Garage Sales?

On August 1, 2015August 2, 2015 By runnergirl02In UncategorizedLeave a comment

I think one of the really good things about garage sales is that they force me to go through my belongings and get rid of stuff. When we have a garage sale we never keep anything that doesn’t sell. We either leave it in a box on the curb to get taken for free or we donate it to Good Will. We are not the kind of people who have a storage, if it doesn’t fit in my 1800 sq. ft. 4 bedroom house then we don’t need it…my husband on the other hand is a hoarder…so you know…conflict can arise…on occasion…

I don’t really have anyplace I’m going with this idea so I’ll just jot down a few things I’ve been thankful for this week…

-For my treadmill 🙂 Usually not a huge fan of treadmill running but the air here in the valley has been particularly bad because of the fires in our foothills. I’ve been doing my runs this week on the treadmill. I will brave the road tomorrow, hopefully the air is okay. If you’ve watched the news and or read about the Willow Fire here in CA…we are about an hour or so away from that blaze…which leads me to…

-Firefighters…so thankful for those that brave these fires in ridiculous heat and work so hard to protect, people, livestock, buildings..

-For our garage sale today…helping us to get rid of some of the clutter in our lives…we still have a lot to be sure but you know being reminded you are blessed isn’t such a terrible thing…

-Almost forgot my daughter and I baked Zucchini Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting this week! Yummy!

So for treadmills, firefighters, getting rid of clutter and cupcakes…I Give Thanks!

Keep on Running…

Stickers all around!

On July 30, 2015September 7, 2018 By runnergirl02In UncategorizedLeave a comment

106 here where I live today…HOT! No running outside for me because in addition to being 106 we have bad air quality because of a fire in our nearby mountains. When I say nearby…we are about an hour or so away from the fire…I did complete my arm workout though and get 10000 steps so I’m good with that:-)

So for today…

I’m thankful for a good guitar lesson! My teacher, who doesn’t give out stickers, said if he did give out stickers I would have earned several today:-)!!

Air conditioning…I’m really thankful we have one car that still has working air conditioning.

Lastly…just being home safe…I spent a little time this evening with my husband looking for a Christmas song to learn for my recital in December…I always enjoy listening to music!!

So for guitar lessons, stickers, air, and listening to Christmas music…

I Give Thanks!

Keep on Running…

Not a great day…

On July 28, 2015April 30, 2024 By runnergirl02In UncategorizedLeave a comment

So…today wasn’t a great day…feeling sad and blah…guess we all do from time to time…yes?

Missing my baby…sad about how people who can have children treat theirs like crap…like leaving them in hot cars with windows rolled up to die…Who does that? Idiots…

Well…since my goal is to be thankful…I need to find some things to be thankful for today…so…

-For car mechanics…one fixed my car today…cost more than I would have liked but I have my car back now…

-For chocolate chips, very tasty and even more so in the chocolate chocolate chip cupcakes my daughter and I made today…with vanilla buttercream frosting and yes sprinkles! Tomorrow we are planning on zucchini with cinnamon cream cheese frosting…

-For my husband who stayed home to get the cars taken care of…the other one is in the shop now..so one in one out…but I suspect he really took the day for me…

-For my daughter…

-For my health, which in general is good…

-For David Crowder’s, Come As you Are, whose lyrics I recited in my head today, over and over…it was my recital song for guitar…

….I guess maybe it wasn’t such a bad day afterall…

I Give Thanks!

Keep On Running…

Proverbs 13:4

On July 24, 2015 By runnergirl02In UncategorizedLeave a comment

“The appetite of the lazy craves, and gets nothing, while the appetite of the diligent is richly supplied.”

I read this today in a devotional and was reminded, once again, of my word for the year…challenge! It is a challenge to constantly try to do better! The devotional I read was in regard to procrastination. The writer said, in a round about way, that procrastination is a way to be lazy, to avoid those things that challenge us.

So that song, Water Come a Me Eye, the one I finally passed at my last guitar lesson. I have been on that page in my book since January, but I didn’t like the song and I thought the timing was too difficult and so I practiced everything else I could practice except that song for months. My teacher, God Bless him, was not going to let me get away with that, so he kept me on that song for months. Guess what?

When I finally sat down and listened to the practice CD and kept picking the song over and over a flip switched and I thought…”This was so easy. Why didn’t I learn this months ago?” I was procrastinating.

I have a time goal for my half marathon this November and so I joined a Run Club with the thought that running with other people will help me run faster but as I look at the schedule I find myself trying to find excuses not to run with the group. Mostly I’m afraid we will be way too slow for everybody else. Excuses. Procrastination. I think this verse is telling me to stay the course to be diligent, do not procrastinate!

With that said…I have a rose bush outside to dead head…it’s staring at me from my kitchen window…I also have a sink full of dirty dishes and loads of laundry….

It’s early yet but so far for today I’m thankful that my husband gets to stay home with us today, for a good arm workout this morning, for Greek vanilla yogurt (so yummy), for a reply to a message I sent to a young lady who loves running and God (had some good thoughts and things for me to think about in it…she has a blog called Fit and Faithful, you should check it out) and for my word…Challenge…reminding me to do the thing that is hard instead of easy…Hebrews 12:11, “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” (NIV)…hopefully this will lead me to my time goal in November and better guitar playing…for all these things…I Give Thanks!

Keep On Running….

Water Come a Me Eye

On July 23, 2015July 23, 2015 By runnergirl02In UncategorizedLeave a comment

….So today I am thankful for FINALLY turning the page in my guitar book! Ha! After a ridiculous amount of months, mostly due to my own tendency to be stubborn, I have finally learned Water Come a Me Eye…well enough that my guitar teacher let me “Turn the Page”! I celebrated by listening to a little Bob Segar…

No running for me today but I have found a neat little workout show that I like called Faithful Workouts so I did my leg weights and an episode of Faithful Workouts today for a little cross training. It is actually quite challenging for me…

My husband and I did join a Run Club to begin training for our half-marathon in November, excited to make some new running friends and drop our half-marathon time…that’s the goal…

So today for turning the page, faithful workouts, Run Clubs and Chicken Egg Rolls (I really like Chicken Egg Rolls)…I Give Thanks!

Keep on Running….

P.S. Thanks to the couple of followers I have…appreciate it!

Tuesday

On July 15, 2015July 15, 2015 By runnergirl02In UncategorizedLeave a comment

….Just continuing the trend from Yesterday…is it a trend if you’ve only done it once? Anyway…

I have a guitar lesson tomorrow. I haven’t practiced the song my teacher wants me to learn. I’ve only been playing the songs I want to learn. He assures me that if I learn this song it will help me learn a lot about E Phrygian and rhythm and where the actual notes are on the strings. I know he’s right but I really do not like the song. Water Come a Me Eye…sigh….I’m in trouble.

I ran 20 minutes today. I was supposed to run 4-5miles but I got up late and so my rule is, run at least 20 minutes and so I did and I’m glad I did.

My word for this year is Challenge. I was listening to the radio, KLOVE, I think actually, and the DJ was talking about having a word for the year. Instead of doing a resolution, you have a word that you focus on for the year. Challenge seemed so obvious for me. It seems I’m always challenging myself to do something…run further, run faster, learn guitar, write more, read more, do more…I’ve been thinking sometimes it’s just a challenge to sit and be quiet, to listen, to really listen to other people as they talk. When I really listen to my daughter I am amazed. She is so smart, funny, adventurous, insightful. I keep wondering when she will lose that childlike innocence and curiosity. I keep hoping she never will, praying really and I don’t know why it was/is so important to me but then yesterday I read this:

“I think that the first thing to do is to make sure that all that energy, that light, does not grow dim in your hearts and to resist the growing mentality which considers it useless and absurd to aspire to things that demand effort. Be committed to something; be committed to someone. Don’t be afraid to take a risk. Don’t be afraid to give the best of yourselves…Don’t look out for the easy wicket, in order to avoid having to do real, hard work.”

It was said by Jorge Mario Bergoglio to youth in Paraguay. It pretty much sums up my hopes for my daughter. When I stopped to think about it I realized it really summed up my hopes for myself. What is life without hope? What is life without striving for betterment? What is life without seeing the wonder and amazement in the everyday? This same man said , “You are too important to be satisfied with living life under a kind of anesthesia.” How many of us live a life “under anesthesia”? I know I do sometimes, sometimes instead of looking for challenge I’d rather spend time on Facebook reading mindless drivel and taking silly quizzes. Today I spent the better part of an hour looking for and then posting this link to reclassify Pluto as a full fledged planet. (which by the way it could use some signatures ;-)!! )

https://www.change.org/p/international-astronomical-union-declare-pluto-a-planet-plutoflyby?recruiter=343443684&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&sharecordion_display=highlight_active_card

Learning and becoming better takes work, sometimes A LOT of work, participating in life is hard, is challenge, some days, anesthesia sounds pretty good to me but then I’ll read something like that quote and I’ll remember what we are here for…

“Happiness is demanding; it requires commitment and effort,” Bergoglio told the youth. He’s right you know. Happiness isn’t a feeling, not really, for me it’s that feeling you get when you are so exhausted from giving it your all, everything you have, that sense of accomplishment. For me it can come from a faster than normal run, a long run, helping a friend, guiding a student, being a mom who listens.

So…the challenge continues, my challenge continues…to be better, to do better, to give more, to love more, to be more than I think I can be because the truth is we were created to accomplish amazing wonderful, beautiful things, not live on life support. We give it all because He gave it all.

I really like that thought…

So for today I am thankful for a fun morning at the library with my daughter where she picked out books about frogs and bats when she knows I am afraid of them just to watch me squirm. She laughed and laughed and her laugh is the best music in the world. I am thankful for being able to eat lunch with her dad, my husband, almost everyday during summer:-) I am thankful for the fun time we had at the water park after lunch and the vanilla dippin dots we shared when we were done. I’m really thankful for ice cream today and for words from people like Pope Francis that are so very powerful. Words really can change life. They can inspire or kill. His words inspired and challenged me….so guess I’ll…

Keep on running…

Monday

On July 14, 2015July 14, 2015 By runnergirl02In UncategorizedLeave a comment

….for lack of a better title…and because I have things I want to write but not enough time…but I want to post something…so I’m not a failed blogger…

So today I am thankful for…Our car passing Smog without having to have a bunch of expensive work done to it…a fun daytime date to watch Terminator Genysys with Jason…a fun family date with daughter and God-daughter tonight watching The Minions movie and air conditioning. I’m really thankful for air conditioning:-)! I was able to get in 20 miles of running last week, by the sea so I’m thankful for that too! Oh and I’m learning a new song on my guitar…Redeemed…by Big Daddy Weave…Ok…I’m done, because I have to be….

Keep on running….

Geese

On June 25, 2015June 27, 2015 By runnergirl02In UncategorizedLeave a comment

I haven’t actually blogged in a really really long time. I actually have a blog on LiveJournal of a similar name but there seemed to me something refreshing about starting all over again…something I read this Sunday…”a new creation”

So there is this pond that I pass on the way to my parent’s house and every year we love to watch a pair of Canada Geese that live there. I’m not quite sure they are the exact same pair but we look forward to spring when the eggs hatch and those cute little fluffy ducklings show up with their parents. This year a pair of White Geese have joined the mother and father and seem to be surrogate parents of sort. I’m sad to report that of the three baby geese we originally saw only one seems to be left. There is another pair of rather strange looking ducks that live also with the two different types of geese but they mostly keep to themselves. This little hybrid family reminds me of my own family. We are a strange mix, if all you look at is the outside. If you look at the inside then you see we are all really the same. I suspect it’s the same with these geese.

I came across some old cards and letters today. I didn’t have time to read them all but as I read through them it seems that I read things I hadn’t read before. It was like I couldn’t remember this person ever expressing that particular sentiment to me. When I stopped to think about it, I realized it wasn’t that the thought was never expressed, it was more along the lines that I wasn’t ready to hear it, for whatever strange reason. It got me wondering…How many times has someone tried to tell me they loved me or cared for me and how many times did I just not choose to see it? This got me thinking about God of course and how often he is screaming at us, shouting his love to us and we either have chosen to ignore it or aren’t ready to acknowledge it. Maybe we are afraid to know there is someone or some God who really truly loves us? Maybe we let little disappointments cloud our judgment, add a piece to the “wall”?

Have you ever let a disappointment or a perceived slight keep you from loving someone or some God? I have. I have done this both with friends and stupidly with God. I have left friendships alone when I felt I wasn’t needed or wanted. I have stopped praying to God when my prayers weren’t answered the way I wanted them to be. Isn’t it interesting though that God will wait until we are ready to come back to Him, in fact, He will actively seek us out and drive us toward Him, like the Great Shepherd that He is. Human friends won’t always do that but I guess that’s what makes us human. We are called to love unconditionally but we fail at this commandment every day. We fail at it because we do not understand the unconditional love God has for us. “He is jealous for me, Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree, Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy. When all of a sudden I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory and I realize just how beautiful you are and how great your affection is for me.” Lyrics to a song by John Mark McMillan, the chorus of which is “How He Loves Us” repeated over several times. I guess we spend most of our life learning this lesson. I guess while we run around thinking life is about getting this, becoming this, earning this, the endless chorus of “How I Love Me” running around in our heads there He is, sometimes softly, sometimes loudly with electric guitars blaring, begging us to see Him, to hear Him, while we run around wondering why we feel so lost, so afraid, why we think our friends don’t love us anymore?

Today I’m thankful for remembering the love of a friend…a fun guitar lesson…always my Jason, my Laina and my family but mostly today I’m thankful for that huge cry of unconditional love. Why would God beg for me to know he loves me? That’s the mystery isn’t it?