Let’s Catch Up ~ #SheReadsTruth Edition

Hey!  Looks like I’m still playing catch-up from the weekend!

And I’m not just talking about this blog.  You should have seen the laundry that has come out of my laundry room the past 24 hours.  It.was.brutal.

The reason for the massive mountain of dirty clothes that has come down the laundry chute and led to me getting soooooo far behind?  The three young’uns that reside upstairs decided to clean their rooms.  Geezzzzz…  Every time they head upstairs to clean, I may as well just make room in the laundry room and get comfortable, because I will be there for days. 

Yesterday, though, I had a new strategy:  I waited until I had about 4 loads done and then called all the kids in the living room.  I then sat the mountain of clean clothes in the middle of the floor and told them to have fun.   They had to pick out all of their clothes and then neatly fold them and put them away.  They looked at me like I was crazy. 

I liked it.

Will this work the next time there are dirty clothes that need to be thrown down?  I don’t know, but it sure was fun yesterday.

Another, completely unrelated thing on which to catch-you up…

I have still been working on the Soul Detox study and will finish it tomorrow on Day 35.

 

And the new study we are following through YouVersion, Living A Surrendered Life, is ahhhh-mazing.  We started it last Thursday, but just like Soul Detox, you can join in at anytime!  The very first DAY of LASL captured my attention and again, captured my heart.  On day 1 the topic was WORRY, and God had my complete attention.  Every day has been something different that speaks to me so perfectly.

The bottom line I am getting from this study right now is simply this:

GOD HAS A PLAN.

I am so glad.  I am so relieved that I don’t have to stress and worry about anything…and although I do sometimes, I KNOW that He’s got this.  He’s got everything covered, there’s nothing He has forgotten.  And He’s not startled by anything.  Hallelujah.  My heart breaks for those who don’t know that peace.

Are you doing any of the YouVersion studies?  If not, you totally should!

Oh- and in case you’re wondering, my foot/leg still looks like this,

Unless I go to the river, and then it looks like this,

Shhhh, don’t tell my doctor

xoxo

The Race Is On ~ 2012 Komen Race for the Cure

Wow!  What a weekend it has been!  And I have so much to share with you that I don’t quite know where to start!  And I’m thinking that if I put everything in one post that it would be three novels long, so I’m going to dedicate this post solely to the

2012 Susan G. Komen Race for the CURE – St. Louis!!!

Now, if you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you know that this is my very favorite event ever.  In fact, if I had to choose just ONE between the Race for the Cure and all the other races and events that I also love to do, I would choose this one.  It is THAT awesome.  And y’all know how much I love to do my races.

Here’s some quick links back to my previous years’-
2009
2010
2011

And now, here we are at my FOURTH – 2012!!

It was a beautiful day in St. Louis.  The early forecast had called for miserably hot and humid, and while it DID get warm, it wasn’t as bad as we had feared.  Of course, I COULD be saying that because I wasn’t running.  

It was plenty hot for the 50,000+ people who hoofed it through the streets of downtown St. Louis.  But for me standing in the shade, it was fine!  Stupid leg.  I would have rather been sweating.

Katie managed to be the first casualty of the day for EMS personnel when she tripped over a crack in the sidewalk and went spilling onto the concrete.

AND she lost her balloon in the process.  Poor girl.  

We managed to get her bandaged up and moved on.  Downtown St. Louis was ready for all things PINK!

As in years past, the day started off with the Survivor Procession.  3,200+ Survivors STRONG marching through the streets to the main stage to open the day.
 
It is such an amazing experience to be walking with thousands of other women who have been through what I have been through, feeling almost every emotion and KNOWING, just knowing.  And while we are walking along, thousands more people are lining the streets and clapping and cheering for us…it gives me goosebumps every time.

There I am!  See me?

After the Procession, while we all stood at the main stage, we were serenaded by several very talented singers, including former American Idol contestant Nikko Smith who sang, “Just The Way You Are.”  It was perfect for the occasion and probably made every Survivor’s heart melt a little…I know mine did.

BUT, by far, my favorite part of the opening ceremony is always the singing of “I Will Survive.”  It really is such a happy and celebratory part of the day when everybody is singing along,

“Just turn around now, ‘cause you’re not welcome anymore…!”

We all know we’re talking about cancer.  And it’s awesome.

After the Survivor’s celebration we made our way to the Siteman tent and hung out for awhile there with all our friends and BFFs from our favorite place in the world.  Seriously, world class cancer care, research, facilities, and best of all-world class people.  We heart them.

My good lookin’ crew!

And here’s some more of my best supporters,

Are they awesome or what?!  Somehow my Dad and Tyler managed to escape the camera’s lens but there were there with bells on!

And these signs make me SO PROUD…

LOVE.

My Mom and Sister rocked it out, Racing for the Cure for me, since I couldn’t participate this year.  They did SO GREAT & MADE ME SO PROUD!!!! I love you guys!!!!

 

And I cannot finish out this post without mentioning who Katie and I just happened to run in to at the Survivor Finish Line…which means: I walked across the street and asked for a picture.  

Why, look!!  It’s RAMPAGE the Ram!!!  St. Louis Rams very own mascot, Rampage!!

Oh, and Sam Bradford, St. Louis Rams Quarterback!!!!!

Um, yeah.

So Komen St. Louis 2012 is in the books. 

Over 50,000 people participated,
3,200 Survivors celebrated,
And almost $3 million was raised to help conquer breast cancer.

It was a great day, celebrating LIFE, LOVE, & EVERYTHING PINK!

I already can’t wait ‘til next year! 

Love you guys.

xoxo

PS- Here’s to ANOTHER YEAR OF FABULOUS

Different Strokes

…Literally.

How on earth do you exercise with a boot on your leg/foot?!?!  After a whole bunch of Googling, I kept coming up with the same numero uno answer:  SWIMMING.

And apparently I was thinking ahead when I bought the Aquajogger back in March (that’s scary) and it’s been sitting in the still sealed box in my laundry room every since.  So first thing this morning I broke that sucker out and gave it a whirl spin RUN.

Here it is…my new best-friend-to-be:

Maybe.

This morning I set the timer on my phone for one hour, plugged it into the stereo, woke up everybody in the house while I pumped some tunes, and started, er, running?

It was different.  Obviously.  And it was boring.  Uh oh.

I kept finding myself wondering how long I’d been “running”…thinking, ‘I bet I’ve gone, like, 5 minutes and it feels like I’ve gone 5 hours…’  I wished more than once that I had a clock or something to look at so I could do intervals or something. 

But- eventually the hour was over and I hopped out of the pool and was on to my next task: MRI.

I wore my hot pink socks for luck(?) and after waiting foreverrrr, I went and did my usual dance with the MRI machine.  Yes, medical imaging and I are very well acquainted…unfortunately.

It will be a day or so before we know the results.  I hate waiting.

So we shall see.  I’ll update you later!

Love!

xoxo

PS- Something I thought was funny today… When I was finished swimming, I put the belt on the pool deck and was looking at it while I was cooling off and whatever.  I read this on the side of the belt:

“NOT A LIFE PRESERVER”

Umm, I beg to differ.  If swimming gives me a good workout and even a little bit of runner’s high, then it could very well be a life preserver.  For myself and/or anyone else who has to be around me during my hiatus!

Let’s Catch Up

I pulled up my blog this morning and thought, “Geez, if I don’t update soon, it’s going to be, like, a week since I posted!”  But, as usual, we’ve been crazy busy, going here and there, running crazy, and life gets in the way of blogging…A LOT. 

SO…HEY!!!

And happy Tuesday!  At least it’s not Monday right?!  See the day is looking up already!

First and foremost I’ll catch you up on our #SheReadsTruth Bible study.  If you started the study on the first day, you’re on Day 33 or something like that.  Me?  I’m on Day 27.  So see, we’re all at different places in the study, and that’s ok!  But as I’ve been nearing the end of Soul Detox (the YouVersion plan we’re doing now), I’ve been wondering…”What’s next??”

Well, I have an answer for you.  Err, well, the wonderful ladies over at SheReadsTruth.com have an answer for you!  They are revealing what we will be doing next this Thursday!  So if you want to start fresh with us, then head on over there and see what’s happenin’ on Thursday.

(I’m going to be doing both studies simultaneously until I finish Soul Detox so I can start the new study with everyone else.)

So let’s catch up on what I’m detoxing from my soul, shall we?  Cultural toxins is the focus lately…how there are so many things in our world today that SEEM harmless, or we justify them in our mind and end up maybe doing/saying/living things that don’t line up with God’s Word.  And THAT is the key right there: to keep us honest, basically: TEST EVERYTHING CONSISTENTLY AGAINST THE WORD.  We need to stay on our toes and be aware of toxic influences in our lives and how they affect our relationship with God and others.  The only things that should have a place in our lives are those that line up with God’s Will.

Basically God is saying to us, “My child, I want you all to Myself.”

 

 

The other update in this post is about my foot/ankle/leg.

Remember when I told you last week about my sore ankle?  I wrote about it in a few different posts: here, here, and here.  Well, on Friday I was starting to notice some swelling and was getting a little concerned. 

 

I was still hoping for tendonitis or an ankle sprain, but my mind (and Dr. Google) led to think that maybeeee we were dealing with something worse.

So, enter yesterday, and I’m sitting at my foot dr’s office, praying for the best…

BUT, I didn’t get it.  He’s going to confirm it with an MRI tomorrow (Wednesday), but is 90% sure that I have a stress fracture in my fibula. 

Ughhhhhh……

So now I have THIS:

…this lovely boot that I am in for 4 weeks or so (if the MRI confirms the fracture tomorrow).  I am so bummed and so aggravated.  I have just had injury after injury in the past 9 mos-year.  First the 2 broken ribs, then the stress reaction in my femur, now a stress fracture in my fibula, AND yesterday’s x-ray also showed a healing or incompletely healed stress fracture in my 3rd metatarsal in my foot!  Yes, from when I went to the dr before my two half marathons in April…it is just now showing up, which is how stress fractures work (they usually don’t show up on xray until they are healed or healing).  Good grief.

My last bone density was normal but I’m beginning to wonder what the heck is going on with me?! I am not running NEAR the mileage I used to AND I’m running on the treadmill, not outside on hard surfaces just trying to baby my joints and my body.  I just don’t know.

I’m also super disappointed in that this happened the week of my favorite event of the whole year…St. Louis Race for the Cure.  This will be my first year I’m not able to run it, but I am certainly going and soak up all the love and support from it.  The sea of pink in downtown St. Louis is the most amazing sight and even though I can’t run this year, I can’t WAIT to go!

I’m off to go figure out how to get in a good workout in my pool, then headed to a day of basketball shootouts.

Love you guys!

xoxo

Long Day Thursday

Well, it’s been a long day!  How has yours been?

Seriously, it feels like today started about yesterday morning, that’s how long it’s gone on.

But on to the day…  #SheReadsTruth is still going strong!  It’s honestly the highlight of my day.  I don’t know if it’s because it’s something totally different than I’ve ever done, or maybe it’s just way God captures my heart and my attention every morning, but it changes my day.  I’m telling ya’, taking the time to spend TIME in the Word every day makes a big difference in my life…if affects every aspect, and especially doing the Bible study first thing in the morning really gets my day started on the right foot.  You should try it!  And doing a study like this through an app makes it pretty cool, too.

Anyway, yesterday and today:

 

I continued with Gina’s Summer Shape Up, too.  Yesterday was steady state cardio and today (I got my days mixed up with tomorrow) I did workout 1 with HITT cardio…in my case, walking on a 12-15% incline.

My ankle is still a little sore, so I’m walking slow and wearing my brace.  Ugh.  Heal ankle, heal!

In other news, we’ve been doing a whole lot of this:

Spending [almost] all our evenings at the various ballparks around the area, winning some, losing some, sweating BUCKETS, and having a good time doing it!

We’ve also been doing a lot of this:

 

LOVING.OUR.POOL.

Have a good evening, guys.

xoxo

Summer Shape Up

Hey y’all!  I woke up this morning to a still-sore ankle and sunshine…

…I chose to focus on the sunshine.  

My boys left for an all day basketball shootout around 7, and I hit the coffee pot hard after they left.  Katie and I are skipping out on the shootout today.  It’s an hour drive over crappy roads, and then tonight we have a baseball game at 6 so we opted out…plus we have the same shootout for three Tuesdays in a row, so we’ll catch the next one.

Something else I hit hard after my boys left, my #SheReadsTruth Bible study:

I am so beyond thankful that I serve a God that allows me to take refuge in Him.  I said more than once during my year of treatment that I felt like I just hid beneath His robe; seeking comfort from my Savior and letting Him calm my fears.  I am so thankful that my God is there…every.single.time.

On a completely different note, my run streak may be over, but workouts continue of course!

Today I started Fitnessista’s Summer Shape Up 2012!  I have been a reader of Gina’s for a long time, and she was one of a few blog friends that really stepped up and encouraged me throughout my diagnosis and treatment for breast cancer.  Though we’ve never met, I consider her a friend.  Isn’t that weird how that happens?

Gina puts together a bangin’ workout, and since I’m always looking for a little something new, her Summer Shape Up fits the bill perfectly.

I was sweating my booty off during this workout.  All the moves are done as super-sets…so that means little to no break between moves.  Just.keep.moving. 

I got out my trusty ankle brace this morning and walked for 10 minutes at 12-15% incline at a slow 3 mph to warm up, then did the moves that Gina had demonstrated and laid out, then finished up with 30 minutes of HITT (doing 1:30 at 12% and :30 secs at 15%).  Who says you have to run to get your heart rate up there?!  Wow!  It was a good one! 

TOTAL DISTANCE: 2 miles
TOTAL TIME: 40:00
AVERAGE SPEED: 3 mph
AVERAGE HR: 162  

Like I said…sweaty beast.

And yes, I wore my CANCER SUCKS BondiBand today on purpose.

Yes, cancer, you still suck.

This is my feeling at this very moment:

Booyah.

Have you done your breast self-exam lately?  Or are you due for your mammogram??  Just.Do.It.

Love you!

xoxo