My first half marathon!

Sunday, I ran the Detroit Free Press International Half Marathon for the first time, it was also my first half marathon. I started the race with Bobby, his brother Jon, and my friend Lacy. As far as official races, I’d only ever done 5k races before this. As far as training, the furthest I’ve run this year is just under 6 miles, and only once. I hadn’t run any other races this year. Needless to say, I was incredibly nervous to run this race that I signed up for about 10 months ago. When I registered back in January, I figured I’d have plenty of time to train, and I did. The problem is finding/making the time to train properly. I think I just didn’t try hard enough.

That said, I am very happy with my race results. Aside from water stations, and snapping a few photos, I didn’t stop running until after 10 miles in. Let me tell you, I was very surprised that I managed that. Not only had I not run very far previous to the race, but it was also very cold. Thankfully, I managed to dress very well for the race. I finished 13.1 miles in 2 hours and 20 minutes. I definitely surprised myself with that time.

As with a lot of things lately, I learned some things about myself and was reminded of others. I learned that when I’m determined, I can do a lot more than I think I can. I learned that smiling can make all the difference to help push through non-injury pain and discomfort. As a lot of snarky signs reminded me, I paid to run this race. Those snarky signs were some of the things that made me smile. The spectators all along the route were wonderful. Whenever I saw children holding their hands out for high fives, I went out of my way to pop over and give them high fives. I know that, as a kid, it would make my day if someone did that. Actually, I gave everyone high fives, I just went out of my way for the kids. High fives are fantastic. I also reminded myself that I don’t need a soundtrack to run, apparently I don’t get bored easily. I ran the vast majority of the race alone with no headphones. Lacy broke away pretty quickly, Bobby’s brother didn’t take too long to take off, I stuck with Bobby for a bit, but I pretty soon broke away. That was a bit momentous for me because we usually stick together during races, but since I had done more training, I really wanted to see how well I could do and I wasn’t ready to stop running. So, I kept going, and I’m glad I did.

There was one almost terrible thing that happened. As I ran down the road from the tunnel after coming back from Canada (the uphill coming out of that tunnel was BRUTAL and I was feeling rough), I saw a man lying on the ground with people all around him, one of whom was giving him chest compressions. I was so jarred by that, and I wondered the whole rest of the race if that guy was okay and hoping with everything I had that he was. Lacy sent me an article later on that said that he was fine, most likely thanks to the people who stopped to help him and the speedy first responders. I realize anyone would be concerned, but I’m not exaggerating when I say I started crying a little bit.

I honestly didn’t realize how much endurance I have until this race. Like I said at the top, I haven’t done any other races this year, and I hadn’t run nearly far enough to be properly trained for this, but after I had run 10k of the course, I felt fantastic and I made a goal of running the entire thing. At about mile 10, my hips started becoming very sore and my legs were fatiguing, so I switched my goal to finishing as strong as I could, but not being upset if I needed to walk because I didn’t want to risk injuring myself by going too hard. All in all, I’m very happy with how I did. I got over the finish line in a pretty decent time, got my medal and my food, put my jacket back on, plopped down on a curb and ate the most delicious banana and drank the most amazing chocolate milk ever. Then I texted Lacy and found her and Jon, and we chilled at the after party with our coffee until Bobby arrived just under an hour after me. I also ran into a friend and former co-worker and chatted for a bit, which was really cool and unexpected. I already know that I want to do this race again next year with the goal of training better and being able to beat my time. I don’t know what it is, but I love running, and this race was exhilarating. I think I’ve experienced this runner’s high that I hear so many people talk about. It was such a surreal experience, more than I was even prepared for. The self-discovery, the accomplishment, the awesome scenery both in Detroit and Canada, the wonderful volunteers and spectators, being there with people I care about, everything was just so fantastic.

My first week off in 7 years!

Well, I suppose it isn’t technically my first week off in 7 years since I took 10 months off to be a mom, but I don’t feel like that counts, because being a mom is work 24/7 that you don’t get paid for. Anyway, I digress, this is the first time that Bobby and I have taken a week vacation from work since we got married on that beautiful last day of summer in 2008, and only our second trip to celebrate (3rd if you count our trip to NYC in October last year). We went to Chicago for 4 days to celebrate our 2 year anniversary. This year, we opted to go up and spend 4 days in beautiful Bellaire, MI. We chose Bellaire, because we knew we wanted to go to Shorts, probably at least almost every day, and we were willing to make the drive out to Traverse City and Glen Arbor. This plan was just as amazing, awesome, and perfect as we thought it would be. I only somewhat regret not planning a little bit better, but the unknown and the planning as we go ended up being a lot of fun, so I really don’t regret it. It just means we have more stuff to do next time we go!

Thursday, in preparation, I dyed my hair orange and pink. I say in preparation, because I wanted to have freshly dyed, pretty hair for the trip. Random fact, but sort of worth noting, I guess. Bobby was super geeked for me to have orange hair, so I wanted to have it done before our anniversary.

Friday, we both worked a half day, I worked a little over half, and then rushed home to throw all our things in the car and head out. The drive was uneventful, we listened to a hilarious book about a group of gamers who are actually sent to the fantasy world they’re playing in, and then we got there around 7:30ish. We checked in at the Stone Waters Inn, took our stuff up to our room, poked around the hotel and hotel grounds for a little bit to check it out (it’s absolutely gorgeous), and then went to have food and drinks at Shorts. When we were getting into our room, the woman who was working told us that the slightly bigger room across the hall would be available Sunday night, and that we’re welcome to take it at no extra cost our second two nights. Not only was it a slightly bigger room, but the balcony overlooks the river. Our room Friday and Saturday had a balcony, but it just looked out at the road. We gladly accepted the offer. Shorts was pretty busy, it was Friday night and there was a huge kayaking event going on, but we put our name in, and then went down to the merchandise shop to buy stuff. By the time we got back, we only had to wait a little bit to get a table. They asked us if we minded sharing a split booth with another couple, and us being the friendly sort we are said no problem, we’ll make new friends! We sat with a lovely older couple who were just stopping for a bit on their way up to Charlevoix. We chatted a lot about jobs and interests, she told me I remind her of her son’s girlfriend, they asked what brought us to Bellaire and we told them it’s our wedding anniversary. They asked if we planned to come back to Shorts because they’d pay for us each to have a beer, we said yes and thanked them, and they were on their way. Upon letting the waitress know we were ready to go, she told us we were all set, the other people had paid for our entire bill! That was an unexpected and nice surprise, I was a little sad that we couldn’t thank them more for that. So, pretty fantastic way to start the trip. We bought some of Shorts new Starcut ciders and took them back to the hotel. There was a nice little couch right next to the river that we sat at and drank our ciders out of our new pint glasses. After that, we went in the hot tub for a bit and then called it a night.

Saturday, we decided we wanted to go to Traverse City. We slept in a little late, because of course. We leisurely had coffee and breakfast, and then sat down by the river for a while. The hardest part of this trip was peeling ourselves away from the hotel to go do things because the weather was perfect, and the grounds of the hotel are absolutely gorgeous and sitting next to the river was so relaxing. After a while, we decided it was time to go. On our way into Traverse City, we noticed a bunch of kite boarders, so we stopped to watch them for a bit. After that, we went into downtown Traverse City and poked around the different shops and got delicious Mexican coffees from a wonderful coffee house called Brew. I would have never thought tequila in coffee would be good, but it was pretty amazing. The drink had coffee (of course), tequila, kahlua and was topped with whipped cream and garnished with an orange peel. When we were done there, we took a walk along the riverfront for a little while. We kind of wanted to find out where we could go for a winery tour, or what vineyard would be cool to check out, so we were going to head back to the car to figure that out. We saw a cool looking candle shop during our walk, so we stopped in there to check things out. We both love candles. The vibe of the place was awesome, and we found a couple of candles that we liked. While paying, we asked where we should go if we want to check out a vineyard. There was a guy working who was very awesome and very helpful. He told us if we love breathtaking views that we should go to Chateau Chantal on Old Mission Peninsula. He recommended another that we didn’t make it to, and also told us we should drive all the way to the end to see the lighthouse. Chateau Chantal was gorgeous and the wine was very good. When we first got in line, an older woman chatted with us and recommended her favorite white wine (which was very good, by the way). She told me she loved my hair and that she dyed her hair pink back in the 60s when no one did that. She was pretty awesome. We got our wine samples and headed out onto the patio. The guy at the candle shop was right, the view was gorgeous.

After sitting for a bit, we wanted to get pictures and we were getting hungry. We noticed a group of people who could use help getting a photo, so we offered to take theirs if they’d take ours for us. They were hilariously tipsy. One of the guys in the group told us we should kiss for a photo, so we did the photo kiss, and he said “Don’t kiss like you’re taking a photo! Kiss like you mean it!” So, we did.

It was so fun. We left after that to drive down and see the lighthouse. We only spent a little while there because the lighthouse was under construction and it was a little chilly, but we did get to see it, enjoy the park, and learn about the history of an old cabin that was there. We left there and drove back to Traverse City for dinner at Mackinaw Brewing Co. It was getting on toward nightfall by the time we finished eating, so we started on our hour drive back to Bellaire. We wanted to go to Shorts when we got back, but the wait was 45 minutes and we didn’t feel up to hanging around, so we bought one of their new beers and went back to the hotel to just relax and have a beer.

Sunday was the start of the active part of our trip, we took our bikes with us because we wanted to make sure to take advantage of the awesome trails up there. We had a decent breakfast at one of the diners in town, relaxed a bit at the hotel and then made the drive out to Glen Arbor. We stopped in Traverse City on the way because I saw a super cute cycling jersey at M22 that I really wanted, and Bobby really wanted me to get it, so I did.

We also bought Lukas a t-shirt. On our way to Glen Arbor from Traverse City, we stopped in Fishtown, because Bobby’s mom told us how awesome it is. We went to the restaurant there to have some lunch, and we poked around for a little while to check it out. Bobby saw a salmon jump up the dam, I was bummed I missed it. When we got to Glen Arbor, we stopped at the cycling shop to get Bobby’s bike a quick check, and went on our way. We rode the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore trail for 7 miles from Glen Arbor to the Pierce Stocking Drive trailhead and back. There were some ridiculously intense hills, but I climbed them, and the best feeling was getting to zip back down them, I felt like I was flying. That made the climb worth it. During that ride, we stopped for a few at the dune climb, but decided sand + bike ride probably wasn’t a great plan. We made the drive back to Bellaire and had dinner and beers at Shorts. This time, since it was Sunday night, we got right in. We relaxed at the hotel for a while, and then changed into cooler weather clothes, and went for a walk through the town. Night time walks were an almost nightly thing for us for a long time, so we like to take them whenever we have the chance to. We found some shops we wanted to check out when they opened the next day, made up stories for what we thought people were doing, and then went back to the hotel to turn in.

Monday was our anniversary!! Happy 7 years of wedded bliss to us!! We didn’t really have anything planned, we were pretty sure we were going to go back to Glen Arbor to do the dune climb and potentially go for a bike ride, maybe. We got coffees at the coffee shop and went to check out the shops that we had seen the night before. We bought some delicious jerky from the jerky shop, we got salmon, kangaroo and snapping turtle. The only one we didn’t care for was the snapping turtle, but I’m still glad I tried it. Then, we went to the bike shop just to check it out. We talked with the guy a lot, Bobby asked him some questions. We learned that we really want to get the bike extension for Lukas that basically turns your bike into a tandem so your kid can ride, too. I don’t think he’s old enough yet, but I think he definitely will be next year. We also learned that there is a really cool trail that goes through Traverse City that starts in Acme and goes all the way to Sutton Bay. On that trail, there is a stretch where there are the sun and planets that are to scale distance-wise, it’s a 6 mile stretch. We thought that sounded like a lot of fun, so we decided that’s what we were doing for our anniversary. We drove to where the Pedal the Planets part of the trail starts, changed and were on our way. I thought it would be fun to document the ride by taking photos with each planet sculpture, and I’m so glad I did. The sun and the planets up through Mars were super easy because they were all pretty much next to each other.

Jupiter, however, was very elusive because the trail isn’t clearly marked and it jogs a little. We went miles in every which way to find it and couldn’t. We got so incredibly frustrated trying to find it even after asking people for directions that we gave up because we were hungry. We rode to Right Brain for waffle sandwiches and delicious beers. Right Brain did not disappoint. 2015-09-21 16.39.07 My sandwich and beers were so delicious, and the vibe and decor of the place was so awesome. After a full belly, we decided that we were going to ride back and probably just go back to the car but maybe ride around for a bit. We were still pretty frustrated at not being able to complete our quest. We rode back, and were near some tracks and saw that it looked like a trail picked up, so we followed it. Sure enough, there’s Jupiter. We were excited, relieved, and pissed off, all at the same time. However, the excitement really took over as we realized we could now complete our quest! We took our irritated photo with Jupiter, and then turn around and headed down the rest of the trail to take our pictures with the rest of the planets.

We met a really nice guy along the way who warned us that the trail jogs around a little bit and told us that if we had time after we were done that we should ride out toward Suttons Bay. It was getting on toward evening, so we decided that would be something we’d look forward to another day. We got to Pluto, and then rode the 6 miles back to the car. After we passed Jupiter on our way back to where the car was, we were hit with more frustration as we realized how close we were to hitting that part of the trail much earlier in the day, but because the trail wasn’t clearly marked, we totally missed it. From just past where Jupiter was, we rode right by the bike shop that we stopped at earlier to get my brake pads fixed. It was so maddening, but so funny since it was all in hindsight and everything ended up working out. We rode back the rest of the way, changed, and headed back to Bellaire to have our last beers of the trip. We decided on the way back that we should have a new anniversary tradition of completing some sort of quest. As frustrating as that got, it was so fun, and it was so us, which is a perfect way to celebrate our day. I felt bad that my burning desire to complete the trail was ruining the day, but Bobby assured me that it did the opposite of ruin the day, that it was perfect. It’s kind of our MO to get lost in a city that we’re unfamiliar with and then eventually everything works out. That’s how we have fun little adventures to shake things up. We got back to Bellaire and went to Shorts one last time. We decided to sit at the bar and have beers. We were sad that the kitchen was closed, but we still had leftover pizza back at our room. We complimented the bar tender on his awesome t-shirt. He was wearing a shirt that had an 8-bit picture of a pint of beer that said +4 Charisma -2 Wisdom -2 Dexterity. I need that shirt. Right now. Anyway, he was cool. There was a girl sitting at the bar who had some sweet earrings that looked to be laser cut wood and were old english D’s. Bobby complimented her earrings and that opened the gateway to an awesome conversation, we ended up making a new friend. She lives in Southfield, she crochets, and she made some awesome geeky references. We ended the night by hugging the cool bartender and our new friend, and then going back to the hotel to relax and enjoy our last night by chilling on our balcony and looking out at the river.

2015-09-20 10.17.18 Tuesday, we went to get coffees and breakfast snacks, we bought a cool set of magnetic trains for Lukas that are the letters of his name from the local toy store, and then we went back to pack up our stuff, enjoy sitting next to the river a little while longer, and then make the trek back home. The hotel was so beautiful that we already know we want to go back and stay there again.
The staff was also super friendly and amazing. We loved everything about it. It was hard to leave. When we got back home, we unloaded the car, picked up the dogs, and went to have dinner with Bobby’s mom and pick up our little guy. He was very excited to see us, and we missed him so much. That evening after he went to bed, we finally watched the new Mad Max movie and then went to bed.

Wednesday was relatively uneventful. We got up, took Lukas to school, made coffee and watched the new Muppets show and the season premiere of Doctor Who. Both were really good. Then, I went for an almost 6 mile run. Bobby cleaned the house a bit while I was gone, but after I showered we decided to go get lunch in downtown Royal Oak and didn’t end up getting much done at all since we stayed out almost until we had to pick Lukas up from school. We had dinner, went for a walk, and ended up going to the park with our neighbors and their kids. Bobby started reading Lukas How to Train Your Dragon as his first chapter book and I went grocery shopping. Then, he worked on his game and I just poked around on my computer after answering emails because I was sleepy. We’ve gotten to sleep with the windows open every night this week, which has been glorious. My favorite weather is sleep with the windows open weather.

Today, we went to IKEA!! One of our big goals this week was to get Lukas’ room straightened up, and we desperately needed better storage for his toys. We found the perfect storage solution, of course, we looked ahead of time. We had their Swedish meatballs for lunch, wandered around the displays, found the things we were looking for, found some things we weren’t looking for, and that was it. Bobby’s mom drove us, so I got some nice knitting time on the way to work on Bobby’s lobster claw mittens. Bobby built one of the storage units while I worked on cleaning up Lukas’ room, which was no small task. We got the first one set up and I continued working on cleaning up while Bobby went to get Lukas and dinner. After dinner, Bobby helped Lukas put together the second storage unit. It was so awesome to watch Lukas, he did way more than I would have guessed a three year old could to build it. Bobby put the large pieces in place and told Lukas which pieces he needed and where to put them, and Lukas placed all the small pieces and impressively used the allen wrench with the screws. After he was all done, Bobby tightened all the screws all the way down. So, Lukas basically built it with Bobby’s help and guidance. Pretty amazing.

Bobby read the book to Lukas again tonight. Lukas remembered what happened in the book yesterday, which is awesome. I cannot believe how fast he is growing, he’s such an awesome kid. He had a rough day at school today, but that seems to happen whenever we switch up his routine. We were gone for 4 days, and we switched up his bedtime routine last night so Bobby could start reading to him in his room. I’m hoping he feels better after he adjusts.

Tomorrow should be really good day of productivity, we have nothing else planned during the day but to work on getting things in order.

I’ve been posting a lot about life happenings lately, but a lot has been going on. I really want to mix in thoughts that I have on things, and maybe some writing snippets, and more about my knitting now that I’m on to other things aside from a never-ending chevron infinity scarf. Ha, I made a funny and I didn’t mean to. Anyway, I wanted to make sure I got the trip down in writing because there was so much amazingness, and we encountered so many cool people, that I wanted to make sure I remember it all. I’m sure there are details I’m missing since it’s already been almost a week since our vacation began, but I hit all of the super memorable stuff.

Learning is Awesome!

This weekend was very unplanned and very awesome. I love weekends like that, where we just figure out what we want to do as we go, and it ends up being amazing.

Friday, we played our Pathfinder campaign again. It was so much fun, and hilarious because as part of the story, Bobby invoked a particularly funny game of Everyone is John that we played. That game, if you’ve never played it, is hilarious, and you need to play it. Preferably with people who have a ridiculous sense of humor. It’s really simple, the rules are a page long, and it’s so fun.

Saturday morning, we made the drive out to the Stoney Creek Nature Center to hold some Monarch butterflies and watch them be tagged and released for migration. That part was amazing, but we got sooo much more than that. Both Bobby and I got to release Monarchs outside, we also watched a short presentation to learn more about them. Our friend, Kimmy, raises Monarchs all the way from egg to migration, and she helped the nature center become certified as a Monach migration way station. Anyway, we not only got to watch some fly off, but we also had the absolute pleasure of witnessing a Monarch emerging from its chrysalis. It was absolutely breathtaking, I’ll add the photos of it at the end of this post. After we were finished being in awe of the new butterfly, we went and had lunch with Kimmy.

We also learned a lot about Lukas that day, just watching him do butterfly-related crafts with the woman who was running the presentation. Watching how well he worked with a glue stick and safety scissors was great, we had no idea he worked so well with them. So, after we got back home, we decided to go to Joann’s and pick up a bunch of crafting supplies for him. We’ve discovered that he’s a really good kid, but if he’s not occupied with something and starts to build up too much pent up energy, that’s when he starts acting up. At home, he decorated a little birdhouse, played with some popsicle sticks, and did some coloring. I love seeing him so excited.

Sunday marked our first trip of the year to the cider mill, and our first time going to Franklin Cider Mill. Lukas had a lot of fun, the donuts and cider were delicious, and Lukas got to play with one of his friends from school while we were there. Bobby and I also really enjoyed ourselves.

Today was a great day. It was a pretty average day at work, but it was good. After work, Bobby and I got a little destroyed by our personal trainer, but it was a good kind of destroyed. He did some work outs with us that are super easy to do anywhere, which is awesome. I love full-body, circuit training type workouts. It sounds weird, but it feels good to do those body weight work outs and have your body just be done. Pushing to the limit is how you get stronger. We came home and had an amazing dinner and now we’re just winding down.

I realized this evening that Lukas is really beginning to show self-control. There were a couple of times, but the most major situation this evening was that he went into the fridge to get a juice, and Bobby and I told him no and that he had to wait until dinner to have another. A lot of times, he would have just taken the juice out and gotten a time out. This time, he pulled his hand back and came over to me crying. I expressed to him that I understood that he felt very frustrated because he really wanted that juice, but that I was very proud of him for having self-control when he was told not to get one. I reminded him that dinner was almost done and he could have one soon. He was able to calm down after a few minutes and all was well. That was honestly the first time I really saw him fight the urge to go against what I told him. I am such a proud mommy this evening.

He’s also super funny. Lately he’s been making up other words to songs that he knows, and his pretend play is awesome. We have a huge box that we got a delivery in and he’s been using it as a house. He also continues to tell us crazy stories. The other morning when he woke up, he told me a story about a ghost and how he yelled at it to go away, I don’t know if we’re in creepy kid story territory now, but we might be.

Also, at the gym, Lukas plays in the play room while we work out. This evening I thought I’d see if we could get him to help clean up the toys, and he did! He stayed and helped until they were all put away, it was so nice to see him do that. His teacher also told us he had a very good day in pre-school today. I love seeing him learn, whether it’s education, or whether it’s practical every day life skills like helping, or exhibiting self-control. That’s when I feel like we’re actually doing a good job as parents. My biggest goals as a parent are to raise him to be an emotionally intelligent adult who isn’t afraid of his feelings, for him to be a smart, kind, compassionate, productive member of society. I know that sort of sounds like a lot when talking about a person who is only 3, but I think it’s important to keep in mind why you do what you do. I feel that gentle parenting is very important, and even though I slip up and raise my voice at him, I do my best to teach by example, to help him identify and work through his emotions, and as much as I can when he’s behaving badly, to teach him why what he’s doing is wrong. I’m not perfect, I lose my temper and raise my voice, I get frustrated, but thankfully I have a wonderful co-parent and he often steps in when I’m at the end of my rope.

Speaking of Bobby, I am very proud of him, as well. One of his dreams for a long time has been to make a video game. He’s finally decided to push himself to make just a simple game. Often, he has lofty goals and gets overwhelmed by the task at hand, but making a small game so that the goals are more achievable has been working really well! He’s working on a cute, simple side scrolling game and it’s coming along really well.

Also, on the subject of learning, I will be going to a talk about Object Oriented CSS and BEM tomorrow in Detroit after work. I’m always excited to learn more about my industry, network with people in it, and discover ways that I can improve my code. I have to keep reminding myself that it’s a process, that the web development industry is always changing and evolving, and that I just have to keep changing and evolving with it.

And now, pictures!

Monarch emerging!

Lukas decorating a bird house!

Things That Make Me Happy

I’ve decided that it is necessary for me to list out whatever I can think of that makes me happy. This serves two purposes. One, it forces me to think about the things that make me happy, which in turn makes me even more happy. Two, I can come back to it when I inevitably have a hard time again and hopefully it’ll help bring me back. So, here goes.

Creating things and expanding my mind. I’ve realized before, but been reminded very recently, that creating things, having any sort of artistic expression, is very important to me. Whether it’s knitting, writing anything, whether it’s fiction or not, drawing, coloring (yes, I said coloring), playing music, singing music, only slightly related, listening to music and discovering new music…all of those things make me so happy. Specifically, though, I have to make sure I keep knitting nearby. For some reason, making something awesome with two sticks and some yarn is the best stress reliever and unhappiness banisher that I have in my arsenal of things that get rid of negative feelings. I also love reading and learning things. I think playing tabletop games can somehow fit in here, too. We play a Pathfinder campaign with some friends almost every Friday, and it is so much fun to get to play a fantasy character and go on crazy adventures. I also enjoy board games, but roleplaying games are my favorite tabletop games.

Feeling like I’m making any difference to anyone. It’s been important to me for a long time to help whoever I can in whatever capacity I can. I do my best on a daily basis to at least create a positive experience for everyone I come into contact with. I’m always very friendly, especially to people in service jobs, because I’ve been there, and I know how important nice people are. I’ve been really searching for a way to do more recently. In college, Bobby and I helped get the Oakland University chapter of Habitat for Humanity off the ground, and it was amazing. The year that Jimmy Carter was here for the week of building homes, we worked on a home for a man and his daughter in Pontiac. It was a beautiful experience. People who receive Habitat homes are required to put in a certain amount of what they call ‘sweat equity’ by helping build their home. Working alongside this man, and seeing his joy and his happy tears, and hearing the gratitude in his voice when he received his keys on the last day was magical and very moving. I really long to be a part of having that sort of impact again someday.

My lovely little family, my big family and friends. I need to be surrounded with people I care about. I do not do well alone, and I can sometimes get a little freaked out when I’m with mostly people I don’t know. Don’t get me wrong, most of the time, I’m a social butterfly. However, if I’m having an off day, I get super awkward. I love having my love, my beautiful son, and my two crazy corgis to come home to every evening. I don’t go out much because I cherish the time I have with my quirky little family. My friends are also very important to me, and it’s important to me to spend time with them, or for the far away ones, time to talk with them. I get very attached to my friends, and I tend to get hurt pretty easily if I feel like I’m being distanced. This is both bad and good. I leave myself wide open to get hurt constantly, but I am also a very loyal and caring friend. That’s just my nature. I’ve been hurt a handful of times, but I can’t change me, so I just work with it. My family, both the one I was born with and the one I married into, are very important. My grandparents will likely get their own post sometime in the future, but I owe a lot of who I am to them. They saved me when I had no one else and raised me as their own child in a very loving and supportive home.

Being good at my job and doing good work. This one plagues me a lot, because it is so hard to gauge. On the one hand, I know I’m good at what I do, and that I deserve to be where I am. On the other hand, I could be so much better and I feel like I’m constantly struggling to keep up. I’m working on things to help lessen the struggling feeling. Good feedback from my boss and him having the belief that I can do more things helps. Having friends who I work with that are very encouraging also helps, even though I tend to think they’re just saying those things because they’re my friends. I know that’s not the case, it’s just hard not to default to that. Having those friends also give me advice on how I can improve and how I can better keep up with current trends is also helpful. TJ sent me a link on a webdev subreddit today that struck home and really resonated with me. It was mostly the comments. Here it is: https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/3kb0rl/the_struggle_of_being_a_developer_with_a_wife_and/

Being active and fit, and eating good food. Movement, health, and good food are all so incredibly important. I feel so much better when I’m active and eating right. I’m starting to try to take a larger role in dinners because it’s not fair for it to all be on Bobby like it has been. Bobby and I have started working with a personal trainer, and it has been awesome. We’ve started riding our bikes again, too, which is great. We went for another ride tonight after dinner, it was a perfect evening for it. I just need to try to fit more running in. I either need to get my lazy butt out of bed earlier in the morning, or I need to get comfortable running after dark. Those are really my only options during the week. I also need to make sure I’m adding yoga back in. Yoga keeps me a happy girl, too. Something about it, maybe the moving meditation aspect, focusing on my breathing, focusing on something other than a zillion different thoughts and worries bouncing around in my head, the stretching and simultaneous strengthening of my muscles, the feeling of peacefulness, I think it’s really all of those things.

The outdoors. I love being outside, whether I’m active or just sitting under a nice shady tree on a sunny day. I love hiking, biking, and camping. I love swimming. I love walking. One thing I miss a lot is that Bobby and I used to take nightly walks together after dark. It’s a thing that we’ve always enjoyed doing together, since back in the days when we both lived with our parents and extended our time together by going on walks before he took me home or I had to drive home. There’s something magical about wandering around at night, talking about whatever is on your mind with your favorite person. We don’t get to do that too much anymore, only on nights when Lukas is spending the night somewhere else, but we’ll have those nights again in the future. One of my favorite things that Bobby and I have done that involved being outside after dark was during the meteor shower this year. We brought our hammock out behind our garage, snuggled up together, and stared up at the sky where the meteors were supposed to be the most visible. We saw four meteors shoot across the sky, the last of which shot across our full field of vision. It was beautiful, and amazing, and our sweet little boy was sleeping right inside the house.

Bobby. I could go on and on forever about him. He’s the most caring, supportive, funny, smart, handsome, awesome dude and I am so incredibly lucky I locked that down. He knows when to push me to do something, and when to back off. He knows me better than anyone, including me. He is always right there to comfort me when I’m having a bad time. We have fun together. He’s my partner in every aspect of our lives. He is such an amazing daddy to our little boy. We have a ridiculous amount of things in common, mostly probably because he made me try new stuff a lot along the way and I liked most of it. He helped me climb out of my shell when we were first dating because I was painfully shy. One of the things he had to challenge me to do one time was to say hello to every person we passed on a walk. That was so difficult for me, and I’m so glad that he pushed me to do it. I wouldn’t be outgoing now if it weren’t for him. He thinks I’m pretty whether I just woke up, just finished a crazy workout, or I actually put effort into my appearance. We have the same ridiculous, silly sense of humor. I love that I can be completely weird around him and with him. I love that we dance together in our kitchen. I love that we’re active together, that we have adventures together, that we experience the beauty all around us together. I don’t even know what else to say, he’s just wonderful.

Lukas. I never knew how much I could really love another person until I became a mama to my beautiful little boy. He’s so smart, sweet, and adventurous, and he’s only 3! I enjoy most moments with him, let’s be real, he’s not always sunshine and rainbows, but more often than not, he’s a joy. I just love watching him learn and do things. This is going to sound super weird, but even the way he eats is adorable. I love that he makes up his own words to songs already. He loves being read to. He loves dancing and singing. He’s getting pretty good at being polite. He ran up to me in the dining room today and was so incredibly excited to show me the fort he made with a giant box and one of his blankets against the couch. He plays lightsaber duels with us. He’s snuggly, when he wants to be, which is a lot. He scares the hell out of me with how daring he is. He’s a little ball of energy that I wish I could harness. He has big beautiful eyes and pretty curly hair. He’s a little peanut. He’s very charismatic, he charms most people he’s around. He’s full of wonder and wants to figure out how everything works. He loves building things. He’s obsessed with trains, trucks, airplanes, and space ships. He enjoys drawing and coloring. He tries so hard to hug the dogs, but they usually want nothing to do with that. There is a lot more, but he’s just absolutely wonderful.

Our dogs. They drive me bonkers sometimes, but they’re awesome. We have had Barkley since spring of 2009 when he was just a 3 month old pup. He’s so much fun and such a loyal, good pup. We added Pancho to our pack this past April, he’s 7. He’s an absolutely wonderful dog. He’s crazy cuddly, he and Barkley get along swimmingly 95% of the time. I love seeing them play together, and cuddle together. Since Pancho joined our family, he’s become a lot healthier and seems so much happier. He wasn’t abused by his old family, but he was neglected, and I don’t understand why. He’s such a sweet dog. I’m so thankful that we went with our gut and went against our brains on getting him. We didn’t think we were ready for another dog, and maybe we weren’t, but he’s so fantastic. Both dogs are great with Lukas, and are so loving and patient. They fight sometimes, and it feels like they’re right under our feet all the time, but they’re so worth the little bit of frustration because they’re awesome dogs.

I’m getting lazy now, kudos if you’re still reading, but I want to fit some of the other random things in here. I love gaming in pretty much every form. There’s something about relieving some stress by logging into my game and shooting some aliens. I’ve also been playing a game called Child of Light recently. It is such a beautiful, interesting game with so many elements. It has a great story, beautiful art, puzzles, and turn-based combat, which I’ve never done before. I love punky colored hair, I’m about to switch mine from purple to orange and pink soon. I’m loving exploring these fun colors. Piercings, I like the few that I have. I don’t know if I’ll get more or not, maybe. I also love tattoos, I’ve been obsessed with getting more since I got the one I have 5 years ago, and I love admiring other peoples’ body artwork. I have a few large pieces I’m planning out. I have no idea when I’ll get them, but they’ll happen eventually. Adventures also make me happy, whether they’re big ‘going on a trip’ adventures, or small ‘the brewery we wanted to go to had a power outage and we need to decide on other plans’ adventures. Oh, also, hugs. Hugs are pretty much one of my favorite things. I’m a hugger. If I make a new awesome friend and they seem open to it, I’ll hug them. I hug my friends, I hug my family, I hug my dogs. I just really love hugs. A lot.

So…that’s a list. I might be forgetting some stuff, I probably am, but the point is that there are a lot of things that make me happy, and a lot of things and people I have to be thankful for. This is here as a reminder of those things.

The past week, but mostly weekend

I want to start off by saying thank you to everyone who expressed support and sent positivity my way after reading my posts about what I was going through emotionally recently. That was not my intention, to make people feel they need to compliment me, but it was very much appreciated. I really just wanted to put it out there for both myself, and for anyone else who might feel that way and just needs to know they aren’t alone. If I can help just one person, that makes me happy. I originally set out to do a blog just to have a place to write for myself, to have a record of not just mundane life, but about Lukas as he grows, about mine and Bobby’s adventures together and with Lukas, and about the hobbies that I’m into. When I started writing those first posts, though, I decided to share them since not only had they gone in a direction I wasn’t really planning on, but I felt like maybe, hopefully, someone else could benefit from something I have to say. I really struggled with whether or not to share those things, and as soon as I shared it, I immediately felt self-conscious about assuming that anyone could benefit from things that I say. However, I received nothing but support. I have almost a constant confidence battle with most things. Anyway, if you’re here reading, thank you. Onward to new things!

There was not a whole lot of eventfulness during the week last week, aside from FINALLY watching the end of the last season of Doctor Who. Just business as usual, working on websites, coming home to my beautiful family in the evening and doing a wide array of things before it’s time to put little man to bed and having a couple hours with Bobby before it’s time for us to go to bed. Although, Wednesday was apparently party day for me. We celebrated Jeff’s birthday at work by leaving the office early and going to Royal Oak Brewery. Then, Bobby and I picked Lukas up from daycare/school, went to Bobby’s parents’ house for dinner, and then left for Oxford to have a couple of beers with our friend Mike for his birthday. My belly was not happy with me the next morning, but I had a wonderful time at both celebrations.

Friday after work was pretty great. We took Lukas down to play with another little boy who lives in the neighborhood and hopefully we made new friends. We have quite a bit in common, at least initially, with our neighbors, and even though Lukas is a year older, the boys played swimmingly aside from the typical toddler spats. Lukas impressed me with how polite he was and how well he played with someone younger than he is. My favorite thing, and also a little heartbreaking because the other boy didn’t hear him, was when Lukas said ‘Please, can I have another piece?’ (asking for another block). It was so sweet. The boys got into a little spat caused by Lukas, Lukas took off down the yard upset, and as Bobby was walking back with him asking him what he thinks would make the other little boy feel better, the other boy ran up to him and hugged him and Lukas said he was sorry. I think we’re teaching him pretty well. After he went to bed, we had our Friday Pathfinder gaming session. August was an insanely busy month for everyone, so this was the first time in over a month that we were able to play our campaign. It was a lot of fun, very story driven, which I like. I may post a recap of the gaming session from my character’s point of view sometime soon.

Saturday morning was pretty productive, I went for my first morning run in quite a long time and it was great, we worked on cleaning the house and Lukas played outside for a while. He actually napped for so long after playing that we had to wake him up to go to Ian’s Rib-Off celebration. When I put him down for his nap, I told him that if he wanted to have fun at a party with a bounce house, he needed to sleep. It worked! While he took a nap, though, I kind of fell apart. After a week of the awful feelings I was having being gone, they returned with a vengeance. Thankfully, I had Bobby to myself to help me through it while Lukas was sleeping. I felt okay enough afterward to go to the party, but in the middle of the party, I started to feel really self-conscious and awkward, and not at all like I wanted to be around people I didn’t know very well. I managed okay, anyway, I think. Bobby got to judge ribs, so he was in heaven. Lukas charmed everyone, as usual. It sounds funny, but watching him eat ribs was awesome, he just tears in, that little guy definitely loves barbecue. I’ll hopefully be getting pictures that someone took of him. I followed Lukas around and played with him while Bobby was judging ribs. We came home from the party, put Lukas to bed and pretty much went right to bed ourselves because I was still feeling a little emotionally rough and it was late enough that I felt okay with going to bed.

Sunday, as is our weekend tradition, we went out for breakfast. We typically go to Clawson Grill, but we decided to treat ourselves this weekend and go to our favorite breakfast place, Frittata. That was a fantastic decision, as we knew it would be. I’m so glad they didn’t stay closed for long. After breakfast, we went to the bike shop so I could finally get some bike shorts, and I needed to replace my broken helmet and torn up gloves. I don’t know how, but the adjuster on my helmet snapped recently, so before I could ride again, I needed to replace it. All of that new stuff went to great use almost immediately when we decided to go for a nice ride. We didn’t know where we were going, but found ourselves heading for Ferndale. Bobby texted his boss to meet up since he lives in Ferndale, we stopped at b. nektar for a few minutes, bought some mead, and we had lunch and beers with Bobby’s boss and his wife at the WAB. They were really awesome to chat with and they were great with Lukas, always a plus. We rode back and went to our friend’s party for a bit before calling it a night and getting home to get Lukas to bed. We watched last year’s Doctor Who Christmas Special, a couple episodes of Bojack and then went to bed.

Today was pretty much all productivity. We got up, had breakfast, went to Lowe’s to get another house plant and some light switches, and then came home to do some cleaning. Bobby’s mom came and took care of Lukas for us while we went to the gym, we had a great workout, came home and hung out with his mom for a bit before dinner. I did some more cleaning while Bobby took Lukas to the park, I gave Lukas a shower and took care of his bedtime routine so that Bobby could rest a bit, and now we’re just settling in for the last bit of our evening. I know, mundane, but it was a nice day, albeit super duper hot and humid. We wanted to go for another bike ride, but decided it was way too hot.

I was still feeling a tiny bit emotionally rough yesterday and today, but I think I pushed a lot of it out on Saturday. Saturday evening before we went to sleep, Bobby helped me with a bit of guided meditation. I think between him helping me get it all out earlier that day and that meditation, I went to sleep feeling a lot better. I’m still struggling a bit, and it probably doesn’t help that I’m a bit tired, but it’s getting better again. Nothing like a couple weeks ago when it was just one full week of feeling awful. I’m trying to pinpoint what I think it is, and I’m not sure. I put a lot of pressure on myself constantly about everything, and I think sometimes that just really wears on me and the pressure bursts into a thousand emotions.

Only sort of related, I haven’t knit much lately, and I need to remedy that. I can deal with a lot of stress with two needles and some string. Plus, I have a ton of things in my list that I want to knit. I need to finish my chevron scarf, make Bobby’s lobster claw mitts, myself a cardigan, and I promised Lukas a scarf, among a ton of other things.

I’m starting to think I may need to post more often so that my posts aren’t so massive. Especially when I get to wanting to write things that aren’t just daily life. We’ll see how this goes.

Monday…Not So Bad After All

This post may seem odd on the heels of yesterday’s post, but bear in mind that yesterday’s post took me days to write, and to decide if I was actually going to write about the things that I did. It’s important for at least myself for me to write about those things, to have a record and see if I notice a pattern, or even to just be reminded if it happens again, that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that I’ll be okay.

Today was pretty great overall. It was a frustrating day at work because bug fixing for Internet Explorer is just awful. Note to front end devs, flexbox is super freaking awesome…if the only IE you have to worry about is 10 and up. It works swimmingly on Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. It’s a brilliant tool, but since we still need to support IE9 on most projects, it’s more complicated since that browser doesn’t support it. Oddly enough, though, I ended the day in a decent mood. The frustration didn’t really upset me like it has been. It also makes me feel good that my boss is confident that I can get better with programming to help with those projects coming up that don’t necessarily have a front end aspect. I will always prefer front end development, but I do get really excited when I do a programming piece and make it work, especially if there is a bit of a struggle and then a victory. I just really like solving puzzles, and both back and front end development are like weird puzzles that can be hard to solve.

Lukas was absolutely awesome this afternoon, all afternoon. He was in a very happy, fun, hilarious mood, and he didn’t end up in time out once. It was fantastic. I love his funny little personality so much. When I told him he couldn’t do or have something, and offered an alternative, he was very receptive. We took him to the gym to play while we worked out with our trainer, he loves it there. When I gave him a shower this evening, he was happy and decided he wanted to play with the water and dance and sing.

Mine and Bobby’s work out with our trainer this evening was great! It was only our second session, but the experience has been nothing but positive already. He started the session by telling us that we both look a little more lean than last week, which is awesome since we both managed to make it to the gym three times last week. We decided recently that we just need to try harder to be in shape, for nothing more than to just have some energy left after work at the end of the day to play with our rambunctious, daredevil 3 year old boy. Being thin and having muscle tone are just really great byproducts of working out and having the energy to be active. I have a half marathon to run in a month and a half, and I’m slightly terrified at how it’s going to go. Anyway, the workout was really awesome, he had more of an idea of our abilities this time and gave us some fun full body workouts to do during this session, and he gave us a routine to do throughout the week. He also recommended doing a morning fasted run on the weekend, since that’s an excellent fat burner. I used to only run first thing in the morning, but I just haven’t wanted to get up early enough. If I find I’m able to wake up earlier, I might start doing that again. It’s dark by the time Lukas is in bed now, and even though I live in a very safe, well-lit area, I’m not all about running by myself at night. Something about it just really freaks me out.

I got to chat with one of my best friends about her life in Boston tonight. I know she’s super happy, and that she’s doing great work at a job that she loves, but I miss her. Talking to her tonight was really nice, and made me realize I need to make time to go see her in Boston, it sounds lovely.

I kind of wonder if the negative wave of emotions I was feeling last week was a result of my hormones going nuts after starting a brand new workout routine. I haven’t weight trained in a long time, and I was way more active last week than I have been in a long time. I do have a history of struggling with negative emotions that I have a hard time pulling out of, but it’s very possible that it’s just a temporary chemical surge that caused it. I say that because I’m feeling awesome tonight, and just yesterday morning I was struggling with feeling very upset out of nowhere about nothing in particular. It also hit me really hard out of nowhere for seemingly no particular reason. Thankfully, it happens way less frequently than it used to, it’s been quite a while since it’s been that bad.

It could honestly be a multitude of things that helped. Writing about it may have helped, not only to get the negative stuff out, but also writing about how good I have it. Sometimes I have to remind myself that when there’s nothing in particular causing my sadness and self-confidence issues, I just need to look around at my family, my wonderful and supportive husband, my amazing little boy, my dogs, my job that I love, and my friends, and realize that things are good. I don’t know if this works for everyone, I’ve never been diagnosed with anything and I’ve never taken any medication for it, I just know that I get uncontrollably sad and negative sometimes, and it can take a little while to dig myself out of the pit of despair, so to speak. Bobby’s never-ending support always helps, he’s able to help me be objective, even when I don’t want to be. Maybe my body has balanced out since I worked out regularly last week. I really don’t know. I’m just glad that the terrible feeling I was having has receded, and that I had a pretty awesome start to the week.

On Difficult Emotional Times

I keep going back and forth about what I really want to write in this post. I don’t know how much I want to share, but maybe it’ll help push it all out if I just write about all of the super personal inner workings of my brain. I’ve been struggling a lot worse than in the past lately, for what seems like no apparent reason. Maybe the only purpose for this post will be to let anyone who is feeling the same way know that they are not alone. I promise, I’m not always this way.

So, lately, my brain gremlin has made its way out of its cave in the recesses of my mind to make me feel terrible about every aspect of who I am. Referring to this horrible, unseen creature as a gremlin is not my original idea. In fact, it came from this book that Bobby bought me probably close to 10 years ago. It is a great book and helped me quite a lot. Apparently, though, I need to go back and read it again to get refreshers on how to banish this awful thing back to where its been hiding. I’d love to think I can just get rid of it altogether, but I’m not sure that’s possible. There are a lot of complicated ingredients that go into making me into the person that I am, both bad and good. More on all of that at a later time. Some of it has left me scarred, and sometimes I feel a little broken because my emotions can get really overwhelming, even positive ones. I used to have a very low opinion of myself, and I’m still not fully on the confidence train most of the time, but I get by. I had been feeling a little bit down for maybe the past week or so. Earlier this week, though, and on and off since, I was just full on feeling horrible about my abilities at my job, at home as a partner, as a mom, as a friend, really as a person. It kind of came out of nowhere and blindsided me. I had one day where I just felt terrible and nothing was really making it go away. A nice run in the evening at least helped. This recent bout of whatever this is has reminded me of how far I’ve come, but also how far I still have to go. I now have the ability to feel like I’m good at things that I enjoy and work hard at, and I can frequently accept compliments without coming back with something negative, or even something as lame as ‘yeah, right’. That’s not the case all the time, though. Especially recently. I’ve become terrible at accepting any compliments again because I just can’t allow myself to believe they’re genuine. It’s been a while since I’ve felt this badly, but it’s been ebbing and waning. A lot of times, some physical activity, or some socialization, or even talking about it with Bobby, helps push it off a little. I know that I’m really hard on myself, and that I need to let up, but that’s easier said than done. I don’t really have much advice on how to deal with stuff like this, distracting myself helps, activity and little victories definitely help. I’m still re-figuring out how to not just be completely, ridiculously hard on myself.

I used to be much, much worse. On top of having no confidence in myself, I was also very shy and introverted. This is after high school that I’m talking about, too. I struggled with low self image in high school, but that seems pretty common. Even after finding an awesome boyfriend (who I eventually married), I still struggled with it all. He really helped me overcome it when it was really bad. He helped give me ways to come out of my shell and just be able to say hi to strangers as I walked past them, and he also helped me find ways to feel good about myself and feel confident. I’m still a work in progress, and a lot of times I brush off what he says as him just saying things because he loves me, but I’m a lot more receptive to hearing positive things about myself than I used to be. It’s not a fun thing to experience, hearing positive things about myself and just brushing them off as a knee-jerk reaction because I just can’t let myself believe they’re genuine since they’re coming from someone who cares about me. That’s kind of dumb, and I know that, but it’s not so easy to overcome that.

There has been a lot of good this week, though. Monday was our first time working with a personal trainer and getting back in the gym to do some weight training, and we managed to go a few times this week with a short workout plan he gave us. Lukas is both super awesome and insanely difficult at the same time, but such is life as a 3 year old. He’s so funny, smart, and loving. He is also very independent and opinionated. We’ve had some delicious dinners and spent some time with good people. We went and spent some time with old friends on Tuesday night, always a good time with Ben, Missy and the Ullmann family. Lukas and I had a mom and kid date with Meghann and Ben. Yesterday, Bobby and I spent a good portion of the day at Plex letting Lukas run around and play while we tried to write and traded writing pieces with Christian to get feedback from each other. Last night, we got another big chunk of our new 3d printer done, connecting most of the cables. Today, we went shopping, got an oil change for my car, and took turns working out. Running after a pretty intense workout is hard, and I was a bit down on myself for not having a very great run. Bobby had to remind me that I’m not used to weight training and then running, and that it’s good that I ran at all. Later on, we went to a family birthday party for my cousin’s little girl, who is absolutely adorable. After he warmed up a bit, Lukas was his energetic, daredevil self, and people loved him for it. My papa had him cracking up, I love his deep belly laugh so much. I had a nice time catching up with my family. After this post, I’ll snuggle up with my love and chill out before we head to bed to get ready for another week.

I really do have a great life, and I am surrounded by awesome people. I think maybe that is potentially the key to getting through this rough patch, realizing how great things really are. It’s sometimes hard to see it with that terrible gremlin constantly tossing negative things around my mind. I just have to re-learn how to send it back to where it came from. I’ve started drawing what I think it looks like. I’m not sure what I’ll do with the drawing yet, if anything. Maybe just drawing it will help get the negativity out that I’m feeling. That might sound a little bit odd, but it could potentially help. Who knows. Bobby and I are taking a 4 day vacation up to Bellaire for our anniversary in a couple of weeks, and we’re taking a full week off of work to get stuff done around the house, I think that break will help reset me.

The Knitting Knerd

The life of a geeky/crafty web developer lady

Life