feeling love...

Last week I wrote a post after a somewhat crazy week. I was feeling all pitiful and overwhelmed, so I wrote about it. I never posted it because I wanted to include some pictures, but I didn't have them at the time.

In the end I don't think I am going to put up that post. It was far too depressing and self-consuming.

Today I will talk about tender mercies.

This last week was not nearly as crazy, and life felt like life. It was long some days, but all in all just full of life.

We had gone to DC to visit our friends the Ericksons. They are fabulous people, with two fabulous kids. And we enjoyed delicious chicken, and even made it to the Temple. Tender mercy, we did get stuck in crazy traffic and therefore did not end up in any meltdown scenarios. Believe me, most trips to DC end and possibly finish that way. This trip was uneventful in that respect and I took that as a tender mercy. Plus, I got to snuggle Bear, their very cute 1ish month old. It was delightful!

Then we started our week. It was hard some days and easy other days. But we were doing okay.

Friday I headed into work, dodging some rain as I biked. I started classes, lectured some, and felt a little better about some of my students' performances (that was something that stressed me out the previous week). Around lunchtime I got a call from Jimmy. Well, a few calls, but I was swamped with students coming to my office.

I finally got a chance to call Jimmy back to find out he was stranded on the side of RT 81, just outside of Staunton. He sounded calm and not really perturbed by the fact that our car, that was inspected a week before, was now acting up. I called about a tow truck, called a few friends, and he was able to get back to Lexington (without our car) in time to be at part of his class in the afternoon.

We remarked later that night that it was amazing how calm we both had been and how miraculous it was that the car broke down somewhat close to the shop, and that it was the weekend and not the middle of the week. We thought, the Lord really is looking out for us.

And then there was a great outpouring of help from our friends from church. And we felt even more the great love Heavenly Father had for us. We even have a car that we can use until ours is fixed. And even though our week was ending on a somewhat eventful note, it was not all bad. I felt much better about this week, than I had the last. Simple tender mercies that really made all the difference.

On another note, Lucy and her friend went to a fantastic garden/park the other day. They have a great play area for kids, with mud and dirt and water and rocks. Lucy was in HEAVEN. I thought I might share a picture  or two (or 5) from that event. Just because she is cute even when she is wet and covered in mud. 

Mice

Yesterday Jimmy decided to clean out one of the closets in Lucy's room. Lucy doesn't use it, we do. It was loaded with a bunch of boxes and infant clothes and toys. The stuff we don't need out anymore.

Let me step back a few days for a minute. Jimmy started this process because he was looking for his Ipod. Earlier in the week he went through one of the boxes with books and towels and found mouse nest with a dead baby mouse inside. Yuck! I am glad he disposed of it.

Because he still had not found his Ipod, and because that closet needed to be cleaned he resumed the organization of said closet. He had gone through all of the boxes except for one that he didn't see. It was right behind a bunch of unused boxes we had saved for potential moves later on. I pointed it out to him, hoping that his blessed Ipod would be inside.  As he picked up the hidden box he said to me "would you like to see what a mouse nest looks like?" I didn't really hear him. All I really heard was me screaming like a little girl when a mouse came running out of the closet and hit me in the foot.

The mouse ran back into the closet and Jimmy yelled because he was stuck in the closet with a mouse and a heavy box. He threw down the box and went to put shoes on. Lucy and I hid in the kitchen. Gosh I am a wimp. Imagine how scared that mouse must have been.

For the next hour Jimmy cleaned out the closet and tried to catch the mouse. And he didn't catch that mouse, but he did clean out the closet. This morning we didn't see any mouse remnants like we had the day before. We hope that the mouse leaves because even though we don't love having to use traps, we really can not have them leaving their business on our counters.

And that was our weekend. We also went to Charlottsville, which is a really nice town. I got some new running socks and Jimmy got to look at some toys. Lucy got to eat rice and beans. It was an exciting trip!

And that's that.

Just a quick reader question, are the comments working okay? I changed my blog to a setting where hypothetically anyone can comment. Maybe this is just a plea to get feedback, but seriously, is it working?

mountain racing and somersaults

Today Jimmy and I ran trail races. A better phrase would be "mountain races". Jimmy's was a 5 mile race, and mine was a half marathon (13.1 miles). It was rough, not bad, just rough. I guess the quote on the back of the shirt best describes the manta for this race "your pain is our pleasure..." And boy, did they do a good job. 

My race started with a three mile hill A.K.A mountain, then 4ish miles of downhill, and then rolling hills until the finish.

I am not ashamed to admit that I did a lot of hiking as well as running. It was a lot more effective than using my running stance the entire way. My time was over 2 hours, which normally would depress me, but it was such a hard course that I was not disappointed at all. The winning man ran a 1:30ish, and the winning woman a 2:03ish. So getting a 2:14ish, didn't feel bad at all. It was by far the hardest race I have ever done.

Jimmy said his race went decently as well. He came in third overall. Yeah, that's right third! And he said that he was able to run with a few people around him. I think he was pretty nervous about running by himself since his training was always with me. And though he wished he had run more, he still felt good at the end. His was also very hilly and difficult.

When we sat down to eat lunch, there was a couple talking about how the husband did ironman races. Did I mention that in 2020 I want to do an Ironman? Anyways, generally the kind of people that ran today were all pretty insane/intense, but in a really friendly sort of way. Besides the 5 mile, and half marathon, there was also a marathon and 40 mile race. I am glad I didn't decide to venture the marathon this time (or 40 miler!).

I have to say, the trails were beautiful, and made me miss my cross country days. Plus, it is a really nice park only 40 minutes or so from Lexington. I think we may take Lucy hiking there sometime. Maybe not a 13 mile hike...

In other news, Lucy learned how to roll over. She is walking, so this is not the infant rolling over stuff. This is the somersault rolling stuff. I don't know if you would give her a "10" for form, but certainly a "10" for effort.

My grandparents have video of me doing a series of somersaults when I was young, so naturally my Grandpa asked over the summer if Lucy had started to do them as well. Well, here is the video of her doing somersaults. Maybe not quite a many, but she still has some technique to refine before she can do multiple somersaults at once.