Saturday, May 23, 2015

The Dream House

A little more on the moving on. Don't get me wrong I am excited, all these changes will be so good for my children and myself, and after the last few years we are very ready for these good things to come. However, I'm a little emotional. By all accounts I am in my dream home. I remember how happy I was with everything in my life when my Ex and I bought this place. Our kids were 6 and 11 and we could envision our next twenty years in this house, raising our kids and beyond. We bought this house in 2008, but had made a contingent offer on it back in 2005 when we fell in love with it. In 2008 we had a contingent offer on another house down the street, they eventually got an offer, the day after we lost that house we got an offer on ours and this one went on the market. It truly felt like it was meant to be. We were newly in our thirties, had weathered some pretty tough stuff together, made it through, felt better, stronger and more committed than ever. This house, our life, was our new beginning. We settled in and life truly fell into place. Our kids were happy, in great schools with great friends, we had met the most amazing bunch of people (thank God, because not sure where I'd be today without that group). Life was good.
A little over a year later a long legged brunette would walked in and turned mine and my children's life completely upside down.
For a solid two years after I didn't want to be in this house. The house that "had" held all our dreams, but because someone had to keep their sh*t together for the kids and be stable, along with having zero options financially to do anything else I had to stay.
Slowly and surely this house became MY home. The place I raised my children, where we started over. Where it was the three of us, creating our new life. I love this home. There's a lot of unfinished potentials I see in this home I won't get to see out, and that makes me sad. But this home has been so good to us, I will forever love it and hold it close to my heart. All that I learned, experienced and loved because of it.
It's bittersweet getting ready to stay good-bye to this old house.
Fall might be my favorite...

Friday, May 22, 2015

And the Ball Starts to Roll

And just like that we found the perfect house.  Now comes the fun part (insert sarcasm), Rick is mid-reno on his home.  As in the ENTIRE downstairs.  Bathroom gutted, popcorn ceilings scraped and redone, window framing, new paint  and carpet through out, and some minimal landscaping....looks good (will post pics soon) unfortunately I am not much help at all, because this is the way things go, out of the last four years this is the worst possible few months to be doing any of this, for me.  I am trying to stay on top of my sons senior year, every meeting and award night that entails.  My daughter is in competition dance, and recital month, my business experienced the busiest week at the first of the month, doing 3 weeks of business in 1 week, while one of my main employees was in Columbia.  Coupled with the 3, 15k trail runs I signed up for way back when we weren't doing anything.  YIKES, but also so dang exciting.  This is finally happening!
My challenge is to stay in the game.  I have a tendency when I get uber stressed to get uber calm and just want to work on my vegetable garden.  Yep, my happy place, growing food, playing in the dirt.  It soothes and relaxes me, but maybe too much.  As we go further and things are more set I will post more details.

Just know after almost 4 years of dating this amazing man, doing what was right for my kids through out this time, I am VERY excited for this next step.

Sunday, May 17, 2015

Hills

This is the second weekend in a row I spent running in one of my favorite places, the Methow Valley. Last weekend I did the last 14 miles of the Sunflower Marathon Relay with one of my best friends, hot, hilly, and amazing. This weekend was a 25k (15 miles) on the trails I ski in the winter by Sun mountain. After seven years of running I still cringe at the thought of calling myself a runner. Not because I believe you need to be good to be called a runner (I am adequate at best), but I think you'd enjoy it more than I do. I love these trail runs, but they are a challenge (which I also like), I always think maybe if I ran more I'd be better, but truth is I run 3 time a week and maybe only like one of those runs a week.
Back in 2010 my friends and I were called "selfish" because we ran and did races. I don't find running selfish in the LEAST bit. As a young child I was in leg braces. I hated running in elementary because my teachers let me know how bad I was at it. It wasn't until 2008 at 30 years old I decided to run, got injured six months later training for a marathon and spent 9 months at physical therapy essentially learning how to run and adapt with my poor biomechanics on my right side. If you've had the pleasure of seeing me run you will quickly spot the defect of my right side, needless to say I often hate the action photos because I always notice it. Running requires the least amount of time of any activity I do. I often do it when the kids are asleep or at school. It's a healthy outlet for me, I clear my head, gather my thoughts, organize my day/week, and on rare occasions when I get to run with my friends it's social.
This weekend, I was super excited for the challenge.....then the rain and thunder started the night before. Thankgoodness the thunder stopped before the race, the rain however did not. Today was tough, we climbed for nearly the first ten miles, in the mud. At times I was focused, my head was in it and I was feeling good. The other times I was overheating, feeling my quads burning and getting angry that I had to work so hard to get my feet out of the mud. Then we hit three miles of steep down hill, that hurt the knees. Prior to the race starting I had planned a bail out at the aid station at mile 9 if needed, but I wasn't cold I was just tired and knew I could push through that and because of the rain I was totally disoriented to where I was and not sure what the shortcut back down would be.....and no cell service (thank you AT&T), so I ran pushed through and was so happy near the finish when I heard Rick. It's a love hate relationship with running, but pretty sure the benefits outweigh the cost.
Thank you to Rick for his support this weekend, plus a wonderful weekend away in one of our favorite spots, we needed that!
The before and after....I pretty much feel as bad as I look!

Friday, May 15, 2015

Mini Farm

Three dogs (a cat and a rat), it's a bit too much. I'm pretty sure I will never have this many again. It's time consuming, we walk Joey and Obie together, Kaiser can't run as much now but still has ridiculous energy so we go on park dates daily. All that being said, I love them all.
Joey has adjusted perfectly, he is by far the easiest dog I have ever owned. He's skittish and scared of people he doesn't know, but at home he is sweet, cuddly and playful. His favorite thing in this world appears to be the "kitty", first thing in the morning he always acts shocked to see her again! He has asserted his dominance over Kaiser, which is kind of sad, but cute.
Beyond all that, everyday he is a reminder of my friend Kay. That she trusted us to love him and give him a home. I look at him and I know we share her. I miss her daily, there hasn't been a day gone by that I don't wish I could talk to her in the morning. There's been so many changes at the hospital, and I so wish she were here to give me her advice. I miss updating her on Logan's happenings, or sharing with her my sons plans after graduation. She was sick for so long, but you would never have known how sick. Yet she was living everyday, and I mistakenly believed she would continue to be ok, then one day she wasn't, and before I knew it, or could say good bye she was gone. Somehow having Joey here makes all that saddness a little easier, we love him so much.
 
 
The rat pack (of sorts)
 

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

My Day

Being a Mom is by far the greatest job I have had. I've loved all eighteen years of being a parent. I have never felt it was a sacrifice to give up time doing other things to be with my children, rather a privilege.
Sharing them the last four years with a man that values my role as a mother, well that just makes me pretty lucky.
Thank you my loves for an amazing day, out doing what I love. You three hold my heart.

Saturday, May 9, 2015

The deleted blog

Sometimes I blog, for me. It helps me sort my thoughts, and process negative ones to move on. I had worked on a blog post titled The Other Woman, for almost two months. It is exactly what you think it's about. I should mention my ex husband and I are NOW in a very good place, in large part because of an apology along with the truth of what happened while we were married that lead to the end of our marriage. I appreciated this, and him explaining his side. What I still couldn't wrap my head around was, "her", she was a friend, and she had an affair with my husband, then lied, and lied and created even more lies. So I wrote a blog to process it. I wrote it and then periodically when I had time I'd reread, ask myself what I was trying to get across, edit and save, for two months. Saturday I posted it, for all of fifteen minutes, then took it down.
At the end of the day, I will never be able to understand why she did what she did, I will also never respect her, or be friends with her again. She stayed with her husband, and I'm am glad for him and their kids. Writing that post however allowed me clarity. It was hard to write, even harder to adequately put my feelings into words. There will never be the Other Woman post published. It will forever remain archived, because sometimes you need to write things for only your eyes to see. Then shut that door for good.

Monday, May 4, 2015

Couldn't say it Better

I'm attaching a link to my friends blog, about an up coming adventure we will be going on. I get giddy with the thought! However, she's funnier than I am so I'll share her version!