To those who are up at o’dark thirty and out the door running, please tell me how you do it. I’ve got the get up part down. It’s the out the door part that I can’t seem to manage.

When my alarm sounded this morning, I was out of bed in seconds. It took only one glance out into the darkness for me to shake off the idea.

I DO need a run. I’m in the peak of training and my running has fallen off course due to life happening.

I’m not complaining — really. Who complains when family comes from afar for visits? Not me. I also don’t complain when old friends roll into town and make time to see you during your lunch hour.

I just need to figure out how to manage it all and still keep my kids as my priority.

I’ve got my first 20 mile run scheduled this weekend and I MUST make it happen. The question is: How? And when?

There are sayings that come out in times of difficulty. Things people say to offer up comfort. Pretty much, they all are a bunch of bologna.

While “he’s in a better place” might comfort some, it never did a thing for me – aside from bring on a rush of anger. Of the 5 in my grief support group, none of us were comforted by this saying.

Then there is the saying offering that God wouldn’t give you more than you could handle. Yeah, whatever. Even if it is true, where’s the comfort in that. Is this all to say that if you drop your coping ability nothing bad will happen to you?

Finally, there is the saying that “things happen for a reason.” This statement may give some hope but for me, uh, not so much. On the other hand, if you were to tell me that saying in something as worrisome but correctable as receiving an insufficient funds notification, then…okay, it may have some meaning. It may be saying, “Get a clue Julie. After spending $10K on a new roof, you need budget.”

Argh! Thank God I’ve got funds in another account.

Weighing a ton, my workout bag seems to be loaded up with everything but the kitchen sink these days.  I hate it when I lug it up the 4 flights of stairs only to carry it back down 8+ hours later — and having not run.  On days like today, when the sun shines brightly, I eagerly grab my bag and head out.

There is no stopping to change; I’ll do that when I get to where I’m going.  I find my parking spot, grab my bag, and make a b-line to the bathroom to change.  Boy am I disappointed to find that my bag had everything but the kitchen sink and MY SHOES!

If you are one of those readers who uses a feed reader to keep abreast of my blog entries, you may have noticed a bit of coming and going of entries. Once again I’m in the process of redefining my privacy boundaries. Rather than jump ship, as I did in 2008 from my BTT site, I simply want to change my personal filtering so that every thought that enters my head isn’t out there.

This is new for me and it doesn’t seem to come easily. Since I write to work through things, I’ve fallen into a habit of posting my every thought on FB, Twitter, or this blog. But there are many things that hit the page which, after a little more thought, I’d rather not have all over the internet. So…if you’ve been watching my posted entries disappear just minutes after they are posted, rest assured that I am fine. I’ve either decided that I would rather maintain some privacy OR I decided that my post was just stupid.

I am working through a lot these days but I have good reason to smile too. I leave it at that.