Running (Part 1)

This past weekend I read A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller. If you haven't read the book, let me start off by recommending that you do. It's a really easy read, but it's very motivating and inspiring. The book is all about the story of your life and whether you're living a memorable story or one that is meaningless. While I certainly don't feel like my life is meaningless, this book reminded/encouraged me to live my life more fully and spend more time making memories and less time wasting hours of my life away.

One of my favorite quotes from the book reads, "...I've noticed something. I've never walked out of a meaningless movie thinking all movies are meaningless. I only thought the movie I walked out on was meaningless. I wonder, then, if when people say life is meaningless,, what they really mean is their lives are meaningless. I wonder if they've chosen to believe their whole existence is unremarkable, and are projecting their dreary life on the rest of us."

So, running is one of the things that makes my story exciting and memorable for me. This blog has always been about sharing my story, so I want to continue to do that by explaining what the journey of becoming a runner has meant to me.

June 27 was a turning point for me. In Miller's book, he talks about an inciting event, which is where the character makes a decision and essentially, there is no turning back from this point. I went running for the first day of the Couch to 5K plan that day. I knew I had tried running many times in the past couple years and I never lasted more than a week or two. I always got tired of it or got busy and just forgot about it. I knew myself well enough to know that I needed motivation and accountability to stick with this.

So, I took several steps to make sure this wouldn't be another week-long fad. First, I downloaded the Couch to 5K app on my phone. I had seen several people on Facebook using this program, so I researched it and decided I would use this program to help me get in shape. Second, I joined at team at my work in the Summer Buds program. It was a wellness program that lasted through the summer and each team was made up of 3 people. Each person set a goal for the summer (mine was to complete a 5k) and we were supposed to check on each other weekly to make sure we were still working towards our goals. Thirdly, I found a 5k race to sign up for, knowing that if I would register and pay for a race, I would be much less likely to back out last minute.

Probably the best motivator for me was that I found a race that supported a cause I felt personally attached to and passionate about. The race was called the Ramble for Recovery and celebrated National Recovery Month, for those recovering from addiction. Participants could run the race in honor or memory of a friend or family member in recovery, so I ran in honor of my older brother, Ty. I told Ty about the race so that it would be an extra incentive for me to persevere.

Meditation

I recently read and watched Eat Pray Love and really enjoyed both the book and the movie! Michelle and Rachel both recommended the book, so I knew it had to be good. This story (and Michelle) have really got me thinking about meditation as a spiritual discipline.

"We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."
--2 Corinthians 10:5

This scripture keeps popping up in my mind as I think about meditation, particularly the phrase "take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." I certainly do not feel like all of my thoughts are controlled, much less obedient to Christ. This is really my focus and motivation now--to take control of my thoughts and to think more on things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy.

So, I have attempted to meditate several times now. As I expected, it's really hard to get my mind focused and not jumping around to all kinds of random thoughts. My friend Sarah that is in my small group gave me a Yoga video and I've been doing it in the evenings. It has a few minutes of relaxation at the beginning, then about 15 minute of yoga (very basic--it's a beginners video) and then ends with a few minutes of meditation. I'm trying to do the meditation for longer, but I keep getting interrupted by my phone or Mr. Sir or having to go to the bathroom, so I haven't been very successful so far.

I'm very interested in hearing what other people have to say about this topic. Michelle, have you done any meditation since finishing the book? Do any of you meditate regularly?

Mom and Dad came to Oregon!

So this is little late, but my parents came to see me in Oregon in August. We had a wonderful time! I wanted them to see the coolest places around here (in my opinion) so we did a lot of driving. It was pretty exhausting, but we saw some incredible sights!

Friday we drove to Crater Lake, which was my first time there. It's one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen! Such incredibly blue water...but wow it is freezing!

Our first view of the water

The man can be a brat, but I love him! :)

Dad hung out on this bench while Mom and I hiked down to the water

The water was just such an incredible color of blue...never seen anything like it

Saturday was my mom's birthday and we spent the day in Newport on the coast. It was pretty chilly, but I've grown accustomed to layering up when I visit the coast, any time of the year.

At the pier in Newport where we watched a lady with a huge knife go crazy on some fish

Kory preached on Sunday morning, so we went to church and then had a very relaxed rest of the day. My parents taught me the value of Sunday afternoon naps, so we enjoyed those after lunch. I went running and then joined my parents on a tour of Myrtle Creek that evening. We drove around to the covered bridges and pretty locations all around this area.

Monday we headed south to California for a trip to the beach and the Redwoods. We did all the touristy things like driving through a tree, which of course is a slight disappointment, but makes for great pictures. It was my parents first time to see the ocean so we made sure Mom got to put her feet in the Pacific. The Oregon coast is beautiful, but it's not really the place to get in the water. Just south of Crescent City we found a beach with warm sand and cool water and it felt great to put our feet in and play for a bit.

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The water felt so nice that day!

I could ALMOST reach all the way across the opening of the tree

Cheesy tourist attraction, but we loved it!

So stinking tall!

This was one of the really fat ones...we didn't even get the whole trunk in the picture

It's always fun having visitors and getting to show them around this incredible place I get to call home!

Mr. Sir

Well my life has certainly changed over the past couple days! Meet my new roommate and best friend, Mr. Sir the kitty cat =)




Our church secretary found Mr. in the church building on Tuesday afternoon. She was showing someone the food pantry and happened to hear a very weak meow from one of the rooms she was passing. This poor little kitty was starving and very weak. He had probably been shut up in that room since Sunday, with no food or water. Whoever put him in the room wrote on the wall in Sharpie, "Joey is the cat." I think it was probably a kid, but we don't really know for sure why he was put in there.

Luckily, Jodie found him and Kory immediately got him some food and brought him to my apt. Kory asked if he could stay in my bathroom until we figured out what to do with him and I agreed, knowing he couldn't be at Kory's apartment with Kabie...because she's crazy! Not surprisingly, the second I saw this scrawny little guy, I fell in love! He is so loving and affectionate, unlike Kabie the snob. He went to the bathroom in my plant and got sick on my floor the first night, but has done great ever since. My downstairs bathroom has become his home, which works well since I always use the upstairs bathroom anyway.

He looks SO much like Kabie did when we first got here. It is a real problem because I keep calling him "Kabie" and "she". They met each other Wednesday night and it was not a pretty sight. Kabie kept hissing and snarling at him and I kept getting onto her because I thought she was being mean and was going to claw or bite him. Kory figured out that she was really scared of him and was shaking anytime he got near her. Kabie will NEVER sit in your lap or let you hold her and when she was at my apartment with Mr. Sir, she sat in Kory's lap for probably 45 minutes without moving at all. We're hoping she'll become more loving, even if out of fear or jealousy or hate.

Last night I had to do responsible, parent-like things for him...and to be honest, I'm awful at it! I forgot to buy him food because I was busy hanging out with our small group and it was 10:45 p.m. before I realized he was probably starving. Thankfully, I did feed him when I got off work at 5, but it wasn't very much because I used all the food he had. So Mr. got some of my chicken I didn't finish for dinner and warm milk. I don't even know if he can handle the chicken in his tiny little tummy, but hopefully it's better than starvation!

He has been VERY cuddly and loved rubbing up on you since the moment we got him. Turns out, part of the reason is because he is covered in fleas and is probably itching like crazy. Since we don't know how old he is, we can't give him flea medication yet. Hopefully the vet can give me an idea of how old he is next week...my very uneducated guess is about 6-7 weeks? 

So about the fleas...oh, the stinking fleas! We had our small group last night in my apt and they are a group of cat lovers!! Luckily, they know more about kittens than I do, which by the way, is easy to do! I know NOTHING about kittens or cats or  indoor pets really. I had never seen a flea before tonight and was really freaked out when Natalie told me he had fleas because I thought they were like ticks! My family only had outside pets and before I was too old, we realized we killed every animal we took in as a pet, so we took pity on the animals of this world and didn't have pets for most of my life. 

Several people in my small group told me how to bathe him and pick the fleas out with a pair of tweezers. After they all left, (which was just as we discovered Mr. was using my plant to potty in) Kory and I gave him a bath in the kitchen sink. He was GREAT! He barely fought or resisted at all. I was expecting it to be much worse! So we got quite a few fleas off him, but those things are really fast! I could barely catch them. Mr. Sir started getting really cold too so then we wrapped him in a towel and blow dried him. He didn't love this too much, but again, I expected to be clawed to death and come out bleeding, so he did great! 

Since he was doing so well with all of these chores, I decided I could just trim his claws while he was so chill. Yeah, he definitely drew the line there. No more Mr. Nice Kitty! He was not having any of that and I gave up pretty easily since he'd already had a pretty traumatic evening. He curled up and fell asleep on my lap, and that was just pretty stinking cute! 

So here I stand today, a reformed cat-hater. I went through this weird phase of life where I didn't really like animals very much, but I'm definitely over that now. This weekend will probably be spent trying to rid Mr. Sir and my apartment of fleas, as well as getting him some toys and things to make him feel more at home. I did get up early this morning and go get him some food before work, so maybe I'm not a terrible parent after all.