Spring has Sprung

I don't officially start my new training for the Cascade Lakes Relay until next Monday. The last week and a half it has been hard to get my runs in. I definitely do better when I'm on a training plan. There have been lots of after school activities and trainings with work and I have been really struggling with being tired.

It has been an entire year since I first started seeing my doctor about what was causing the fatigue and weight gain. I now know a lot of problems that I don't have. That is a blessing. However, we still don't know what problem I do have. That is a frustration! I go in again next week and I think we will start having to be more creative. I think my doctor is secretly liking the puzzle of it all. Good thing I like him. The last doctor I had just used to tell me I was stressed and I needed to relax more. Not very helpful advice. My new doctor completely believes I am doing all the right things and there is something hinky going on. Gives me hope to keep looking for answers instead of just giving up.

While I haven't done a lot of running the last week I have been doing a lot of yard work. I think that it probably balances out a little bit, but only a little. Our oldest daughter is graduating from high school next month and we are having a graduation party to celebrate. This will be an outdoor party (weather permitting) and I spent all of last weekend getting my flowerbeds cleaned out and ready for flowers and then spraying off the front and back porches. It took three days to get it all done but the weather was absolutely glorious. I had Friday off and got to work in the yard, run errands with my husband and get things done around the house. It made me miss the days where we had the farm and I was a stay at home mom. I would do my book work at the farm but could hang out with my hubby during the day and generally get things done as needed.

Sunday I went and got a few hanging baskets and flowers. Last night I went out and planted all the flowers. I had only intended to plant the impatiens but once I got going I didn't stop until everything was in the ground or a planter. It looks really nice and they will have a month to grow before the party. I planted impatiens, petunias, and geraniums. My planters have a mix of petunias and other flowers and one that is all million bells. The trick now will be to get my family to actually water them for me in June when I am gone for a couple of weeks. :-)

I have a very warm class room when the weather is nice my room is a sauna. Yesterday was a hot day and the room was warm at the beginning of the day. I had a team meeting in my room at 7:45 a.m. and I got there around 7 to get some work done and open up the windows. Every single teacher that come in for the meeting said, "Wow, your room is really hot!" Like I didn't already know that. lol If it's that warm in the morning you can only imagine how much worse it got as the day progressed. A hot day with warm Middle School bodies and it was pretty miserable. My 6th period class was falling asleep, literally! It doesn't help that my room is also the room where they have added the server for the computers on our end of the building. It is in a locked closet and it runs all the time, putting out more heat to add to the misery. By the end of the day, my head hurt, I was hot and I was as grumpy as my students. I came home and didn't want to run because the thought of getting more hot just made me even more grumpy.

That's when I decided to go plant my flowers. Joe was going to be doing some things in the yard too and I always like it when we are both outside working. Planting flowers is almost as therapeutic as running. I got to dig in the dirt, smash dirt clogs, look at pretty things and make my yard beautiful. I can think of worse ways to spend a warm, spring evening.

Impatiens

Petunias

Snap dragons and more petunias

Hanging basket from Country Barn

I'm always amazed at how visibly happier the flowers look almost immediately after planting.  Some of them were a little root bound and a few needed more water then they had gotten and were looking rather sad.  I loosened up the roots, popped them in the dirt and gave them a good soak.  By the time I got the back yard pots done and came back to clean up in the front they already had perked up.  The next day new flowers were already coming out.  Isn't it amazing what flowers (and people) will do when they are given a little room to grow.  :-)


I start the next training program on Monday and I'm looking forward to getting back into the groove of the schedule again.  I think I might look for another 10K to do in July.  I have been focused on the Half Marathon distance for so many months it would be fun to see how much I can improve my time since the 10K I did in January.

I have to brag a little bit about my awesome students.  I have a great homeroom class.  It is called my Spartan class because, well, our mascot is the Spartans.  Very clever, don't you think?  :-)  Last fall a student in our school did the unthinkable and took her own life.  There were many factors involved in her depression, one of them was that she was being bullied.  As a school we decided to step up our game about bullying and we have been working on a anti-bullying program during our Spartan class.  When we started this in January my students were not happy.  They didn't think it would matter and nothing would ever change.  We have had some very honest conversations in the months since and I have had the privilege of watching this group of kids start to believe.  The are starting to believe they can be the difference.  That they can be the change.  That they have more power to do these things then they ever thought before.  I think the most important thing is that they BELIEVE!  I'm so proud of them!!!!  A reporter from the local paper came and watched one of the lessons/conversations and had an article about the school a few days ago.  Here's a link to the article:

http://democratherald.com/news/local/seven-oak-tackles-bullying/article_85057d92-b611-11e2-80e5-0019bb2963f4.html

The quote at the end from the two girls is my favorite part.  I love my job!

One more random thing before I finish this post.  I think I need to get my next pair of running shoes a half a size bigger next time.  I love my shoes and have gotten the same brand for the last couple of years, Brooks.  But I am one of the people that has longer second toes than my big toes.  Which normally isn't a problem except for when I run 13.1 miles.  Then it seems to be a problem.  I got a blister under the toenail on my left foot after the Corvallis Half.  I popped it and it was healed enough that it didn't hurt during the Eugene Half which was a relief.  I was worried about that.  However I lost the nail, again.  I lost that same nail last summer.  Sigh.  Guess I'm going to have to redo my pedicure and paint the skin.  I'm bummed though cause I just got the pedicure not too long ago and I used one of their colors so I have to take it all off and use my own.  Oh well.  :-)  Here is a picture of my lovely toes, minus one nail. 

I guess this means that I really am a runner.  Only people who run a lot would be proud of missing nails.  And I really am kind of proud of it.  :-)  It means I worked hard.  Beginning the next round of training next week.  Here we go again.  :-)