Be Still, My Heart!

While looking for something online this morning, I came across a picture of a set of old playing cards with this unbelievably accurate drawing of me and Mike's dream home on one side.  It's a tiny maybe-one-story house! With a fishing pond! And ducks for Mike! And cats and dogs! Rounded window/frame above the door! Cobblestone path! An apple tree like the one in Great-Grandma's yard! A big old mailbox up on a pole! Shutters AND a window box! There are even Cattail plants edging the pond! A few years ago, Mike and I were emailing back and forth, and I sent him another one of my dream home pictures along with the following email:

Now, picture yourself on the (bigger-than-this) front porch in a comfy chair with a pillow behind you and your feet up, reading the newspaper to Stuffed--you underestimate him: he's probably quite interested --and looking up every now and then to watch Rowlf/Buster/Buckingham patrol the grounds. The scent of apple pie is wafting out to you from the kitchen, and the honeybees are (at a safe distance! and) buzzing around the flowers and their boxes. A better-than-water-beverage is at your feet. Our pet groundhog  is chasing squirrels. Your girl lounges beside you, happy happy happy....Can you dig it?

He wrote back "Let's make it happen." And bit by bit, one Craigslist-acquired-wing-chair and Daffodil-bulb-from-a-friend at a time, we are. I'll save the new picture-find for inspiration and take it as a sign that we're on track here. ♥

Mr. Dylan Starts Kindergarten

My nephew, who I still picture as the chubby baby who used to get a kick out of being repeatedly "attacked" by one of my stuffed sheepdog toys while he sat on my bed, giggling and surrounded by piles of my blankets and bed pillows, began kindergarten today. Kindergarten! My heart! My little "Mr. Dylan!" My older brother emailed me a photo of his boarding the bus, and as I looked at it, I joined countless other parents and family members who this week find themselves exclaiming "Kindergarten!? How is that possible!?"
 
Dylan's arrival was especially exciting for me since I'd been afraid I'd miss it: I was scheduled to move out of state soon for my graduate school internship and practicum and thought maybe he'd be late. Instead, he arrived two weeks early, and I, then his only aunt, quickly filled the blog I kept then with nephew-related photos and updates. It was such a happy time.

The day of his birth was only the second time I'd ever seen my older brother cry, was the first time I'd seen a woman so close to labor, was the day I got to see my own "baby" brother (in the ball cap below) become an uncle, and was the happiest I remember my brothers and I ever being for each other. The shot below captures us all in one of our sweetest moments together. It is one of my favorite family photos.

I took tons of pictures after Dylan was born, left the hospital to go back to my parents' house--my parents were now grandparents?!!--with my mom to make cupcakes for my family and for the maternity ward staff while she called family and friends to let them know Dylan had safely arrived, worked in my pink and white garden for a little while--and Dylan, the afternoon of your birth was a gorgeous one--and then went back to the hospital to drop off the cupcakes and visit my nephew and his parents some more. I remember saying to my mom how strange it was that we had all just "met" Dylan and just instantly loved him so much, and she said, "Well, of course," but it was surprising to me, the depth of this new love.

That first night, I gave Dylan his first present from me: A bib I'd ordered ahead of time that read "Aunt Val Loves Me." My older brother and my sister-in-law kept telling everyone, "Let Val hold him. She's moving soon and won't get to see him for awhile." The last time I held little Dylan before I moved for my internship, my mom watched and said, "You're trying to memorize his face," and it made me cry. She was right. And when I saw Dylan again months later, he looked completely different to me: Chubby and bundled up in a snowsuit, and he was shy around me and didn't want me to hold him. That was hard. I loved the little guy and was so tickled to see him again, and he didn't know me at all. In time, we bonded again, though, and he became my "Mr. Dylan!" and since he couldn't pronounce "Aunt Val," I became his "Annie Owl." Everyone would laugh and melt when he'd say that, and I wish no one had ever corrected him.

Today my "Mr. Dylan" started Kindergarten, then, and while I couldn't be there, he was on my mind all day. I hope that when his little "First Day of School" package from me reaches him, it finds him happy and having fun and making new friends. (My mom called while I was typing that line, actually, to report that he did indeed have a fun first day.)   I love you, Mr. Dylan, and even if I live far away and have to be your pen pal, I will remain, forever and always, your "Annie Owl." ♥

Croup Til Ya Droop

I didn't know that adults could get Croup until I came down with it last Tuesday. Stuffed here has the right idea.

Blue Flowers

So many yards around here have beautiful blue Hydrangeas in bloom right now. The flowers enchant me. The blue is just so striking, and anytime I see blue flowers I'm reminded of the final scene in 1994's version of Little Women, one of my favorite movies. Upon hearing that Professor Bhaer has stopped by the family home, Jo tears out of the house to run after him. Those final few minutes of the film are some of the sweetest in it, but the blue flowers all around the house and gate are equally beautiful.

Maybe because it has been so hot and humid here lately, that lush green and blue landscape looks especially inviting today. While trying to create some order in our impossibly cluttered little studio apartment this afternoon, I'll escape there in my mind's eye. 

One Fine Day

Today was my last day at my now-"old" job. At the end of my now-former workplace's daily staff meeting, the manager asked everyone, "Okay, anything else?" And a few people mentioned that it was my last day. The manager replied, "It is Val's last day. Great job, Val. Thank you for everything." And suddenly, everyone was clapping! Applauding me! It was such a sweet moment and so unexpected. I worked there two and a half years and saw so many people come and go but don't remember anyone else getting that simple recognition their last day on the job. As I told my managers when I stopped by their office suite to say goodbye a little while later, the applause was just the sweetest note to end on, and it meant so much to me. I choked up while saying as much, and then choked up again a few minutes later when I punched out for the very last time.

 And as I walked home, I sent Mr. Mike a text message letting him know I was done ("Done-done!"), and he, who had taken today as a vacation day so that we could go out and celebrate this milestone, wrote back "Yay!" and then surprised me by meeting me along my walk home. We took a picture together and went to lunch, and it was a wonderful meal and a great time.

Just knowing that this stage of my life is over and that I'm moving on finally. . . !   Thank You, thank You, thank You. ♥

Overnight Success

When I was about twelve years old, I was a faithful reader of Tiger Beat, Teen Beat, and Bop magazines, and I remember a number of articles and interviews in them in which the heartthrob-of-the-day, actor or singer or group, would proclaim something along the lines of "Everyone thinks of me/us as an overnight success, but I/we worked hard for this for a really long time, so it doesn't feel that way to me/us!" The "new" sensation would go on to outline the years of fruitless auditions or off-Broadway plays or free concerts performed in their parents' backyards for the neighbors, and I would read these details with such incredible interest. The hours of rehearsals the New Kids on the Block put in, just like the Jackson Five before them! The faith a pre-teen Debbie Gibson had in herself to create a home "recording studio" consisting of a row of tape recorders set up on an ironing board! The perseverance a fifteen-year-old Tiffany showed in doing her first "tour" in shopping malls! The chutzpah of a still-unknown-and-too-broke-to-afford-a-home-phone Michael J. Fox as he negotiated his contract for "Family Ties" from a phone booth outside a fast food chicken place! I devoured these stories. I love them even more this week when finally, a full ten years after graduating from college and four years after finishing grad school, I have been hired to do a job I'm truly proud of, excited about, and eager to begin. I'm not exactly where I want to be yet, but I'm on my way, and closer than I was before. 

It is slowly sinking in that a new stage has begun. Tonight I have flowers spread all around the apartment from a congratulatory arrangement from Mom and Dad. Tuesday will be my last day at my current restaurant job. That evening, Mr. Mike, who has been my friend since college and thus seen me through all my "pretty little rough patches" these past ten years, is going out to dinner with me to celebrate. Soon I start my new job. And I feel strong and optimistic. And I did not give up. There are fresh flowers in the toothbrush holder tonight to prove it. 

First Half-Marathon Yesterday

Today's half-marathon went about as well as I could have expected.  I haven't kept up with my walking and running very well so far this year, so today's half was, I am almost positive, only my third run since January.  Except for a feeling of burnout around miles 9-10 when I just walked (and rubbed my aching back), I ran some of every mile today, and that had been my only real goal.

Nitty-Gritty Race Report:

• Mike (ran it with me; this was his third half-marathon) and I ate especially well the past few nights, and I, at least, got enough sleep last night to feel okay this morning. I'm used to getting up for work between 4:30-5:00 a.m., so I was awake at 4:00 and got out of bed at 4:18.

• Peanut butter on a whole-wheat bagel, a banana, two glasses of water, and some iced tea for breakfast, plus my usual multi-vitamin and calcium pill.

• We walked down to the bus stop at 5:30 a.m., and the bus came around 6:00. It felt wonderful out: Warm, but not too hot yet, a slight breeze, and the air just smelled good. It wasn't raining yet, and the forecasts had all called for it to be raining at that time, so I was just glad we wouldn't be soaked before we even got to the race.

• Neither Mike nor I like crowds, and this one was a doozy. We were just getting crankier and more anxious as we stood there waiting for the start. But much admiring of runners' awesome calves and leg muscles, laughter over the guy in the shark-suit, and many repeated reminders to each other of "I don't want us to feel like we have to wait for each other--I want us to run it as fast as we can" (Val to Mike) and "You just be careful" (Mike to Val, as always).

• The race started with no fanfare or announcement that we heard, and we walked for 12 minutes before even reaching the starting line.

• It started raining the very second we crossed the starting line, and it was soon pouring. Rain-rolling-down-our-faces pouring.

• This was my first time running with music--I had added a bunch of songs to my iPod over the weekend for this--so I was happily distracted the first few miles by hearing some of my favorite songs.

• We both probably would have run this faster without each other, but we stayed together until around mile 10, despite having said we wouldn't. We were around the same pace until then, so there was no avoiding each other or losing each other even if we'd wanted to. I ran too hard/fast too many times along the way to try to keep up with him and then paid for it with a few side cramps, and then I'd need to slow down and walk just to recover before I could run again, so my paces were really off today.

• My iPod's earphone-things refused to stay in my ears starting around this point, and I kept stopping to mess with them and put them back in, repeat ad nauseum. Mike and I had our usual squabble at this point when he kept giving advice that I hadn't been asking for and kept telling me to give him the iPod so he could keep it in his pocket. "I'm KEEPING it! I want to FIX the stupid thing and WEAR it! I can't hear my MUSIC if it's in your POCKET!" To which he replied, "Well, then, I don't know what to tell you," which he always says at this point in an argument. And I responded with my usual "I didn't ask you to tell me anything, so don't worry about it!"

• Around this point, the photographers were up ahead. With the rain pouring down, no doubt we all looked half-drowned, but we were around the halfway point by then, so I didn't care.

• . . .. It was the halfway mark and I was tired, my right knee was hurting a bit, my lower back was killing me, I couldn't listen to music anymore because the earphone-things wouldn't stay in my ears, I was tired of the rain, the sides of my upper arms were getting chafed from rubbing back and forth against the sides of my soaked-through t-shirt, I had no one to talk with as Mike was pretty far ahead of me then, and it all just put me in a bad frame of mind for awhile.

• 'Don't remember much about miles 7, 8, or 9.   It's probably better that way. :)

• Somewhere around mile 8, 9, or 10, we passed a girl standing off to the side with her shoe off rubbing her foot. I went back to her and asked her if she was okay, and she said no. She'd twisted her ankle and couldn't walk on it. I stayed with her for a few minutes talking with her, offered her a couple Aleve I had with me, and told her I'd stay with her til the next paramedic drove by, but she said to go on ahead.  She was walking a little after that, so I assume it wasn't too bad of an injury.

• I started noticing around then how many people were limping. I slipped twice today because of all the rain, but that was it. By mile 10, I was very aware of how lucky I'd been and what a toll this was taking on people. So much limping. Mike noticed a woman with a big cut and bandage on her leg.

• Mike found his afterburners, as he told me later, sometime around mile 10, and he took off ahead of me. He turned back once, and I just waved him away, glad to see that he was finishing well.

• By then, it had either stopped raining or was just drizzling, so I tried my iPod again, and lo and behold, got the earphone-things to stay in my ears the rest of the way. ♫ "Some days are diamonds, some days are rocks, some doors are open, some roads are blocked. . . You got a HEART! SO! BIG! it could CRUSH! THIS! TOWN!" ♫  Ah!  Tom Petty again! :) To hear my music again helped so much those last few miles.

• Somewhere toward the end, a man nodded at me as I ran/limped past and quietly said, "This is a real accomplishment." That one line turned around my perspective of the entire day's experience and all the beating-up-of-myself that I'm prone to doing. My first thought when he said it was "You have NO idea."  What he said and how he said it, even if he said it to 11,000 other people as they ran past him today, made me feel so grateful for my health and just so happy about the run. Thank you, Sir, again, whoever you are. Your words were exactly what I needed to hear. ♥

• Thanks to those words and my music, I ran a lot of the last couple miles.

• The last mile of the half-marathon was in complete chaos by the time I ran it because, unbeknownst to us, there had been a bomb threat earlier in the morning and the finish line and last mile had had to be re-routed because of it. When I came off the last bridge, not even sure where I was in the downtown, the line of runners that had been ahead of me all day was no longer there, there were people walking and running in all different directions, I saw no barricades, and I had no idea where I was supposed to go. I asked four different people for direction/help between that moment and the actual finish line, and two of them gave me the wrong advice and had to come running after me telling me so afterward. I ended up having to circle back at one point and go another way, wasting more time, slipped on the sidewalk and almost fell, and even the finish line itself was chaotic--a complete mob of runners, walkers, finished participants, spectators, people with baby strollers, kids walking dogs--and between the chaos and the just-wanting-to-be-done-with-it-already, I was crying even before I got to the finish line.

• And then as I crossed it, I asked a volunteer, through my tears, "Am I done?" And he looked shocked at my ignorance and said, "Yes, you're done!"

• I was given a Gatorade--and a foil blanket that Mike and the volunteer insisted I take.

• We walked until we found a good place to sit down. The foil blanket actually felt wonderful--They were right! It was so comforting and warm!--and I was glad I had it around me. We sat outside awhile then went over to Mike's office. He bought me some peanut M&Ms, and I finished those and my Gatorade while we talked. I still felt weepy but pretty good physically.

• From there, we walked two miles for breakfast/lunch. I felt great once I got some real food in me, but when we finished and I stood up from the restaurant booth, I almost fell:   It felt like--and fourteen hours later, still feels like--someone was screwing a screwdriver into the sides of both my knees. Once we started walking again, I felt better, but even now, every time I stand up after having sat awhile, the pain returns.

All in all, a good day. We finished, and we're just a little sore--Mike's hip and the sides of my knees--and I've completed, with no real training for it, my first half-marathon. Unprepared wasn't the way I'd intended to do my first one, but it was what it was, and regardless of what the chip time or pace indicate, the experience was, as the kind man pointed out, "quite an accomplishment."  I'm happy with it.

And what do we do when a book is read?

"That's right, dear children, we go to bed." I discovered this vintage book illustration a few months ago and fell in love with it and finally matted and framed it today for above our bed. For two bookworms, especially bookworms with a big cat who takes over the (patchwork-quilted!) bed on a nightly basis, this page is just perfect. Our apartment's walls all seem to be filled with either lead or cotton--the one above the bed is lead, apparently--so the first nail broke and the second nail bent as I hammered them in. Here's hoping a happily-reading Mr. Mike and I aren't knocked out by a falling frame one of these nights. 

Life lately has been a monotonous blur of napping and reading with the cat beside me after work in the afternoon and job-searching in the evenings. The following song came on the radio as I was finishing up at work this afternoon, and what can I say: You know you need a break when a Miley Cyrus song almost makes you cry. :)

Dandelion

When I had a garden, I understood wanting to weed any Dandelion from it, but I've never understood why so few people appreciate the sight of a field or yard filled with these yellow pom-poms of flowers. (And they're free!) Unlike my dad, I will not spend any spring hours waging war on these blooms. And while they don't last long once picked, they briefly brighten a window sill like nothing else. 

First 5K Race Completed

I ran my first 5K yesterday. Only 3.1 miles, it was still the hardest physical thing I've ever done, and I'm so very proud of myself. I felt like an athlete yesterday for the first time. My only real goal going into the race was to run more of it than I walked, and I definitely did that: I ran more yesterday than I ever had before, and I ran longer before taking walking breaks than I usually do, as well. My hope for the race, based just on some vague sense of what was considered good time/pace-wise, was to finish in 40 minutes or under, and I just barely accomplished it: I finished in 39 minutes and 59 seconds.  :)  I hadn't realized that I'd actually achieved that when I crossed the finish-line, though, because the clock at the finish-line read 42 minutes or something like that when I ran across it, so I was a bit disappointed until last night when I looked up the results online and read my official chip-time. I had completely forgotten that the clock-time would be different from the chip-time since I'd had to follow the crowd awhile before even getting to the starting line after the gun (bell? whistle? starting sound, in any case) went off. So, as it turns out, I met my goal, after all! As soon as I saw that, I felt better and more encouraged about my performance, and soon after, I decided to run my next 5K in August. I've already put in a request to have that day off from work for it.

The race course had more hills than I'd expected--we were going uphill almost immediately after we crossed the starting line, it seemed--and I'd never before run on hills at all, so that made it extra challenging, but I'm sure I picked up speed going downhill each time, and I still felt pretty good overall. I got side stitches twice but massaged them out while I walked, and everything else felt fine. I gratefully grabbed two cups of water (and got a pleasant "You're welcome, Ma'am!" in response to my winded "Thank you!" at one stop) but didn't need more than that. I felt full enough on what I'd eaten (1 and 1/2 bananas, peanut butter on a slice of multi-grain bread, some soy milk, and my usual multi-vitamin), I felt rested, I felt strong. My feet/shoes felt good. I actually didn't even think about my shoes. The distance was perfect for me in terms of what I can handle running-wise at this point. When I saw the mile-marker for 2 miles or 2.1 miles or .2 miles or whatever it was, I just thought, "Yeah, the home stretch. I can totally do this for another mile. I'll be fine." Whenever I saw another slope coming, I'd mumble I-don't-even-remember-what under my breath--some curse-whine combination, and it was the same every time, but I don't remember now what I kept saying. (I'll probably be saying it before every hill in August, as well.) But it was do-able and felt really good. Perfect weather too: low 50s and not too windy, no rain, not humid, the sun wasn't blinding--just a really great day for a run.
 

The actual race started with a laugh for me, as when the gun sounded, we all tried to take off running but got only a few steps before the size of the crowd around us forced us all to stop and wait for it to thin out some. After those enthusiastic first few steps came to an abrupt halt, though, a young guy in the crowd yelled, "Okay! Great job, everybody!" and we all laughed. It was a funny way to start the race and the experience.
 

Another runner, who maybe didn't mean to come off the way she did, said something I found hurtful at the beginning of the race, though. In the first ten minutes or so before we could all spread out, a bunch of us had already had to stop to walk--I had never run up any kind of slope before, so almost right off the bat, I was winded and one of the walkers again--and this woman said in a rather nasty tone, "Why are all these people walking? Hello?! This is supposed to be a run!" She said it loudly enough for most everyone around her to hear, so I suppose she intended for us to hear her--and then do what? collapse under a tree off to the side of the street in shame so as to let her race by? It was rude and hurtful, as it was a 5K walk/run, for one thing, and because there were a number of us who were doing the best we could--and the best we ever had!--by running even as much (or as little, as I guess she saw it) as we were. In retrospect, I wish I'd said something to her. To hear her comment right at the start like that was discouraging and made me feel more self-conscious about how well I was (or was not) going to do. This was a 5K for charity, anyway, and a bunch of little kids and some parents running/walking with strollers were out there too, so it's not as though with our walking some of it we got in this woman's way and ruined her shot at Olympic glory or something. Ah well. It was the only downer moment of the day.

Near the end, around the 2.8 mile-marker, spectators along the sides of the street started calling out, "You're almost there! The finish-line is right around the corner!" and I thought, "Easy for you to say!" and I had to stop to walk again, but then I saw a man with a camera kneeling ahead of me, and I started running again, because no WAY was I going to have done all THIS only to have my picture taken while WALKING! It's funny what motivates us. So, even though I'd just stopped running to take a walk-break, I started running again, and I ran the rest of it right through the finish-line.

I was almost crying as I finished.  It was one of the greatest moments of my life. Two years ago when I weighed 55 more pounds than I do today, this run would have been impossible. I probably couldn't have even walked it with any ease. So, I was just so proud of myself. It was a great, great moment.

After I met up with Mike, we went out to breakfast and walked home together in the sunshine. It was just an all-around beautiful day--one that you want to remember forever.

A great first race experience.  Onward and upward!