9 months down...

So it is the 30th once again, and we celebrate another month behind us in this crazy little waiting game. Maybe it's just because I am tired from a long weekend of hard work, but the number 9 just looks so tiny, and it makes me feel sad today. When I see numbers like 17 and still no referral, it's hard to imagine that our referral is out there somewhere. Sorry, this is supposed to be a celebratory post, but this week has been a tough week for waiting.

It all started last Saturday (not this past one but the one before). I babysat my nieces, and when I was driving home afterward, I just started feeling down. I got home and was trying to study, but started reading blogs. I clicked on my friend Renee's blog, and heard the most beautiful song. If you click on the link over Renee's name you can hear the song. I had heard it before, but never listened to the words. The song is "Lullaby" by the Dixie Chicks. There is one line that says, "You can close your eyes when you're miles away And hear my voice like a serenade", then the chorus is, "How long do you want to be loved? Is forever enough, is forever enough? How long do you want to be loved? Is forever enough? Cause I'm never, never giving you up". I just sat there and cried and cried. I know our time will come, and it will be even better than I could have imagined, and this wait will be a distant memory. But I just felt sad. All week was kind of up and down. I'd be happy and content, and then something would trigger the sadness I feel about waiting for my children. Today the trigger was seeing how small that number 9 looks. One happy thing is that from here on out we'll have only double digits for our monthiversary of waiting.

The Accidental Adoption

Wife: Honey, sit down. I have some news for you.

Husband: What is it?

Wife: Well, I don’t know how to say this, so I’ll just come out with it. I went out to the mailbox today and . . . well, we got an I-171H.

Husband: A what?!?! An U.S. Immigration I-171H adoption approval form?! As in, we’re going to have another baby?!?

Wife: It looks that way.

Husband: But how? We’ve been so careful! I put away all the blank I-600A forms. Didn’t you hide our home-study?

Wife: Of course I did. But don’t forget, there was that one night . . .

Husband: What night? (pauses) Ohhh, that night. But it was only once. We were just messing around. I didn’t print clearly. I didn’t even use black ink! (pauses again) But it was kind of fun. (giggles)

Wife: It was, wasn’t it? I’ll never forget how cute you looked getting your fingerprints taken.

Husband: So now we’ve got our I-171H, eh? But that doesn’t always mean you’ll adopt, does it? I mean, shouldn’t you see the agency or something, make sure everything’s okay?

Wife: I already did. I’m five documents along.

Husband: Five documents!

Wife: And they’re all notarized, certified, state sealed and authenticated! There was just one small scare when the agency couldn’t see the notary’s middle initial, but it showed up just fine under the magnifying glass.

Husband: Thank goodness! And you, honey? Are you feeling okay?

Wife: I’m feeling fine. As long as I know you’re happy about this.

Husband: Happy? I’m thrilled! It’s always a shock at first when something like this happens, but of course I’m happy.

Better night

Last night in class was better yet. I got my journal article review back, and got top marks for it Woot. Then at break the prof pulled me aside and told me how much she enjoyed reading my review. She said she could tell I liked reading the article and felt passionate about it. The article was about the stay-at-home-parent vs. working parent dilemma. I used to have strong views that it's important for the parent to work outside of the home, and was very against home schooling. My views have changed as we get closer and closer to becoming parents, and I see people/families who do well on both ends of the spectrum. It's not that I feel like I will ever home school my children (maybe Dave has the patience for that?), but I'm not so against to whole stay-at-home parent thing. My last sentence was something like, "As long as the time parents spend with their children is quality time, and they appreciate, love and grow with their children, either decision can be the right one". She really liked that part :)

Anyway, I also had another test in class last night, and got a much better score on this one. Yay! I think it helped that the test was at 8 pm, and not 10 pm like last week. Last week I was closing one eye to try and read the words in the test I was so tired! The other fun part about last night was when a couple of the ladies in class started asking about the adoption, and one of them started jumping up and down and clapping her hands in excitement for us. I feel like doing that all the time, so I appreciated her reaction! I love answering questions about the adoption, and could talk about it all day and all night. I hate overwhelming the people around me with too much adoption talk, so when I meet a new person who is excited I tend to talk about it quite a bit.

This weekend we are heading up to help my brother and sister-in-law get their house ready to put on the market, and pack up their house. They are moving to God's country - Northern Minnesota - in order to be closer to work. Gus will be coming with us, as he idolizes my brother's dog, Roger. It is always fun to watch Gus try to entice Roger in a game of chase or tug-of-war.

My fave movie

Thanks all, for taking my poll on the right of the blog ------->

And the correct answer is....... Dazed and Confused, with Juno coming in at a close second. I have loved Dazed and Confused since Robin and I watched it over and over again in high school. It never gets old. Watching the t.v. version makes me giggle even more - "Did you know that your mom pulled a shotgun on my butt?" Hee hee, you'd have to be there with me in order to giggle at that last comment, right Robs? I guess you all know me pretty well :) I thought V for Vendetta was alright, but I've NEVER seen Star Wars (any of them). Dave is ashamed of this, and wants to "fix me" by having a Star Wars marathon weekend, but so far we haven't done it.


Once this darn class is over, I am planning on going back to doing our Cheapie Tuesday Movie Nights. July 17th can't come soon enough!!! I'll post all about the movies we see once we start doing that again. I plan on writing a post about how cheap night at the theater brings out the crazies in people. It's a goodie...

Hilarious Gracie

Okay, so I guess my blogging break hasn't been so much of a break yet. I have one more story to tell, and this one is a goodie (and funny)...

On Wednesday, I drove to my parents' house to pick up Gus (he stays in his cage there while we work), and wait for Dave. As I pulled into the driveway, I was delighted to see my sister and her two girls (Grace -2, Madelyn -4) had pulled in right before me. After getting hugs and kisses from both of the girls, we decided to go jump on the trampoline with my mom (their nana). Once we finished jumping on the trampoline, we went exploring in the neighbor's field. We kept hearing a donkey HEE HAWing down the gravel road from us (the other neighbors have a petting zoo with a donkey, pygmie goats, etc.). All of a sudden the donkey bray got a little louder, and Grace starts screaming and begging Nana to pick her up - "Nana, I hold you! I hold you!" As soon as my mom picked her up Grace says,

"I scared of elephants."

Hee hee. I LOVE her! I told her that it was a donkey, not an elephant. She turned to me super seriously and said, "I scaaaaaared of donkeys" in a deeper voice. So cuuuuuute! So it sounds like we are going to be taking a trip to the neighbors' petting zoo one of these days so Gracie can see that donkeys aren't scary. But Gus will tell you that if you try to play-wrestle with them or the pygmie goats, they will kick your patootie across the pasture :)

Letting go of perfection

Today was awful. I work from home 1-2 days per week, and while I'm in class for the next few weeks I'm doing this on Thursdays so that I can work, as well as study/write papers. It works well for me to do that, as I like the change of pace it provides. Well, today I didn't end up getting any of my work work done, just school work. And I'm currently saving up all of my vacation time to see my sister in July, so I can't take it as a vacation day either. I wouldn't have been so frustrated with that if the rest of the night hadn't happened...

The lecture wasn't bad. I'm beginning to like the prof more. However, here is what was frustrating. We started class tonight with the prof asking how everyone did with the homework assignments and studying for the test. Out of the 8 people in the class, at least 6 different people said that they didn't get all or any of the homework done for the week - just studying. I didn't even REALIZE this was an option, so I worked my TAIL off this week (and took an unpaid day off) to get the work done. I calculated that I worked on homework for at least 20 hours this week. So I pretty much did everything halfway in order to get it all done (I was going to write half-assed, but didn't. Now I did). I did badly (in my eyes) on the test tonight. In fact, I got the same 2 questions wrong that I had gotten wrong on the quiz last week!

The more frustrating part of this whole thing is that I'm the ONLY person in this class not taking the class as an education major. I'm taking the class as an elective. I just feel like I'm the only one who took it all seriously this week, and for what? The only good thing about me turning in my papers tonight is that the prof will grade them, comment on them, and send them back to me so I can re-write them. However, she said she would do that for anyone that turned in their papers before the last class. Blah.

I'm just frustrated tonight - with the class, my classmates, but mostly with myself. I know I'll get over it soon enough. I just had to vent. Dad, thanks for letting me cry on the phone tonight, even if sometimes you don't understand what I'm saying because I get the high cry-ey voice. In all of my previous business and management classes, I got straight As. For 2.5 years of going to evening school, I got As. As of tonight, I currently have a C average in this class. I'm learning to let go of perfection, and realize that a C will still get me my degree.

A bit of a break...

I'm currently taking a class to fulfill the remaining 3 credits I need to get my diploma. YES, I walked in graduation nearly 14 months ago with the expectation that I would finish up these remaining credits lickety-split, but then life happened. I could choose any class I wanted to at the college, so I chose Early Childhood Development. It's an education course, but a starter course for the other education courses, so I thought it would be pretty easy to follow, and give me good lessons on raising our kids. What I didn't expect was to have 6 papers due every week, along with 2-3 chapters to read in the textbook each week. I honestly never had this much homework, even in my senior level business classes. I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed with it all right now.

All that said, I'm going to be writing more sporadically on the blog until the class is over (July 10th - I can't wait for that day to get here!!). And then I'll finally get my diploma. Lots of people take 10 years and 6 different colleges to get their degree, right?

Update: Ugh. I just looked at the calendar again, and because of the July 4th holiday, my class isn't over until July 17th. Looks like I'll be studying on my birthday!

Happy Belated Belated Father's Day

Dave with his new "old man" remote. The large buttons are easier to see with his aging eyes. Hee hee, thanks Riss and Ditch!

I celebrated Dave this weekend, and the father he is going to be. I made him cookies, rented movies, got his favorite foods - all of the good stuff :) Not only did I celebrate Dave, but my family did too, and it meant so much to Dave. He said the same thing that I felt on Mother's Day this year - it feels more real now that we have a light at the end of the tunnel. We know for a fact that we are going to be parents, and it feels so fun to celebrate that!

The funny part of the weekend is that I'd been saying "Happy Father's Day" to Dave all weekend. But not until another father said it to him at church on Sunday did it really hit him. HE is the father being celebrated on this day (or father-to-be in our case). He said it felt really surreal to hear people saying father, and not be talking about his dad!

I love Dave for the father I know he's going to be. I can't wait for him to:
-plant flowers, plants, fruits and veggies with our children.
-show them the difference between a weed and a plant (because Lord knows I still don't know after years of my mom and Dave trying to show me).
-cuddle with them, and shower them with big hugs and kisses.
-hold their little hands in his big man hands.
-make silly faces and voices to get them to laugh.
-run around with them outside and show them how to play fun games, toss baseballs around, throw a football...
-read them Bible stories using different voices.
-answer their endless (and sometimes hilarious) questions the best he can, especially the ones about Jesus and faith - kids ask the most amazing questions about all of that!
-freak out if/when they break his glasses for the first time.
-embarass them like crazy when they are teenagers.
-sing songs with them.
-be the amazing father that I know he is going to be, and watch him grow and learn from our kids!

Happy (belated belated) Father's Day, Dave! And Happy Father's Day to all the other dads out there (especially you waiting dads)!!

Lunch break survey

I looooove these surveys - always have, just ask my sisters! My friend Jonny posted his answers to this on MySpace. You should all fill this out too and e-mail it back to me (my e-mail is on my profile page) or put it on your blog.

Do you swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Yes.
Where were you last night? At class. my last class before I'll finally get my diploma! Woot.
What is today's date? 6/13/08
Who was the last person to call you baby/babe? Dave
When you're at the grocery store do you use the self checkout? Yes. I avoid dealing with people while I'm running errands at all times.
Anyone crushing on you? Dave. He's had a crush on me for a long time.
What is your relationship status? Married.
Has anyone ever sang to you? Yes. Dave sings to me sometimes, and my Gran sings crazy songs to me that make me laugh... "Good morning to you!! Good morning to you!!! We're all in our places with bright smiling faces. And this is the waaa-aay to start a new day".
Has anyone ever given you roses? Yep.
If you were abandoned in the wilderness, would you survive? No. No question about it.
Who do you text the most? Probably my sister Carissa or her Ditch.
How do you make your money? Working for the weekend. Everybody's doing it.
First person to text today? Google to get the number for a Chinese restaurant in Chaska.
What is your favorite color? All of them. I like rainbows. My favorite changes often. Right now it's green.
What color are your eyes? Blue.
What is a compliment you receive often? That I have a nice smile.
How tall are you? 5 feet 6 inches.
Who was the last person to say they loved you and when? My dad on the phone a couple of hours ago. We sang to him with Aaron and Nik to cheer his day up :) He actually said he loves all of us.
Do you like your parents? Yup
Do you secretly like someone? It's no secret... Dave's a hottie.
Why did your last relationship end? Um, the one before I met Dave? He was a piece of work. Yikes. He was a meanie.
Who was the last person you said you loved on the phone? My dad (see previous answer).
Where is the furthest place you've traveled? France
Which do you prefer, to eat or sleep? sleep - I looooooooove sleeping.
Do you look more like your mom or your dad? My sisters.
How long does it take you to shower? Anywhere between 7-9 minutes.
Can you do splits? No.
Are you flexible? Yes - especially compared to Dave.
What did you do on New Years Eve? I am pretty sure we had fried food New Years with Aaron and Nik. And the year before was Engagement Weekend in Tofte (yay :))
Was your mom there? No, but she's a hoot (her favorite way to describe someone funny)
Can you speak any other language than English? Some French and some sign language
What is the last letter of your middle name? e
How many hours of sleep did you get last night? 6 - not enough
Do you wear your seatbelt in the car? Yes
Are you scared of flying? No, I really love flying. We'll see how I feel after a trip to Manila and back!!
What do you sleep in? A tank top and undies. And every time I go to bed, and pray to God there isn't a natural disaster while I'm sleeping so I'd have to run around in that get up.
Do you like funny people or serious people? A good mix of both.
What are you listening to? Dave watching tv.
What jewelry do you wear all the time? My wedding ring. I'm allergic to all other kinds of metal. Wah wah. I don't even take my ring off to shower!
Is the last person you kissed older than you? Yes - I married a silver fox. Just kidding, Dave will never go gray. His grandpa still has dark hair!
Do you prefer myspace or socialsplash? What in the heck is socialsplash?
Do you have a favorite item of clothing? Jeans that make my legs look long and lean. I also love hoodie sweatshirts. I sleep in those when I'm sick especially.
Do you like messages or comments better? Either - I love hearing from people!!!
Last movie you saw in theaters? Definitely, Maybe (I think).
Last thing you ate? Chinese food. I'm hungry again and it's only been 3 hours. Darn Chinese food.
What was last thing you drank? A raspberry Smirnoff Ice.
Are you happy right now? Yep!
If you could have one thing right now what would it be? No question - 2 babies from the Philippines.
Who makes you happiest right now? Dave. And Gus when he's naughty in really funny ways (I'll blog about that later)
What were you doing at midnight last night? Tossing and turning. I can never sleep after I get home from class so late.
Are you left handed? No.
What was for dinner tonight? Chinese food.
What is the last thing you thought about? My child(ren) in the Philippines - they are always on my mind.
When is your birthday? July 11
Do you want to get married & have children one day? One down, one to go :)

My ears are shriveling up...

The company we are consulting for right now has really been cracking down on Facebook/Myspace/Youtube visits during the work day. They've blocked those sites. That's fine with me. I stay busy at work, and usually just check these in the evening or on weekends anyway. I, however, cannot get through my work day without music playing on my computer. It motivates me when a good song comes on that makes me smile. Well today I tried logging into my Pan.dora Radio, and it was blocked. I tried Ya.hoo Radio - blocked. I tried all of the local stations I like listening to - blocked, blocked and blocked. Grrr. So I had a quiet day in the office with only the noise of my fingers clicking away on my keyboard to keep me company. :( - This is me pouting.

Darn rain

I was all set to start my running regimen back up today, and then we sat through a long series of tornado watches and thunderstorm warnings with our neighbor BFFs Aaron and Nikki. At one point we were in their basement waiting and wondering if we would need to hunker down in their laundry room. I love scary weather, but I also respect scary weather and always have my plan: know where to go wherever I am, put shoes on, have my purse and cell phone on me, and have lots of blankets to put over us. So anyway, tonight it's too late for me to go to the fitness center, so I'll try again tomorrow. Today I did a great job of eating well, so yay!

I started a poll on the right side of my blog. What do you all think my favorite movie is?? Once the poll closes at the end of this month I'll let you know what it is :)

Yay for Brent!!!

Our brother-in-law, Brent finished his 100-mile race this weekend!!!! We're so proud of this crazy man for accomplishing this amazing feat. He came in 15th place, and you can click here to read about his experience, I was amazed to read through it!!

I've still been keeping up with my workouts and running. Thanks Cherice for the stretching tip - it really helps when I remember to do that stretch!! It's amazing. And Jenny, I had no idea you are a phy-ed teacher!! That cracks me up that you experience some girls who use the same excuses I used :) Nicole is right - it was 15 minutes that I had to run the mile in, and sometimes I still couldn't even do that!! The craziest thing?? Brent AVERAGED a 15-minute mile this weekend during his 100-mile race. Insane.

I took the night off from running last night. My dad and I calculated it, and we're pretty sure we walked over 5 miles at Valleyfair on Monday. Good times :) Maybe that zeroes out the corndog, mini donuts, onion rings and pop I had. Yikes. I have a feeling that's why I was feeling so sick yesterday. My body is wondering why in the heck I'm eating that stuff after eating better for a few months now. Well I'm back on track (as my previous post was titled, maybe I should have titled this one back on track - part 2), and now I'll get back into my running/eating regimen. I'm still on track for running the 5k in mid-September!!

New feature

Blogger added a new feature where I can list my blogroll and it will also show what the most recent post title of theirs is, as well as when the last time is that they posted on their blog. I can use my Google Reader to do this quickly and easily, so I thought I'd give it a try! So now you'll see it on the right side (my old blog list is still there, it's just at the bottom of the page).

Can you tell I'm sick and laying on the couch with my computer tonight?

Back on track

I took a little internet break over the week/end to enjoy Dave's birthday weekend with him, and get everything done that we needed to. I'll get e-mails returned and blogs read sometime this week :)

We had such a fun weekend. Dave was very surprised at his surprise party. He stood in shock inside the doorway for the first minute trying to figure out why so many of his friends and family were standing in my parents' house yelling, "SURPRISE!!" It was fun talking with him after the fact to let him in on the little lies we had to tell to keep him from finding out. We had about 30 people there for the surprise, and a few people stayed until the wee hours of the morning playing Rock.band (okay 1:00 am, but I'm old and that now feels like the wee hours of the morning). It was so much fun, and we had pretty much the best band ever.

Saturday and Sunday we were pretty worthless, and besides churchs, spent the days melted on to our respective couches with short periods of letting Gus and Porter (dog sitting for Nikki and Aaron) out for potty breaks, or yelling for them to quit barking/howling at each other. We watched a movie, and prepared the lunches for Valleyfair Day yesterday!!

Jon and Rick on drums and guitar

Valleyfair was AWESOME. It was just as fun as I've always remembered it to be. We went on as many rides as possible, and stayed there from 10:30 until 7:00. Dave's favorite new ride is the Extreme Swing, which scared the papoopie out of me - I am a big fan of shoulder harnesses and this one did NOT have them! My new favorite ride was Steel Venom. Incredibly fast and loud and fast and dangly feet and fast. LOVED it (probably because I was in a shoulder harness for that ride). Torro (my dad) lost his phone, pocket knife and some change on that ride and I lost my sunglasses on another ride. The good peeps of VF were gracious enough to retrieve our goods for us. I think they have special people who just do that all day long. Maybe they should have just followed our crew around.

I think one of my favorite parts of the day was watching our nephews walk around the park in total awe of that place. We had all split up to ride different things, but then ran into our 5-year old nephew and his dad (Dave's brother) while in the water park, so the 4 of us went on the group water ride. It was so fun!! My favorite line of the day was while we were starting out on that ride. My nephew yelled out (with a panicked look on his face), "If I throw up while I'm on this ride..." And his dad yells, "You aren't going to throw up, don't worry!" He gets some motion sickness, and Dave and I have experienced the results of his motion sickness firsthand. He ended up having a fantastic time on that ride (and not throwing up), and told me that was his favorite ride of the day! I'm sore today from all of the walking and thrill rides, but it was a super fun weekend!

The birthday boy himself (pretending to be surprised)

The birthday crew (at Picnic Cove)

Carissa and I on the Monster (I love that ride!) Aaron enjoying jello yum yums with Nikki

Surprise!!

I have scheduled this post to publish at the same time that we surprising Dave for his 30th birthday!! I love scheduling posts to publish at a future time and date. I do that with almost all of mine now that Google made it available.

Dave's actual birthday isn't until Monday, but I've been planning this surprise party for the last 6 weeks. I'm incredibly nervous about him finding out about it today because he keeps ruining things!! I was going to get all of the shopping done for the party yesterday, but my car was in the shop until it was too late to go shopping. I thought, "No problem, I will just take some time and go shopping tomorrow during work. Dave will be landscaping, so he'll be none the wiser!" Um no. Dave decided late last night that since there were storms in the forecast, he would work with my dad and me today. Poop. I needed to find a reason to leave work for a long time this afternoon without Dave figuring it all out.

Sister Carissa (not the nun, the actual sister of mine) saves the day!! She is in orientation for college today (so proud of her for going back to get her degree!!). She said that I can use the excuse that the girls got sick at daycare and I need to go pick them up. I'm the substitute picker-upper, so that makes sense. So yay!! Let's hope that all works out, because up to now Dave's been ruining some of my well-laid plans :)

Here's how the surprise will (hopefully) go: Dave and I will go out for his birthday supper with my parents. We always get to pick a place to go for our birthdays, so Dave doesn't suspect anything in this. He's actually helping me play out the surprise without even knowing it because he asked if we could bring all of my grandparents along since they are all at my parents' house right now (he's such an awesome guy - he loves hanging out with all of our families). I told him that I would leave work to go get my mom and grandparents to bring them back down to the restaurant, and he could just go right to the restaurant with my dad from work.

After supper, Dave wants to go home and watch a movie and have a low-key night. hee hee. Little does he know he'll be the VIP when he walks in the door to my parents' house. We have about 30 people planning on coming to surprise Dave! I will post pictures and video sometime later!!

More great blogs

Thanks to Google Reader and their great recommendations, I found another great blog. It's called Girl Talk. It's written by 4 women - 1 mother, 2 daughters and 1 daughter-in-law (at least, I think those are the relationships - I just started reading this blog). These are faithful women who have interesting things to say about God, life as a female, stories about their families, faith and sprituality. Their posts are short and sweet (which I love).

A recent post of theirs that I read really hit home for me. I often think about my future, and the different things that could happen. I often wonder if I'll have the strength and grace to get through certain situations that could arise. It tends to get me more worked up and worried about life when I do this, though. Reading this post was eye-opening for me. I get it now - God gives us grace and strength for what we are handling RIGHT NOW. To quote the blog post, "there is no grace for our imagination, but there’s plenty of grace for whatever God has ordained for me to walk through".

Another AWESOME blog, which I found through some of my favorite bloggy people, the Livesays, is called Stuff Christians Like. I love sarcasm (unless people are being mean to me through their sarcasm). I love witty things. These 2 blogs contain both of these charcteristics. I giggle out loud when I read these blogs. The Livesays are missionaries in Haiti (and also the cousin of my super duper friend, Nikki), who have adopted from Haiti as well. They write about their life in Haiti. It includes a whole hodge-podge of different stuff - stories about their hilarious family, stories of their frustration and their great love for Haiti, and good good stuff that makes me think a little deeper about my life.

What are some of your favorite blogs to go visit?

Running

My brother-in-law, Brent inspired me to write this post. He's a crazy runner (you can click on this great big long link to check out his blog and send him some cheers for his insane 100 mile race this weekend).

I have always hated running. In school, on the days when we would have to run the mile for the fitness challenge I would try to fake sick (I faked sick a lot in school, but that is a whole different post). But the teacher would just make me run it on a different day - darn it all. The cut off was 12 minutes. You HAD to run the mile in under 12 minutes, otherwise you'd have to try again on a different day. Ugh. I have always had a hard time breathing when I run, and usually feel like I'm dying by the end of the mile. I would sometimes make it in somewhere in the 11-minute range, but usually I went over the 12 minutes and had to try over again a different day. It's not like I was totally out of shape, either. We would swim an entire mile all at once when I was on the swim team, and I even won a trophy for being one of the swimmers who did 8,000 yards one day (in a 3 hour practice). It was something with running.

Last summer I began running outside in hopes of running a 5k at some point. I ran for about 3-4 months, but my shins hurt almost constantly. I joined a fitness club in September, and have been faithful about working out there ever since. I changed my routine to work out on an elliptical and do weight-lifting, and did not experience anymore pain in my shins.

Last week I decided that I wanted to try again to run a 5k this year. I set my sights on one in September - Nickle Dickel Days in Waconia. On July4th, there is a 5k walk in my hometown that I will do with my mom to get a feel for how long the 5k route is, and what a race route looks like. So I started running again last week, and I'm going to use the blog to write down exactly what I'm doing for training.

Thursday - Got Yoga Booty* Ballet DVD from Nik. Did the entire beginner session and thought my legs were going to fall off when I went down the stairs later that night.

Friday - (Treadmill) Warmed up with a 5 minute walk. Ran 1 mile in 12 minutes. Walked 8 minutes at a brisk pace, with alternating inclines. Cool down walk for 5 minutes. Did the leg circuit at the gym. It felt soooo good!

Saturday - No running, but did YBB again, which kicked my patootie (again).

Sunday - (Treadmill) Warmed up with a 5 minute walk. Ran a total of 1 mile, but alternated running at a 10-minute mile pace for 2.5 minutes, then walking for 1 minute. Walked 6 minutes at a brisk pace, with alternating inclines. Cool down walk for 5 minutes. Worked the arm circuit at the gym.

Monday - (Treadmill) Warmed up with a 5 minute walk. Ran for 5 minutes at a 10-minute mile pace. Then alernated walking and running the 10-minute mile pace at 2.5 minutes each. Brisk walk on alternating inclines for 8 minutes. Cool down walk for 5 minutes. Did the leg circuit at the gym. I was wheezing by the last running set - the 10-minute mile is so hard for me! My goal is to be able to run a 10-minute mile (all at once) by June 15th. Okay, maybe June 30th.

I'm feeling pain in my shins today. Darn it all. I don't know what to do about that. Last year I tried icing my shins after my runs, but it never seemed to make much of a difference. Do I work through the pain? Or rest on it for a while? Today is one of my rest days, so I'll just walk tonight anyway.

Today

When we were choosing what we wanted from my grandparents' house, I also chose a picture that they have had hanging in their den for a long time. I always thought it was a cool picture, it is actually made out of wood veneer, and as you can see it's a picture of a Nordic ship. My dad thinks they got the picture from one of my great aunts or uncles for their "wood" anniversary. You know, like the silver anniversary (25th), or the paper anniversary (1st)? All I know is that they have had this picture for longer than I was alive because I would stare at it as I was falling asleep when I would stay overnight at their house as a little girl!

Today the mail lady, Mary, walked into my office and exclaimed how beautiful the picture was (I get lots of comments - it's definitely different than what everyone else has there!). I told her that I thought I'd have to get a picture to show them were I had put it because I thought they would like to see it. She said, "Not without you in it! Bring your camera next time and I'll take a picture of you with it!" I told her that my camera was in my purse, so she snapped a shot today! Ignore my nastified hair - it's a Monday. I don't do my hair on Mondays :)

Deep Thoughts

Yesterday at church, the prayer warrior woman I mentioned in the post below asked Dave if she and another guy from church could pray with us and anoint us with oil (to do a prayer of healing). He knew she would specifically be praying that God would heal us of our infertility, so Dave said, "We're good. No thanks". I didn't know that she had asked him that, but she did come up during church and ask me if I was okay. When I told her I was great, she looked at me like I was lying. Hmmmm...

When Dave told me about it after we got home, I immediately started feeling guilty. Part of me felt like we should have said yes to being prayed for, even though it's not what we feel God wants for our life right now. I felt guilty for turning down prayer, because I felt like I was picking and choosing, I guess. But then part of me was frustrated because Dave and I dealt with the blow of infertility for years. We even had our pastor and one of our elders anoint me with oil and pray for healing for my body's infertility about two years ago. One night all of the people in our old Bible study gathered around us, and layed hands on us while praying for us. I have stories of people (one very wise father of my friendly friend) who would come up to me at church and tell me that they felt God telling them to pray for me right now, and it was always on days when I was struggling with sadness about infertility. I spent many days/nights praying and being prayed for - that our infertility would go away and God would bless us with a baby. I cried and blubbered gut-wrenching prayers to God for a while, sobbing while others would pray for us as well.

God's been working on our hearts, and I truly feel like He's healed me from that pain, and I am 100% on board with His will for us in adoption. I have a feeling that this woman is just finding out about our infertility, and is feeling sad for us - she's at the same point I was at four or five years ago when I found out about our infertility. She still feels as if God's will for our life is getting pregnant - I thought the same thing all those years ago. What frustrated both Dave and I is that we both have felt - ever since we started the adoption - that we were called to adopt. Our hearts feel peace in knowing that we are following God's will for our lives by adopting. If we end up having a bio baby someday, we will be thrilled. But right now, we are overjoyed when we think of becoming parents through adoption. It isn't a second-best kind of thing for us.