Has it really been eleven days since I last wrote? So many ideas churning that it hardly seems so. I write in my head throughout the day. Thoughts on baking, talking to toddlers, reinventing my wardrobe or skin routine and the prospect of living once again with one's parents flit around up there. I tell myself to write it all down for real, but then the baby cries and I clean the floor and the day is gone. Funny how I feel so productive and then Shawn asks me what I did all day and my response is a genuine, "I really don't know. Made dinner?"
I have been feeling in flux for a month or so. After making two quite definitive decisions to first, sell our car and next, move out of our condo, the quest then became to find a place to live. The humblingly obvious answer for us was to move in with my parents for a period of time. Just until we figure things out. Until Shawn gets a promotion and finishes, finishes, finishes his Master's degree. Until we pay off some debt as well. Ah, debt. Seems like the noble product of capitalism that will propel us into a shiny new freedom but actually has this awful capacity to turn on you.
Back to being in flux. I am packing up our lives room by room and going through the scriptural process of repenting, paring down, being pruned. I talk and pray to Jesus about His plans for us and am thankful for every little thing. His grace (which we will need or, should I say, my parents will need), His constant provision, a roof over our heads, juuuust enough money, health, sun, legs that can walk and run.
Each day I trek up and down the stairs several times with the end goal in mind of loading the kids up the stroller and heading out for a jog. I am armed with my trusty sneakers and a Timex with the stopwatch ready at zero. I have been doing this for five weeks now which seems to have somehow flown by! In the begining I was walking mostly with short spurts of shuffling in between and now I am running steadily for most of thirty minutes. It feels amazing. As a friend pointed out to me, so many things are happening at once that makes running feel like the best thing right now. I am becoming stronger, My hips are stabilizing, the skin is snapping(ish) back into place. Breastfeeding is helping me shed those last pounds little by little so I feel lighter each time I run. The weather has been glorious and even if it isn't, the sun is obligated to act springy now--so the light is glorious really. I love seeing the horizon and keeping my head up while simultaneously focusing on the smallest detail like achieving a mid-foot strike and a short stride. The latter things help to prevent strain to the knees and shinsplits. So, I am learning new things too.