Update, please!

I have been seriously preoccupied this week. 

First, the two winners of the Red Gold Giant Tomato Can Contest were Aspiring Mom2three and What Megan’s Making.  They were both excited to win!  There must be some kind of blog contest karma, because I won something myself.  We are going to see Disney On Ice tomorrow, thanks to Stacey Says.  

On Monday, we had our “Pretend Home-Schooler” Sugarbush session at Blandford Nature Center.  I loved being in a small group, that the kids were all the same age, and that the naturalist was totally into it.  I did not love that Maybelle announced to everyone that her “preschool teacher said only 5 more days until Spring!”.  One mom whispered to me, “Do you send her to.. preschool?”  I nodded and said slightly apologetically that, in fact, I did.  She confided in me that she sent her daughter too; and was surprised at how many home schoolers sent their kids to preschool before beginning home school.  I agreed that I was surprised too and then tried to keep Maybelle quiet the rest of the time.

Next, BOTH of my kids were the ‘special helper/treat bringer’ on St. Patrick’s Day.  I get just a smidge carried away with this kind of thing, so that gobbled up a lot of my time.  And in turn, I gobbled up a lot of rice crispy treats.  I added green food coloring – I mean this is a saint’s feast day, after all – and one batch turned out an awful puce color. So I ate it.

Today was the big day for my little bunch of friends who decided at some point in December to become runners.  We began a program called “Couch Potato to 5k“ the first week in January with a goal to run the Irish Jig.  And we did.  I’m going to say this, even though it’s embarrassing:  I was the last of my friends to finish.  I was the last of almost everyone to finish!

I had a very uncharacteristic response to this fact.  I like to do things I’m good at and conversely, hate doing things I stink at, so I avoid them.  Today though, I couldn’t have cared less about being an awful, slow runner! I had one goal, and that was not to walk.  I wish my MP3 player could have somehow recorded my thoughts during the race.  I remember thinking after about half a mile, “Oh my God. I can’t do this.  It’s snowing. I’m hot. No, I’m cold. No, hot. I can’t run outside. I’m going to get out of this stampede and go home”.

I settled down though, and slowed down, and people started passing me.  If I had been walking the race, I would have passed me.  Things went well until about 2 miles when I started to get sort of tired, and the snow picked up so now I was cold.  At that point I thought “whether I walk or run right now - I am in the middle of a race that I have to finish either way, so I might as well just run.”  More people passed me.  I was pretty close to the back of the pack now.  But I was running.

A few minutes before I hit the 3 mile mark, it occurred to me that my friends were all done with the race, and probably in their cars driving home.  I was pretty much last, maybe 15 people were behind me.  This is out of  about 4000.  I have never been so determined to so something I was so bad at, but by this point I was too tired to think anything but, “DO NOT WALK ONE DAMN STEP“.  And I didn’t. Walk one damn step.

I saw my husband and kids just before the finish line.  My kids joined me for the last little bit, and my friends, in fact, had not gone home, they were all cheering for me.  I’m so proud of all of us. I’m so thankful for my husband’s support.  It’s been a busy week with not much time to write, but it’s been a good one :)

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