bunnies and blackberries... summer is coming!

I took a walk today! No like, premeditation (hahaha, I wrote premedication accidently... none of that either), no dreading it, it was just like... "I'd like to be outside walking around." Done. It was really nice actually. I needed some thinking time. And on my walk I saw this little guy:

He is not full grown, but the picture doesn't really look like he's any smaller than an adult :) 

I saw some blackberries on the ground, but only one or two unripe ones attached to a plant. 

Also, Saturday I got my hair cut! They took 5-8 inches off, depending on the layers and such. So as you can see, I had a lot of hair for it to still be past my shoulders at this point. This is a much better length for summer. The long hair was just so difficult to manage and keep restrained! Please ignore the face I'm making. I can't smile at myself when I'm taking pictures, so I went for an uncertain face. 

One month from tomorrow and I'm outta here! I've had a pretty good weekend though. Sad it is over, happy this week is a 3-day work week, nervous for Friday because we have a presentation, portfolio due, and then we are going on our year end retreat, which I am not looking forward to. I just don't want to have to do sharing activities or things like that. But it is at a lake house I think, so there can be swimming! I am excited about that part. 

Daddy Day Care

So I know I told you guys already but to set all this up I have to say that the place I work went out of business two Sundays ago.  It has been an interesting week and a half to say the least.  Because I'm not working anymore and to save money until Amanda gets done with school I'm staying home with the kids.  This has been both awesome and insanely stressful at times.  Last week was highlighted by waking up to find that AJ had vomited in and around his crib.

Needless to say my running has taken a bit of a hit.  But I have really gotten back into it this week.  I went to the track Sunday night, last night and tonight.  Last night I did 7 total laps, walked the first, ran the next 5 then walked a cool down lap.  I went tonight even though I didn't really have to but I just wanted to get out.  Tonight I ran just 5 laps but I ran all of them.  I feel pretty good about my motivation right now and I just hope I can keep it up.

On a related note, my mom has offered to pick up a gym membership as my birthday present.  I just need to go check this one place out I have in mind  to see if I like it.  Anywhooooo,

HONK!

Matt

Sometimes you just get mad

So. I've been out of my routines lately, too. Today, for some reason, I just got mad. Mad that I can't really run a mile anymore, mad that my joints are stiff at 26, mad that I'm just not very strong, mad that I feel so defenseless thinking about if I crossed paths with someone dangerous, and mad that I am totally inflexible. So I put on my work out clothes, and headed out for a walk. After a short warm up walk, I decided to jog/run. I was ok for a few minutes, but it wasn't long before my hip flexors started to complain. I tried not to overdo it, but still push myself a little before slowing to a walk. I thought about then cutting my walk short, but hobbled through it. I decided on some hip stretches and workouts that I'm just going to have to be more consistent about. I am going to try to make a check list or something for this week. I realized, when I used to take up running in high school, I was also doing lunges, toe raises, pushups, etc. So that helped maintain enough strength to keep my hips aligned right. Or whatever. And then in college we would go use the weight room. Not that consistently, but enough. ANYWAY. So yeah. I am going to try to use this anger to better my body.

I am really hoping when I get back to Atlanta I can commit to the yoga thing. I feel like maybe the running this next month and a half (I am so close to done!!) will help me stay consistent with a routine and with slightly improve some general strength issues. And if I keep making myself stretch, then I'll be that much more prepared when the yoga commences once again. I want skills.

Such a slacker. Ugh.

Last week I was a big ole slacker.  As in, I didn't do ANYTHING.  Which was definitely not helpful in this whole new endeavor, that's for sure.  It just reinforced to me how much I NEED this.  I don't feel good when I'm not eating better and working out.  I don't like how my body has gotten the past few years, and when I'm not being productive with my food and work outs, it's just even worse for me.  Sadly, that's not alway enough motivation for me to get moving.  Not entirely sure why, but there's that.  I think on one hand I'm concerned that I'll work hard, do the best I can, and still not make any progress.  It's like I'm afraid to try because I'm afraid to fail.  Oy.

But last night and tonight I got that good ole work out in, dang it.  My muscles won't be feeling very well tomorrow, but I need this.  I really need to get out and do some walk/running tomorrow.  Like, for real.  Not just because I need to move this body of mine, but because I'm supposed to do the Peachtree and I need to be able to move at a faster speed than slow hah.

I'm not really sure what's going on with me.  I know that this is something that I need, but it's been really difficult to keep it up.  Even though I know that I can do it and that I know I'll feel great when I'm done.  I'm glad that we've got this going again because I also need this lovely blog.  I need y'all to keep trucking with me and being the awesome, lovely, encouraging, dear friends that you are.  So I give you full permission to check in with me from time to time to make sure that I'm staying on task.  I need that.  Dude, I just need y'all. :)

Alright, enough of this.  I think y'all have got the picture.  HONK!

Great week

It has been a great week so far.  Ellie's baptism was Sunday and it was a perfect day.  Everything went smoothly and we got to see some of our out of town friends who were awesome enough to make the drive down.  Here are a couple pics from Sunday, including the one of Ellie that everyone just feel in love with.

My running has gone pretty well this week.  Yesterday my legs, specifically my calves were absolutely killing me.  They were burning and just really tight, like hard as a rock.  Liz W suggested making sure I drank enough water before my run and I realized I usually drink a ton of water immediately after and while at work.  But not so much before running/walking.  So I'm going to keep that in mind for next time.  Anywho, hope you guys are doing well with ya'll goals etc!

HONK!

Matt

Non exercise, life post!

This is from an email I sent to some friends.  To give you guys some background, Nursing is something I had been considering for a relatively short time, just a cpl weeks.  But the more and more I thought about it the more it felt right.  So I made an appointment to talk with an adviser in the Nursing dept at VSU and here is what happened next:


"So I wanted to share something with you guys.  I met with my VSU adviser yesterday and she told me due to the amount of classes I would need to take that I should attend Georgia Military, which is the 2 year school right around the corner from the church, due to the quarter system I would be able to get the classes I needed to get into the program out of the way.  This was a somewhat unexpected development.  At the time I was kind of disheartened.  I felt like this one just like the obstacles I ran into for ordination.  I thought "I know its supposed to be a challenge but if this is what I'm supposed to do shouldn't things be a little easier? Shouldn't doors be opening instead of closing?"  

This new detour is of course totally do able.  But it just left me feeling disappointed and less than excited.   I just kept thinking about it more and more and I just asked God to give me some direction.  

Now in the past God has sometimes shown me a bible verse, one I don't know.  Literally something like "John 2:11"  would pop in my head and I would go look it up.  This at one time was a pretty regular occurrence.  So early this morning I was having these thoughts and asking God for direction and "Mark 3:14" popped into my head.  I looked for my NRSV bible like a good Episcopalian but couldn't find it so I grabbed my copy of the Message and looked it up.  Now because the Message doesn't individually number their verses it looked like it was just a listing of the 12 disciples.  Well I thought to myself "that was completely unhelpful.  Then almost immediately "Mark 4:13" popped into my head.  So I looked that up.  I kid you not it read:He continued "Do you see how this story works? All my stories work this way"  I sat there a little dumbfounded thinking "Is God just screwing with me?"  I'm sitting here desperately trying to discern a huge potential change in my life and I get one verse that is completely useless and then in response to my frustration God tells me "This is how it works"

Well probably less than a minute later another verse pops into my head "Matthew 8:16"  It reads: That evening a lot of demon-inflicted people were brought to him.  He relieved the inwardly tormented.  He cured the bodily ill.  He fulfilled Isaiah's well known sermon:  He took our illnesses, He carried our diseases...........

I literally said out loud: Wow, unbelievable.

If that isn't a positive sign that I should continue down this path I don't know what is.  "He cured the bodily ill......He took our illnesses, He carried our diseases"  Now I'm not saying I'm going to become a spiritual healer or anything but when discerning a call to the health care profession and to be led to that verse, that is a pretty strong sign to me.

So as of this morning I am a registered student at Georgia Military College.  I am registered for the summer and fall 1 quarters, taking 16 hours each.  I am quitting my job to focus on school.  Which will have some yet to be determined financial consequences.  We will be applying for Govt. assistance and getting student loans.  Summer loans aren't all that much but we'll just have to see how it goes.  As much as I don't want to put us into a financial bind I more so don't want to screw around and make bad grades.  I essentially need to make all A's to really give myself the best chance to get into the nursing program at VSU.  So obviously prayers would be appreciated.  

Any feedback you want to give about this email please do, i welcome it.

Peace, love you guys

Matt"

Please forgive the formatting, I copy and pasted this from my email.

Matt, again

That's gonna hurt tomorrow...yep....

As you know, I've been working on getting back in to running and a little while ago I downloaded the C25K app on my phone and would sporadically get back in to the swing of things.  So last week I finished up the week 4 and today I started with week 5, which is the running at 5:00 minute intervals.  Tomorrow I think it's for 8 minutes or something like that.  I knew it would be hard, but it was definitely harder than I expected.  Right off the bat I couldn't get my breathing together, which resulted in a lovely side stitch the whole time.  Fail.  The last 5 minute interval was just really difficult so I spent that time running the straights on the track and walking the curves.  I'm just glad I didn't puke, which felt like a real possibility a couple of times hah.

So I get home and really felt the need to put on the ole work out video and bust out another 45 minutes of calorie burning fun.  The videos I own have different levels, so once you master one level, you move on the to the next.  I decided last week I was moving up to level two, which begins the involvement of resistance bands.  Which make my muscles scream and yell at me every time I use them hah.

Moral of the story, tomorrow is going to HURT.  Like, real bad.  But I'm going to have to get out there and get my run on tomorrow because I need to take advantage of the times I'm able to run.  I'm working all weekend and I want to make sure that I get something done before then.  Hopefully I'll get some workouts done via running or the videos, but I definitely want to make sure that tomorrow, I get back on that track. :)

The bonus part of my run is that I listened to a new album I bought the other day.  It's a band from Iceland called Of Monsters and Men.  They're super awesome and I LOVE their album.  So go check that out. :)  Here's an acoustic version of their first single Little Talks.  Love it. :)

The funny/most annoying part of working out at home, especially when I'm doing crunches or leg lifts on the floor, is that my dear, sweet, lovely puppies feel the need to mess with me.  Today it was only this one...dear sweet Mille......

Don't let her adorable face fool you.....she really wants to be all up in your face while you're doing crunches, trying to lick all the sweat off your body.  Gross, but true.

Now this one, Henry, usually likes to be all up in my space, too.  But today he just felt the need to stay on the couch.

Needless to say, I was happy about this.  One puppy in my workout bubble is more than needed.

So I guess that's all for this go 'round.  Tomorrow will be all fun and sore, but I'm okay with that.  Homegirl needs it! :)  

HONK!

It's a brand new day

HONK!  So I wanted to share a cpl exercise related notes with you guys.  First and probably the one I'm happiest about is Amanda and I went and walked the track Sunday night in Adel after the kids went to bed.  We did 5 laps and we even raced the straights.  Like I told Liz W, I won of course.  Amanda says her pants were falling but that sounds like an excuse to me......I kid, her pants were totally falling down which was hilarious but I still would have won.

Secondly I had a great walk/run today around the Draz's neighborhood.  It went well and I actually enjoy getting out in the heat sometimes and working up a sweat.  Plus it helps me work on my sexy tan, ooooohh yeaaaah.

Anyway some exciting things on the horizon.  Stay tuned. and as always.........

HONK

Matt