CHAOS abounds

I love Christmas.
I love the Christmas season.
I love having family around during the Christmas season.
I love my family.
I love my call.

This week we have a ridiculously large funeral, read a beloved pastor from the synod, today, tomorrow we have three worship services and I get to (although on Christmas eve it sometimes feels like have to) lead worship at two different nursing homes in the morning, and Wednesday we have one service at the church. On top of it all my dear friend was here Thursday through Saturday, my mom arrive on Friday (thank God, because our new house needs some serious decorating help and my mom rocks at that), my mother in law arrived on Saturday, my father is set to arrive today as well as my brother and his spastic dog. Thank God my mother is here because she loves (or at least volunteers) to cook and help around the house. Thank God for a second bathroom - while yes there is still some waiting for the bathroom it has been greatly reduced.

I am will be more than ready for the 25th in the afternoon, then I can finally relax.
Fingers crossed this week we will get above 0 degrees so we can get outside a little bit.


What do your holiday plans look like?
Are you able to be outside where you live?

Living the Dream

Why is it my basement begins to take on water on the Saturday of Memorial Weekend? Seriously, no calling for professional help till Tuesday. R.I.D.I.C.U.L.O.U.S. {or no calling for professional help without paying an arm, a leg, and a kidney}

Also- the camp I am helping to co-manage opened today - over the top jazzed we managed to pull this off - I will include a long post about this camp here shortly

I have a random project: Operation Sandwich - I'll fill you all in on it soon - we launch June 6 - essentially we are going to feed kids who are normally on free and reduced lunches at the school during the year - crazy how this has fallen together

I had my "practice hair" done for the wedding today - it was okay - some things need "tweaked" - Marc's reaction wasn't quite what I was hoping for

It has been a long week already. While some are rejoicing it is the holiday weekend I am doing a funeral tomorrow, working Sunday morning, and again on Monday. I do love my call, (95% of the time I wouldn't trade it for the world) however tonight I find myself dreaming of an 8:00-5:00 with no on call, no weekends, no holidays, or holidays with holiday pay.

Alright. This post was a bit crabbier/overly exhausted than I wanted but I am going to post anyways.

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.

Exhausted

It has been one of those months in which all I can fathom at the moment is sleeping. This is Dakota and I last night after a long day. My mom caught this picture for me, we both managed to fall asleep on the couch all snuggled up, we were watching something on tv with mom, but you can tell Dakota and my opinion on it. Life has been going full speed lately!

Major house project: my mom came up and we have been painting my kitchen cupboards, I absolutely can't wait to post pictures when it is all finished. It looks 1000 times better than it did before. I had some gross old cupboards which functionally worked great but in terms of looks it was bad. I will post pictures when we are done and attempt to explain the process.

Major travels: I just got back this past week from a nearly week long trip to New Orleans to the youth Extravaganza! It was an outstanding trip, fabulous speakers, wonderful friends, amazing city. It was great!