small, happy moments

• Running in the woods on a quiet, Sunday morning, coming face to face with a young male deer. The only sounds: birds in the trees, my feet on the dirt, nature
  

• Opening up a container of grapes to see them red/purple, fat and glistening. Perfect grapes.
  

• Myra making her wookie sounds as she rolls around on her back getting a belly rub
  

• Sammy licking my hand when I rub his belly
  

• Gluten-free brownies that are so good, you wouldn't know they are gluten-free
  

• Walking by someone's computer and seeing them reading an article I wrote. It's a powerful feeling to know people are reading your words.
  

• Knowing most of our bills are already paid for the month
  

• Putting letters or cards in the mailbox, knowing the people you are sending them to will like and appreciate them
  

• Chai green tea with vanilla soymilk and a blueberry gluten-free waffle for breakfast
  

running four miles fast and a lot of push ups...

can cure almost anything.

I've always been one to turn to exercise when I'm angry, upset, whatever. A hard workout, loud music and a lot of sweat have a way of getting rid a lot of emotions or at least helping you work through them. Running for me helps me keep my head on straight.

Yesterday was one of those days when I needed to run to clear my head and get me back on an even keel.

We switched our car insurance yesterday to a NC policy, and our bill dropped by about $60, which is cool because we've been paying WAY more for insurance than we should have been. But we had to pay them yesterday for the new policy, even though they just took out a payment last week for our old policy. And even though they are going to put most of the other payment back in our account, it just set me off.

This move has been so much more expensive than we ever thought. It has taken virtually all of our savings, even though we had planned initially that we would have enough money in checking to cover just about everything and not touch what was left in savings. The universe had other plans apparently. Combine that with the fact that I haven't brought in a substantial paycheck, and won't bring in a substantial paycheck until the end of next month, and we've been doing the fast money juggle and shuffle. We have a very small buffer for an emergency, but after being so good about saving for so long, it's hard to just keep see money flying out the door and seeing our available money until Tim gets his next paycheck get smaller and smaller. For a while, it was even looking like we wouldn't have any money to do anything for my birthday.

So paying an extra car insurance payment just really put me in a bad mood. I KNOW our money is going to be stabilizing soon. I know that once July starts and once I start at Duke, we'll be pretty much to where we were when I was working at OHSU. But in the moment, it was hard to see that. So I got on the treadmill, cranked up my shuffle and just ran. Set the treadmill on a fast setting and just sweated it all out. And then I did about 50 pushups.

Needless to say, the anger burned off, I was able to think clearly again and get my head on straight. And know that things really will be ok.

and they're off and running....

We are treadmill owners! Our lovely new treadmill just arrived, and is set up on our sun porch exercise room. Out there we have the treadmill, the total gym, free weights, yoga matt and ping pong table. And it has a separate AC unit, which is vital considering how warm that room gets.

We are both really excited. Me, so that I don't always have to run early in the morning or late at night to avoid running in the heat/humidity, and so it is easy to do speed workouts. Tim so that he can do cardio, and so he can actually run, because street running just does not work for him.

Myra isn't sure if she's excited, she kept wanting to sniff the new thing in her area. :)

And we discovered that oddly I make more noise running than Tim does. I think it is because he doesn't pick up his feet a lot when he runs, and he tends to walk really lightly and quietly. But the sunporch is insulated enough, with a really good door, that as soon as you close the door are in the actual house, you can't hear it. Which is of course of vital importance during football season... lol

Hooray peer pressure!

Ok, that might seem like an odd post title, but today it was definitely a good thing.

I went out for my first trail run in NC today, meeting a group of runners from MeetUp.com for a run at Lake Johnson. The lake was really pretty, all green, with morning light making the trees glow and the lake sparkle. Lots of geese and ducks everywhere (watch where you step!), who were happy sunbathing and looking for food. One big goose hissed at me, but I told him to be nice, and he seemed to agree to.

The other runners were nice and easy to talk to. I ended up running with this girl Jenn, who runs at my pace and we talked about being people-without-kids in an area where being asked if you have kids is probably the second, maybe third question you get asked.

We ran just over three miles on a nice paved trail through the forest. We got back to the boathouse, waited for the other runners to get there and decided to do an extra loop, this time a dirt trail that was just over a mile. This was an actual trail, with some good hills, walking on a log to cross a small stream, dodging roots and such. Now just the first part of the loops was already the longest I'd run down here, but I'm glad I kept going. I felt good, and really enjoyed myself. I only had to stop once near the top of a particularly steep hill.

And where does the peer pressure come in? Well, it's harder to just stop or quit when you are with other people, and I certainly wouldn't have done the second loop if I had been on my own (plus the added bonus that I didn't know where I was going...)

It was the longest I've run down here, and I feel like I'm home now.