Life: Some Happy Things, Some Miserable Things

Here are some things I need:
1) A few more hours in a day.
2) A few more hours of sleep every night.
3) A Redbull that tastes like cinnamon rolls instead of battery acid.

I assume this is pretty normal but life feels like I'm riding on a supersonic roller coaster.....except that the amusement park worker forgot to check your seat belt, and you don't realize the seat belt isn't strapped until the roller coaster is upside down and you're just trying to hang on so you don't tumble to the ground and make a big mess on the pavement.

Okay, but I'm serious here. Tell me you have this roller coaster feeling sometimes too???

Here are some happy things, and a few miserable things going on in life right now:

I signed up for the Across The Years 72 hour race coming up in a few weeks on December 29th! I can't tell you how excited I am for this. It is three straight days running a 1-mile loop to go as many miles as you can. Last year when I ran it I got up to 205 miles. (You can read the race report HERE.) I'm going to try to beat that number this year.

I started working at a dialysis center 11 years ago. Every day I meet with people who had big plans for life...that suddenly got derailed by starting dialysis. So I've adopted a philosophy that if something is worth doing, do it now because you don't know what tomorrow holds. I only have a few things on my Life To-Do list. One of those things is to go to a Bruce Springsteen concert. I am literally happier than a kid in a candy shop - last week I bought tickets to my first Springsteen concert coming up in March!!!!

Another exciting thing: I got my hands on the brand new Altra Olympus 2.0! They are some of the most comfortable shoes I have ever worn.

I really love how Altra improved the tread on the Olympus shoes. They now have a Vibram sole and I think these suckers will grab the trail like claws. I look forward to many hundreds of miles with these shoes on my feet.

On the slightly miserable side of life, Mel is in graduate school right now earning her Nurse Practitioner degree. To be honest, I feel bad for her. She is either at work, or home in front of the computer doing homework. I'm not exaggerating - that is her entire life. It keeps me busy also because I manage all the household stuff, cooking, cleaning, taxi service for the kids, yard work, etc. We need to make a paper chain to count down the months until she is done in August!

The other miserable thing is that we have a Great Dane whose sense of smell is as big as her body. Little Debbie loves to snatch food from the counter or table when you're not looking. We joke that our house doesn't have Dennis The Menace, it has Debbie The Menace.

She has perfected the "Hey, I'm innocent!" look whenever she gets in trouble.

Despite the roller coaster life we're living, I'm so thankful for all our blessings. We have jobs. A warm house. Food in the refrigerator. Occasional cinnamon rolls. Love. We have everything we need.