Saturday, December 18, 2010

Uh, oops. I'm supposed to be good with numbers.

A Beautiful Bah-Humbug
Don't get me wrong--I love Christmas. Really, I do. I have great memories of sitting around the dining room table as a child, eating dinner on Christmas Eve, looking into the living room at the softly glowing tree, with all its ornaments and the gifts beneath it. All the childish anticipation of Christmas morning. Then the late night Christmas Eve service, which was always beautiful. We lit candles in church and turned off the lights, some years we processed outside onto the sidewalk, singing Silent Night with our candles, sometimes in the snow. It was all lovely.

And then yesterday on the phone with my brother I heard myself saying, "We're all excited, but I don't have time for this *%!$!"

And sadly, it's all beautiful and true. Beautiful--the stocking I finally finished knitting for my niece. My son who keeps talking about Jesus's birthday. The wrapping of gifts so lovingly picked out. True--that I don't have time to do things like clean my house and buy groceries while knitting said stocking, working, running, and continuing to settle into our house. The buying holiday cards, sending them out, buying gifts, shipping gifts, decorating, all of it. It's not that it's no longer fun--it's still beautiful--but for the first time in my life I'm finding all of this stressful.

The Dreadmill
After last Sunday's failed attempt to run, it got icy out. That's where I draw the line. Ice. So after a few busy days at work, I made it over to the rec center and signed up for a month's membership. I got two runs in, a 4-miler yesterday and 7 miles this morning. I'm really thankful for a safe place to run, but why does it have to be SO boring?!? I know we're all suffering the dreadmill right now. It gives me solace to know you're all doing the same thing with me. Time to recharge the mp3 player.

Oops
First, the good news--I hit 700 miles today! I know a lot of you passed that milestone back in August (or earlier), but this is a big hairy deal for me! It's a first!!

The bad news--I went back to my January blog post this morning just to double check my 720 goals and discovered, much to my dismay, that I actually said 730. Crap!! I sort of feel attached to the 720 goal. I can reach it at this point, and it's what I've been planning for. But it's not what I said a year ago! I feel conflicted. Time to write down a new plan for the next 13 days and see what is realistic.

6 comments:

Run Jess Run said...

I'm Scroogy this year, too.

TNTcoach Ken said...

LOL....... 200, 221, whatever it takes! Come on, what's 10 miles amongst friends???? HA, Rule 104.3B of Blogging, if you post it, you have to complete it...

Stephanie said...

Check out the shout-out on my blog... it might make you a little less scroogy :) Happy Holidays!

Black Knight said...

It is nice to notice how we have the same memories about Christmas time even if we live in different parts of the world.
The "Dreadmill" my last chance....but last last last last!!!
Merry Christmas to you and family from Italy.

TNTcoach Ken said...

Joanna, we aren't training this weekend because of the holiday.

Unknown said...

You still did awesome this year including a phenomenal new PR on your marathon. I look forward to all the wonderful running (and knitting and scrapping) things you will do next year.

Have a great new year and I'll read you later.