yes, i am still here

Wow, it's been almost two weeks since I blogged. Crazy! I don't have anything particularly momentous to share today either but I thought I'd post something so my regular readers (i.e. my mom) know that I am still alive. So, random thoughts ...

... my ankle is way better. Thursday was the first day that I woke up and realized by ankle wasn't hurting. And then on top of that it started feeling *normal* again. Not just not-hurting, but like "oh, this is what it felt like before I sprained it." Hooray for the power of the body to heal itself, even if it does take a month! My ankle injury and healing process has also made me super-grateful for the overall health of my body. And even happier that I am using my body to its fullest (in soccer and running) while it is young and healthy. I'm not getting any younger you know!

... THE RACE is just three days away! My dear running buddies Kyle and Sarah have helped me run the distance (5K or 3.1 miles) twice now. So now I feel like the actual race will be rather anticlimactic ;) but maybe having all those people watching and cheering will make it more exciting ;) In any case, I am still kind of astonished that I can actually do this. Someday I will do it in less than 47 minutes ...

... my workplace, which shall remain nameless, has asked me to remove all references to it from my blog (new blogging policy). Erasing everything was pretty painful, and there have been a number of things I've wanted to write about in the past few weeks and couldn't, which has also been hard. But for now I'll hold them in my heart and try to keep my eyes open for the beautiful and interesting things going on in the rest of my life. Maybe this will help me not to focus on work too much :)

... tonight is the first Citybuilding discussion for the South Bend branch. Having heard a talk on it yesterday, and anticipating the discussion tonight, already made me think more throughout the day about what our city should look like. For example, read this article about the infamous Wooden Indian motel. The controversy over new licensing policies for budget motels is interesting but for me, the real question is how do we care properly for the mentally ill in our community, and how can we be Christ to the prostitutes and drug dealers ...

... "we need a little Christmas, right this very minute, candles in the window, carols at the spinet ..." I couldn't wait for Thanksgiving this year to start listening to Christmas music. Partly that could be because we had a Thanksgiving dinner for Anne's birthday last Sunday and after cooking a turkey, it just has to be Christmastime. It's also because things were a little rough at my unnamed workplace and I just needed a little cheering up. I needed to sing in celebration of the Incarnation and think more about Christ being born into the muck of this world. He's here with us, came to be with us even though we'd messed up the world so darn much - just because He loves us. Praise God. (So, don't laugh at me for listening to Christmas music early!)

... some of my Christmas music is swing and when I put it on I couldn't resist holding my invisible partner's hands and dancing around my room (gently so as not to hurt my ankle). Can't wait to swing dance again!

... I've been out of soccer for about a month now and I realized Saturday night, when we were kicking a ball around lightly in Kyle's basement, that sometime in the past year and a half I transformed from a person who is afraid to play soccer, to a person who doesn't mind it, to a person who likes it a lot, to a person whose feet itch for movement when she can't play. I wonder if the same will happen with running.

... this blog is quite long enough now.