6:30 was wake-up call so I could drive Dan to the airport. 8:15 was the meeting time at Sarah's house so she and Nora and Pete and I could all drive up to the race together.
41:07 was my official time for the 5K. That's 49th out of 50 women in my age group, and 307th out of 321 total women, and 664th out of 688 total runners. But gee whiz, who cares about those numbers. I ran and finished and had fun AND improved my personal 5K time by 6 minutes. The more important number here is 8 brothers & sisters cheering each other on at the race.
5 was the number around the table at Thanksgiving dinner. My choir-friends Joni and Kevin and their daughters Sarah and Bridget, and me. I had 2 servings of stuffing. We played 2 rounds of Skip-Bo after dinner and then chilled in the living room listening to Nanci Griffith, whom Joni and Kevin have seen in concert 6 times.
When I left Joni & Kevin's, the snow was falling thickly and I couldn't resist going to Notre Dame to see how beautiful it would be. 25 is the approximate number of snowy-tree photos I took there while my fingers froze numb ... would have been more (and I would have gotten frostbite) but my battery died.
2.5 hours is how long I spent watching a cheesy movie on TV (and resting my race-weary, snow-chilled body). 62 is what I turned the thermostat to before going upstairs with the intention of going to bed. Instead of bed I started my 56th blog post.
11:34 is the time right now, and it's time to go to sleep.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Monday, November 19, 2007
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.
... 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.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
cleaning house
My dear friend Kristin is moving across town, and twice I've had the opportunity to help her get the new house ready. Last Thursday a bunch of us went over to wash walls. I used to live in Kristin's new neighborhood so it was delightful to work with (and chat with) my old friends from that area - Mary Ann and Larry, Geoff and Sue, Peggy and Bill, and Ron and little Owen (who is not so little anymore, when did he get so tall?). The nicest part, though, was seeing that big group of people, whom I love, pour out their love for Kristin, whom I love. Everyone was scrubbing cheerfully and seemed entirely happy to be there. Such a nice and quiet but also profound way for them to welcome Kristin's family more into their lives.
Then last night my women's group and another group from the new area (and Sarah too because she is always there when there's work to be done) got together to paint some wood paneling in the basement and take care of miscellaneous items on Kristin's to-do list. We had a lot of fun! I had a major flashback to Allendale since the wood paneling was just like the house that we painted down there. I unconsciously slipped back into crew-chief mode and after I finished taping around doorways, I walked around for a few minutes checking on everyone and quietly inspecting their work ;) I was even working with the mother of one of the teens I went to Allendale with, and it was fun to have a chance to tell her how much I'd enjoyed working with her son.
Anyway, the house was filled with people and we all got a lot of work done. And all the men will be there tonight moving everything in. How the heck does everyone else in the world handle a move like this? Well, I guess they hire movers and painters. But movers and painters don't welcome you into the neighborhood and make your house into your home before you even move in ... praise God for what Kristin got to experience with all of us and what we all got to experience with Kristin!
Then last night my women's group and another group from the new area (and Sarah too because she is always there when there's work to be done) got together to paint some wood paneling in the basement and take care of miscellaneous items on Kristin's to-do list. We had a lot of fun! I had a major flashback to Allendale since the wood paneling was just like the house that we painted down there. I unconsciously slipped back into crew-chief mode and after I finished taping around doorways, I walked around for a few minutes checking on everyone and quietly inspecting their work ;) I was even working with the mother of one of the teens I went to Allendale with, and it was fun to have a chance to tell her how much I'd enjoyed working with her son.
Anyway, the house was filled with people and we all got a lot of work done. And all the men will be there tonight moving everything in. How the heck does everyone else in the world handle a move like this? Well, I guess they hire movers and painters. But movers and painters don't welcome you into the neighborhood and make your house into your home before you even move in ... praise God for what Kristin got to experience with all of us and what we all got to experience with Kristin!
Thursday, October 25, 2007
yes, you can have my photos
So, I got a digital camera this summer ... so that I could post photos on my blog, edit them to make them look nicer, do digital storage instead of shoeboxes under my bed, and stop buying disposable cameras. I wasn't really thinking much of the sharing part ... not that I was opposed to sharing photos, I just wasn't aware what it would take.
Whenever I got photos developed before, I would get doubles and when people looked through my new photos, if they wanted one, they just took it. Done. Now that my photos exist on CDs instead of on paper, people see me taking a picture, they ask me to send it to them, and much to the surprise of oblivious little me, now I actually have to do something to make that happen. I could e-mail it to them, but I take my photos on the high-quality setting and it takes a billion years to email them. So about twenty people suggested I get a Flickr account, but it just wasn't that simple for me. As scatterbrained as I can be, I can also be pretty finicky - I wanted my photos to be just right, and I wanted them nicely organized so that family did not have to look at twenty shots of my friends before getting to the Christmas photo of my nephew, and my friends did not have to see all my family members when all they wanted to see was that one beach picture, and nobody would have to see my six dozen landscapes unless they wanted to.
So, I had all these standards for photo sharing, and thanks to Kodak picture CDs and my digital camera, I had fourteen months' worth of photos to both edit and organize. And that was a little overwhelming. (It became more overwhelming every time someone suggested Flickr.) So I decided to dedicate my October vacation to getting things organized, and I spent three days on my mom's computer, editing each and every photo and putting them all into albums on Picasaweb. I can't guarantee that I will keep up with all this, but I'll try ... but for now, for all of you who have been waiting patiently for me to share my photos, they are now ready to be shared. Enjoy!
(PS - I probably didn't have to write such a long blog post about all this, but I felt like I had to explain to you all why I took so long and why I got that look on my face whenever you said "Flickr.")
Whenever I got photos developed before, I would get doubles and when people looked through my new photos, if they wanted one, they just took it. Done. Now that my photos exist on CDs instead of on paper, people see me taking a picture, they ask me to send it to them, and much to the surprise of oblivious little me, now I actually have to do something to make that happen. I could e-mail it to them, but I take my photos on the high-quality setting and it takes a billion years to email them. So about twenty people suggested I get a Flickr account, but it just wasn't that simple for me. As scatterbrained as I can be, I can also be pretty finicky - I wanted my photos to be just right, and I wanted them nicely organized so that family did not have to look at twenty shots of my friends before getting to the Christmas photo of my nephew, and my friends did not have to see all my family members when all they wanted to see was that one beach picture, and nobody would have to see my six dozen landscapes unless they wanted to.
So, I had all these standards for photo sharing, and thanks to Kodak picture CDs and my digital camera, I had fourteen months' worth of photos to both edit and organize. And that was a little overwhelming. (It became more overwhelming every time someone suggested Flickr.) So I decided to dedicate my October vacation to getting things organized, and I spent three days on my mom's computer, editing each and every photo and putting them all into albums on Picasaweb. I can't guarantee that I will keep up with all this, but I'll try ... but for now, for all of you who have been waiting patiently for me to share my photos, they are now ready to be shared. Enjoy!
(PS - I probably didn't have to write such a long blog post about all this, but I felt like I had to explain to you all why I took so long and why I got that look on my face whenever you said "Flickr.")
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Tuesday, October 23, 2007
i heard it on NPR
Somewhere in Ohio, early afternoon on Saturday, as I was driving home to South Bend, I heard a set of stories about violence. The first was about a new program in Philadelphia, the second was about memorial T-shirts for victims of violence, but the third, about a personal response to violence, was the one that literally made my jaw drop. Go listen to it here. The whole set is eleven minutes long, the third story begins around the 7:30 mark. The Washington Post also covered the same story, not as well, but if you'd rather read than listen, then go here to read about it.
Monday, October 22, 2007
sprained ankle, broken heart
We had an awesome game of soccer last night! Except for the part where I was rolling around on the floor in pain. The good news is, I did not break any bones! Hooray for my 26-year "no broken bones" streak! The bad news is, I need to wear an air cast and take it easy for the next two weeks at least, so I am officially out of the 5K on Nov. 3.
I was pretty bummed this morning when I woke up and realized I probably needed to go to Med Point and that I probably would not be running my first race anytime very soon. My most recent training run, out in Pennsylvania farmland this weekend, surrounded by cornfields and mountains and a sunrise that glorified the autumn leaves, was quite inspiring and I was starting to get really excited about the Run Baby Baby Run. So at 7:00 this morning, after a sub-par night of sleep, realizing this Baby would not be Running was worthy of a few tears. But Anne helped me put things in perspective and really, things are not so bad. I'm not in much pain, I'll recover pretty soon, I may even be able to do the Turkey Trot race on Thanksgiving, and even if I'm not better in time for that, the world will not come to an end.
* But, it was still enough of an event to blog about. So you can post your sympathetic comments now. ;)
I was pretty bummed this morning when I woke up and realized I probably needed to go to Med Point and that I probably would not be running my first race anytime very soon. My most recent training run, out in Pennsylvania farmland this weekend, surrounded by cornfields and mountains and a sunrise that glorified the autumn leaves, was quite inspiring and I was starting to get really excited about the Run Baby Baby Run. So at 7:00 this morning, after a sub-par night of sleep, realizing this Baby would not be Running was worthy of a few tears. But Anne helped me put things in perspective and really, things are not so bad. I'm not in much pain, I'll recover pretty soon, I may even be able to do the Turkey Trot race on Thanksgiving, and even if I'm not better in time for that, the world will not come to an end.
* But, it was still enough of an event to blog about. So you can post your sympathetic comments now. ;)
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
covenant
A week and a half ago, a couple hundred people told me they would stick with me forever. Now, I was actually the one "making the covenant" (myself and six others in our branch of the People of Praise), and I did tell those hundreds of people that I would stick with them too; but the cool thing about the covenant ceremony is that the newbies and the already-covenanted members all say the covenant together. Because "together" is the point of it all.
I've delayed writing this post because I just couldn't settle on the right words, especially because some of you reading this don't exactly know what I'm talking about. For you, here's a brief explanation: the People of Praise is an ecumenical, charismatic, covenant community. It's not my church (I go to Mass at Holy Cross and try to be pretty involved there); it's a way to live with other Christians, and build God's kingdom, beyond my life in my parish. In the People of Praise I live in household, work in the Action Division (that's the group I go to Louisiana with every summer), hang out with my women's group once a week, hang out with the young adults group the rest of the time, and get together with everybody in the branch on Sunday afternoons for a prayer meeting. There's tons more to say about it, but that's a basic explanation.
(If you click on the "POP" tag at the end of this post you can take a look at all the other posts that have had something to do with my life in the People of Praise.)
So that's PoP. What's "making the covenant"? Basically it's making a formal statement that I am going to be part of the People of Praise for the rest of my life. It's a pretty big deal (my mom even came out for the covenant ceremony, thanks Mom!). But in another way it's not a big change. I made the covenant on a Sunday. Monday morning I got up and lived the same PoP life that I lived on Saturday and many days before (I've been in PoP for about seven years). Actually, the whole thing is beautifully mundane. While much of the covenant statement is eloquent, the last line is decidedly un-poetic: "... we agree that the weekly meeting of the community is primary among our commitments and that we will not be absent except for a serious reason." The end. I love that it's not poetic. Because Christian life is not about poetry - although sometimes it is quite beautiful - mostly it's about practical decisions and day-to-day details. Rolling out of bed in time to croak out a song at household morning prayer. Cutting errands short to make it to the PoP center on time for a prayer meeting. Bringing pretzels and two liters of Dr. Pepper to a women's event. These are the things I've been doing for the past sven years and I'm just going to keep on doing them.
But the part that really is awe-inspiring is the people. Apart from all the things we do - we could change it all tomorrow if the Spirit so led us - apart from all the meetings and routines, I have quite simply bonded myself to a couple hundred people in South Bend, and hundreds elsewhere, anf they have bonded themselves to me. We've promised to support each other "spiritually, materially, and financially." We will praise the Lord together, build His kingdom together, live life together, for the rest of our lives. As a covenanted friend joked last night: "We're stuck with each other."
I've delayed writing this post because I just couldn't settle on the right words, especially because some of you reading this don't exactly know what I'm talking about. For you, here's a brief explanation: the People of Praise is an ecumenical, charismatic, covenant community. It's not my church (I go to Mass at Holy Cross and try to be pretty involved there); it's a way to live with other Christians, and build God's kingdom, beyond my life in my parish. In the People of Praise I live in household, work in the Action Division (that's the group I go to Louisiana with every summer), hang out with my women's group once a week, hang out with the young adults group the rest of the time, and get together with everybody in the branch on Sunday afternoons for a prayer meeting. There's tons more to say about it, but that's a basic explanation.
(If you click on the "POP" tag at the end of this post you can take a look at all the other posts that have had something to do with my life in the People of Praise.)
So that's PoP. What's "making the covenant"? Basically it's making a formal statement that I am going to be part of the People of Praise for the rest of my life. It's a pretty big deal (my mom even came out for the covenant ceremony, thanks Mom!). But in another way it's not a big change. I made the covenant on a Sunday. Monday morning I got up and lived the same PoP life that I lived on Saturday and many days before (I've been in PoP for about seven years). Actually, the whole thing is beautifully mundane. While much of the covenant statement is eloquent, the last line is decidedly un-poetic: "... we agree that the weekly meeting of the community is primary among our commitments and that we will not be absent except for a serious reason." The end. I love that it's not poetic. Because Christian life is not about poetry - although sometimes it is quite beautiful - mostly it's about practical decisions and day-to-day details. Rolling out of bed in time to croak out a song at household morning prayer. Cutting errands short to make it to the PoP center on time for a prayer meeting. Bringing pretzels and two liters of Dr. Pepper to a women's event. These are the things I've been doing for the past sven years and I'm just going to keep on doing them.
But the part that really is awe-inspiring is the people. Apart from all the things we do - we could change it all tomorrow if the Spirit so led us - apart from all the meetings and routines, I have quite simply bonded myself to a couple hundred people in South Bend, and hundreds elsewhere, anf they have bonded themselves to me. We've promised to support each other "spiritually, materially, and financially." We will praise the Lord together, build His kingdom together, live life together, for the rest of our lives. As a covenanted friend joked last night: "We're stuck with each other."
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