Friday, May 23, 2008

what am I doing?

since I've been busy out here I thought I would post all the things I would have put on Twitter, which by the way I am now putting on my site ... look at the right-hand sidebar ... Twitter is a site that's all about answering the question "What are you doing?" in 140 words or fewer to keep in touch with family and friends.

So here are some of the things I would have put on Twitter the past couple days if I had bothered to get on the computer, or if I wanted to pay for texting it from my phone ...

driving through the most glorious mountains I have ever seen
washing an endless supply of glass candleholders
running through a lumberyard
cutting fake cherry blossoms with bolt cutters
driving to Harrisburg with GPS to pick up two people I've never seen before
pickup successful.  Now arguing with the GPS voice

 ... and that brings me about up to date.  Who else wants to get on Twitter and tell us what you're doing?

Thursday, May 22, 2008

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

Uncle Jim tagged me with this ...

I am (a/an):

a. audible singer
b. bike-to-work kind of gal
c. charismatic catholic
d. delicious cook
e.  excellent writer
f.  free human being
g.  gracious hostess
h.  humble ;)
i.  inquiring mind
j.  justice-and-peacenik
k.  kan't think of what starts with k
l.  loving sister, daughter, niece, aunt, cousin, friend
m. mistake-maker
n.  nearsighted  8-)
o.  optimist
p.  pushy when I have to be
q.  quiet sometimes
r.  road-tripper (also recent runner)
s.  sinner (also swing-dancer, also soccer-player)
t.  tenacious
u.  unpretentious
v.  victorious
w.  willing to try new things
x.  ???
y.  yarn user
z.  ztupendous

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

from PA

Just a quick update from Liberty, PA, one of the prettiest places on earth. I had a lovely drive out here Monday - ten hours just flew by :) My favorite part of the whole trip is this little five-mile section of PA 64 that I drive on right after getting off route 80. The loveliest valley you've ever seen. I'll try to stop and take pictures on the way back. The other cool part of the trip was seeing the work they're doing on 15 North out here - they're ripping up the hillside to make the highway bigger or something - it was neat to see the bare, raw, red earth and the smoke where they were burning up big tree roots. They're going to begin blasting on Monday - ooh, maybe I'll get to see some of that.

I had a lovely last week in the Bend before coming out here. Wednesday I got to have lunch with "Uncle Jim", fellow blogger and brother from the Muncie branch. Maybe this is a wierd metaphor, but I kind of think of him as a tree God planted - strong and full of life - sturdy and unshakeable - he has a lot of love to give and seems to just give it unhesitatingly. He told me a great story about inviting a bunch of people (was it 11, Jim?) over to dinner even though he has minimal cooking experience :) What a blessing, meeting him was the highlight of my week.

I did get ANOTHER six-mile run in on Saturday - still pretty amazed. I am struggling to figure out how to keep up my training while out of town but I do think I will have time for a run tomorrow morning - from here to town and back is four miles. After a run and a shower I am down towards Lewisburg for MY BROTHER'S WEDDING! The words still feel funny to say. "My brother is getting married on Saturday." Crazy! Anyway, I am super-looking forward to all the wedding prep we're going to do these next three days - I am ready to roll up my sleeves, pull back my hair, and dive in headfirst. Can't wait.

I hope to get back to a computer soon to give you more updates on how it's all going, but we'll see what happens ... in the meantime peace to you all!

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

i like running too

... so with the help of the HOLY SPIRIT ... this morning I jogged six miles straight.

Monday, May 12, 2008

i like basketball

Only six of us showed up to soccer last night, so after an exhausting forty-five minutes of World Cup (and the loss of one player who had to get up early this morning), everyone kind of wanted to play basketball instead. Basketball? OK, I still have vivid memories of the last time I tried to play basketball - I didn't know what the heck I was doing, I was surrounded by about a billion people, it was one of my classic sports-torture moments where all I wanted to do was hide somewhere and cry. Absolutely, totally miserable. Even after I started playing soccer, and learned a bit of volleyball, and began running, basketball was still firmly outside of my comfort zone. I mean, way outside. Like no, I will not consider playing it, thank you anyway.

But five people is just not enough to play soccer, and none of us wanted to go home, so what else were we going to do? "If y'all want to teach me how to play," I told my friends, "and if you'll bear with me when I start crying ... then OK."

But you know what? No tears. Michael gave me an EXCELLENT two-minute explanation of basketball and how to dribble and how to shoot. By the way, another vivid memory - trying to dribble a basketball down the pavement in grade school gym class - it just seemed impossible! I could not get the hang of it. Oh man, gym class, how I hated it ... anyway, last night was a different story. I was able to kind of get the basics of the game, enough to play in our little three-on-two game ... and I made a few good passes. And I actually got the ball in the basket once. And, I had fun. That is really the most amazing part. And it's really quite a tribute to Michael, Sarah, Justin and Kyle ... it's really amazing to me, to have friends who love me so much that they'll play a game with me that I barely know how to play, and that they can break through this terrible lifelong barrier I've had and actually help me have fun playing basketball. Amazing. Can I overuse that word a bit more? Amazing. Amazing. Amazing.

In other news ... running is still hard. The Sunburst 10K is 19 days away and I continue to have LOTS of trouble jogging even a mile without stopping to walk. As I told Pete the other day, at the rate I am currently going - and many people can literally walk faster than I am jogging - it will take me an entire two hours to finish the 10K. "And that," I told him, "is just not acceptable." Not just because it would be a ridiculously embarrassing time, but also because I really don't want to be running for that long of a time! Running doesn't feel very good, and I don't really want to feel that way for two hours.

But for some reason, today I feel differently about it. I've mapped out the run I plan to do tomorrow morning - three miles up Riverside and back - and it probably will take me two hours, and I'm just going to be OK with that. I don't know why running has been so bad lately, and I don't know if it will ever get better, but I'm going to do it anyway.

OK, so go back to that last paragraph and erase that "for some reason" part. I know the reason. Yesterday was Pentecost, so at our People of Praise meeting we got into small groups and prayed over one another, and among other things, one thing I asked for prayers for was that the Lord would help me with running. JUST NOW as I was writing all this I realized this is his answer. He's (probably) not going to magically make me a better runner, but he will pull me through and jog with me for the whole two hours.

Amen.