My girls are both asleep in the front room. One on the couch and one in the swing. Oh, how I love them! So... here I sit at my computer; feeling the need to release too many thoughts and ramblings out into the blogosphere. Bear with me or feel free to click that little arrow in the upper right hand corner.

Tahoe and I celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary yesterday. I used to think that these occasions should be magical and different from regular, ordinary days; but how can they be? Lola's nap was late, Tahoe is working long hard days, Amelia needs to nurse, I had tons of erands to run, grocery shopping to do, more jam to make and I still have to care for the girls. By the way... Lola is two (need I say more?) These are our days and they are magical and they are always different; but they are our ordinary days. I need that sign on my fridge-the one that says something about finding the extraordinary in the ordinary just to remind myself; because sometimes I get moving so fast that I forget and when the magic of our ordinary life hits me- it's huge and shocking and sometimes quite overwelming. Last night at dinner (we went to Lardo's) we were just finishing up, we couldn't contain Lola in the highchair any longer and Tahoe was holding Amelia -Lola went over and climbed up onto his lap. Both girls were sitting there, heads against his chest, Lola's arm around Amelia and his arms around both of them. He was content, I was content. This is the life!!! These are our magical, different, extraordinary, ordinary days! I am Mrs. Tahoe Winter and I am a very happy, very blessed woman!! Happy Anniversary Baby!


I hadn't inteded to write that just now -I was going to write about running and that apparently needed out first! So, what I need to share today with my fellow bloggers is the adventure I am embarking on. There is runner in me, and I am going to train her and feed her and groom her and one day I will be her. Someday I will tell you "I am a wife, and a mother and I am a runner" I decided I needed to set some goals. I want to be a fit mom. I want to keep up with my kids and take them on grand adventures. I want to be a hot mom! I decided I would do the Race for Robie Creek run in Boise in the spring (that is only 8 months away and I was just pregnant for 9 months). A lofty goal but I know I can do it! Well, yesterday I decided maybe that was a bigger bite than I can swallow and have revamped my goal just a little- I am going to do the Ponderosa Park run in June, it's a 5k (Robie Creek is a half-marathon with an 8 mile hill) . So I have started my "training ", mind and body. I will be a runner and someday I will run Robie Creek. I told my neighbor and good friend about my plan and she loaned me some books to help get me inspired and started. One is The Runner's Handbook and the other is Personal Best I am reading the latter now. AAAAAmmazing! This man, George Sheehan, ...this runner knows stuff!!! I have to share some of his philosophies with you. I highly recommend this book to anybody that is looking for "more" in life.

"George Sheehan, one critic wryly said, is a legend in his own mind. Of Course I am. And you should be, too. Each one of us must be a hero. We are here to lead a heroic life. When we cease to lead such lives we no longer truly exist.

It's not easy.

Susan Cheever wrote of her father John's endless battle to escape the constant pressure to achieve, "to leave behind the torpid stability of the suburbs and the responsibilities of a house and family and most of all to escape the pressure ot continually surpass himself as a writer."

Each of us knows those urges. We look to a future where we are free to do as we please with whom we please. We look to the time when work and effort, duty and obligation will cease. To a day when we can take our ease and enjoy the fruits of our labors, no longer in contention with the most difficult of rivals-our youthful selves."

"What bothers people about runners is our almost arrogant accetance that through and in running we are fulfilling our destiny. We runners ted to regard ourselves as born-again heroes and saints. If runners possess anything to a greater degree than endurance, it is self-esteem. ...... Self-esteem is present when there is little discrepancy between a person's ideal and actual self. It follows from the progressive development of the self into the heroic self it was menat to be."

"The fact is that running is an ideal way to develop the self. The runner can say, "I now am the body I was meant to be-trained, capable, and able to rspond to any demands made upon me.
and that's not all. Achieving the capable body leads to the same search for the capable mind. the obsession-some see it that way-with training the body leads to an obsession with training the mind as well. and in such an enterprise, talent and wealth, beauty and station, learning and lineage count for little. We already posses all we need: It is effort that brings us to greatness and the fusion of what we are with what we can be."

I am inspired and excited! I am walking every morning-today I am moving my treadmill in from the garage, soon I know I will be running! I have a goal and even if I crawl across that finish line I will see you there!