30-Day Bloggity Blogness: Day 30 (LAST DAY!)

Day 30: A picture of yourself this day and five good things that happened since you started the challenge

A picture of me early this morning:

Hmmmm...five good things that happened since I started this challenge on March 1.

Not just THINGS. Not bad things. Like the horrible stomach bug that ripped through our house. Like all the time my husband has spent at work and out of town (only to be topped by all the time he'll be away in April and May).

Okay...good things.

Five good things.

1. I enrolled Thomas in two-day-a-week (Tu/Th) preschool to start in the fall. It's the same place where Andrew went for about nine months when he was three. (Tyner United Methodist Preschool) We really liked it a lot, and I think it'll be great for Thomas to have some structure, and for me to have some time alone! (Though we don't know quite how much time alone yet, as we're not sure if Benjamin will go to morning preschool or afternoon preschool in the fall.) But regardless, it'll be a few hours a week Tu & Th at the fewest, and several hours at the best. :)

2. Three of the five of us had birthdays. I turned 35 on March 14, Andrew turned six on March 24, and Thomas turned two on March 25. Andrew shared a party at the Chattanooga Zoo with a friend, Eric, in his class. (Eric turned six on March 14!) We invited the whole class, and had a great group of nine kids! It was supposed to rain (100% at one point!) but did not rain at all!! The animals were comical and even inappropriate, causing the kids to laugh and the parents to snicker. (I'm looking at you, chimp and jaguar...) Then we had a joint family birthday party at our house the very next day, on Andrew's actual birthday (and the day before Thomas's). We also celebrated Benjamin's fourth birthday, which is April 24. We had 18 people here and ate pizza and cake like it was going out of style.

3. Andrew had his first soccer game. I wasn't able to go because it was at 8:00 a.m. and they had pictures, etc. It would've been way too much for the Littles, so I stayed home. But Matthew said it was comical at best. I have yet to look at the pictures or videos that he took, but I'm sure I'll get around to it. Oh, and Andrew's soccer number is six. His first game was on his sixth birthday. :)

4. I got my running groove back. I ran four half marathons from December 11 to February 25. Then March hit, and I was just worn OUT. Then I got sick, and didn't run for eleven days. That was my longest stretch of not running since I started running in September 2010. (My previous streak was nine days in March 2011 when I hurt my back; evidently March is not a running-friendly month...) I ran a 5K on March 17 and beat my personal record. It now stands at 30:38 (a 9:51 pace). I have a 15K (9.3 miles) scheduled for April 21 as well as another 5K on April 28 that I need to sign up for. But with all these races, I just wasn't feeling it. Each run had me more tired and more discouraged. Then I realized (with the help of my running coach, lol, i.e., my husband) that I was focusing way too much on speed and pace. WHO CARES how fast I run. I'm never going to win any awards for speed. I am not even in the league of those who do. It just makes me miserable, which, in turn, will make me want to quit running, the only successful exercise I've ever done. So I stopped worrying about speed. And I have been doing great. I had my longest run since my half marathons last Sunday. It was 8.5 miles long. At the Riverwalk, where I adore running. It was a marvelous run. It wasn't particularly fast (11:24 pace), but I enjoyed it. And I think that's kind of the point.

5. I GOT MY iTUNES FIXED AND ORGANIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND I'M SWITCHED OVER TO MY NEW COMPUTER THAT I GOT FOR CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope that you enjoyed reading about my boring life for the past 30 days. It was fun blogging again. I am sure I'll take a break for awhile, but I'll be back.

Enjoy the last day of March tomorrow!