It’s raining today…quite steady right now actually. I’m waiting for my husband to get off work and our daughter to finish up with her lab so we can all head home. The 99 can be a wicked drive in the rain and I want our daughter to have a little more practice driving around just in town before she tackles that drive. I’m at my favorite little cafe staring out the window watching the rain fall in sheets from a broken gutter onto the outside patio furniture. There’s a little older couple who is looking over at me now and again, can’t tell if they think I’m transcribing their conversation or just looking out the window behind me. It doesn’t really matter.
We were back to school today after a long three day weekend. We have two three day weekends in February back to back, Lincoln’s birthday and Presidents Day. Our daughter’s old elementary school only got one of the two Mondays off so my husband and I used to use whichever Monday she didn’t get off as a fun date day, usually a hike up at the lake where I spent a lot of time as a kid. She gets both Mondays off these days, mostly because she’s in college now and doesn’t have class on Mondays. It didn’t matter this year though because, it’s raining, so we couldn’t go on our hike yesterday, which was a bummer. The Monday before we also had off and the weather was also not great but we were able to go for a run and see a sweet movie called Solo Mio.
It’s been a strange year so far. Many people to pray for who are having health struggles. My sister and other family and friends. I try to be grateful to wake up every morning able to move and take care of myself. I’m still trying to lose some weight to help my A1C and overall health. It would be nice to spend my 50’s active and healthy as I head into the second half of them in about half a year. I’m thankful to be able to pray for my friends and family to a God who is always listening, even when I might not think He hears. Feelings aren’t always a great thing to go by, they have a tendency to ebb and flow, we must trust in God’s word always and Jesus promised us that we are never alone, even on days when that’s exactly how we feel. Alone, concerned about the future, the state of a world where old women are kidnapped from their homes, or teens looking for an easy way to steal someone else’s belongings all die in a horrific car wreck and then there’s wars and the general state of the world. My hope remains in Jesus even when the plan remains elusive.
In addition to a three day weekend, Valentine’s Day was Saturday. I am thankful we got to spend time with the kids so their parents could have a Valentine date. We watched K-Pop Demon Hunters! Lol, it was an interesting movie and we talked about things that were good messages and things that were just weird. In general, the idea of “the accuser” and having to guard your mind from negative thoughts was a good idea. We all seem to struggle with negative, self-defeating thoughts somedays and sometimes those thoughts win and people we love end up places we would never want them to be. Some days we are able to win, push the thoughts away and continue our day. Thank goodness for those days.
On Valentine’s Day we picked up my mom and after our daughter’s practice we headed over to a little beach town called Cayucos. The beach isn’t very big, and neither is the town but they have some cute antique shops and at least two places we like to eat, Duckies and now Schooners. I think my Mom had a nice time and so did my daughter and man it was a beautiful drive!
Sunday we finally had our own Valentine Date, but I picked a bad movie, Crime 101, the plot was crazy, didn’t really make any sense but we stayed through the whole movie. It was nice to have a Valentine Date and for the 32nd year in a row my See’s candy heart made a return. This year it had chocolates, some years it has other gifts but this year mostly chocolate and I also got some flowers and cards 🙂 I have the best Valentine. We went running in the morning and the sky was so pretty, a really nice pink, purple, orange color. I love a colored sky.
Tomorrow is the beginning of Lent. Some years I look forward to Lent, other years, like this year, I wonder why it’s a thing. I’m probably not supposed to write that out loud. It’s not that I don’t think the purpose of Lent is a good one. I do. It’s just that our particular church changes things to Latin and reduces the amount of instruments that can be played and wants the Psalms sung a certain way and they just try to make Sunday’s a lot more somber than it should be. Jesus wasn’t even Roman and He didn’t teach in Latin! Jesus was Jewish and spoke and taught in Aramaic, so the argument that it’s the language of Jesus isn’t valid. Sundays, in my opinion, should always be a joyful day. We commemorate the great sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and hopefully we leave Mass with a renewed sense of gratefulness and thankfulness for the gift of Jesus. Jesus took on all sin on the cross, not some sin, not most sin, all sin. Jesus died so we could enter heaven, including the thief who was crucified with him. A time of contemplating to remember this gift, a time of sacrifice to acknowledge the suffering and our redemption is good and useful but Sundays are special so I don’t totally understand the reasoning behind it all, but maybe it’s one of those things that I don’t totally need to understand. Maybe I should just follow the shepherds God has given us. Our Oblates of St. Joseph are good and holy men who love God’s people, maybe there’s something there that I don’t see?
Well I guess that’s it for now. No running news, trying out some once a week intervals, which are actually kinda hard, not as many miles lately because the weather has not been cooperating. Doing more weightlifting, following a Bill Philips 5X5 plan. We have a treadmill and it’s a new one, but so far I don’t much care for it, might try walking on it tonight if this rain doesn’t calm down, after my weight workout.
So today for pink Valentine skies, time spent with people we love, the gifts of sacrifice, clergy who care enough to try to help us contemplate that sacrifice(even if I don’t like Latin), beautiful skies, days off, and a little time to sit and think in a favorite cafe…I give thanks!
KOR-not sure when we’ll be able to sign up for another race, lots of track meets coming up but hopefully we’ll be able to up our mileage as the weather improves and get a little faster. A plan is in the works!
Thankful Runner Girl 