Keeping Pace

Keeping Pace

Archives for April 2008

Attraversiamo

by

You may remember me telling you that I was given Eat, Pray, Love for my 42nd birthday.  I launched into the reading shortly after receiving it, and found the book good company on cold winter nights.  As is usually the case, my reading efforts fell away and the book was added to the pile beside my bed (unfinished). 

Now the book has remained buried within the stack of books.  The story, however, and I were reunited with the help of books on tape.  Even at the age of 42 years old, I enjoy having a book read to me.  Is there any better way to ease the stress of a long commute? 

This evening, after sitting for 10 minutes in the grocery store parking lot, I finished the book.  Afterwards, I went inside the store for a bottle of wine, dinner for my petite family, and a package of vanilla skinny cow ice cream sandwiches.

The juxtaposition of my finishing the book with my purchase of a bottle of wine & ice cream is only a coincidence.  Well, almost…

[Read more…]

Pre-season kick off

by

It was a conscious decision to leave my workout bag in the car Friday morning.  I was sick of tripping over the bag in my office each day and never getting the chance to pick it up until the day’s end.  Day in and day out, the bag would simple get moved from place to place, but the contents were never removed.  I wasn’t going to do that again.  If the opportunity presented itself for a run, I’d have to go fetch my bag. 

A few hours later, I was on the phone with Simone at Team In Training (TNT).  Like magic, as soon as I signed the dotted line, I was moved to start making changes.  At lunchtime, I *did* retrieve my bag for a little hill work (aka humility run). 

My mind was filled with thoughts about the training season that will not be "kicked off" until May 31st.  Still, I had reason to be motivated; I needed to quickly rebuild my base and get back up to speed.  Yes, already the pressure was starting (self inflicted of course).  I want to be placed in the FAST training group so that I will always be pushed towards my best. 

And with the (self inflicted) pressure on, I ran Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  I nearly ran today but my body thought otherwise; my shins were a little tender during my Saturday run.  Instead of running, I cleaned out YaYa’s closet as well as the shed, I did a few loads of laundry, and moved some furniture around. 

My final task was to restock my bag with clean running apparel for tomorrow’s run.

* A special thanks to those of you who have helped to kick of my 1st TNT experience by donating.  You are the best!

Reconciliation

by

After driving past the local Catholic church, I begin to think about the process of confession.  I have heard that they call it "reconciliation" these days.  I have also heard that some churches don’t even use the screens anymore.  What’s up with that?! 

I don’t know if I could handle watching the priest’s face as I list off my bad choices in life.  I have found much comfort hiding behind the safety screen.  Without the screen, I would have to have an invisible priest so that I could not see the reaction on his face when I spoke.  Better yet, I would like an imaginary priest who could take my confession right now.

If that was possible, what I would say?  Of course I would begin in the usual way.  Well, I’m not really sure if it is the "usual" way anymore.  It seems that a lot has changed over the years.  Regardless, I would begin like this:

"Forgive me Father for I have sinned." 

"It has been…MANY years since my last confession." *deep breath*

Okay, now is the part where I am to list my sins.  I think hard.  Surely in 15-20 years there ought to be quite a list of sins to confess.  But my list is short. 

"I failed to recognize cancer in my husband until it was too late."

"I sometimes have angry thoughts towards myself and others."

"I surf the Internet on work time."

"I am less patient with others [such as the IDIOT driver ahead of me]."

This is where my list ends. 

I remember being a little girl and waiting for my turn in the little closet sized room.  In my head I would go through my list of "sins" that I had committed in the prior days.  I used to be able to come up with a minimum of 3 things back then.  That was only in a week’s time.  Of course, it always seemed to be the same list.  Perhaps saying X number of Our Fathers and X number of Hail Mary’s wasn’t doing the trick.  More likely, it was my list of sins.

"I jumped on the bed when my mother told me not to."

"I hit my brother…but he hit me first."

"I licked the frosting off of Big Sis’ birthday cake and then lied about it."

Perhaps they weren’t really "sins" at all.

Today, my imaginary priest is left perplexed.  He is thinking that in this amount of life much more damage should have occurred.  I agree.  I am far from perfect. 

I think for a minute, and then said, "No.  That is all."

Sure, there were things that needed to be considered and evaluated.  In the end, I brushed them off as not being sins at all.  *sigh* It is time to get up with times.  Gone are the days of making up your list of sins.

My priest instructed me to pray one round of the rosary.  [I think that I remember how to do that properly.]

Finding balance

by

My writing time has shriveled away to nothing this week.  I don’t know where my free time has gone.  Actually, I *do* know where it went, and it was good. 

First, my widow friends and our off-spring had a great evening at Chuck E. Cheese.  They played and we sat around and talked about all sorts of things.  At one point, the topic got pretty emotional.  I laughed and said that our counselor would soon be forbidding us to get together on our own. That lightened things up a bit.

Also this week, we spent an evening at Cindy‘s house.  We met her parents, who have been visiting from Canada.  They are just as nice as her, which is no surprise at all.  Cindy cooked up a wonderful dinner and we enjoyed a couple of bottles of wine (one better than the other).

Life is quite a balancing act.  The challenge is to find just the right balance between family, friends, work, running, writing, and whatever else lands on your plate.  Of course a good bottle of red wine sure helps too.

There is more balancing ahead of me as I take on a new commitment.  It will be tricky but I’ll manage.  I always do.

Content Protected Using Blog Protector By: PcDrome.