A Few Thoughts on Running

I love this quote, “I run because I can. When I get tired, I remember those who can’t run, what they would give to have this simple gift I take for granted, and I run harder for them. I know they would do the same for me.”

Lately I feel so different, awkward, weak… I’m not used to feeling this way, but I keep running. Why? Because I can. Sometimes I am left wondering why I do this. This morning my alarm went off at 5:00 and I drug my awkwardly large body out of bed and hit the gym. I lifted weights then ran for a lousy 30 minutes, that in itself felt like it’s own marathon. I have always had this love/hate relationship with running. Why do I hate it? The same reason anyone else hates it, because it’s hard. But thankfully I have been able to see the other side of running, the “love” side. Why do I love it? Because it’s so rewarding. Running has got me through some very trying times in my life. It just seems so much less rewarding when you are pregnant. No matter how hard I run it will only get harder for me. No matter how hard I run I will continue to get bigger and gain weight. No matter how hard I run I will only get slower. So, why do I do it? I was beginning to ask myself that same question and remembered, well, because I can. I am truly blessed to be able to run. Most women don’t/can’t run during pregnancy and I am very thankful that I can and that I have a Dr. who supports my running. The second I walked in the door my focus changes. My me time is over and my focus becomes my family. For instance, this morning when I walked in the door my husband was still in bed because his alarm didn’t go off. I was rushing to make his breakfast and lunch (trust me, he requires a lot of food) when Brinley came out “Mom, I peed in my bed, will you get me some clean clothes?” I realized then, this is why I run. Exercising gives me what I need so I can spend the rest of the day focusing on everyone else’s needs. I truly believe I am a better mom and wife because I run and I’m so thankful I have a body that can.

I loved the March/April issue of Rocky Mountain Running and Triathlon. I love that they recognized moms as being “super” I’m so glad someone finally sees this. It seems every magazine I pick up gives women the title of being “amazing” because of politics, the amount of money they make, their looks, their career or some other thing that is actually far less amazing than motherhood. I love that they recognized these mom’s as being amazing. I could relate to them, we all can because we are just ordinary people doing something amazing, raising children. It truly is the most important thing we can do.

"I wanted my boys to see me put myself out there in an environment where I am not super confident.  I wanted them to see my hard work, my sweat, and my moving body... I wanted them to learn that rewards only come after hard work." - Jill Murdock

I recently read a headline that broke my heart a little bit "NYC Mom Leaves her Husband and Two Kids for Fear of Being Swallowed up by Motherly Duties" Now I say it broke my heart a little bit because these kids are probably better off without her, but it's still sad.  Maybe this mom should have taken up running???

Got to love an honest answer

Brinley:  "Don't smile at me"
Me: "Why?"
Brinley:   "Because I don't like your teeth!"

Day 4

 We spent some time at Huntington Beach.  I love the ocean!  A part of me wants to move to the coast so I can be a beach bum.  I don't think I could ever get sick of it, ever!

 Brinley had so much fun playing in the water, collecting sea shells and getting buried in the sand.  It's so hard to say goodbye to the ocean when you know it's snowing at home.

After we left the beach we headed for Hollywood.

And when we got home I remembered why I live here, I can breathe in my own backyard.

Day 3 (Disneyland Again)

Our second day as Disneyland was as fun as the first.  Brinley was able to see several princesses so she was a happy girl.  We also headed over to California Adventures for part of the day.  That night we watched the World of Color show.  It was pretty amazing and Brinley just kept saying, "It's magic, it really is."  Such a great day!

Day 2 (Disneyland)

We had so much fun at Disneyland!  I love Disneyland, it must be the kid in me.  Brinley was such and angel the entire trip and just loved everything we did!  She loved the princesses!  We saw Belle from a distance  and Brinley just cried and cried because she wanted to see her.  By the time we got over there and got in line Belle left.  Brinley's heart was broken! "Why doesn't she like me?  Why doesn't she want to see me?"

 So, when we saw Goofy Brinley was yelling, "Get him Mom, get him!"  She did not want to miss another one.

 It was such a great day and the weather was just like spring.  By the end of the night Brinley was worn right out (this NEVER happens).

The OC (day 1)

We really wanted to take Brinley to Disneyland while she is in this "princess" stage of life.  There wasn't a better time than right now so last week we hopped on a plane and headed for the OC.

I was a little worried about Brinley's first airplane ride, but she did great!

 We rented a car while we were there so we drove to Long Beach so Brinley could see the ocean, but it started to rain so we took her to the aquarium there.

 It was cool.  She loved touching the sea creatures.

 When Dustin and I were in Hawaii we fell in love with Yogurtland.  In fact, we loved it so much that we looked into opening a franchise when we got home.  We thought of a great location and shortly after that someone opened Twizzle Berry near the same location.  We weren't really disappointed because now we get to eat yogurt and we didn't even have to buy a franchise.  If only Twizzle Berry were as good as Yogurtland.  My personal favorite: coconut yogurt topped with almonds, granola, fresh coconut and pretty much every kind of fresh fruit.

Looks like Brinley likes it as much as we do.

 Brinley likes to play squishy face.

 Then we headed back to our hotel and went swimming.  I swear, Brinley's favorite thing in the whole world is staying in hotels and swimming.  When we were headed back to the hotel she was so excited to go swimming and just kept talking about it.  Then she said, "Dad, you can change in the bathroom so we don't see your privacy."  Where does she come up with this stuff?



The Best Valentine's Day Ever

The day before Valentine's Day my Mom had us all over for a Valentine's dinner which was so sweet since she's in the middle of a kitchen re-model.  The kids decorated sugar cookies.  I LOVE this!  I think it says so much about a kid and the way they view life.  The more sprinkles the better, right?

 We normally make a big deal out of Valentine's Day.  Dustin and I have always gone out, we usually try to go to some fancy restaurant, but this year we decided to stay home and celebrate with Brinley.  It was so great and in my opinion, the best Valentine's day ever!

Moments Like This

I blog for me.  This is our history.  I find it easy to sit down at the end of the day or week and write a post about what has been going on in our lives.  I realize I have a lot of information on here.  Most of the things I want to remember, I post here because I turn my blog into a book.  I don't scrapbook, I don't even print my pictures so this is pretty much our only source of history.  I was looking through my pictures and came across a couple that I wanted to include in our history.

 Brinley had this bag of leftover Christmas candy.  On this particular day I told her she couldn't have any treats, I'm pretty sure she hadn't even had breakfast yet, but she chose to sneak her bag of candy into her room.  She got in trouble for not obeying and then for lying to me.  As her punishment we through the bag of candy away.  As you can see, this did not seem like a fair punishment to her.  And it probably wasn't.  I'm pretty sure she only got a couple pieces of candy for Christmas and she had obviously held onto it for a couple of months.  Growing up I had complete trust in my parents.  I thought they had all of the answers and now that I'm a mom I realize they didn't.  They just did the best they could.  More often than not, I don't make the best parenting choices.  I too just do the best I can because this little girl trusts me and she thinks I know what I'm doing.  

A few weeks ago I got really sick.  My husband took great care of me, bought me Jamba Juice everyday and took over when I was too weak to get out of bed for like 48 hours.  OK, this sounds like I was really sick, but it's wasn't that big of a deal, just some flu or something, but unfortunately I gave it to him and although I was still pretty weak it was my turn to take over and take care of him.  Poor Brinley spent days  cooped up in the house just pretty much taking care of herself.  I felt horrible so we had a picnic in the living room.  I'm really grateful Dustin got sick so I could have this picnic with my daughter.  It's moments like this that make life so great!  It's often the simple things that bring us the most joy.

Roxy Roo

So, what do you do when you find out your dog needs a $1,300 surgery, $200-$300 in post surgery visits and a very expensive prescription diet for the rest of her life?

Don’t get me wrong, we love our dog, but $1,300!!!! We aren’t those pet owners that treat our dog like a child. Like I said, we love her, but she’s just our pet. We don’t let her on our furniture, we don’t refer to ourselves as mom and dad and she doesn’t eat off of our dishes.

So, what did we do? We didn’t feel like we had a choice. We have no authority to take her life from her, nor did we want to. So… we paid the $1300 and are so glad to have a happy and healthy dog. I don’t know what Brinley would do without her.

Could this be because I'm pregnant?

So the other day Brinley was clomping around in her dress up shoes. I said, “Babe, that’s really loud.” And she said, “And it’s a doying?”  “Yes Brinley, It’s annoying.”

I don’t know what it is, but EVERYTHING bugs me these days. I can’t tell you how many times I send my husband an email or walk in the door and bombard him with all of the things that bugged me that day. He just laughs at me. So, what’s bugging me today?

• Dear guy that comes into my office, don’t scratch the inside of your ear with a key while you are talking to me. It’s really annoying.

• Dear guy that scratched your ear with a key, you have been in here 5 times today. He’s not here. Wouldn’t it just be easier to call?

• Dear girl in spinning today, don’t get me wrong, I love to exercise… ok I’ll just start at the beginning. You were 5 minutes late for class, what were you wearing? Did you forget you were coming to aerobics? I better not mention the 80’s clip in your hair because that’s just rude and my sister would be offended ( I used to make fun of her scrunchies). Gosh, I feel so rude, but no kidding this type of stuff drives me CRAZY all day! Sometimes for days! Let’s get to the really annoying part… Like I said, I love to exercise and something I have learned is that if I leave covered in sweat I have worked hard enough, but for some reason I could not look at you for fear that I would gag. When I first saw your bike I honestly thought you had spilled your water. It was all the way to the floor! Then I saw the sweat poor off of your body and run down your bike. It was really annoying and while I’m on it. The music was too loud and not to mention annoying. And, was the microphone even on?

• My round face

• My round body

• So many clothes and nothing to wear… again!

• Really intense cravings!

• Dear people that claim to be fitness experts, don’t be advising people to eat cool whip. It’s not a health food. It’s not even food.

• I am horrible with grammar! I’m embarrassed because I know Kari reads my blog and she’s an expert. I bet you can find a million errors on each post, but I can’t quit being annoyed by a random comma that did not belong on a co-workers paper.

• The cost of having a baby

• Out of date maternity clothes

• Maternity clothes period

• Regular clothes

• Regular non-pregnant people

• My pregnant friends that don’t look pregnant

• Pretty much everything else

 *Oh, and how did I almost forget the most annoying one of all?   Quit looking at my stomach!  It's REALLY ANNOYING!

Help! I feel so blessed to be pregnant and I hate it when people complain about being pregnant, but I’m sick of everything bugging me!