running: the dawn

Ok, so I know that this post is going to feel a little repetitive.  And some people may even check the posting date since its going to feel like you’ve seen/heard all of this before.

My life is once again getting packing into boxes.  That’s right.  We’re moving.  AGAIN.

I must say that the last few weeks have been a whirlwind of changes and decisions.  Without getting into too much detail…Mr. Dawn has accepted a new job.  When we moved here to this job, we knew this would be a temporary situation.  We estimated our time here would probably be two years or less.  We didn’t ever imagine that it would have been this much less.  But, a job came to the table that is the PERFECT fit for who he is and what he wants to spend his life doing.  The one draw back is that the job is in a state that’s even farther south…so, that means we’ll be far away from family and sacrificing our winters.

That brings us back to packing tape, bubble wrap, multiple trips to the Uhaul store, and eating off of paper plates.  Ah, the joys of packing!

In the “good news” column…our new city gives me the opportunity to return to teaching Jazzercise!!!  There’s no guarantee that I’ll find a place that needs an instructor, but I’m excited about the potential  Like, really excited!

We are still ironing out the details of the move, but Mr. Dawn starts his job on August 15th.  Yes, that’s just over two weeks from now.  How insane are we?!?

As most of you know…I’ve been having a hard time finding employment since we moved.  Well.  I have found ways to keep busy.  Today, I made pillows.  Well, pillow covers.  For awhile, I’ve felt like our living room was just a little to drab.  Lots of dull colors all blending in together.

I’ve been trying to figure out what I wanted to do…which colors to use…what kind of fabric.  The only thing that I’ve learned is that I’m really not very good at the whole decorating thing.  I just can’t see where to put vases or art.  I’m horrible at deciding what kind of accent chair would look best.  In fact, we’ve gone without a table/ottoman for 3 years cause I just can’t figure out what would work best.

Well, I decided to just pick something and make it work.  I found three different fabrics.

The fun little twist is that the flower fabric is on one side of all the pillows (there’s 5 in all).  So, I can switch it up and have all flowers or some with flowers and some zebra or red.  I think it will make it more cheerful.  At least I hope so.  Now, I still need to decide on curtains, accessories, and pretty much everything else….sigh.

One step at a time….

I usually do my end of the week wrap up on Fridays, but this weekend I was gifted with a wonderful visit from my parents.  Which was WAY more fun than sitting down and typing out all my workouts from last week.  But I don’t want to forget… so here we go:

This week’s workouts:

Monday: 3 miles
Tuesday: 3 miles & Jazzercise
Wednesday: 5 miles
Thursday: 7 miles & Jazzercise
Friday: 3 miles

Total: 22 miles

Hurray for a successful week!  I’m so happy that I was able to get a run in every day.  Seriously, that hasn’t happened in FOREVER.

So, the truth is that I don’t actually have access to a real-life Jazzercise class.  Which means that I cheated.  I still have all of my old dvd’s from when I was an instructor (that’s how we all learn the routines ).  I just pop one in and dance up a sweat.  Full Disclosure: this is no where near as much fun as being in an actual class with friends, but it’s the only way I can get in some good cross training.  Especially since it was still 100+ degrees every. single. day.

Random Thought: I just saw an ipad commercial where someone was using it in place of a cookbook.  I’ve always dreamed of my perfect kitchen with some sort of snap-in device where I could mount my ipad (which I currently don’t own…but assume that I will someday…).  I actually do most (if not all) my cooking with my laptop propped on a near by shelf with the recipe from my favorite food blog (101cookbooks.com) on display.  Someday this will be a disaster.  I’m sure of it.

So, day three of my 5 days of running and I’ve been getting it done.  Just barely.  Today was definitely the hottest of the hot.  I could make it about a mile before I needed to take a little break in the shade.  And I figured since I wasn’t going to get the miles run straight through I’d go ahead and run five.  But it was more like intervals.  Run a mile.  Hide under a tree and pour half my water on my face.  Run another mile.

Since I haven’t shown you my new running digs, check it out:

About a mile from my front door I can be at a nice little bike path.  The only flaw is that it does not have that much shade, so I feel like I’m baking under the sun.  Even in the early mornings.  I will say that I feel much much more safe running on the sidewalks and bike paths here than I did on the country roads without a shoulder up north.  Not sure the trade off for 100+ degrees is really worth it though….

In SAD news.  My Garmin seems to have died.  At the beginning of the summer she was loosing her charge at an alarming rate and I was afraid that she was done for.  So I contacted Garmin Support and they walked me through a reset/software update which temporarily fixed the problem.  But on yesterday’s run she quit after a mile and today (after being fully charged overnight) she beeped her last at 1.5 miles.

So, I’m sending her in.  Its actually a little bit past the one year warranty, but because Garmin is an AWESOME company they are taking care of me and sending me a replacement without charge.  But I am sad.  She has served me so well!

her first day as a part of our family

Getting me to my sub-four hour marathon:

San Diego RnR 2010

Qualifying me for Boston:

Grand Rapids 2010

Running the world’s best race with me:

And now.  She’s gone.

Sure, I’ll get another device.  I’m sure that it will work perfectly.  I may even learn to love the replacement.  But it won’t understand where I’ve been.  It hasn’t been through the fight with me.  I am sad.

Ok, so it’s Monday.  I’ve decide to set a goal for myself for this week.

I want to run five days in a row.  In the morning.  Outside.  A minimum of 3 miles, hopefully more.

That sounds like nothing, right?  Well…

Seriously?  [deep breath] I believe that if I can find a way to run consistently I will have won the battle.  I need to be OK with slogging through some horrible runs.  I need to just get out and make it happen.  Its a choice, right?  My choice.  And I choose to run.  Or at least I did today.  And I hope to choose it again tomorrow….

Hurray!  So, I’ve decided that it’s time for me to start celebrating each little success in my journey back.  And today…I celebrate my run.  I was able to wake up and start my run first thing this morning.  AND, because I ran on my treadmill, I was able to get three loads of laundry done  Huzzah.

The plan: run while watching an episode of Friends.

Hop off to switch out the laundry.  Start a new episode.  Hop back on.

Worked perfectly

During my training for Boston this spring, I got away from recording my weekly workouts, and I’m not entirely sure why.  I do know that once I stopped looking at my week’s accomplishments, I lost quite a bit of motivation to complete my scheduled workouts and hit my short-term targets.

So, I’m back with my weekly fitness recaps.  It’s a bit strange, however, because I’m usually counting down to some race …and right now…I’m just running.  Without a goal.  Which has been WAY harder than I anticipated.  I guess for now, I’m just going to count up.  Starting now.  The first week of July.  We’ll see where I end up down the road…

This week’s workouts.  Ok, so this is where I’m going to have to brace myself…cause my mileage and commitment levels are so low that I’m feeling really embarrassed by my lack of activity.  But, I have to start somewhere right?  So, here goes nothing….

• Monday– at the lake…does bobbing in the water, holding on to a fun noodle count as working out?
• Tuesday–driving back from the lake…
• Wednesday–5 miles
• Thursday–nothing, no excuse, just didn’t get out and run.  I did set up my treadmill, as though I was going to run…I’m guessing that’s in the same category as the fun noodles…
• Friday–5 miles

Ok, so I know that it’s been WAY WAY WAY too long.  Honestly, when I try to think of why I’ve been away from blogging for so long, I don’t really have a good reason.  I mean at first there were a few days of packing.  Mr. Dawn loaded the truck and drove away with our house-full of belongings and I moved in with a friend to finish out the school year.  Then the big “it’s finals week and I can’t believe how much grading I have to do!!”  Another couple weeks of cleaning my classroom, finishing my grades, and making final preparations to say good bye to our little house…

Then I got in my car and headed out of town for the last time.  There may have been tears.  I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be to drive away from what had been such a happy time in our lives.

Maybe I’ve been avoiding writing, because I wasn’t ready to process.  I didn’t want to have to admit, out loud, that a chapter of my life has really ended.  It was soothing to me to have a feeling of “dot-dot-dot” (any bachelorette fans out there?) with my life up north.  Like I was going to be back to running my old familiar routes in no time.  Apparently, I’m having a hard time moving on.

In addition to that, I’ve had a hard time knowing how to write about my “new” life.  I’ve been in our new house–the cottage–for a little over three weeks now.  I have plenty of time to write, but still I’ve chosen not to.  At first I was unpacking and trying to find places for all of our stuff in a house that is 2 rooms smaller than our last place.  An ongoing project is my resume, application, look for a job extravaganza.  I’ve been overwhelmed by 10 or so days of weather over 100 degrees (110 is the hottest…so far…).  I’ve run.  I’ve cooked.  I’ve found running routes.  I planted flowers.

All in an attempt to find the home that I hope to make here.  I don’t feel like I’m there yet, but its getting better.

This weekend we met up with my parents for the holidays (yay for living 3.5 hours away rather than 10+).  It was a great time at the lake: swimming, grilling, playing games, watching movies.  And yesterday, as we were driving into our little neighborhood, I felt it.  That warm feeling of being in familiar territory.  Of coming home.

Now, I’m still not sure I’m “there” yet.  We still have many days to go before I feel fully integrated into life here, but I do feel like I’m making strides.  Which I guess makes me feel safe to start writing again…

It would be really easy for me to say that I’ve been busy, stressed, etc and couldn’t write.  But the truth is, I’ve had time.  I just didn’t trust myself to find words to share.  And I didn’t like the words that came to mind.  I’ve been searching.  Searching for home.  Searching for myself–here.  But I guess now I’m ready to share that journey.  I’m ready to start processing out loud (or in written form, whateve’s).  Thanks for sticking with me through the un-planned blog sabbatical