lent?

I guess facebook is good for something, like reminding me it's ash Wednesday. So I clicked through to this worldvision site and was intrigued. so i signed up to receive the emails and see what this is about.

Lent in the Christian tradition, is the period of the liturgical year leading up to Easter. Lent is a time of sacrifice for Jesus. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer — through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial — for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, which recalls the events linked to the Passion of Christ and culminates in Easter, the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

listening love.

Tonight was really tough.

4 hours with a grieving widow of 2 weeks. i mean what can you say really.

I hadn't seen or talked to jill really in at least 3 or 4 years. I do remember we were super close in high school, and i saw glimpses of that girl i knew tonight-but not many. Then like people do, we lost touch, other than random facebook interactions. I knew he was sick, but when I found out how bad the cancer was I really wanted to be able to do something for her. But what can you do. I prayed, I wrote, I loved as best I knew how. My heart hurts so deeply for her, yet my mind just can't fathom the pain of that loss, or death at all.

I told sara tonight that I wished I was a better christian. I don't even really know what that means. It's not that God feels far away, it's that I don't feel him at all. Or maybe I'm not paying attention.

I want that to change.

We decided to send jill a blanket to let her know we were praying for her and thinking about her and loved her. It was an ordeal getting it. The first one I ordered wasn't in stock and it took a week to get in touch with the company to find that out. So I finally cancelled that order and got this other one shipped to my house so I could write in a card and add that in there. I got it mailed on saturday before he died on sunday. Tonight she told me that the first night she went back home to their apartment alone that it was there waiting for her. Now I know that was a God thing, it made it there in a moment that she needed to feel that love.

I was supposed to be working this weekend, and it was going to be stressful because im a baby shower hostess on sunday. So friday I was half way to camp when I got a message that the group canceled. I was pretty ticked at the time. Now I know that I was supposed to be there with jill tonight, and not at work. Even when I don't trust and seek God like I should, He is still in control. And though this was a painful and emotionally exhausting way to be reminded of that, I am thankful for it. God is in control.

I mostly listened, which helps. But I pray that whatever I said was a witness to God's love. Listen and cry, cry and listen. and love.

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I got to take maternity pictures for my friend on thursday. I didn't really want to do it, but I'm glad I did, I think they turned out really well.

Since becoming my grandmother's chauffeur in November I have taken her to the eye doctor approximately 82 bazillion times. Hopefully the eye doc trips will culminate next week, she's having cataract surgery! And maybe, just maybe he'll tell her she can drive again. At least the 7 miles to town to get her hair done and what not. Ah, wishful thinking.

So 6 hours later I got her home, and proceeded on the get her prescriptions. I luckily talked her out of going, had to just tell her I could do it so much faster if I just picked it up for her while I was at walmart. So I rushed there and back so I could make it home to run.

Yep, been running again. This time I am doing cool running's couch 2 5k, this is week 5! And I just have to say tonight it really actually felt great. The sun was setting and it was about 60 degrees. My pace was about a minute faster than last week, which felt better than going slower, weird. Felt not only like I could keep going after 2.25 miles, but that I wanted to. I did stop, since it was totally dark out. Can't wait till I am up to running 5k without walking any.

I did get quite a bit of crocheting in today in the waiting room at the eye doc. Boy if you want to be the talk of the room, work on a baby blanket in the office with a bunch of cataract surgery patients. It's down to the wire to get Shelly's blanket done, Sunday is the shower. I will be glad once it's over, and hopefully a success.

Oh and I bought a new scale. It weighs me 1/2 pound less than the other one, so I like it already.

let's try this again!

time to dust off the blog.

i am running again, eating healthy again and losing weight, and crocheting a lot.

that's all for now, i'm busy googling my name and getting thouroughly creeped out by all the information out there.

4.2

4.2 what's that? How far a ran today that's what! My legs are like jello, that was hard work. If the schedule hadn't told me to run that long (run-5/walk-1, NINE times) I would have totally called it quits much sooner, like when my legs started to hate me around 2.5 miles. The leg pain didn't last too long, but my hips started really hurting working on that 4th mile.

So I'm feeling pretty good about myself. And it was the absolute perfect weather to run that long today, overcast and breezy 70ish degrees. I did some yoga-ish stretching in the front yard which felt good for my aching hips, but now I'm all itchy, oops.

The pounds are still slowly melting away, which feels really good. I've never lost weight before, intentionally anyway. When I ran groups at camp each summer I'd drop around ten pounds, and that was just from physical exertion, we ate like crap. But now I am eating much healthier than I probably ever have, and I think I like it. I can really tell the difference the next day after I don't eat so well (usually involves alcohol). I'm not counting anything, just eating more fruit and veggies and whole grains than processed food, which is pretty easy. There are foods that I used to think I didn't like, that now are really appetizing, like black beans and red bell pepper.

Today I tried on some clothes that I had stopped wearing a good while ago, in an effort to look less like sausage, good thing I'm a pack rat. So I got a nice boost when several pairs of pants that previously may or may not have fastened, zipped with ease. Even a pair of pants from hollister (that I'm sure haven't fit in 4 or 5 years, I stopped trying them on long ago, but kept them for sentimental reasons), buttoned. Oh, and a dress I bought at the thrift store a couple years ago, (solely because it was brand new with the tag still on and not because it fit) and has not ever zipped all the way up, zipped all the way up today. Those are some nice run on sentences there.

So yay for running far, and yay for clothes that were too small fitting.

I also hit up hobby lobby today to use my gift card from Christmas. I bought yarn to crochet a purse I've been eying, and stuff to make a feather headband. So that will give me a project for when I'm at my sister's keeping baby Avery, starting Monday.

pain

I almost gave up on running Saturday. The training schedule told me I was going to run5/walk1 EIGHT times. I calculated in my head that at the pace I run that would be over 3 miles, I also calculated that death or paralysis would soon follow. So far the greatest distance my feet have withstood is a smidge over 2.5 miles.

But I put my shoes on and went outside, I decided to just take it a 5 minutes leg at a time, knowing I can do that at least 5 times, and then I'd add another, just focusing at one leg at a time. My legs were killing me at the end of the first 5 minutes, they felt tight like just before you feel a cramp coming on. They did that the day before too, and pushed through it and they started to feel better.

I made sure to start slow, which sucks, running slow is not fun. But I knew that if I wanted to make it past 2 miles I had to. I run (it's really barely a jog, but for me that's running) so slow that my breathing is fairly easy, no gasping or anything. The past week though, my legs have really started hurting and getting tired rather quickly.

The sixth leg of my run was completed (the most I'd run previously) and I didn't think I could handle much more, it was hot ( it was 1:30 and I don't do well in the hottness) and I felt like I was gonna puke and my legs were going to fall off. So I decided just one more leg of running (so 7 not 8), and if I picked up the pace I could make it the nearly half a mile back around to bring the total to 3 miles.

So that's what I did. I am happy with my 3 miles, closer to 3.1 actually. However, a half marathon seems abundantly impossible and absurd after suffering through those 3 miles. Five minutes at a time, one run at a time, one week at a time and I'm hoping to make it through pre-training and onto half-marathon training.


After my longest run (of my entire life mind you) I went to my sweet nieces 4th birthday party at the jumpy place. I stared climbing up to the top of the big slide with my nephew not certain I'd make it. Almost in tears my legs were so sore. He loved it, and so the process repeated for next 45 minutes. Pain.

stars and pollen

Tonight I ran 2.3 miles at 8:30. I think I like running at night. Well, once I get past still being a wee bit scared of the dark. I wish I didn't have to run with my headlamp, it makes me notice the pollen flying through the air instead of the stars. But I would rather not break my ankle by stepping in a pot hole, so I'll keep the headlamp.

I am at about a 13 minute mile pace I think. I am up to running 5 minutes and walking one, did not think I'd get to that when I started running 2 minutes and nearly died. I can keep my breathing nice and easy and controlled till the last leg of the run, but my legs get tired by the 2nd or 3rd. I'm at my peak of good running feelings by about the 4th leg, it gives me a little spurt of energy that i always notice.

Wednesday will mark 3 weeks of this running training, woohoo! I run with my kitchen timer clipped at the collar of my shirt, and I pretty much just think about running and breathing while I run. If I start getting real tired I count my steps till the timer goes off, I try not to look at it to see how much time is left. I try to think about other things, deep things, pondering life and God and feelings; but then I remember I'm running about 3 seconds later. Maybe one day I 'll be able to run without constantly thinking about it. I don't run with music, I'm not sure if I would enjoy it or not, I like quietness a lot.

So for now running is good. I don't hate it. I want to stick with it.


Oh, so Easter came and went. I went to Church of the Highlands on Saturday, which was a nice change of pace. We sang In Christ Alone, which is one of my favorites. I chopped fruit and veggies all morning Sunday for lunch with the fam. Which was planned pretty last minute, but worked out fine, everyone liked what I made, gorgeous weather to play outside at Grandmother's house. It was funny seeing my nieces and nephews playing with the toys that my sisters and brother and I played with when we were their exact size.

Easter also marked the end of my 40 days of water, I drank sweet tea for the first time since February 16th, wowzers. I am glad I did it. I wish I wasn't broke, but I am going to figure out how much and when to donate to blood water mission soon. I am gonna stick with drinking mostly water, especially now that I'm running, and seem to have overcome the addiction to diet mountain dew that has held me in it's grips for around 20 years.

Healthy eating Rebecca is still doing well, I've eaten fruit and veggies and whole grains everyday for 2 weeks maybe. Non-healthy eating Rebecca only ate vegetables once a month at most. I also got some adult gummy one-a-day vitamins, pretty excited about that, I wish we had those when I was a kid, hated the chewable flintstones ones.

All in all life is feeling much healthier these days. I haven't felt this in quite sometime. My sister gave me a short little book to read, Hedge of Thorns, I totally cried reading it, it was really good, a message I really needed to hear. And it was a story (a true one, at that) I love stories.