I RAN MY FIRST MILE WITHOUT STOPPING TODAY!!!

You have to understand that this has been crazy hard for me. Why am I so out of shape and why is running so hard?? I started just being able to run between one set of lamp posts. Then I could do two but I'd have to stop and walk some. Then every now and again I could run three without stopping but today I just took off and watched all those lamp posts fly by! (well not really fly . . .) but you know. I cried. I was so happy. 10 min and 30 sec. for one mile and I'm crazy happy. I'm sure half the world is laughing at that feat but to me it's the best! Woo hoo.


Lizzy too is celebrating me running one mile - showing off the destruction she did to herself while I was out running and Jeff was . . . watching her?

I'm going to run a half marathon! Really. I never thought it was remotely possible but I'm going to do it. And I'm also going to help kick cancer's butt. I joined Team in Training to help raise money for Lymphoma and Leukemia research through running this race. I cried through the whole meeting. I have already lost too many people that I love to cancer and came too close with Shelby. I'm not going to sit back anymore and just let it happen. I'm going to do something about it. Something dang hard. Woo woo. Look I'm crying again. Who knew that just getting off my butt could cause such emotion!

Ode to Codes

Yesterday I was doing Lizzy's hair and when I got done Cody said, "Mom, Lizzy looks like a princess! I wish she could marry me someday."
He is a sweet, sweet boy. I think it would be hard to be the 4th child when the 5th came so soon after and demanded so much attention. Cody just goes his way and is so chill about everything. He demands so little and is so good. I just adore him and am so glad he is part of our family.

The answer is still no, Shawn . . .

Stop sending me these pictures!

I won't post this one.


Or this one.



Or this one.


No Shawn, a box of Krispy Kreme's will not sweeten the deal to get you on my favorite people who make me laugh post. You actually have to make me laugh.

You are wasting your time.

Or maybe this is my new favorite quote . . .

"Maybe if you ate more comfort food, you wouldn't have to go around shooting people."
Hurley from "Lost"

Laughing

The thought this month in Real Simple magazine was this:
"Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh." W.H. Auden

I have thought a lot about this since I read it and I have thought back to past best friends and the people I enjoy the most and realize that this is so true for my life. I am so glad I was born into such a fun family and that we have laughed our way through life -even the really hard trials. I am grateful for my fun, fun husband and hope that the couple above is us in 50 years. He makes me laugh every day. I am thankful for fun friends who make me chuckle even hours after they have left. Here are a few pictures of some of those I love because of all the laughing. I'll post more when I get a second to scan some more pictures. Here's to all the laughs!

Are you done counting your blessings??

So my sister in law asks on here the other day, "Are you done counting your blessings?" I had to laugh. No - I'm just lazy. Or maybe I have too many blessing to count. Or maybe Shelby is slowly trying to kill me by making me run a 1/2 marathon in April and by night I have nothing left. (ok, maybe that would be true if I had to type with my calves, but since I don't we'll just go back to lazy.) But my body is rebelling. My calves are crying, "Are you trying to kill us???" Honestly. I think it's torture. Needed torture - but none the less TORTURE. We have these Nike + things that go in our shoes and then we race each other in different states etc. I don't want to get behind so I go. But my legs won't stop hurting. You'd think after 3 weeks it would settle down a little - but it's worse today than it has ever been. Maybe because I am going from atrophy to running. I really haven't exercised in my life so my muscles (or lack thereof) may be freaking out. Blah blah. Boo hoo me.
But I'm not going to quit. We are running the Lymphoma marathon in Nashville and we are doing it to prove that Shel kicked cancer's butt and maybe to help someone else kick it too. Every time I start to get discouraged with this training, I think of Shelby fighting her way through chemo, radiation and the whole disease and I think ,"I really can just run a few miles." I'm grateful Shelby challenged me to do this. This is really hard for me. As you can tell by my little guy on the side of my blog - I'm no speed demon. But look at me - I've almost ran a whole marathon worth of miles in just three weeks. I never thought I could even do that. So thanks Shelby for being so inspirational. For making me do hard things. And for living through something so scary so that when I feel like quiting I can just chant to my self, "Did Shelby quit?? Never!" If she ran a half marathon not a year out of full on cancer, I can get off my butt and run with her in April. Wish me luck. And then come over here and rub my legs.