Friday Round-Up

Last weekend was leaf cleanup weekend in my household, and I made an unplanned purchase. I bought a leaf blower. Many people (including my former self) consider this contraption an unnecessary tool. But for me on this particular weekend, it made my job a little easier.

You see, with the toothache of a few weeks ago, I wasn’t feeling 100%. Okay, I was barely feeling 50%. In any case, I was not on top of my puppy cleanup duty, and the backyard was littered with horse-sized presents. All which were buried under leaves.

Today is cold and windy, and as I stare out my window into the dreary November chill, I know that winter is not far off. Sigh. I suppose it comes every year, so I shouldn’t be surprised that it’s on its way again. Yet I am.

I’m surprised at how quickly the year went. It flew by, seemingly faster than before, and I’m left dreading the next six months of cold, wind, snow and sleet (I guess I’m not cut out to be a mailman, huh?).

While I was laid up over the weekend with a torturous toothache, I watched a lot of movies. Some were cute, others thrilling, but only one of the four was really memorable: “Soul Surfer”. This flick was recommended by a friend, and I put off renting it for a while because it didn’t really appeal to me. Big mistake on my part; “Soul Surfer” was beautiful and inspiring at the same time.

Life is back to normal for me now, and I’m enjoying my long daily walks with my tiny Great Dane. I am also loving the ability to run when I want rather than on some convoluted training schedule. My next race is the Turkey Trot, and it will be purely fun (and no pain!).

Obviously, I have a lot more time on my hands now, so I’ve had the pleasure of picking up a few more writing jobs and surfing the internet more. This week covers all the bases from politics to IKEA to tinsel-town dreams:

Today I’m finally feeling really fantastic again. I can descend a flight of stairs without screaming. I can get up from a seated position with one grunt of pain rather than 20. I can finally look back on my marathon and say, “I could do that again.”

Not that I’m considering running a marathon this weekend. This month. This year. Honestly? I don’t think I could will ever do that again. Ever.

Once again this week’s focus is my marathon. It’s such a huge investment for me, one that crosses a major life goal off my bucket list, that I just can’t ignore it. So run along with me for my final week of training!

I have a little over a week until my marathon, and as I continue to train and my excitement grows, I am left with a sense of wonder at my personal investment in a big life goal. Now that it’s here, I am in constant awe of the human body. And I just can’t wait to cross another one of my life goals off my bucket list!

Surprisingly, I have little to say about the training experience. Basically, it was long. It was hard. It was worth it.

This week has been wonderful. My husband re-glazed our picture window, mowed the lawn, prepped the snow blower and made me dinner on Sunday. I don’t know what lit the fire under his butt, but I like…especially the cooking me dinner part.

Well there must have been something in the air; I felt the need to clean the house from top to bottom, including appliances, toilets and furniture (all my least favorite cleaning jobs). And this was all without any company scheduled to drop by.

As this week winds down and the cooler weather hits my part of the country, I’m enjoying some relaxing time running, reading fiction, taking long baths and drinking hot tea (not all at the same time, but wouldn’t that be a sight?).

Last week was busy. My brother and his family stopped by unexpectedly. It seems a woman named Irene huffed and puffed until she chased my bro and his fam all the way to little ol’ Iowa. He was planning to visit anyway, so when Irene spit on him and turned his electricity off, my brother simply loaded the car with kids, toys and as much of their refrigerator as he could, hoping to salvage at least a little of the colossal dent Irene was going to make on their perishables.