BACK TO ATLANTA...: March 2010

Thanks to all of you for the well wishes and congrats on the half-marathon, but more importantly to Dave (who encouraged me to do it from the beginning - I mean how else was he going to get that 55+ pounds off his "used to be" skinnier wife), to my parents (the best babysitters ever! - especially Mom for getting up at 4 am to come over to stay with the boys this Sunday morning), to Michelle (the first running buddy post-Grady) & her hubby, and to Tracy (the running buddy who got me through mile 11, a groin pull, a head cold, and some other "body issues" that are too graphic and disgusting to post on my blog...even for me!)

We did it! Dave ran an amazing race and came in at 2 hours, 11 minutes! That is an amazing feat for anyone but especially for Dave who has always claimed to hate running. He was a champ! (Please ignore my mullet-like hair. It drizzled on us for most of the race, and if you're a fan of the mullet, well, there you go! Enjoy!)

Me & Tracy - a great running buddy and an even better friend

As usual we've been very busy with life in general. Grady started rolling over this past week, and I caught it on tape (not the first one...check it out below). He turned 5 months today...wow! Drew is thankfully out of his "sharting" phase. Yes, that's right; I typed sharting, and don't act like you don't know what it means. All I'll say is that we've spent the better part of the last 3-4 months cleaning dirty underwear...ugh! I've been so desperate lately that I sometimes throw them away with the dirty wipes I use to clean him, but I can't really afford to do that every time. With the help of MANY people (and a new cushy toilet seat & Spiderman toy), he stopped sharting (for the most part).

Dave and I continue to train for the half-marathon that is THIS Sunday...wow! Dave ran 10 miles this Sunday as part of the training. Not wanting to sound like the drama queen that I am....my training has been awful lately. I had a groin/hamstring pull then a head cold, so I only did 5 this week with my friend, Tracy. We're still planning on running it, but we may walk some too. The race is through downtown Atlanta and starts at 7 am Sunday. It should be a challenging course, and I know we'll all be glad when it's done. I think we're sticking with 10Ks for a while. We usually train 2 days during the week. One of us goes once the boys are asleep (8pm or so), and then the other one goes on the other night. It's a little hectic and tiring, but it's been a heck of a weightloss plan for me, then we take turns going on some Saturdays. We do our long runs on Sundays after church....speaking of, read below...

Other than that, we still await the arrival of Baby Blev. He's due on Dave's birthday - April 9th. Chelsea is teaching until the end and trying to finish up her Master's degree too...whew! She's a busy woman. We're not hearing such great news on the teaching front for next year. My job is one of those "on the bubble" ones, but people are telling me not to worry yet. That is obviously easier said than done. I continue to pray for peace about the whole situation instead of for a job. I know I'll be taken care of and worrying will get me nowhere.

I'm starting to make contacts for tutoring if that becomes something I need to do next year. I'll keep you posted. I've been told that April 15th is "THE DAY," but who really knows?! And what will I do if I get that dreaded "pink slip"?...I'm sure I'll cry a little (not much in public if I can help it though...)and then plan for a new future, but I'm getting ahead of myself on that one; although, if you know anyone in the North Fulton/East Cobb(Roswell) area who needs a tutor for English, SAT prep, College Entrance Essays, or College Applications...let me know.

Back to the church thing...we've been pretty "religious" (pardon my pun) about going to church lately; Drew and Grady go to Waumba land (cool kids preschool/nursery time) while we attend the service. Now, I'm not about to get all preachy and holier than thou on anyone, but I love this church and our minister. This week he talked about the Christians who are good people (love God, follow God's law, open our Bibles occasionally, try to be good - I, personally am constantly working on that one..still have my sailor's mouth from time to time) but keep our religion very personal, making it all about ourselves, and not thinking about what God wants us to do with our time and talents in terms of His global perspective. Anyway, it made me think...and one of the things I know God wants me to do is to get over my fear of people looking at me as a Bible-beater b/c I love Jesus or as a hypocrite b/c I'm not perfect. Wow! Did I just write about two of my biggest fears...oh yeah, I did. And now I begin praying for perspective about what to do with my time and talents...I want the answer to be something like, "Oh, you're right on track...keep teaching and loving the children." But for some reason, I doubt it's going to be that easy...I think he said something about not being judgemental and instead to be compassionate. I hesitated even fretted over posting about this, but it's where I'm at right now, and I know the people who read this blog love me no matter what, so that's what I got for now. (and you probably won't hear for a long while the diarrhea of the mouth about faith/religion stuff...is it appropriate to use the word diarrhea in the same paragraph with Jesus?! Oh well...the big guy knows I thought it, so why not write it?!)

Here are some "much anticipated" photos: ENJOY! )I'll try to have a video of Grady rolling over next time, but it was taking forever to upload.

Grady's 4 month pic - I forgot to post it.

Drewman feeds Gradymeister who is loving rice cereal, pears, squash, and bananas. He grunts for more.

Happy Grady - He is always smiling.

This is actually Drew at 5 months below in the high chair...I thought it would be fun to compare. I always feel badly that I'm not as good about taking pics of Grady as we were with Drew, but Grady's first year will play out on this blog unlike Drew's, so here's a little baby time from Drew's first year. I'll try to post a few as I post some of Grady, so we can compare.