February Fill In

Here it is, the star:

I officially finished the Mesa half marathon and earned my climate medal, which was the last of the star points.  Oddly enough, it did not feel like a triumph-- mostly because the race organizers could not verify in time that I had completed all five and so I did not get the extra 5C medal.  Rather a let down after five years of effort!  But overall, I raced well and my knees held out, so that was the positive.  But now I am dropping down to shorter distances.  I'll still run, but a "long" run for me will be a 10k.  

In the meantime, February is racing forward into more madness.  B made the junior high basketball team, and this is the first time we have done sports of any kind, mostly because I do enough driving as it is and did not want to become a raving lunatic who was never at home.  But B really wanted to do this, so here we go.  It is going to require a lot of family effort-- the school does not provide transportation which means I am going to be driving like a fiend.  But M has been assigned driving the youngest two from school and to church activities when necessary, and J's task is dinner on game nights.  So far things have been chaotic and nobody is in bed before eleven (not even the 8 year old) but I have high hopes that we will get into some kind of routine.

We are also full swing into Renaissance Festival season, which means that Terence has an extra crazy schedule.  Of course this week is even more topsy-turvy because he has training, and President Trump is coming to town so Terence has mobile field force duty for that.  So chaos for me and for him.  For Valentine's he got me flowers and chocolate several days ahead of time and I managed to leave him a card and his own chocolate on the table on the actual day.  It was hard enough making sure the younger kid had their decorated boxes and class treats and whatnot taken care of.  Whenever people ask me what we are doing for Valentine's day I just have to shake my head.  Do married adults with children at home actually celebrate? 

What else is new around here . . . oh, M got her acceptance to her second choice university, which included a half tuition grant for her freshman year.  So now she's got to make a decision . . . But in any case I am very proud of her!  (And scared for her, but I'm not going to worry about that right now.  She won't leave for another six months.)

This weekend also included funeral services for my uncle, which meant I got to see my cousins and their families.  We had a great time reminiscing and telling stories, but it is always hard to say goodbye.  The funeral was more difficult than I expected.  Difficult not because I am worried about never seeing my uncle again-- I am not, and my uncle is a great example to me of a person who made heroic efforts to change himself for the better, so I don't think he had any regrets.  But mostly because I know how much his family is going to miss him.

It was a good reminder for me to try and enjoy the time we have together and the memories we are creating.  Someday (hopefully still a long time from now) those memories will be all we have.  So begone, February blues!  I have a lot of living with my loved ones to enjoy (stress, driving, schedule madness, fear, chocolate, and all!)