Cruisin'

Not sure I would ever call myself spontaneous.  I like to walk the course before I run it and find exactly where the uphills are so I can plan accordingly - like I used to in high school cross-country.  But, in life, walking the course ahead of time is impossible and every once in a while you have to do something to shake things up.  So, when the opportunity to go on a 7-day cruise with Andy's parents presented itself, we decided to jump on it.

And, as luck would have it, life further showed us what "shaking things up" is all about when we were surprised with a tax bill from Uncle Sam a few days before we left.  With that news in tow, we boarded the ship and set out to prove that when life hands you lemons, you throw those lemons overboard and order a pina colada!

We cruised to Nassau, Bahamas, St. Thomas and St. Maarten and soaked in as much sun as we could handle.  We couldn't have been happier to spend the time with Andy's parents and experience three places neither of us had been before.

The end of a hike in St. Maarten

I was in St. Maarten for one day and they named a beach after me!

A sunset at the end of the day in St. Maarten

And really when life starts handing you fruit that you didn't ask for, is there a better place to deal with it than on a beach - or boat - with your family?

Showering.

The last few weekends have ushered in full-on preparation for Baby Caley.  The focus was on showering – showering with gifts, advice and love as we anxiously await his or her arrival.

I have been blessed with aunts and uncles in my own life that feel more like friends or a second set of parents and it’s them that I want to honor with my own role of aunt.  I hope to be fun when life gets too serious for this little Caley and I hope to be a listening ear when loneliness takes over.  I want to see his* eyes light up when I walk in the room and to hear his stories when he can’t find the words to tell his parents.  But most of all, I hope to show him another side of his mom. 

I hope that through me he gets to see the beautiful friend his mother is.  I hope that when he hears my sister and I laughing way too hard over a bottle of wine and the Dixie Chicks blaring in the background, he sees the person his mother is – fun and good-hearted.  And when she isn’t listening well because she is busy or she snaps at him far too quickly, I hope I have the patience to remind him of how successful his mother is outside of their home too. 

And when my sister fights with this little one about hairspray or going places he shouldn’t have gone and doing things he shouldn’t have done, I will tell him about the tears that ran down his mother’s face as we showered her.  I will tell little Caley that while we showered his mom, she showered her Little Foot with the warm, anxious love of a new mom.  

*I am defaulting to calling the baby a "him" in this piece for simplicity! 

The Happiest Place on Earth!

I just read an awesome piece about a girl who set out to run 1,000 miles in a year.  I think she’s a good writer and that’s a cool goal.

But, my knee is messed up.  Training for the marathon has caused me some concern that I may have finally done some damage.  It started hurting in 2009 and now three half-marathons and one full later, I’m trying to get it checked out.  And, because I have awesome luck that leaves me tumbling during almost every great fete I look to accomplish, the doctor has cancelled on me not once but twice. (I'm looking for a new doctor!)

I also read this great blog the other day.  It was refreshing because although I love a good stop at blogs like Kelle Hampton’s, most blogs do have a tendency to sugar coat things.  

So, to jump on the candid bandwagon, I also don’t have the perfect marriage.  I caution you to ask us about house hunting.  Somewhere between joking about peoples’ décor choices, realtors’ ability to take photos of homes and our complete opposite approaches to tasks such as this, we are no closer than when we started six months ago.  I dare you to ask about the house that is out of our budget but Andy was dead set on one night because it had an office outside of a wet bar that he thought would be a fun place to fake fire people.  Yes, you read that right.  He wanted to call them in to his office, through the french doors, and do his best Donald Trump - you're fired!

And, like the real $herdog, my house is usually a mess and I’m awkward and I’m often insecure about our future – because we have a pile of student loan debt that is a REALLY nice mortgage.  Nicer than any mortgage we will be able to afford thanks to it.

 

But, I agree that we come to these places, these blogs, to focus.  To write about our journey and sometimes we glean inspiration, comfort or a small laugh from the stories of others.

So, our wonderfully imperfect journey had us experiencing the happiest place on earth recently.  We experienced Disney’s Hollywood Studios during the weekend of the marathon and Epcot and Universal Studios the following weekend with Andy’s parents.

A few photos…

Rock n Roller Coaster!

I LOVE totem poles



Andy's happiest place on earth - inside a Camaro.



France!

Italy!

And Canada!

26.2

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”  - T.S. Eliot

I decided early on that an accomplishment such as a marathon is for more than me.  It was important to me to pinpoint a “why” when it came to doing a marathon.  And thanks to my sister, the question was posed to me early on.  I think my initial answer was something like “because I can” – which seems as weird a reason as it was a response.  The plan was to run this on the eve of my 27th birthday.  That’s right, 26 miles on the last day of my 26th year.   Poetic, right? 

Well, I never could quite kick the idea of running a marathon because I could.  Not because I was overly confident that I could run 26.2 miles (I wasn’t and today it seems like a dream) but because I’m given this one life, this one body, and I felt that I should test my limits.  This was more than a physical challenge.  This was a mental and emotional challenge that I felt up to as I enter my 27th year.

But plan I always do.  So, as I increased my mileage each week, I pulled out pen and paper and began to jot down items to reflect on while running.  My initial goal was to run for 26 things but some miles flew by and time to reflect disappeared into thin air.  So, 26 reasons quickly ran together creating just a few main things that I thought of while running.  

Mile 1 was for my mom.

Mile 2, my dad.  

Mile 3 for the mother my sister is becoming.

Can you see Betsy and I waving?

Mile 8 was a reflection on my husband and the eight years we've spent together.

Mile 9 was mainly spent recovering from falling over a bright orange cone.  Yes, you read that correctly, I fell ONCE AGAIN! 

Mile 12 was a tough one to get through in training.  So, I thought about my grandpa. 

Mile 13 was for my grandmother.

 

Mile 16 was an angry mile.  My iPod died and I didn't even get to hear this - which was going to get me to the finish line!

 

Mile 20 - the wall! - was for my friend who helped to inspire my doing this and who I ran beside for almost half the race.  This one was for Bets! 

Somewhere between mile 20 and 26 I started hurting - a lot.   So, I thought a lot about my family.  My younger brother and sister, all of my aunts, uncles, cousins, the family I married into and the friends that become the family I create for myself.  I love this picture that was taken at mile 24 because I look no where near as tired, pained and ready to give up as I felt.  Must have been the power of my family!

 Mile 26 was for me and my 26 years.  

I finished in 4:37.  You can see the finish clock behind me and it reads 4:50.  It took about 13 minutes for us to get to the start line!

And that last .2, well I'm going to borrow some words from Kristin Armstrong in Mile Markers for this:

".2 is the metaphorical distance between you and any finish line in your life, anything you have ever dreamed of doing or becoming.  It's what's separating you from your truest, most authentic self and your most actualized life.  It's what's worth thinking about, strategizing about, planning for, training for, and going for. 

.2 is simultaneously the end and the beginning.  Because when we cross one finish line, we arrive at the next start line, carrying with us everything we learned from prior distance."

We Bid Adieu to 2011!

We touched back down in Florida very late on the first of January and let out a sigh of relief while simultaneously already longing for the comfort of Iowa.  It’s no secret that Florida has been a very different experience than the one we had in Oregon and, after consuming our lives with the laughter of family and friends for 10 days straight, the flat, swampy land of Florida felt very foreign.

But, it was a foreign experience to get kicked just by touching my sister’s growing belly.  Every minute of our day scheduled out wasn’t brand new but it is far from familiar these days.  And it was invigorating to the see the joy of Christmas morning through our nieces’ eyes as they bounced with excitement while opening their gifts!  So, I have to admit that these foreign experiences - even those provided by Florida - provide just as much clarity on who we are and want to be as the ones that are oh, so familiar. 


Andy trying to get kicked!

Xmas Morning!

So, as we bid adieu to 2011 – a year that brought us a new state, a cross-country adventure, a first anniversary, a new home, trips to places we had never been and new jobs – we toast to the foreign and to the familiar. 



Maggie's gift to my parents turned out GREAT!

May we welcome 2012 and all that it has in store for us with open arms!

CHEERS, FRIENDS!

Pursuing Optimism.

Apparently there is some legal definition out there about pessimism.  It seems to be one of those things that really stood out to Mr. Wendling in law school.  He still reminds me that next to this definition (my simple summarization); “the thought that if things are bad, they will continue to be bad,” my picture should have been tacked to that ridiculously expensive law book.  And said husband makes a good point. I do often think like this; “Awww Thursdays are awful therefore Thursdays shall remain awful until the end of time because they aren’t hump day and they are definitely not Friday!”

But, I’m trying to change my ways because I’d like to get my face next to something way cooler in a law book.  And I’ll let you know what that might be once I figure it out.

So, here I go pursuing optimism...

The Monday after a four day weekend doesn’t suck.  It’s just a reminder of how nice it is to have relaxing days off!

Running a half-marathon is awesome even if you did run it in exactly two hours.  Be thankful that you pushed it that last mile rather than wishing you pushed it even harder to run it in under two hours!  After all, it was a personal best and you did get this sweet medal…

Thanksgiving is glorious.  The food, the wine, the lack of guilt in consuming three days worth of calories in just a few hours.  We kept it pretty low-key this year.  With our sights set on the running we have been doing, we looked up a few recipes in Cooking Light and had great results.

The reflection of me through my husband’s eyes is something to be thankful for even when it isn’t the super skinny, tan, perfect reflection we all wish for.  It's one of those things that continues to make me thankful for the life I lead.  It’s the power of the relationships we surround ourselves with that allows us to be our best selves.

And as I reflect on this last holiday we’ll spend away from our friends and family, I treasure my young marriage and this quiet time we have together.  I am thankful for the days that he points out my pessimism as much as I am thankful for the days that he points to my overbearing need to continue to grow as a personal strength.

On Saturday, we got up to watch NASA launch a ROVER to Mars.  It will take this thing 8 1/2 months to reach its destination.   I can't help but wonder where our lives will take us in that amount of time!



NASA Launches Sophisticated Rover on Journey to Mars.

From Miami to Iowa and Back Again.

It's been a busy few weeks so I'm going to give you the CliffsNotes.

We had a great opportunity to visit my {Aunt} Misty down in Miami Beach at Canyon Ranch Resort so we jumped on it and it was an amazing time full of plenty of max relaxing, good food and laughter!

And because it was a last minute trip, we drove from Miami back to Melbourne just in time for me to catch a flight to Iowa in order to work for a week.  And although I won't miss this pace when I move back to Iowa - work, work, work, visit friends, see family and work, work, work - there is an excitement to it that I enjoy.  And I will miss the early mornings of putting on makeup and chatting with my sister.

But you know it's time to head home after a long month of traveling when you are trying new beers and you send this picture to your husband...

And he replies with this picture...

Ahhh yes, true love is simultaneously {and without a word} choosing the same new beer that your spouse does 1300 miles away.