Mondays in Love AND On Notice

I've got a two-fer for you today--Mondays in Love and Mondays on Notice.

Mondays in Love: Anniversary Edition

It's been a lot of things:

It's been 7 years, 3 states, 1 PhD, 2 houses, and 2 babies. 

It's been his support of me through fundraising, watching kids, and cheering me on through 

3 marathons, 6 half-marathons, and thousands of miles.

It's been me and my hubby creating a crazy, chaotic life that we love. <3

Mondays on Notice: Running Gear

I have not one, but two pieces of running gear I need to put on Notice today. I'm hoping someone can give me some insight on the first. 

That's right, my Garmin has died again. And this time, I can't get it to turn back on. WTH?!? I only got my Garmin two years ago and this one is already a manufacturer replacement for the first, which stopped recording maps. With this one, I could never get it to stop trying to find satellites, and I think it just finally killed the battery beyond what I can charge. Or not. I don't know. I'm going to call Garmin Support tomorrow, but does anyone have ideas of what I could do? I REALLY don't want to have to replace it.

Second, it took me a mere embarrassing two years to completely clear this spot of floor once we moved in. And once I got everything picked up and put away, I still had one stubborn pile left...my pile of Runner's Worlds. Am I the only person who doesn't get every page of them read and ends up with a pile? At what point do you commit an afternoon to reading through them or just pitching them? 

Run strong my friends! 

Mondays on Notice: Found Not Guilty

Blogger admission of truth: when I read (or write) posts about being too busy to run/train/exercise, I almost always (almost!) think the same thing--excuses. So it is with great hesitation (seriously, it's taken me all day to feel ok about this post) that I'm about to say this:

I have just been too exhausted to find the early hours to run more than about twice a week. 

Since this time last night, here's what my day has looked like:

• From 10-11pm I fed the baby, washed baby things and dishes, straightened up the bedroom, packed baby things for daycare today, and went to bed. 
• Woke up at 2am to feed the baby, take Big Brother to the bathroom.
• Woke up at 4:30 to soothe the baby and coax him back to sleep, then eventually feed him
• Woke up at 6:30 to soothe & feed baby
• 7-7:45, breakfast and being a mommy to my two boys, getting everyone out of the house
• 7:45-9:15, cleaning up the kitchen, packing up all my stuff, iron pants, shower, dress, out the door (how in the WORLD does it take so long?!?)
• 9:30-5:30, work, stopping 3 times to, um...prepare baby food (sorry dudes!) and once to run home and back because I forgot lids for the bottles
• 5:30-8, dinner, playing with Big Brother, and his bedtime
• evening, paying bills, writing blog post, and, believe it or not, working--I'm up against a deadline
• rinse and repeat, except tomorrow I have a work meeting that starts at 7:30am. 

As Kdot says, you can't work, have a little tiny baby, and keep up a serious hobby. Pick two of the three. That's the limit. 

Babies generally start sleeping through the night around 3 months. Some start a little earlier, some take well over a year. But until baby is on a somewhat predictable schedule, it's very hard for parents to be on a very predictable schedule. And we're exhausted. Exhausted. 

When I take a hard look at myself and ask if I'm making excuses, I have to find myself Not Guilty. I was a lot harder on myself when Big Brother was little tiny, and I learned the hard way not to be. So this is me saying heck yeah for starting back, however slowly. Saying heck yeah for fun runs, slow runs, and sleeping when I can. This is me putting guilt On Notice. 

Mondays in Love: Wisdom

This morning I filed Run #3 in the Run & Done folder and I loved it for so many reasons. Like my last run, I did a 3:1 run/walk. It's hard! It makes me really appreciative. 

Reason #1: It's humbling to remember how hard it is to start from scratch or close to it. I think when I'm really fit, it's easy to forget how hard this is for beginners. It's good to be reminded of that from time to time. I was out 11 weeks. It will help me be a better Running Big (get it, like Bigs in sororities and frats?) later on. 

Reason #2: I haven't felt like I was going to die. After Big Brother was born I thought I was going to kick it on my first few runs back. I 100% attribute the change to running wisdom. This time around I know how important it is to ease back into things and gradually build up. I know what I need to stretch to keep from hurting myself. I know how to manage hydration better. And this time around I know that the fitness will return, and in relative terms, pretty quickly. 

Reason #3: I barely beat the sticky sick weather and the rain today and got my run in during some lovely morning weather. I LOVE when I do that. Joanna 1, Summer 0. 

Reason #4: I saw a billboard advertising a 4 mile race on the 4th of July. Since I haven't felt like I was going to die, I'm considering making this my  first race back. What do you think? Is this reasonable? It won't be a PR--I'm not ready for that--but I think I can get up to that distance. Right? I'm at about 2.5 run/walk right now. 

In other news, my office move is...going. There is stuff EVERYWHERE. My new bookshelves didn't come with the hardware to install the shelves, so while I wait for Facilities to send them to me, all my stuff is still in the shrink-wrapped rolly cart that they used to move my stuff. And the giant cart is taking up the space I need for my appliances, reading chair, and coffee table. It's a hot mess. But it's a hot mess I'm still pretty thrilled to have. 

The Weekly Check-In: Progress!

Today's weekly check-in is the second installment of getting the blog caught up to life here in the real world. On the weight loss/getting back to speed front, there's mostly good news and a little wrist slapping going on.

The good news is that I'm down another 2lb! This puts me exactly halfway between Fit and Baby and only 1lb over my intermediate goal of reaching my Christmas 2010 weight. Woohoo! I think I can mostly chalk this up to being insanely busy these past two weeks and being constantly on the go. Oh, and I'm back to running. :)

The wrist slapping is that right after I started journaling my food the circus came to town for The Kiddo's birthday party (which was great fun!) and I promptly fell off the journaling wagon. Time to get back on my horse.

I've been thinking lately about the challenges I have to weight loss and the opportunities I have. The biggest among my challenges are simply time and energy. Baby Brother is still a little small for a jogging stroller, so I need to run when Mr. Joanna is home and can watch him. Early morning hours are unlikely because I am so completely sleep deprived (although I did an early AM run today!!). Evening hours haven't worked out yet, but I'm thinking with a little concerted effort, I might be able to make this an opportunity. Sometimes.

Time constraints have been a huge challenge here these past two weeks. The utter insanity around here lately is from a few things. First, remember how we sold our house and moved two years ago? Well, to make a long story short, the sale didn't go through. We've been scrambling to get it cleaned up so new people will love it and buy it. For real this time. On this front, I think the crazy part is over--whew!

Also, I've been back to work part-time while being home with the baby full-time. I've had some regular work projects going on, but by far the craziest part of work is that one colleague and I are moving to another department and are consequently moving our offices...tomorrow. This is highly unusual in higher education, and is usually the result of fairly dramatic circumstances, as was the case here. This is the end product of the madness that I mentioned had been going on at work some time ago. I'm so, SO thankful it's over, and will be happy to return to a calmer work life. The move is a really positive change for us.

I don't have pictures for this post so you get a gratuitous pic of Baby Brother with my Dad. <3

Mondays in Love: My Maiden Voyage!!

Ohmygoodness, I have SO much to catch y'all up on after taking last week off from blogs while the circus* was in town for the kiddo's birthday. Some of it you're gonna have to wait for the Weekly Check-In to catch up on. But the most exciting piece, right here, right now:

I WENT FOR MY FIRST POST-BABY RUN!!

I did a 3 mile run/walk with my neighbor on Saturday. You know what? It put a HUGE smile on my face. Was it slow? Yes. Were my legs sore the next day? Yes. Did the effort level feel like I should be moving way faster? Yes. And I loved it. I am BACK! I can't wait to hit the roads again. 

My next time out I'm planning to do regular run/walk intervals and pick up the pace a little bit during the run intervals from what I did on Saturday. I am 100% OK with the fact that it's going to take a while to get back into top racing form. I'm just thrilled to start the journey! 

* circus (n): the congregation of my entire family at one time. That's 4 kids ages 4 and under, my husband and me, my brother and his wife, my parents and my MIL.