This year, it's safe to say that in regards to how we were going to celebrate this Christmas, our expectations have been royally shattered. No pun intended.

Our tree, purchased from Home Depot a few days before Thanksgiving, was pretty much dead from the start.  And the nice pointy top branch was somehow ripped off in the netting they fed the tree through.  In other news, my knee has prevented me from running for almost 6 weeks now, and the full marathon is officially off the table. This makes me beyond sad.  

The new plan is to get my knee scoped, after a dear family friend noticed several potentially fixable issues on the MRI results.

I did manage to get our Christmas cards ordered and sent out in a somewhat timely fashion (before Christmas feels pretty great..) and all my gifts ordered and received (all my little boxes checked off on my Gifts Ordered List), and I even got all my Christmas stocking stuffers purchased Monday - and usually that is a seriously last minute affair.  We even managed, by efforts of my glorious sisters-in-law, to throw my mom a 60th Birthday Party on the 19th - which was actually the date of her birth! She knew about the party, but not about a couple key out of town guests who showed up. We filled her house to the brim with lots of her dear friends, fed them lots of yummy food, ate a fantastically beautiful and delicious birthday cake (yeah, Lindsay!!) caught up and chatted for hours.....and with that final party checked off the list, it was time to really let the plans play out. 

We had intended to go to Fayetteville Sunday night to spend some time with one of my best friends up there and then spend Monday and Tuesday with Kyle's family.  The plan was to return home Tuesday with his younger sister, Kara, who was going to spend Christmas with us and fly out Friday morning.  My sister Rachel was going to house sit. It was all ready.

The operative word being "Intended."

I feel a little like the Jewish nation right now.

Things have happened, but they were NOT how we intended for them to unfold this year. Some tears may have been shed.  Some Tamiflu may have been dispensed.

Oh yes, folks. Kyle woke up at 3am Sunday morning to a puking Brooklyn.  To spare my friends in Fayetteville what we thought was a stomach bug, we postponed travel till Monday.  At which time, we woke up to Brooklyn, August and Dorien all running high fevers. Only B had been throwing up, but the rest looked like abandoned sock puppets draped about the furniture. I have never seen August or Dorien lay so still for a 24 hour period.

When we woke up Tuesday morning and Brooklyn was 103.5, we called our doc. Shocker, they were booked solid for the next few days and closed Christmas Eve.  We are blessed to serve in our church nursery with a doctor who works at a walk-in clinic near our house. And praise God, he was on duty. We hauled our febrile crew over there and spent $75 ($25 per kid) in co-pays to find out our kids were all big ole POSITIVE for the flu.  I think I live in a bubble sometimes, because I had no idea flu was so rampant.  Uh, it is.

Nearly $200 later I left Walgreens armed with a different kinds of holiday goodies....Tamaflu, Vitamin C, a family sized box of Oscillococcinum, Echinacea and Pedialyte.  At the time, Kyle and I felt fine and opted to not spend another $100 on Tamaflu before we had anything.  By mid-afternoon, Wyeth woke up from a nap running 101.2.  Our quiver was all sick.  

There went our trip to Fayetteville and our plan to host Kara through Christmas. 

To sweeten the deal, over the next few hours, I learned via group texts with my sisters, with the exception of Beth and Michael (who'd already dealt with their own bug time), someone in each family was laid low with the flu.  

In our family, it is a bedrock tradition that we spend Christmas mid-morning at my parent's house and then have a huge family celebration.  Except.....all of us were sick.  In an unheard of turn of events, our family Christmas has been moved to New Years Eve, giving everyone hopefully the chance to fully recover.

To further make this whole Christmas a page turner, I am scheduled to have my knee scoped Friday morning at 5:00am.  But I can't be sick. I can't even take Advil for 7 days prior to the surgery. And I am so looking forward (as crazy as that sounds) to this surgery because it could very well get me back on the road running in 10 days time! This makes me insanely happy!!

I have felt fine up until this morning when I woke with some aches...and I now have a fever.  I'm dosing myself heavily with Vit C and every homeopathic thing I have, and praying to our Healer God to let my body fight this out by end of tomorrow. Because I can't even cancel the surgery until earlier in the morning day of surgery. And just to rub salt in the wound....if I get this surgery in before 2015, I've already met my deductible and just have a co-pay.  If it falls after, I'm pretty sure my deductible will replenish itself in need and I'll have to write a hefty check. Which is just dandy. 

As I sit here on my bed with Wyeth nursing, the kids downstairs watching a movie, I listened to a couple of videos that my friend Carol posted on her blog...videos of music so lovely that I know angels took notice, not to mention our Savior Christ.  I let the music wash over me and my eyes filled with tears.  Nothing about the Savior's birthday went as anyone anticipated. Least of all Mary and Joseph.  Who wants to give birth in a cave where you're surrounded by animals after traveling miles and miles on the back of a donkey.  Not as she intended.

But, precisely as God intended.  He was not a bit out of sorts or upset at how the events of the birth of His son unfolded. I have no doubt he sat on the edge of His seat, his heart bursting with pride, love, anticipation and excitement along with the hosts of heaven.  What the Jewish people expected and wanted were so vastly different from how God intended them to be, and as always, His extraordinarily unique plan was the perfect one.  

The stage was set beautifully, quietly, solemnly and lovely, every detail attended to by Him. Everything as it should be.

So, as I sit here achy and worried about how things will go on Friday, or even tomorrow if both Kyle and I are sick...I also rest in the knowledge that the last few days have been part of God's plan all along.  The upcoming days are as well.  

It might even be that spending Christmas quietly at home, without a grand meal or room full of exploding wrapping paper, is the most beautiful way my family and I could spend this holiday.

Meditating on unexpected events, God's sovereign and masterful plan, and the earth-shattering birth of Jesus Christ - the son of God and the Savior of all humanity.

Merry Christmas, everyone! 

May God find you cherishing this holiday and truly celebrating the birth of His Son

Merry Christmas

I must be crazy because it's 11:27 pm and I'm not asleep. In fact, I'm the only person in my house who isn't. But my mind isn't rested yet. Loopy, but not quite out.

I just spent an hour and a half frantically uploading photographs from June 2012 through February 2013 onto Shutterfly and then ordering them because at midnight, the 40% off discount expires.  Clearly, I am so hilariously behind on my photo albums as to almost just give up. 

I find, however, that I just can't. Give up, that is. Chalk it up to being a firstborn. Or having a mother who has meticulously photo-documented every year of her family's life since 1977. It puts the pressure right on.  And I am tired of having to add a new month to my "Print Photos for Albums" list.  

Right before that mind-numbing task, I helped my family begin decorating for Christmas. This is the second night in a row that we've intended to decorate our Christmas tree, but have had unplanned obstacles prevent us. Last night, it was a family gathering to see my favorite Aunt Janice who was in town. Time well spent, definitely. And tonight, my presence was unexpectedly needed at a City Council meeting. About chickens. Yep. You heard me right. This actually marks the 2nd City Council meeting in which I've had a speaking role! I'm actually getting quite comfy at speaking in front of the aldermen and Mayor. 

I and several other like-minded citizens have been working to change our city's chicken keeping ordinance. Currently, you have to keep the chickens 75' from your neighbor and most people don't have that space.  I do, and I'm a legal chicken owner, but I've been working on behalf of all the others who don't. I've made friends with an alderwoman and have, quite frankly, learned a lot about politics in this process. As I was cycling at the gym earlier today, I got a text from my alderwoman friend, asking me to call her.  Turns out, there was a council meeting tonight and a proposed ordinance amendment would be voted on, but it wasn't necessarily a good turn of events. As a result of that call, my whole day shifted focus, and I ended up at the City Council meeting making sure that things didn't go very much against us. I was fortunate to have my brother, Chad, show up to also speak in front of the Council. And while I fully expected that our proposed resolution to move the distance from 75 to 50 would be soundly squelched, there was actually a tie. 4-4. The wards were each split. The Mayor could have voted to break the tie, but he chose not to. That I found quite interesting. I think he was a little surprised to find himself in that position. The end result being that things were left as they are. Which I can live with, for the moment.

What I was worried would happen is that additional restrictions would be put in place, but I found that the council was more split (in our favor) than I expected. 

Anyhow, it made for a frantic day, in many ways.

Life is very unexpected that way.

One moment you're riding a bike at the gym, the next you're drafting a speech for a City Council blurb. And now, as this day wraps up, I'm thankful for all that it accomplished, no matter how different from what I anticipated when I woke up this morning.

Tomorrow will be a whole new day.

A special day, in fact - Kyle's 38th Birthday!

More on that later.

For now, may you enjoy your days, no matter what twists and turns they take.

Now that I'm several weeks into marathon training, 

I thought I'd do a post to update you on my progress.

Using the LR Marathon Training plan, we're in the 9th week of training. The Marathon is March 1st, 2015.  Using the Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer (what I set out with the intent to follow), then I'm officially in my 1st week of training.  Since I've been running the long runs on Saturdays going by the Marathon Training plan, I'm ahead of schedule. For example, my first long run of the Non-Runners should be this Saturday, and I should run 5 miles. Well, I already ran 12 miles last Saturday, so I'm way beyond just 5 miles. Which is nice, but also may be presenting me with some problems.

For starters, the Non-Runners plan is only a 16 week training plan, while the other is a 24 week plan. A whole 2 months longer. And I really started building my base in August and joined the local running group in September.  The problem is that I want to run 4 days/week instead of 5, and at the same time, only increase my mileage per week by 10%.  In order to not totally confuse myself, I drew up a new training schedule sort of combing both plans - and actually, within a few weeks, the long runs on Saturdays (for both plans) start to sync up, so it's just a matter of divvying up the run distances during the week so I'm not over-doing it or under-doing it. 

I also scheduled in cross-training such as swimming, cycling and lifting, because I want to give my body some time off from hitting the pavement and maintain muscle strength.  

Here's where things don't always go as planned:

I get tired or super busy or we end up babysitting people's kids or something comes up and our evenings get out of whack, and I don't get to lift or swim or cycle, so I'm not getting the balance I think I need. Or I miss a run morning and make up for it the next day by doing more miles or by trying to bump up the pace and I over-do it. 

Plus, hanging over my head is this big question of whether I am running with the right shoes. 

This seems kind of silly, writing about it, but shoes are HUGE in running.

I have worn Mizuno Wave Riders for years, and really loved them, but early in the summer, when I started running more, I noticed my toe hurting. Turns out I needed a whole size bigger running shoe, but when I went to the running store to get evaluated, instead of getting Mizuno's in a bigger size, I ended up walking out of there with an Adidas Boost shoe.  I tested out about 10 different shoes, after which time I'm not sure I was really deciphering anything different between each shoe.  For some reason, I didn't like the feel of the Mizuno Wave Rider version they had, and I don't know...I ended up with a different shoe, plus some orthotics. 

I continue to wonder whether what I really need is to go back to my old shoe style in a bigger size. 

Because all the sudden, I am having knee pain, and I don't know if it's the end result of my being in the wrong shoe, or doing something odd when I run, or what.

As far as mileage, I have to say that running is a continual process of self-discovery.

I would never have dreamed I could feel such pleasure at running 8, 10, 12 miles at a time.

I know you're allowed to stop and walk or whatever, but when you are able to really run it without walking, the feeling of accomplishment is unbelievable. Not to mention that you really do get into a flow and those miles just slip by so fast.  And when you mentally set a goal - waking up at 5AM with the express purpose of running 12 miles - there's no way it's not happening. I am GOING to run those 12 miles. And I'm going to enjoy it. And I do.

I have also discovered the amazing advantage of running with people.

After about my 3rd run with the LR Training group, I found a woman who runs my same pace, and we have met up on those long runs and stuck together. A few times, we bumped into other similarly paced individuals and passed those miles just chatting away. It's amazing how fast 10 miles can pass when you're talking, building a friendship, discussing things....Plus, these are people who understand. They know the passion to accomplish something big that most people will never attempt. They know the sacrifice of getting up early or running late in the evening. They are also managing families and kids and lives. They get it, and therefore, you get each other.

One of the advantages of running with my new friend is that we hold each other to the pace we set. It also helps now that I have a Garmin watch that I can easily glance down and see what pace we're at, as well as what my heartrate is (to know whether I'm pushing too hard) and what my cadence is.  For the first several weeks, I would run and wait for Map My Run to give me my split pace at the end of each mile - no fun. I made the investment of a Garmin tri watch (Forerunner 310XT) and after figuring out the ins and outs, am loving it! It's also cool to be able to upload my workout statistics wirelessly after every run/swim/bike ride. 

A disadvantage of running with my new friend is that I might be pushing it a little too hard sometimes.  Not because of her, but because my competitive nature makes it difficult for me to not want to rise to a challenge, which isn't always good because every run is not a race.  Once you realize you are capable of running a certain pace, it's hard to go back.

Another part of this process I cherish is that I have reconnected with old friends.  One of my dearest friends whom I lost touch with after quitting work to stay home and raise my babies, is a serious runner. By chance a few weeks ago, we ran together and instantly our friendship was rekindled. I love having her to text and bounce running questions off of , to share the elation of completing a long run without it seeming like bragging, to encourage and support each other in our similar goals.  It's been such a joy for me. 

They say you never finish a marathon the same person as when you began. I can already see that is true, and I'm 4 months away from the actual marathon date. 

I can only pray that God blesses me with good health the remainder of the way, because this journey is one worth finishing.