One: Lifelong Dream

This is the last Tuesday in a ten Tuesday series as I am linking up with Lauren at Life. Love. Lauren and Tiffany at The Austin Family Diary for their Tuesday Topics. This week's topic is "One: Lifelong Dream." This one is by far the hardest to write. I was stuck on what exactly to write and what to claim as my one life long dream. I have lots of dreams for life: to be married (check), to have children (some day), to travel the world (in progress), to live in a house I have paid off (in progress). My bucket list is long. I have lots and lots of things I want to do. So to come up with one life long dream was a challenge, then I realized that I am probably thinking a bit to specifically about it.

One: I want to always be happy with where I am in life and in the different seasons of life. I want to embrace challenges as they arise, I want to accept change as it happens, and I want to live each day fully with no regrets. I want to love unconditionally and give generously. I want to travel and experience the world and be changed by the variety of people who inhabit it. I want to always continue to dream and go on new adventures and constantly be learning.

Dear Winter

Hello Winter,
    Yes, it is true we love you November through about mid-March, now that it is the end of April and you are continuing to drop snow on us, you annoy us! Yes, we know we live in the Midwest and that you do like to stay around for longer than we'd want but you have seriously broken every agreement we ever had. Seriously, give spring it's chance. You win. We give up. We don't want to play your games any more. We are over you 110%. We now spend our days cursing you, dreaming of warmer places, and want to punch anyone who even mentions you dropping more snow on us. We can't stand the sound of you not to mention we all are experiencing some serious vitamin d deficiencies and that is having serious effects on everyone.
   Our youth are crying for warmed days where their track meets, golf meets, softball games, lacrosse games, and baseball games aren't cancelled because they can't find the fields. They are longing for good practices outside in beautiful green grass not dirty white snow. Our kids are remembering days spent on playgrounds and picnics outside and yet they can't remember anything other than your white snow. Our people are praying that the ice is off the lakes by fishing opener so that they can once again fill their freezers full of walleyes. People don't want to be ice fishing in mid-May, some lakes still have over 30 inches of ice on them and that will take some serious time to melt.
   Please let the sunshine reign. Please go away, take your spring, summer, and fall vacation somewhere else, I hear Antarctica could use some more snow, or go freeze some more ice up by the north pole, go away from here. You are no longer welcome. Not to mention you are the laughing stock of all social media - people are claiming you are drunk and all sorts of things. I am trying to speak highly of you which is why I am telling you all of this to your face.
   Give spring, summer, and fall their chances and by November next year we'll welcome you back with open arms (if you leave now) as we dream of days spent snow shoeing, cross country skiing, ice fishing, sledding, and days with hot chocolate and good books. Please go away. We beg of you.
   At this point we are certain you can name your price and name what you want, we will probably happily give it to you just to send you on your way. You have had your glory days, we no longer doubt you or mock you, we know your strength and power, and bid you farewell with much respect and what little love for you we can muster.

Love,
   Minnesota (and much of the rest of the Midwest)


p.s. This really isn't a request it is a demand. Please consider this your eviction notice effective immediately.

Dreaming of Summer

While sitting in room looking out at my April snow drifts (never in my wildest imagination would I have guessed that I would have April snowdrifts to stare at) I am thinking/dreaming of summer days and my summer to do list.


Sarah's Summer To-Do List:

• Get Married
• Paddle in ten new locations around my area
• thrive through a middle school mission trip
• thrive through a high school mission trip
• run copious amounts of miles outside - enough that I can forget how much I hate the treadmill and when winter comes again I will be able to talk myself back onto the treadmill
• swim in the lake
• learn to wake board
• Go camping at least four times
• Learn how to use pedals (the ones that you snap your feet into that scare the poop out of me right now) on my bike
• take thousands of pictures
• watch the sunset and the loons fish
• grill most nights of the week
• bike to work as often as possible
• enjoy summer stretch - a Thursday ministry with 6-8th graders
• lay in my hammock at least weekly
• Rollerblade the Paul Bunyan trail
• eat my weight in ice cream - seriously I LOVE ice cream
• have a bonfire at least weekly
• roast a s'more from time to time
• finish the retaining wall around my bush in my yard
• master some new marinades for meat and veggies on the grill
• spend more time outside than inside
• visit Itasca State Park - headwaters of the mighty Mississippi River

What's on your summer to do list?

Family

Blessed. I am so very over the top thankful for time with my family. It is ridiculously hard living so far away from my family and friends. The problem is I am now also falling in love with the area that I am living and the people who I get to call colleagues and the people I get to serve alongside. Life is going over the top well here, seriously. I am loving my call, I get to teach swimming lessons, I sell some hats a couple local coffee shops, and in my spare time I get to co-direct a camp. It is a dream come true, not to mention there are more lakes in this area than I can even begin to count (coming from SD anything over about two lakes is a big deal) and the state parks are amazing. I love it up north. I am even slowly but surely learning to tolerate the trees, I wouldn't say that I have fallen in love with them by any means but I think I have moved past hating them to just strongly disliking them.

The con of living up north is my family is six hours away, this is not do-able for a day trip. This isn't do-able to make it home when a friend is having a craptastic day. This isn't do-able for a trip to just eat lunch with my grandparents. However it does make my time with my family more sacred. It makes the time we spend together more wonderful. I do dream of moving closer to them someday. I dream of living close enough to my family that I can make a day trip to visit them. I do dream of being close enough to my dear friends that we can meet up for an evening without having to take massive amounts of vacation to do it.

I just had the chance to spend several days with: mom, dad, brother, brother's girlfriend (we like her), my fiance, Dakota, and Nala (brother's high maintenance puppy). It was glorious. We didn't do anything amazing per-say but everything we did was fabulous. We played card and board games. We sat around and told stories, we exchanged gifts (I LOVE LOVE LOVE giving gifts), we took pictures, we ate, we ate some more, we slept, we watched a movie, and we spent time sitting with one another. It was a glorious few days. While I was sad to see brother and his girlfriend leave for California, I know we also have to learn to share with her family too.

I am jazzed to have a few more days with my parents in town, time to massively work on some wedding stuff and time for dad to spoil my sweet puppy. Time to make some more memories.

I am blessed.
I am loved.
I am thankful.

Ironman

I should not be allowed to watch things like the Ironman: Kona on tv. I just shouldn't. I see these phenominal athletes on tv and I want to be one of them. I long to be one of them. I want to cross the finish line, have the medal put around my neck (seriously I love race medals, they even hang in my living room because I am this vain) and share in the high that these folks have, the feeling of complete exhaustion and the feeling of knowing you just did something huge in combination with 10 billion endorphins running surging through your body. I want to know that I just did something that I once thought was impossible.

Growing up I was a good athlete, I went to college on a basketball scholarship, but I never was great, I never was the top athlete (nor do I ever think I will be) however, since then I have always wanted to push a little harder to do that which I thought impossible. To prove myself wrong. To do that which many can't and don't do. It is an honor to run. It is an honor to have the time to train, to push my body to do more than it could the day before. I remember my first 5k (I seriously despised running all through high school and college and was upset with my coaches when we had to run a mile or two for practice) I was sooooo nervous, 3.1 miles was sooooo far. Now I run that several times a week. It is funny the way training works and you become accustom to this or that and what you long for changes.

I have to admit that I think I am beginning to love the half marathon distance because:

• it is a challenge
• I have to train
• I don't feel like death when it is finished
• I get a sweet medal at the end of the race
• I have friends who also run half marathons
• there are plenty of them around that it makes it possible to find lots of races

The triathlon has recently sparked my interest and I think I need to try one (a short one, not an ironman). I want to try one because:

• I do love swimming (I still teach swimming lessons at the local YMCA here in town) - I have always loved swimming and swim to workout at least once a week
• I do love running
• I enjoy biking (although leisurely - this would seriously be my weakness in the three sport event) - I think I could learn to bike competitively

I don't think I'll ever be an ironman, however there is a piece of me that now dreams of it and since watching the Ironman: Kona (which I realize is the elite of the elite) I sort of want to be an Ironman.

• 2.4 mile swim (I could probably swim this today if I needed to, although I would be EXHAUSTED when I finished)
• 112 mile bike (this could be the death of me, I have ridden 25 or so with Marc on a few Saturdays, but the idea of 112 scares the living daylights out of me)
• 26.2 mile run (no way! Seriously 13.1 is plenty in any given day and to double this would be frightening) - I have sworn never to run a full marathon particularly in combination with the other two events.

Truth be told currently I am daydreaming about maybe the Ironman 70.3 - it is half the distances of the full Ironman. Dreaming for sure. We'll see what comes of this crazy idea, I don't think I really have time to train for a triathalon but we'll see, I have done crazier.