Okay people, I’ve said it before, but I will say it again, I am not a runner. I’m a pretty good walker, but when I have to start picking up the pace, I really just don’t like it, I’m not good at it, and I’m just not a fan of sweating in general.

I’ve come to the conclusion that all of the above really doesn’t matter. I’ve heard lots of success stories, including a whole flock of girls from my church who ran the half marathon in March, many of whom claim to not be runners.

I’ve learned that I have made assumptions about myself based on the past and what I absorb from our culture. Things like, I’m not skinny, I don’t have the right clothes, the right shoes, the right figure. I’m not good enough. I’m horrible at it. The spiral downward continues.

Anyway, I have a few dreams for my life, that don’t include being a couch potato, so I felt like it was high-time to put some of these thoughts and feelings behind me, and get out there, and try.

So, try I did.

It was humid. Not hot, but humid. I felt like I was burning up before I even walked out the door (yes, even when it isn’t hot, my internal body temperature is). And besides that, it was already 8:30am, Liam had to go down for a nap at around 9, which meant, I needed to be back by 8:50, so I needed 30 minutes to complete day one, but I had 20… what should I do?

I decided to just go for it, suck it up, and deal with the consequences of my child being put down for a nap a little bit late.

So, I started out, started my two apps on my phone (nike plus and some couch to 5k free app). It felt good to be out of the house before 9am exercising, I decided I liked the tone it set for my day. So many people have told me that running clears their head, so I tried to figure out how that worked. I tried to pray.. but, that just ended up with me thanking God for the humidity… clearly my heart wasn’t fully in that prayer! Scratch that God, I don’t thank you for the humidity – I thought my head was supposed to be clear… it wasn’t. It was cluttered.

I did okay for the first 10 minutes, I was navigating the sidewalk (though bumpy in places) pretty well for the two of us (Liam in his NEW jogging stroller!) But then, there were people, cars, ladies walking dogs, other people running.. and I felt self-conscious, to say the very least. My concentration, my thoughts, everything went to that. I was so very….embarrassed. I hated the way I looked, which in turn caused me to hate the way I felt. Liam was getting fussy, tired of being in a stroller, dropping his toys out of the side of the stroller on occasion. Then me, trying to calm him into a nice pre-nap state… it was futile.

The time was passing quickly, until… I was walking (briskly) up to a home under renovation, lots of trucks, workers, and me, the self-conscious walker/jogger going by. I waved, to be cordial, but in my head, was thinking, “don’t look at me, nothing to see here!” I kept going… walking… even though the timer said it was time to jog, I knew this would throw me off, so I rationalized that I would jog for the next “walk” phase instead after I passed the commotion.

I started thinking about my self-consciousness… is this what clearing your head means? (Lord, I hope not!) And, how ridiculous it was that I felt this way. I convinced myself that no one really cared. Certainly no one cared as much as me. I felt strange, as I know that even self pity is a form of pride (in reverse). I was ashamed that I even had these feelings in the first place.

After a bit more of Liam’s protests, and me trying to hurry along (against the clock). We arrived back home, thankfully. Liam was ramped up now,sitting straight up in a reclined jogging stroller. (just relax little fella, I wish we could trade places!) and I was faced with the stairs to get to my front door, I must carry both him (around 23 pounds) and the stroller (I’m guessing 15ish pounds) up the stairs. A little weight training to add to my endurance, I suppose.

I lifted him + the stroller up the stairs. And knew, at that moment, sweat and all, that I was doing the right thing for him, for me, for our family, for the future. I must be in better shape if I want to be able to play with him without tuckering out by the time he is walking, running… (and soon)!

I felt sweat dripping from me, I lifted him out of the stroller, in the front door, and it was his nap time.. I was late getting back (despite ending the workout 5 minutes early)

I went up the stairs, trying to muster a round of “Jesus Loves Me” which is customary. But I was tired and sweaty and hot. I brought him in, read him his devotional, laid him down.

Then something strange happened, I started to feel good. Like, energized. Is this the endorphins people talk about? I wanted to believe it was.

Day one.

It wasn’t perfect. It was only 1.63 miles, but it was effort, and it was a start. I’m glad I tried and that I didn’t hang on to those voices in my head, that I didn’t give up before I started.

How about you? Have you ever tried couch to 5k? Let me know your experiences in the comments!

First, the amendment one craziness. No matter which side of the fence you fall, you have to agree that not much of the name-calling and hatred was productive. I felt very disappointed in my fellow-North Carolinians, including our own governor, for remarks that portrayed anything but southern hospitality.

As if that wasn’t just ENOUGH, the article in TIME Magazine comes out just in TIME for Mother’s Day (is that how you got your name, for your timeliness?) The Are you Mom Enough? article, with it’s infamous front cover. That had many moms in an uproar, not really against each other, but moreso of just redirecting perspectives, ie what about the motherless? and isn’t parenting more about your character than your rules? and what to do on the hard days of mothering, etc.

Thank God for Mothers!

I have to admit, this morning when I woke up, I took a big sigh of relief just in the realization of a new week. Not all of this is behind us, most of it has yet to be hashed through re: amendment one. But I hope, to my fellow believers and fellow North Carolinians (and those of us fortunate enough to be Mothers) that we will choose to love those around us every single day. That we would reject condemnation in its judgemental human form and that we would harness the power love in the gospel.

I have refrained from saying how I voted, on purpose. I did post a few articles and videos to facebook showing different sides of the argument, and with a reason. That reason is, you, educated citizen, should be well informed enough to vote, you shouldn’t fall into groupthink and you shouldn’t even vote one way because someone said so. No, our country is one where we have amazing freedoms to vote, make informed decisions and approach the future with confidence.

Last week was a heavy week. Let’s choose to love this week (and well, preferably every week). Let’s embrace our hope and a future, and instead of bickering, let’s choose to get along. Life is far too short.

relaxing sundays inbetween time at church…

a banana pudding masterpiece for small group…

and more banana for this sweet one!

it was cool enough this week to wear our overalls one last time…

we even dressed alike that day..

and i took liam’s 8 month pictures…

our new favorite technology toy! an ip camera in lieu of a video monitor.

spending time reading the real Bible, this week was so full of hard stuff it was good to seek refuge here…

2nd thursday candy bar! designed by the talented sarah coe!

and friday… snuggles with the fam…

somewhere in the thursday/friday range i caught a cold and thereby this week ended a bit slumpish, so i didn’t get this posted till saturday… insta——saturday?! at any rate, i’m feeling tons better today and so thankful. happy weekend!

Here is my goal review/accountability moment!

And here are the new goals for this week (Wednesday – Wednesday)

Most of these are blurry…. because little man is on the MOVE, no doubt about it.

Here are a few of my absolute favorites!

My friend, Kristin, participates in a blog link up on fridays, and I’ve been wanting (/i tried to in the past) to post some pictures from each week here, but time, time, keeps on ticking.
Here is this past week in photos & instagrams!

Monday, bowling for my friend Lauren’s birthday! yay!

Then, coffee… every single day, but only one photo of it…

This was a sweet moment on Saturday when my precious son decided he wanted to start full-on crawling! Woo! And, those are new pjs!

I found a new favorite weather app with awesome graphics, had to share it with the nerds of the world!

This showed up as the verse of the day, and after going to a talk on anger is it righteous or unrighteous, this verse really struck home!

Then, Tuesday night, I made homemade laundry detergent… that was so much fun, probably too much fun. I posted a tutorial here.

This was dinner Wednesday night. Organic quinoa salad with toasted naan, recipe forthcoming! (I’ll still do a post on that recipe… just ran out of time this week!)

Thursday Liam and I got outside and played on the porch, it was a hot one, so we didn’t stay out long, but it was nice for a change of scenery. I love this photo because I feel like it looks like he took it!

Friday, I made a trip to Target and got this amazing deal… (plus I used coupons, so I think I only paid $4 total!)

and of course, a half priced venti-frap in the new mocha cookie crumble, delicious! chocolate whip & all! (don’t worry, I shared this with Jer)

And… a trip to costco with my boys!

I realize not all of these are instagrams, but the “rules” say they don’t have to be… just pictures from the week! It was a fun week.

Well, here we have it, the moment of truth & accountability! I didn’t accomplish all of the goals, but I did get quite a few of them done… I’ll roll over the unaccomplished goals for this next week…

So here are my goals for the week of May 12th.

I was buying Purex Free & Clear for what I considered to be really cheap (about $2/72 oz) but this honestly blows that out of the water.

So, here we go… homemade (liquid) laundry detergent! There are plenty of powdered detergents and other recipes out there. This is just the one that I decided to use because it only makes about 1 gallon at a time, which I am comfortable with storing.

Recipe printable now added to the bottom of this post!

All you need are these 3 ingredients + tap water.

Just so you know, washing soda IS NOT the same as baking soda, although, I’ve been told that it is.

You’ll just need 1/3 of the Fels Naptha soap bar:

Grate it up on a regular kitchen-grater. Don’t be too terribly concerned with size because you are melting it down in a bit, anyway.

Then you’ll want to put a pot of 1 qt water on low heat on the stove + the grated soap to melt it down.

After the soap is melted and you don’t see any shreds left, you’ll add 1/2 cup borax and stir, then 1/2 cup washing soda & stir till disolved.

and after that you’ll pour this warm mixture into a bowl of cool water (3 qts) and stir it all up. It will start to thicken quickly. If you are uncomfortable with the thickness you can add another gallon of water to the mixture and instead of using 1/4 c. for laundry you will use 1/2c. It’s totally up to ya!

I poured my mixture into a used up Purex Free & Clear jug and the rest into this beautiful blue mason jar.

and there ya have it! I’ve heard that using this mixture completely eliminates the need for fabric softener (which we don’t use anyway). So I’m interested to see what it does.

You can sub out the Fels Naptha for a different bar soap, if you’d like. Many have had success with Ivory.

I am going to test this on cloth diapers to see if L has a reaction to the FN, if so, I’ll probably use Ivory next go round.

Let me know if you try this! It was really fun to do, and costs only about 55 cents per gallon, and each gallon will do 64 loads! Yes! That’s laundry detergent I will like using!

Recently I started a class at Port City Community Church that walks through some big issues that people are faced with. The first week the topic was depression, the second fear, anxiety and worry, and this past week we discussed anger. Since I have considered becoming a counselor in the past these topics have led me to some really deep thinking and of course, self evaluation. I’ve faced a lot of sin in my own life that frankly, needs to be dealt with. PTL for discovery!

In any case, this past week we discussed anger. Righteous or Unrighteous.

And wouldn’t you know it, in all of the pondering, I kinda just let this one slide.. I mean, I’ve kinda landed on, this is one of the have to ask the question once we get There type of questions. But today, You Version’s Bible App verse of the day was the very verse that I’ve been wondering on…

My question is, how is this even possible? I mean, is it possible to be angry without sinning? How? Show me, Lord! This side of heaven (unless you are Jesus) I am just not sure how this is possible… especially when concerning personal matters.

Would love to discuss this further with any of you other ponderers out there!