Whoops!

I realized that today is the last day of February and I haven't posted at all this month! I have thought about posting several times, but I guess I never got motivated enough to write. As for how I filled my time this month, it was pretty much life as usual. Pastoring, trying to spend time with friends when possible, cleaning/organizing, taking care of my dog, going to the gym, reading and knitting. I hosted a Super Bowl party for some friends at the beginning of the month. Even though the Steelers didn't win, it was a good game, and I was glad to be able to play hostess. I also hosted some close friends from seminary for a visit just this past weekend. It was really nice to have visitors in the winter! As for crafty things, I haven't had the sewing machine out in a while, but I'm looking forward to a quilting retreat at the end of March. And in the meantime, I've been able to complete several knitting projects that had been laying around unfinished for a while (one since last spring, yikes). And as for reading, after I finished the Harry Potter series (and subsequently watched all the movies) in the fall, I decided I wanted to read through the Chronicles of Narnia series by CS Lewis. I am sure I have read at least one of the books in the past (when I was much yonger), but I know I haven't read through the whole series, so that's my current reading goal. Health and fitness-wise, I've been pretty consistent about getting to the gym this month (or outside on the few warmer days) and running 3-4 days a week and strength training 1-2 days a week. Now I need to start focusing on increasing my mileage, since I haven't really done any long runs all winter. And finally an update on my home organizing/de-cluttering plan: I've made it through the kitchen, dining room, living room, bathrooms, and 2 bedrooms. I only have 2 spaces left to tackle, but they may be the 2 most difficult: the garage (primarily storage) and the 3rd bedroom/office (also has a closet full of storage). Wish me luck! ;)

Looking through a new lens

It was time for an upgrade. I decided to use some money I received for Christmas and buy a new camera. As much as I would have loved to really upgrade to one of the SLR professional cameras, I had no idea how expensive they are until I started researching them. So I decided to stick with the model I already had (Sony Cybershot) and just upgrade to a newer model, with more megapixels (I went from 6 to 14). I haven't played around with it a whole lot yet, but I was excited to discover that there's a setting that automatically puts the camera on whatever setting it should be for the picture I'm taking. For instance, when I was taking pictures of the lighthouse, it switched to landscape setting. I just took my new heading picture today. I decided my blog needed a new look, and a new picture. And as long as we're stuck with snow and winter I might as well look for the beauty in it.

Looking for some help

So there's something I've been struggling with lately and I can't figure out what to do. So I thought I'd write about it here to send it out to the blogosphere and hope for some responses. My problem basically boils down to the fact that I've been tired a lot lately and have a really hard time getting myself out of bed in the morning. I'm a relatively healthy person, and I may even be in better shape physically than the average person (I did just run a marathon!). So why am I so tired? And most nights I'm getting around 8 hours of sleep (there are some nights when I have trouble sleeping, but they don't occur that often, and it's usually just the first few hours I'm in bed, and not all night). So I always have great plans when I go to bed to get up early and workout or get other stuff done and I set my alarm and it goes off in the morning and I hit the snooze button. I've never really been a consistent "snoozer" so how did I get myself into this habit, and more importantly, HOW DO I GET OUT? The last several years I haven't been that fond of winter, so could this possibly be something that is caused by winter? To be totally honest, I'm not opposed to counseling, but I also don't want to jump into that if it's not necessary. Any ideas on a simple way to get myself out of bed in the morning and not hit the snooze several times (I do know that's not quality sleep I'm getting while "snoozing")? I did sign up for a spinning class at my gym one morning and got up when I needed to for that. But that won't work for every morning. Can anyone help?

Looking Ahead

I'm not really big on new year's resolutions. I understand why people are attracted to the idea of having resolutions at the beginning of a new year and viewing it as a time to start over or try new things. But I also know that many of these resolutions aren't successful. So I "resolved" a while ago to make goals and try new things any time during the year that I feel I should. I've posted on here about some of the past goals I've made, and I did recently make another one. I'm going to spend time during the next several weeks simplifying and organizing my "stuff". I value living more simply and keeping my life organized. I've never really had a lot of clutter, but there are always things I could do without. So inspired by the desire to simplify, a book I picked up at a book sale last summer called "Cut the Clutter and Stow the Stuff" and a book my aunt showed me over Christmas called "Throw Out 50 Things", I am going through each room of my house and getting rid of what I can and reorganizing where necessary. So that I'm not overwhelmed or rushed, I plan to do one room a week. I started this week with the living room and have been pretty successful so far, getting rid of some books and magazines, a board game, a few old video tapes and doing a little re-organizing of the bookshelves. I purposely started with an easy room, and hope to be able to keep it up when I get to rooms like my 3rd bedroom/office where I had shelves put in the closet to hide a bunch of clutter. ;)

A Look Back

2010 was a pretty big year for me, with some major life successes and transitions. In an effort to help me remember what happened, and to not let the "small" things get overshadowed by the big events, I took a look back over the year and recorded a month-by-month review. I won't bore you with that detailed review, because I'm pretty sure there are some things on it that will only be meaningful to me, but I thought I'd post my "summary" by season.

2010 Year in Review:

Winter (including some events at the end of 2009)
Celebrated the wedding of two seminary friends, survived "Snowmaggedon" parts 1 and 2 in Philly, began my final semester of seminary, learned I was assigned to NJ for my first call
Spring
Spent some time at the United Nations for a class, saw my college touring choir perform, attended two Phillies games, went sailing with friends, ran in the 10-mile Broad Street Run with 30,000 people (and 2 friends), attended the wedding of two more seminary friends, graduated from seminary with my Master of Divinity degree
Summer
Attended my 11-year high school reunion (yeah, weird, I know), moved and began my first call as pastor of a Lutheran congregation in NJ, attended my friend's baby shower and my cousin's daughter's 3rd birthday party on the same day, celebrated the birth of my cousin's second daughter, celebrated my 29th birthday, went tubing and parasailing, attended two Lakewood Blue Claws games (Phillies farm team), enjoyed visits from my parents and from friends
Fall
Began rehearsing with the South Jersey Area Wind Ensemble (the first instrumental ensemble I've been in since college), Ordained as a minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, officially Installed as pastor of the congregation I serve, enjoyed more visits from my parents and other family, spent time at home with my mom as she recovered from hip surgery, and completed my first marathon in Philly

I gave in...

and joined a gym. Although I keep hearing from people that the wind we've had on the island for basically the whole month of December is NOT typical, I have a hard time believing that. And I also doubt that it will be going away anytime soon. And though I have plenty of warm running clothes, I don't have anything to protect my face from Jack Frost's icy blasts. A few people in my congregation belong to a gym just over on the mainland (that's what we "islanders" call it) and they only have good things to say about it, and they also told me that they were running a special and waiving the join fee until the end of the year. So I went to check the place out, with my mind about 75% made up already that I was going to join. However, I was hoping that I would be able to join on a month-to-month basis so that I could use the place for the winter and then get back to running outside, where I prefer. Well of course the cost for paying only month-to-month was more per month than joining for the year, AND you had to pay the join fee (they were only waiving the join fee for those joining for a year). So, since it was more economical, they sucked me in for a year. Though I imagine once the weather warms up that I won't be using it to run much, I probably will still go a few times a week to do strength training or for some group exercise classes like spinning or yoga. One nice thing about this gym is you don't have to pay extra for those classes. And I know that I should be doing strength training to tone my muscles for running, but I haven't been able to do it consistently, so maybe I finally will.

Post-Marathon Post

I know you've all been waiting in great suspense (haha), so I will confirm that yes, I completed my first marathon! I didn't want to post about it right away because I wanted to allow some time to feel the pain (and hopefully feel the pain diminishing!) and process my feelings about the whole thing. Here's a basic run-down of the event and the days that followed...

Marathon Day

5:15am - wake up, eat some oatmeal, drink some fluids, rub on some "body glide" to avoid chafing (tmi? sorry), layer up

6:15am - leave my friend Sara's apartment, where I stayed because she super conveniently lives right by the art museum, where the race starts and ends... meet up with friends, wait in line for the port-o-potty, take off extra layers, check my bag, jump up and down with nervous excitement

Approx. 7:10am - my wave of the race starts! high-five the mayor of philly as I cross the starting line

Miles 0-9 - feel pretty awesome, loving the tons of cheering people all along the route, smiling and laughing at funny signs with my friend steven/running buddy

Miles 10-13 - still feeling ok, get past the biggest hill of the route without too much trouble, missing the cheering as there are less people along this section of the route

Miles 13 -17 - pass the art museum at the half-way point, where there are lots of people again, starting to have some pain in my knee, but it goes away after a while, starting to slow down, wondering why I signed up for this

Miles 17-19 - have to stop and walk for the first time because of a side cramp, fighting to keep up with Steven who is clearly still feeling good while I am feeling worse and worse

Miles 19-21 - hit the wall (or what I imagine was "hitting the wall" as marathoners talk about), want to die, holy crap how will I make it 6 more miles? mad at myself for feeling so crappy when I had run two 20-mile long runs before and felt like I could have gone more, mad at myself for not trying a 22-mile long run, almost start crying...

Miles 22-24 - fight to keep going, tell myself it is ok to have to do some walking, alternate running and walking, but still doing more running than walking, thankful that Steven has stuck with me, even with all my walking

Miles 24-26 - ok, only about 2 miles left, definitely do-able, more people cheering again toward the end, Steven is encouraging me, I can do this!

Miles 26-26.2 - holy crap, two tenths of a mile have never felt this long, where is the freaking finish line?! I can see it, finishing strong, hands in the air as we cross the finish together after 4 hours 20 minutes and 22 seconds, and immediately hug each other.

I am so grateful to Steven for sticking by me the whole time, I honestly don't know if I could have done it without him. It was definitely one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. But I am glad I did it. And I'm proud.

After we finished we hung around a little while with our friends/family and had some post-race snacks and then I had to get going. Walking back to Sara's apartment took me a ridiculously long time. I showered and packed up and got on my way to drive back to western PA to be with my mom again. It wasn't an easy drive (duh) but it wasn't as bad as I expected, and I got myself some fatty food as a reward and made it to my parents' house and put my feet up and relaxed and ate some more. The next day was awful. Seriously. I felt worse Monday than right after the marathon on Sunday. And I was beyond exhausted. After visiting my mom for a bit, I spent most of the day resting, and so I started to feel a little better Tuesday, and made progress through the week. I treated myself to a massage on Wednesday because I had some nasty pain in my neck and shoulders.

Now that I'm a couple weeks out I'm able to look at it more objectively. The week after the marathon I thought that I never wanted to subject myself to that again. At this point, I'm not ready to sign up for another one right away or anything, but I also know that I probably will do at least one more marathon. AND half marathons seem a lot more manageable now than before I did a full! While the crazy winter wind here on the island has kept me from running as much as I would like, I have been doing some, and I'm happy to say that I still enjoy it. ;)