, her coach caught her and helped her so she could try again.

She shared a myriad of other helpful ideas: faith is a decision; the direction you are going is more important than the size of your leap of faith; life is the sum of many, many leaps.

Then in Sunday School, Dallin used the book of Isaiah to teach us about what Christ has done for us, what He is now doing for us, and what He has promised in the future. It was wonderful to review all that is in store for us as God's children. Dallin ended with a very appropriate, very cute video clip about being actively patient while waiting for God's promises to be fulfilled.

Rachel rounded out the meeting block with a great lesson on the Restoration. We learned about dates and times, but one of her points was that we avoid distancing ourselves from the Spirit (personal apostacy) by continually experiencing personal restoration.

It was a wonderful three hours that renewed my resolve to have more faith, have more patience, and to continually restore and renew my personal spirituality.

Dear women who sit on the couches in the restroom and eat lunch,

Do you really find it appetizing to sit in a small room whilst tons of people traipse past you to use the facilities?

If you're trying to find a quiet place to eat, I suggest . . . anywhere else.

If you're trying to get away from people, maybe you should just eat in the corner.

If you're lonely, let me know. We'll sit down and chat. OUTside the restroom.

If you're trying to gross me out and make me self-conscious, you're doing a great job.

Sincerely,

Lynne

Fall is for football

[contented sigh]

I love this.

General Conference is like the Superbowl for Mormons

1. We anticipate it for days, weeks, months

2. We try to find a really big TV to watch it on, and turn it up really loud

3. It takes over our weekend and even after experiencing it want to relive it over and over

4. We invite all our friends over to enjoy it together

5. Some people get a little too emotional

6. We prepare by assembling treats and other delicious concoctions

7. We consider it a great experience, embroiled in tradition and emotion

and, last but not least . . .

7. Everyone's facebook statuses reflect something about it for three days before and three days after

Stay-at-home moms

(How can you resist these cute little girls? Speaking of little girls . . . can't wait for Alice's arrival this week!)

I recently read my friend's blog on this topic (it's about halfway down the page), and he said something that was really interested to me:

"If I expect my wife to stay at home all day with the kids, would I be willing to do the same? If not, how could I expect that of her?

"And why couldn’t I stay at home with the kids? Isn’t raising a family the most important part of this life? Isn’t fatherhood a divine calling? Well, honestly, I just wouldn’t feel fulfilled! Being at home ALL DAY - I have never imagined myself in that position. I have built up this expectation of myself as a working man; staying at home all day just seems crazy! I need the intellectual stimulus that comes from working or studying (or at least my culture has programmed me to think that I do)."

First, thank you Jeff for recognizing that it might not be easy for a smart, independent, social individual to make such a huge lifestyle change overnight. That being said, I think Swindle hit one of my greatest fears on the head: I'm terrified that staying at home all day will make me crazy. No social interaction with anyone above the age of three (except for husband) for days in a row? Just thinking about that makes me batty. What if I don't get dressed until noon everyday? What if I constantly have the television on in the background because I need the companionship it provides? What if I get so comfortable in my hermit, safe from the critical judgments of the world that I'm a wall-flower when I finally emerge? What if I grow my nails out really long, use tissue boxes for shoes and collect my own urine?!?! (Okay, okay . . . implying that I'll become Howard Hughes might be a step too far . . . )

But then again, working full-time while trying to be a mom and keep a household together sounds worse. I can't imagine missing such a large part of my children's development and learning process. I want them to know, as I knew in my youth, that their mom puts them first no matter what. Their mom will be there to drive them to soccer practice, make them a snack, be a shoulder to cry on, launder their dirty clothes etc. etc. A life of a mother working full-time seems very frenetic. The image in my mind's eye is a woman who is barely holding it together. Just trying to get from day to day; reigning the chaos in as best as possible.

So what's the solution? Transition from being in an environment of intellectual stimulation and social support to isolation and boredom? Yuck. Hopefully not. There must be a balance. And because of my natural aversions to being alone, I think one my greatest challenges will be to actively seek and adjust this balance in my life.

Some ideas that I can experiment with:

-Make my home a refuge. As nerdy as it sounds, one of the things I am most excited about is organizing the cleaning closet in my future home. I've waited my whole life to have a space that I can create and maintain my own "systems" in.

-Cultivate adult friendships (just having kids doesn't mean you don't get to be an adult). One of the greatest characteristics of cute boy is his friendliness and affability. I know that we'll always have a lot of friends.

-Serve in the community. I think I am going to have a lot of latent energy that I will need to direct toward productive channels. City council meetings. School board. Ward callings. ANYTHING that I can sign up for, I think I will.

-Pursue part-time opportunities. My mom taught one night a week. It was perfect. There's got to be something I can teach the world. Or, maybe I could start my own business from home. If the right business opportunity comes up, I fully expect myself to jump on it.

-Learn, learn, learn. And learn some more. My mom set the good example of listening to book tapes when doing things around the house. While I will probably need some Rihanna or Lee DeWyze to get me in the groove occasionally, I think this is a good habit. Even though I'm not actively in the workforce full-time, I can still read business books, biographies, fiction--whatever I want. When we put in a garden, I can use the research and synthesis skills that I have developed in college to put in the best darn garden you've ever seen.

Mostly I worry that I will be "the time-traveler's wife" and spend the majority of my life waiting for my husband to come home. But ultimately, I think I'm going to be okay. I'll find a rhythm and I'm sure the seasons of my life will come and go more quickly than I am ready.