Hesitate

So, I haven't really been blogging that much lately. I made it a goal last year to blog once a week, and post something related to the news. I pretty much blogged every week, but I only made it til like June posting anything about the news. I got bored after that...

Anyways, since the beginning of this year, I've blogged like 3 times. Who cares, right? Well, I thought so, too. I got busy in January and let the blogging mind slide and kind of left it like that for most of February. I didn't feel compelled to plaster my random thoughts and verbage out there into cyber-space.

But after thinking about it, I stumbled across the real reason why. I was hesitant.

The last year and a half have been a reflection time for myself, a soul-searching, nitty-gritty, come-to-terms-awareness-of-myself sort of thing. It's hard to explain. Mostly, I feel like I'm being really selfish. Selfish now because I didn't take that time to "find myself" during college. I was too busy with my degree and working to pay for it, then to ever let myself think about what I wanted to do with it when it all ended. Yeah... good thing I was getting educated, right???

So, how does this all relate to me and blogging? Well, because blogging has become a way for me to express how I feel about the revolving door that is 'discovering my sense of self'. And when I'm not blogging, I'm not reflecting or working on trying to be a better version of myself.

Ah ha! Yeah. Light bulb for me, too.

That's when I realized I was being hesitant because I was getting worried that maybe other people would think "oh, she just talks about herself all the time... who really cares if she ran in the woods today or discovered that there are actually roses to stop and smell... she's just being really selfish..."

And now I know that is not the case. (well, maybe people do feel like that. ha) But it doesn't matter. This process in growing up, finding ways to love myself, and being true to the One who has brought me to be able to experience the life that I am living, is what matters.

And that is why I will boldly walk this random life, laughing whenever I can, singing at the top of my lungs in the car to Mumford and Sons every morning on my way to work regardless of who sees me, crying when I need to even if it's over something ridiculous, and loving with all of my heart even over the smallest of things.

So, cheers to being yourself every day! Who cares if that sounds lame. :)

Happy almost Friday.

Tantalizing

I was in Kentucky two weekends ago. It was grand. It was sunny and almost green and snow-less.

It is not green here. I can’t cross the street at some intersections because the snow-piles are too high. The temps are less then pleasant… Both of my windshield wiper squeegees have broken off from the ice... 

Oh dear, sweet winter, just go away. I’m sick of you and your coldness and grayness and lameness. You’re making me want to flee my favorite city!

So, I've gotten the ‘travel out of this depressing hole’ bug.

Sweet lands of green, sunshine, and warmth are calling my name. Plentiful happy trees, cool, dark earth, and lots of room to run in shorts.

Oh goodness. The tantalizing opportunity to be a ‘snow-bird’. Travel to warm areas while it sucks here, and then come back here when it’s the best time of year. I always disgraced these people for not being able to brave the dead of winter. Like put on some big-girl snow-pants and suck it up.

But seriously, I’m right there with them. I apologize for thinking you were less of a person then me. You’re actually quite smarter.  

I’m tucking away my big-girl snow-pants and waving the white-flag.

Winter. You have gotten the best of me.

Blast.

Cheers to those who are still treading water a midst the winter-blahs!

I've officially sunk. 

Starfish and Palm Trees

I’ve been waiting for a while to find the motivation to blog. The last month was pretty busy, and I took a little blogging hiatus. I still blogged in my head, but never took the time to sit down and write it out.

However, this weekend included an adventure of epic proportions truly worthy of blogging.

It all started about 3 weeks ago when a friend of mine threw out an obscure idea to me.

“Hey, want to run a 50k in Kentucky on February 9^th?”

Sunshine!? Dirt trails!!?? IN FEBRUARY!!!??

I thought about it for like a day before I said, “Heck yes! Sign me up!”

So, off we went on Thursday into the wild Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana yonder to blaze some trails into Kentucky. The car ride was full of completely random stories, lots of cat naps (YES!) and the occasional sound of someone munching on 5 bananas…  Pure bliss, right? Oh, that was just the beginning.

On Saturday, race day, the cool, pre-dawn darkness was making me nervous. It was supposed to be sunny and 50 degrees! Why is it dark and 28?? Mid-February paradise in Kentucky! Hello, where were the starfish and palm trees!?

After being reminded that the sun would come up and make things warmer (what can I say, I was super nervous!?) the thought of running around outside, snow-free, sounded quite appetizing. Spurred on by some ridiculous early morning jokes, I shed a few layers and bravely stepped outside, in shorts. Bring it on, Kentucky. Bring. It. On.

The race began in a frozen blur. The sun was coming up, but 28 degrees is still chilly. It hadn’t really hit me that I was going to be running for the next bazillion hours. I was more mesmerized by the fact that I was in shorts, running on dirt, in February. Once I became a little bit more tuned in to my surroundings, the first aid station at 6 miles came up. What? Already? SWEET! I took a mental check at that point and assessed how I felt. A huge smile spread across my face. I felt fantastic. My body decided we were going to kick some Kentucky behind. I was praying I could hold on for the ride…

Fast forward 20 miles through the forest, around some ridges, through a few aid stations with mile-marker-identity-crisis, and you found me. Bent over at an aid station with a whine-y face not wanting to climb the next mountain pass. However, I had a good friend to randomly pop out of the woods at that exact bonking moment and graciously listen to me unload all of my scary mind-game feelings of “this is ridiculous, I don’t want to run anymore, who said this was a good idea, stupid hills, ugh.”  Needless to say, I ran through the crappy miles and lived. Onward!

So, the rest of the race was a mind over matter beast. I wanted to pause and enjoy the sunshine. Soak up the smell of the dirt and snow-free trees! But man, I found out pretty early in the race that I was at the front of the female pack. Seriously??? WHAT? I just kept pretending that at any moment a pack of girls would fly through the forest and take over the first 5 female places and I would be able to stop and smell the trail… So I kept pushing… Just in case…

And low and behold, the last aid station!!!! All that was left was a dramatically painfully 2 mile ascent to the finish. YES 2 MILES OF STRAIGHT UPHILL. Good thing I live in Duluth. SHEESH.

The post-race hang-out was truly a treat. Lots of good food, great friends, happy congratulations, and the rush of satisfaction after having completed a long race. Leaving your heart on the trails. So sweet.

So, thank you, Kentucky, for your glorious dirt hills, sunshine, and occasional starfish and palm tree.

Felt like paradise to me.

Cheers to all the people representing Minnesota! Was incredibly blessed to share the epic adventure with you. Until next time…  

The Not-So-Unexpected Big Picture

I believe happiness is found in unexpected moments of our every day life.

Lots of people have told me this over the years.You hear it in plenty of songs, too. "It's the little things" that make a difference, that you live for, that you want more of.

Well, yeah.

The little golden nuggets of pure bliss are not necessarily part of the every day norm. That is why they need to be cherished. Our lives were never set up to be overly joyous and happy. I don't mean that in a morose, depressing way, but just that it is the truth. The earth became tainted when Adam and Eve ate the fruit.

Euphoria became "the daily grind" because they sinned.

So... beautiful experiences that bring such joy should never truly be expected, because when they do happen, we can realize that God is blessing us at that exact moment. He is showing His true love for us by graciously giving us a moment of awesome.

- Like twirling in sparkle dresses with a 3.5 year old in front of a large mirror, and then getting horrendously beaten at a memory-card matching game later on in the evening, by the 3.5 year old.

- And witnessing a friend's over-the-top happiness as they kiss their significant other on New Year's Eve,

- And feeling a friend's baby kick and move around inside of her beautiful, pregnant belly,

- And coming to the realize while running under the stars that you don't need to keep fighting to find your own happiness anymore, because God knows when to dish the awesome.

While slogging through the snow filled streets tonight, I thought of a way to break it down. Every time I have a epiphany and feel like I'm looking at something from the "big picture", I gain a millimeter of extra space on my current view of where I'm headed in life. So, if I've had 8 good epiphanies a year for the last 5 years, I've gained 40 millimeters of extra enlightenment on my overall "big picture".

There are 10 millimeters in 1 centimeter. There are 2.54 centimeters in one inch.

Therefore, over the past 5 years, I've gained almost 2 inches...

God is infinite, and He..., well He created my 'big picture'

Who do you want to leave your life up to?

Yourself and all of two inches...

Or the one who can see everything...

Yeah. I know which one I'm picking. I hope you do, too.

Cheers

Comfort

I want to rant about feeling comfort, or being comfortable in random, every day acts of life. Finding comfort from someone, offering it to someone else, or feeling comfortable in what you do every day.

I have found that I don’t really like the phrase “out of your comfort zone”. It makes me feel like you’re about to hit some time-warp-headed-for-disaster sort of thing. Like whatever you are about to attempt is going to make you feel annoyed, bothered, or scared to the point of peeing your pants. Great, right?

Not so much.

Rightly so, why wouldn’t you gravitate towards something that actually made you feel good? Why not attempt to do that? That sounds way better then having an accident…

Well, what if what you REALLY want to do is only attained by doing something slightly lame or taxing beforehand, as a stepping stone.

Yeah. That is what I’m talking about.

The nitty-gritty “ugh, I don’t want to do this… but I know that it will help me in the long run… ugh… whine… whine more…”

I really believe that this whole concept is a continual cycle, set up by Jesus, to make us help each other out. There will always be someone you know that is in the “icky” phase attempting to achieve the “comfortable” phase. And you, yourself, I’m sure, have been there, too. So, finding a way to comfort and offer support for someone else may one day lead to receiving it in return.

See the cycle?

Yeah. Me too.

So what is it that I really want to say on this topic of comfort?...

I guess it’s just to be aware. You never know how much you can change someone’s day by replying in a nice tone and taking an extra few minutes to listen to a story (that you really could care less about) but will put a smile on their face.

Who knows!  You’ll probably have a lame story to share tomorrow as well.

Cheers to Wednesday! May everyone make it over the dreaded mid-week hump. 

Loss

Today was just another day for me. Same old Friday. Went to work. Did some Christmas shopping. Overall uneventful.

For over 30 families out east, today will be a day that is never forgotten. A day that changes everything. A loved one lost, a family forever less then whole. Holiday celebrations completely trashed. Future birthdays never to be celebrated in a way that is tangible and exciting.

Loss.

I almost lost it at work today. My throat constricted and my eyes welled up. The pain of loss was very apparent and it was hard to breathe as I read the news. I had a hard time finishing the day without being a total space cadet. My heart hurts. It brings me back to the unexpected terror of knowing that a special person in your life will never be coming back. The raw, paralyzing pain of despair.

It makes me sick.

I want to say that I couldn't believe something so awful could happen. But it did. And it has before. And it will again in the future. This world is never going to stop being awful. It will only deteriorate more until Christ comes to take us home to Him.

So what the heck do we do in the mean time? What can possibly be said to rationalize the murder of little children?

Nothing really comes to my mind.

All I know is that I will be praying, really hard, for the families out east. The ones who will now be living the rest of their lives without getting to see their child grow up.

I hope you will pray for them, too.

Honesty

Theme. This has been the theme of the last week. And it’s ridiculous how many things can be revealed when you look at them… honestly…

I strive to be an honest person. But the key word in that phrase is ‘strive’, meaning it doesn’t always happen. The moment you give up the clarity that comes with being honest, is the moment you will regret whatever happens next. I feel like I’m speaking slightly in code… but I think you know what I mean.

Turning your eyes away from a situation that you don’t want to deal with and rationalizing that situation in your head to turn it in your favor, doesn’t really ever bring true peace. It just prolongs the truth from revealing itself, thereby creating new issues until you are knee deep in a lie (not necessarily a fabrication, but a situation that you really don't want to be a part of), begging for someone to figure it out so you can be set free.

Now, throughout this last week I cannot pinpoint major instances that I have been telling lies (I know, you’re all waiting for juicy secrets to be revealed), but by thinking about what I wanted to rant about this week, honesty and truth came to mind.  Hoping to maybe inspire myself and others to find a way to tell the truth, let go of something that maybe has been weighing on your mind.

Ok, example:

I spoke with an old friend of mine this week, one that I haven’t spoken to since like 2007. I know, crazy blast-from-the-past reconnection!!! Anyways, there were a couple of points that we touched on that completely shot holes through my own perceptions of, and got me thinking about, my family in a different perspective, my job in a new light, and how where I’m living really makes me feel.

I didn’t sugar-coat anything during that conversation. Just straight up BOOM

TRUTH.

And in my opinion, you have to do that every once in a while to get a grasp-on and savor the beautiful life that you are walking through.

Without it, unique experiences and renewed perspective on the same-old, same-old may never happen.

So, go ruminate on your life and find little nuggets of awesomeness that you might not have thought existed this morning.

Cheers