Another week

It was another full and busy week.

–Sunday we had family day.  It was William’s pick, so we swam and then everyone hung out here.  The boys played and the grown-ups watch 24.

–Monday was the last day of their flag football class.  We missed signing up for soccer.  It’s already started.  I might still squeeze William in somewhere, but Jarek won’t be playing this season.  William’s speech therapy continues to go well.  But I forgot to do his homework with him this week.

–Tuesday the boys both passed their knots test and Contenders.  They each missed easy things and had to back and review then come try again, but to their credit, neither gave up or got discouraged.  They were both able to pass on the second try.  Gymnastics was another cool class.  They both were nice to Cade and he responded well, and we parents were well-pleased with their listening to us and taking the high road, and then getting to see that that really works.  They worked on the pommel horse, a cool new skill that I don’t know the name for–William’s says maybe it’s called leg cuts.  Then on the bar they practiced mounting, then Coach Jeffrey tied them on–literally–and had them practice spinning around.  They later said that this hurt, and I naively asked what it hurt because I was concerned about William’s abdominal muscle.  They told me it hurt their “privacy.”  Sorry I asked.

–Wednesday was a delightful nothing day.

–Thursday gymnastics went really well.  Coach Natasha is my favorite coach there.  She means business, but she’s also very nice and patient.  Her voice stays cheerful and encouraging, but she doesn’t let the boys be crazy.  They are progressing so quickly in this class.  This week they did spotted back handsprings.  They also worked on perfecting their round-offs, cartwheels and handstands.

–Friday we went Feast shopping.  I bought William lots of church clothes.  I bought myself quite a few church clothes too.  It was nice, but also depressing.  I really don’t want to wear these sizes anymore.

Tonight and tomorrow Jonathan and I are supposed to have a work party and get transcript capabilities done for the website.  I also want to edit 2 more articles.  One for this week, and then one for next week.  Later this week I want to get the two done that will publish at the Feast, and then next week I want to get two more done.  I might even try my hand at writing a skeleton article for Pap to add doctrine into.

I’m supposed to run a 12-miler on Monday.  Hope that doesn’t involve chafing and blisters.  I need to find the right balance with my weightwatchers points so that I don’t end up feeling so tired.  I want to get off caffeine again, but that doesn’t seem to lie in my near future.  I think I need to stop stressing about the numbers, and just keep plugging away at doing the miles and staying within my points.  Surely the rest will eventually all come together.

Yea for Friday

I’m ready for the Sabbath.  I’m tired.  We had a good week.  William’s speech therapy is progressing well.  Right now, he’s only working on the /sh/ sound, but he’s really catching on to it. He’s picking up flag football well too, showing a talent for running with the ball.  His catching is still lacking.  He’s too stiff.  I need to teach him about soft hands.  I’ll get to that eventually I guess.  But he’s really quite fast, and has started throwing some cuts in too.  Now if he can just get the hang of how best to hold the ball so as not to fumble when he falls.  His throwing is also lacking, but his speed is an asset on defense as well.  He has so much athletic potential, but not a clue that he has any.

William’s getting into a groove with homeschool as well.  He’s been churning out the work, even doing more than I schedule for a week.  This is good because we could stand to make up some ground.

William’s also doing great in gymnastics.  He’s long and lean and fast and flexible.  And he has no fear.  The no fear bit is kind of scary for me sometimes, but also fun.  Gymnastics is one of the only places I’ve ever seen him just dive in and do, with no hesitation, self-consciousness or doubt.  In all-around they are working on mounting the bar, swinging and flipping on the rings, very basic form things on the pommel horse, and traveling on the parallel bars.  They haven’t done very much floor work in this class lately because the floor spaces are occupied by cheerleading teams.  In tumbling they are very close to getting both front and back hand springs.  William’s main weakness is his stomach.  He has trouble with his bridges, and is struggling with the build-up to walk-overs.  But he is getting really good at handstands, cartwheels and round-offs.

Contenders is going well, and seems likely to improve as the growing pains get worked out.  The lack of organization is a bit frustrating and confusing right now, but I think as people start to feel more comfortable with their roles, this will improve.  We are testing for the knot pin on Monday, and I think William will be able to pass.  I’ve taken the time to work with him this week, and he’s doing well.

My running is getting back on track.  My body held up well during this first full week back.  My feet are protesting a bit, but I can’t really blame them. They have taken a pounding.  I’ve done really well with weightwatchers all week, but am in the process of falling off the wagon while typing this.  I’m eating Pringles that I’m pretty sure I don’t have the points for.  But I’ve got the munchies.  I’ll keep plugging away.  I ran 32 miles this week, and that helps.  But today I only ran 4 which didn’t earn me many extra points.  So I’m hungry, in a craving something unknown, must sample many things sort of way.  I am really overall very pleased with my diet and exercise this week, and pleasantly surprised at how well I held up energy-wise with all the running.  I ran 10 miles yesterday and didn’t take a nap, although I went to bed an hour early.

I’m doing pretty well on my schedule, but still no where near I want to be. It’s still taking me 3-7 days to do what I want to get done in a week.  Am I just being unrealistic?  Probably.  But still this is working better than anything I’ve ever done, so I’ll keep plugging away.  Even if I never get caught up according to the schedules and calendars, I am getting caught up in more practical terms like clean laundry, clean dishes and bills paid and projects completed on time.

Still waiting for word on the car.  It’s been almost 2 full months now.

I feel like I should be really looking forward to the Feast, but it’s almost like I’ve been too busy to really think about it.  Plus, it is a bit disconcerting to think that I’ll always be a tag-along.  You’d think I’d get used to that, but I don’t.

In other news, I love fall and I want to live somewhere that has a real fall that lasts for at least 3 months.  Everything is easier in the 70s than it is in the 100s.  I need to buckle down and turn off my AC.  But I’m so spoiled.  I like being cold.  Maybe I’ll just try to go without heat all winter.  But watch, in winter I’ll have an irresistable desire to be hot.

I’m so glad it’s Friday.  It’s been a hectic, but fun and productive week.  I’m looking forward to doing it all again next week, but I’m looking forward to having a Sabbath rest first.

Thought stew

I’ve been thinking about a couple of projects today.  First, I’d like to make a book of my exercise blog.  I think it would be fun.  William would probably read it.  I’d also like to make a book of this blog and add in a bunch more photos.  It would probably get William to look at pictures more, and maybe even have his picture taken more willingly.  Of course, in order to get a book’s worth out of this blog, I need to write more.  So I think I’ll tackle that before I progress too much further with this project.  Crystal is making a photo album for the parents for a Feast present.  That’s what made me think of the book thing.

The second project is homeschool stuff.  I am so ready to get William some new stuff.  I think I’m going to get him Galloping the Globe once he finishes this next round of Sonlight stuff.  It just looks like it would be so much fun for us to go through together.  We both really like geography and maps and different cultures.  I just recently rented and watched The Gods Must Be Crazy I & II with him.  He thought the movies were funny–and there was plenty of slapstick-type stuff in there.  But he also really thought the Kalahari bushmen were neat.  He was interested in their culture and tried to say their names with the clicking noise.  I think he has a bit of the anthropologist in him, just like me.  I’m going to try to get him into a field trip on Wednesday where the big kids will be making Greek vases.  I’m not sure how they are going to make Greek vases since none of them are Greek, but that’s what the email notification sent out from the homeschool group said.  At any rate, he’s currently fascinated with Greece and he’s such an artsy-craftsy kind of kid.  I think it’s really cool, actually.  My creativity always took more of a musical bent–which is much easier to clean-up after, I must say.  But I think his building and making thing is pretty cool and he’s way beyond what I can do in creating 3D representations of things.  I don’t know how he knows to do it because I’ve never taught him, being incapable of doing it myself.  He told me the other day that you can “make anything out of cardboard!”  This was said with much glee after I fished a couple of pieces of cardboard out of the trash for him.  I need to start letting him use the old cereal boxes and egg cartons before throwing them away too.

I love the way our schedule so far this fall has opened things up for me to spend more relaxed, interactive time reconnecting with him.  He’s so cool.  I don’t know where he gets that from, ’cause his dad’s a loser and I’ve always been a little weird.  Ok…he’s a little weird too sometimes, but he’s so cool, he can pull it off way better than I can.

Just another day

Today William did school.  He did chores.  He played.  I cleaned and worked and cooked.  Then we went to gymnastics.  Now he’s playing again.  In between, we talked a bunch about anything and everything.  We watched some TV.  I read him a chapter from On the Banks of Plum Creek.

It was just a day.  But at one point today, I took a moment to pull out of my schedule and my “to-do list” mindset.  I thought about my life.  I thought about what I want.  I thought about what I need.  And when I stopped to just breathe, I noticed something.  Contentment.  Peace.

My life is good and full.  Yes, I’d like to be married again.  I’d like to be happily married.  I’d like to have more kids.  But I’m not pining.  It’s been years since I’ve been able to think about what I don’t have at my age that I thought I would have at this age without regret.

I married poorly right after college, and it changed the entire trajectory of my life.  I’m still fighting a war to keep William safe from what I endured at his hands.  But I’m not defined by that anymore.  I’m not defined by the bitter twist my life took when I said, “I do.”  I have made a new path–oh, not on my own.  This isn’t about pulling myself up by the bootstraps.  It has been years, many of them dark and frightening and overwhelming.  I thought my heart would never heal.  I thought I would always wake up sorry for that decision and all that it had taken from me and my son.

But today, on just a normal day, I realized that I don’t hurt anymore.  I don’t regret anymore.  Even just another day in my life is a blessing–a good day.

Words of affirmation

Last Thursday I finally bit the bullet and ran my 10-miler. I got up early and went for it before it got too hot. I expected pain, and dehydration and a thoroughly miserable experience. After all I haven’t run more than 8 miles at once, without stopping, since college.

The run went surprisingly well. Just past the 8-mile mark I was starting to seriously run out of gas. Cardiovascularly I felt okay. My breathing was good, my heart was good. My legs were turning to some odd mix of jelly and stone. Gelatinous stone? The bounce in my step was turning into a quiver and a shuffle.

And then this lady waited for me in her convertible. She sat there in her driveway until I came even with her. My mind was taken off of my exhaustion as I tried to figure out what on earth she was doing. Was a truck coming behind me? What was she waiting for? I didn’t know until she pulled out next to me and drove along talking to me. I don’t remember everything she said. I was confused. I’m not the kind that talks to strangers, and it always surprises me when people I don’t know even see me, much less talk to me.

She drove along beside me for maybe 1/4 mile, telling me that she sees me go by in the mornings and wondering why I carried weights in a backpack. (It’s a hydration pack.) The conversation only lasted a few minutes, and basically could be summed up by her saying, “You’re doing good. Keep it up.”

Somehow it made my legs feel better and I finished the run strong. It’s amazing the power of a few well-timed words, and it made me think of this.

Not the vegetable

William came and flopped on me today and told me, “You’d make a good balance bean.”

Books read in August

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (finished 8/31)

By William:
Viking Ships at Sunrise by Mary Pope Osborne (finished 8/31)