13.1 Miles is a Long Way to Run

The school year has begun, and each afternoon when I leave school, I actually look forward to returning the next day. Sure, I have only been a "real" teacher for three days, but other jobs have lost their charm by then. So far, the highlights include watching several students in my intervention class (the lower scorers/low performers) work together to help a group of four students try to untie their human knot. Whether my students realize it or not, they were developing key communication skills. They had to give their directions in a logical sequence, using words the other kids understood...you get the point. It was a moment of nerdy teacher bliss.

With the start of the school year, my half-marathon (did I ever mention that Irene and I are running a half-marathon in October?!) fast approaches, while the opportunities to train dwindle. Over the summer, I actually completed two run/walks that were over 14 miles. Now that I live in the land of the employed again, I have to make a real effort to fit that into my schedule.

For now, I can fit in 3-5 mile runs, which I think help with speed but not with stamina. Last Thursday, though, I had a break through run, one of those runs that makes me realize that my training has made a difference...what did I do? Why, I kept pace with Irene over a 5 mile run! Normally, we're together for the first mile or so, and then she moves out in front of me, and I never catch up to her. Thursday, though, I never let her get more than 10 feet ahead of me, and I would dig in and find the speed I needed to catch up to her. Mentally, this is a huge moment for me. I can keep up with my half-marathon partner, and that makes 13.1 seem a lot shorter.

Letting Go

It's a gradual process, this letting go of old friends. There are days when it hurts, and there are days when I don't feel anything about it all. My high school friends have drifted away over the years. I was never the easiest friend to have. I tended towards moodiness, and I liked to get my way. In fact, high school was probably the worst time to be friends with me. I'm much better at friendship now, most of the time.

After graduation, I was the one sending out the emails, harassing everyone to get together at Christmas, or to celebrate a birthday. When I got married and started yet another graduate program, I stopped sending out those emails, finally admitting to myself that I no longer wanted to be the one responsible for making sure my friends saw each other.

In June, I realized it had been almost a year since I talked to my high school best friend, and I tried to make plans to visit her. Her schedule didn't allow the visit, and I took this as the "she's just not that into you" moment. I'll still write on Facebook walls and attend weddings. I'll send Christmas cards. What I won't do is devote time and energy to planning coffee dates or potluck evenings that never happen.

When I stopped to really think about this, I realized that my life is full of friends who know me now, as the more mature person who doesn't always have to get my way (though it's still nice when I do). I have surrounded myself with people who don't share memories of me as a truly difficult person. Not that my high school friends demanded it, but I felt that I still needed to make amends for being annoying, petulant and needy and that I needed to prove I had changed. With others, who met me in college or beyond, I share happier memories. Letting go of old friends hurts, but no longer being constantly reminded of my awkward years has its gifts.

Employed!

After several strange interview experiences (including one where I was asked the race of my husband), I have a job! I will begin my new life as a middle school English teacher in August, and it's hard to express how right this feels. While I thought I quit my job and went back to school to get a teaching credential in order to teach small children, it turns out God had another plan for me all along.

After All That....

Ten Reasons Why We Renewed the Lease at Our Current Apartment

10) Despite the fact that the landlords in Napa brag about their properties like they're the kindergarten class valedictorian, the ones in our price range leave something lacking...often parking, or land to step on to after opening mysterious patio door in the bedroom.

9) Far too many have a strict "no pet" policy, and despite the fact that he is a mere 6.2 pounds, Marley still qualifies as a pet.

8) Moving in the summer is painful...and sweaty.

7) Our current apartment managers gave us only a week to tell them for certain if we were staying for another year or if we were going to take the gamble and say we could leave by July. We couldn't take the pressure and caved.

6) Our apartment is under priced for the market, and we actually couldn't afford to live in it if we were walking in fresh off the street. It's hard for a shopper like me to pass on such a bargain.

5) It feels rather nice to not have a new "project" right after graduation.

4) My MIL will keep visiting if we keep telling her we're moving -- she booked a flight at the end of June to come "help us move." She'll just have to have fun on this visit and then fly out again to "help." I wonder how many times we can get her to visit without us actually moving.

3) We have a pool.

2) And a gym.

1) And the number one reason? We're holding out for something awesome. And awesome wasn't on craigslist recently.

Weddings, Graduations, and more.

June is a crazy month for our little household. We have two fabulous weddings to attend (well, one down, one to go), my graduation from the credential program (today!), and, to top it off, we're working at moving from an apartment to a rental house.

The wedding was almost easier to plan than this move.

When we landed in our first apartment, it was the result of a quick, three complex visit that led us to our final choice, the best of those three. Now, we have far more choices and far more time. We were operating on less than a week of time to make a decision about an apartment before the wedding, and now, well, we have however much time we need. It's a blessing and a curse.

The blessing is that we can be picky and look at lots of properties until we find the perfect one. The curse follows the same guideline. We aren't forced into make a decision, which means we haven't made one yet. I'd love to be settled in our new place, or at least moved into, by July so that I can get to work decorating, organizing and maybe even gardening. I also am desperately trying to not over-book myself, and moving in the summer, when I have lots of free time (hmm. so far? teaching career = good choice), means less of a crazy Sarah. Moving anytime between September and May, means that I'll be embroiled in a job (hopefully!) and from September to December, the hubs will be hard at work during the wine harvest, practically living at his job and only crawling home in time to kiss me and fall asleep. Not. A. Good. Time. To. Move.

I'm working on patience, always one of my weak points, but I'm also feeling anxious. We started looking in late April but couldn't commit to anything, because we would have had to pay two months rent for a couple of months, which would have stretched us far too thin. Now, it's the perfect time to commit, and the properties aren't out there. So, we wait.

And I pretend I know how to be patient, in the hopes that someday this will prove true.

The Great Purge

The end of the school year brought about the time (and the itch) for me to spring clean. The spring cleaning lasted about two weeks, involved more trash bags than I care to count and resulted in a great deal more breathing room in our little apartment. It wasn't so much trash (I mean, come on, I'm waaaaay too ocd for that), as it was clutter, things I've collected over the school year that I wasn't sure I'd need again and items I've held on to with more purpose, thinking I'd use them in an art project or...something.

I tried to find beauty in my collected items, especially wedding-related items, and made a collage out of the wedding cards we received:



The hubs kind of looked at it with an expression that said, "Really? You're going to hang another collage on the wall?" But, out loud, he complimented it. I am enjoying having these words and images out where I can see them!

Besides, it fits with my new philosophy towards having stuff: If I can't have it out, if I have to bury it in a pile of boxes, then I don't want it anymore.

The same goes for this blog. There are things I have said that I don't want out in the open anymore, mostly rude comments or the harsher of my "rants," and I've taken it upon myself to purge.

I went in with a fairly bad opinion of who I had been in the early days of the blog, but as I read, I realized that my path towards (greater) maturity is actually pretty visible. For now, I've gotten rid of less than 10 posts, and I'm up to January 2006 in my re-reading. I know that means that in the next few hundred posts I read, I'll be in the months leading up to meeting my husband. Having that knowledge in my head has altered my perception of the me I was in the early days. I can now see that I did change and that I had to change in order to be ready to be with him when he came along.

What a gift to be able to retrace my steps and see just about when I became truly ready to give and receive love.

Awww.

But seriously, folks, the power of the purge...I feel so much lighter. I highly recommend it, whether in your writing or your home.

10 Months

Today, I have been married ten months. Today is also just a week away from my graduation ceremony. The past ten months, as I've navigated both a new marriage and a teaching credential program, I've had to let some things go.

Now, as the fog clears, and I can see my life more clearly, I crave those things again, namely writing and taking pictures. In order to maintain my sanity over the past months, I abandoned two of my favorite past times. In fact, there were several points when I even forgot what my hobbies were. I was so engrossed in teaching, in keeping up with school work and with managing a full-time husband that I lost track of the other things that make me happy.

Still, we do what we have to maintain our sanity, right?

Now, it's summer, and for the first time on a number of years, I have time to devote to my favorite tasks.

Inspired after watching Julie and Julia, I'm ready to get back in to a daily writing routine.

I hope some of you are still out there to follow along.