Scenes From Our Summer Week 3

This summer is what you make of it.  That has been our ongoing theme.  We had to cancel our vacation but it opened the door for us to visit family in Michigan in a few weeks.  We are getting used to wearing masks in public and will get more used to wearing them in church.  There are uncertainties about what our fall will look like.  We are taking one day at a time.  We take breaks from the news and social media when we need it.  We try to stay connected with others.  On some days we have to navigate through deeper emotions.  Other days it feels like a normal summer and we forget about COVID 19 and all the world issues.  Here are my photos from Week #3.  One photo each day.

9/20 Virtual 10K with Emily in the pouring rain

9/21 Father's Day Lunch at the Bee Hive Food Trucks--everyone got mac and cheese!

9/22  Nice hot afternoon at the pool

9/23 It has not been difficult to "socially distance" at the pool and we kind of like sitting by the spray deck and feeling the wisps of spray on a hot day

9/24:  20 miles on Orange Mango with the Salem Bicycle Club!  A little detour to the Yard enjoying a rice bowl and Orange Mango soda!

9/25:  Pink Lemonade on the deck and enjoying some time at a friend's house

9/26:  Rode Orange Mango to the middle school track to run intervals in the heat.  Surprisingly it was a better run than my other two runs in cooler temperatures earlier this week.

Scenes From Our Summer Week 2

Nothing could have prepared us for the past few months.  Rob mentioned he has learned many things about ministry in the past few months that seminary could never have prepared him for.  They do not teach you how to usher a church through a pandemic in higher education or any education program for that matter.  I am sure many can say similar things about their careers or parenting in a pandemic or caring for the elderly or dealing with job losses.  We are charting new territory.

I am determined to make the most of this summer.  There are not many summers left until my children are older and will be working (my oldest started working her first real job this summer!) and might be living in different places.  We are in the times when we are not held down by nap schedules or activity schedules (especially because much is cancelled!).  We have been spending time quality time together.

So here are my pictures from this past week.  One photo for each day starting with last week Saturday...

Saturday 6/13: Apples to Apples

Sunday 6/14:  Family bike ride to get ice cream

Monday 6/15: Strawberry picking

 

Tuesday 6/16:  Good-bye my dear friends.  God be with you until we meet again.

Wednesday 6/17: Chocolate and strawberry sundae break on a 24 mile bike ride on Orange Mango with the cycling club.  I missed the people I rode with last summer and was happy they remembered me.

Thursday 6/18:  Neskowin Beach.  We all needed to go here today to bask in the refreshing Oregon coast and escape some of the craziness from the last three months.

Friday 6/19 Back to the pool!  It is officially open.  Our family happy place.

Race Report: Conquer COVID 19 Half Marathon

I realize a whole month has almost gone by since I ran my May race.  I did the Conquer COVID virtual half marathon on Friday, May 15th.  I wanted to wait until I had some bling to show for it.  My medal and my t-shirt arrived this week.

I mapped my course and tweaked it several times.  I did some long runs on parts of the course in late April and early May.  I would highly recommend long distance virtual racers do this if you are running on city streets.  Even though you think you might know your neighborhood, there are things you might not realize until you are actually running it.  Like hills are much steeper than you realize, there are way too many traffic lights, and there is no shoulder where you expected one.

I wanted to run by people's houses and pray for them.  I do this fairly often anyway.  I did this on a somewhat regular basis when I trained for the Rock and Roll Marathon in Phoenix during the fall and winter of 2018.  As I mapped it out, it so happened I was running by ten different people's houses.  Which went along with my ongoing theme of running for 10/10 ministries.  

A portion of the funds for the Conquer COVID races goes to local running stores who are affected by the slow economy.  So yes, I was running for running.  

I picked May 15th mostly because the weather was perfect.  A slight chill in the air (but it got warm pretty quickly) and sunny.  No rain in the forecast.  I decided not to run with music or a podcast because I was worried of draining too much battery.  I found that I liked being more present and in tune with the sounds around me.  Lately I have been sick of my running playlists and I can only take podcasts for a certain amount of time.

More people at the beginning of my race were home and outside cheering.  One of my friends had a big sign with my name on it and encouragement notes in chalk drawing.  That was very sweet.  Another friend videoed me and was waving a pom pom.  Close friends of mine were my aide station and kept my sports drink at their house.  Rob and Kara were my other aide station and waited for me around the ten mile mark in a local park.  I was much faster especially the first half than I expected which is why the timings I gave people were a little off.  I also did not hit any lights at the beginning.

I finished in the local park by our house.  Rob was waiting for me at the finish line. It is a little funny to end a race by looking at your phone to make sure you exceeded the distance.  I passed him and told him I was not done yet.  I had to go another 0.1 mile.  

The day was beautiful, springy and nearly perfect.  We spent the rest of the afternoon working on our rock garden.  Rob and I walked to Subway for lunch.  That evening as a family we got Applebees Curbside to go and we have been watching old episodes of the Amazing Race.

I miss the hoopla of big races.  I miss running with packs of people and making friends along the race course.  I miss the crowd support and the scenic courses.  I miss trying to PR.  But COVID 19 has taught me to appreciate the small things.  The hidden joys we might overlook.  I don't even think I would have ever tried racing virtually had it not been for all races being cancelled.  Rob has been saying throughout this whole pandemic that we make the most of these times.

Scenes From Our Summer Week 1

We are not living "in the best of times."  Maybe it is reminiscent of the late 1960's or 1970's but this was before my time.  There are times I have to mentally separate myself from it.  Which to be honest is quite difficult.  Racial tensions and debates using degrading and aggressive language (on both sides of the issue) has invaded my Facebook groups. One of my groups was shut down because of it. The group was a triathlon group.  It had nothing to do with politics or the state of the world.

I have to mentally focus on something else.   Like summer.  But to be honest I do not know what kind of summer we are going to have.  There is still much that has been cancelled or is on the verge of cancelling.  There are many places that are still not open.  COVID 19 is still very real and present.  

 My oldest is taking a picture each day this summer and compiling it into an album.  I thought this was a splendid idea because it helps me focus on the present. Which to be honest I am not great at doing. It seems like I am stuck in the past holding on to things I should be letting go of.  Or else I am getting way too anxious about the future.   Children have a way of reminding us of today.  They have beautiful ways of helping us appreciate the small things.  

I am not ignoring the issues in the world right now.  Actually I am looking for positive ways to engage them.  But I am also going to focus on the little joys of today.  Here is my first photo diary of week 1.  Which technically not my first week of summer because I was still working.  

Day 1:  Shopping during a pandemic

Day 2: Strawberry season 

Day 3:  Another preschool class.  This year was memorable

Day 4:  Guitar playing in the evening.  Most evenings.

Day 5: During the COVID 19 pandemic I had to drive out to West Salem to deliver items to my preschool families.  I would often take a lunch break at the park by the river and sit in my car and look out at it.  This was my last lunch break of the year and a time of reflection for me.

Day 6:  Celebrating the end of my last full workday work with LIMEberry!

Day 7: New glasses!  Can't get used to shopping with a mask on.

So I am training for another marathon

I decided to train for another marathon I want to run in 2020.  Of course COVID 19 is making it impossible to create any sort of plan.  I might not be able to sign up for a marathon and realistically plan for it.  But I can still run. 

All five of my marathons have their own story. I have run five marathons in five different states between the years 2006 and 2019.

My first marathon was simply, "I want to see if I can actually do this."  I ran it K Mart shoes with little to no knowledge on pacing or nutrition.  But I finished, but it was rough. I felt terrible when I crossed the finish line and I said, "Never again."  This was the reason I did not run another one for four years. I also had two babies during that time.

Marathon number two was everything marathon one was not.  It was a chance for myself--the mother of a preschooler, toddler, and infant to take a personal retreat. Everyone has their own idea of self care.  Mine includes running. I ran a marathon in Sacramento and shaved 16 minutes off my time.  I remember crossing Mile #22 thinking, "I still feel okay!"  If any of my medals belong to Rob, this one is his.  I will never know how challenging it was for him to take care of our three children while teaching Sunday School and preaching two sermons in two different services.  Not any man can take that on but my man did.

Marathon number three was eighteen months later.  It was the one and only marathon my whole family attended and watched me cross the finish line.  Although I am pretty sure the youngest who was two and a half at the time was asleep in the stroller.  And she threw up in the car on the way to the starting line. Again my husband is a superstar.  But I PRed again and my whole family was there to see it.

Marathon number four was about two years later and is only marathon (so far) I ran with a family member.  My sister joined me in Minnesota.  We chose not to actually run side by side because I was going for a PR.  Which to this day is my fastest.  I was four minutes shy of breaking four hours.  

Marathon 2019 was another personal retreat but I also had the chance to heal after some very difficult months in 2018. I spent countless long training runs in prayer and sometimes in tears. I ran it in January in beautiful Arizona at the beginning of 2019. I left my burden at the finish lane.

So now I am training for Marathon 6.  This has been my COVID19 run--my "I need to get out of the house or I am going to go insane" type run.  I am having flashbacks to when I trained for Sacramento and desperately needed some time away from the chaos of Planet Toddlers.  What marathon I am doing is not one hundred percent determined yet. It might have to wait until 2021. For now, I will continue training.

Here is my latest video of my reason for running 10 races in 2020...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rYampWxZcs

Something lost. Something gained.

In January of 1999 I had three semesters left of college and I was craving an extended break from my life in West Michigan. I wanted to do a semester abroad in a remote place and study missions. It was a desire I had for about a year.  I was tired of being in large groups of people and maintaining a fast paced schedule that included work, classes, writing papers, field education and eating fast food meals on the fly.  I was tired of my car that kept breaking down. God provided me with an opportunity to go to West Papua, Indonesia for four months. Being with the same people, having a schedule each day, eating healthy, staying active through adventure activities like hiking, and having classes in more of a homeschool format was what I desired. 

 There were of course other stressors that were unique to living in the jungle for four months. Sickness, fatigue, sometimes boredom (we could not leave the mission compound on our own and there were not many places to go), living in a culture extremely different from anything I experienced, safety issues, a language barrier, and feelings of overwhelm. I missed my family, Rob (who was my boyfriend of three months at the time), and friends.  I dealt with disconnect and loneliness on a regular basis.

I think this is why living during the COVID 19 pandemic has brought back memories of my time in Indonesia.  Our lives became much simpler.  I have been mostly with the same four people in my family for two months. Our routines and schedules are simpler.  However, there are other stressors unique to living during a pandemic.  Learning new technology, figuring out how to work and go to school from home, grieving missed activities and events, missing family and friends, and boredom.  There have been bouts of loneliness and anxiety as well.

One of our last weeks in Indonesia our team leader Dave lead a devotional I will never forget.  I have repeated it for groups since that time.  He held up a jar and filled it with candy.  He said this is what we were like when we came into Indonesia.  We had been immersed in American culture and we were entering into a completely different environment.  He hit the jar gently on rocks and talked about how we had been challenged, tossed around, and changed.  He dumped the candy all over the ground.  Then he filled the jar with rocks.  He said that God filled us with new things while in Indonesia.  These were new treasures we would take home. We might feel "different" and "out of place" when we returned to America. Which I found to be true.  I had a panic attack when I was in a crowd of people at the beach in Grand Haven, MI a few weeks after returning home. Mostly related to culture shock. Dave reminded us, "Wherever you are God is."

I am reminded of Galatians 2:20 which was also an important verse to some of us while in Indonesia.  It says, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.  The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."  The greatest treasure God fills us with Christ.  This new life we find in Christ is not easy.  We might feel "out of place" but wherever we are God is.

We were tossed around during this pandemic. Many things important to us were dumped out and destroyed.  But there were treasures gained.  Rob and I became closer and improved in our communication.  Our children actually fought very little and I loved seeing them spend time together.  They created rituals and routines I hope continue.  I actually watched less TV than normal and listened to podcasts for the first time.  I learned to live in the present and not be overwhelmed by future deadlines and events. This is something I need to remind myself of next fall.  I allowed my body to do the things it responds positively to such as running and biking (miss swimming!).  I also allowed my body to rest and sometimes sleep an extra hour or two.  When the pandemic hit, I think I was sleep deprived.  I allowed myself to express emotions: to grieve, to be angry in a healthy way, to share disappointments, and to sit in uncertainty.  I learned more about emotions in the last year and a half than ever before.

I don't look back at my four months in Indonesia as "fun" like I would look back on a vacation or a road trip with friends.  There were more days I felt burdened by anxiety and overwhelm than days I felt at peace.  But the treasures I gained have shaped every single area of my life.  I have a deep passion for Indonesia because of my time there.

We don't know what our summer will be like.  It will not be normal.  It might be difficult. We might not see what we have gained in the moment or even this summer or even this year.  But God is at work us.  We are his treasures.  Wherever we are, God is.

And it's April...

This is my April calendar.  No track.  No theatre. No academic competitions.  No youth group.  No Bible Study.  No friend gatherings.  No trips.  No hikes.

It looks bizarre.

To be honest it looks depressing.

I think that is the state I was in late last week when I switched my calendar from March to April.  I felt drained.  Disconnected.  Unmotivated.  Bored.  My heart was heavy.  I appreciated all the silly memes on social media and COVID19 songs.  Yes, there needs to be space to lighten the mood.

Pay attention to the grief and pain too.

I  know of people in the hospital suffering from this virus leaving precious loved ones at home who cannot visit them.  I know of people laid off from work and they have children they are struggling to provide for.  I know of people struggling with how to teach their children at home and utilize unfamiliar technology.  I know of people who feel lonely and disconnected.  I know of people grieving special spring events like weddings and graduations.

Today was supposed to be our annual Easter egg hunt in the park by our house. My daughter also reminded her formal (similar to be prom) would be this weekend as well.

 It is healthy and necessary to acknowledge that this whole situation plainly stinks.  This is not what we signed up for.  There are many unanswered questions even with all the information we are constantly given.

John 11:35 says, "Jesus wept."  This is a meaningful verse to me and not because it is the shortest verse in the Bible and super easy to memorize!  When Lazarus died, Jesus did not break forth into advice giving or lightening the mood.  He grieved and he wept with the family before he raised Lazarus from dead.  

He grieves and he walks with us during this time.  We have a holy comfort.  We receive a true holy comfort from Christ who promised to be with us always.  We receive a true holy comfort from someone who hears our grieving and sees our tears.  There are moments or days or even longer spans of time when we might feel like that is all we have right now.  And yet that is all we need.

Have a blessed Easter.