It's been an especially rough week. 2 big group meeting presentations (which are always stressful and I can never give myself enough credit for actually doing a good job), bad news about a fellowship that I had put an incredible amount of time into, a stressful collaboration that is requiring me to be far more agressive than I am comfortable with being, a 5 day experiment that looked promising at the beginning, but tanked at the 11th hour, and gave me no data, and finally on the way home from a long day at work on Friday, a semi jack-knifed on the I-15, and I sat in traffic for over 2 hours.
But, there were some positive things this week:
I ran a total of 11 miles this week (3.5 miles twice and 4 miles on Friday, all without stopping to walk) with my girlfriends at work. This is the most I've ever run in my life, and I survived.
This week is the 3 year anniversary of my small group. I've only been in the group for about a year now, but it's really awesome to hear how community has changed my girlfriends lives, and how it's changed my life. I can't wait to start our new series, Crazy Love, this weekend!
Monday is Tony's birthday, and during my lunch break one day this week I went to Sears to get his present. Nothing says love like manly tools. Don't worry, he doesn't read my blog often enough to ruin the surprise, and he won't know what kind of tools I bought him :).
Needless to say, I am utterly exhausted. No tossing and turning for 30 minutes before I fall asleep. No waking up in the middle of the night to one of Ed or Ralph's puppy dreams. Pure exhaustion envelopes me around 9 PM every night, no matter where I am.
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Mom, sleeping: mid 1970s, New Orleans
When I was little, I used to have a terrible time falling asleep. I was scared of things unseen, like the aliens and monsters that lived in our basement who would come upstairs at night to scare me. This resulted in an awful time for my parents. Dad, who I wrote about in my last blog entry, would sleep on the floor beside my bed, and to help me fall asleep, we would play the "capitols" game, whereby he would name countries of the world, and I would recite back their capitol cities. This shouldn't be a surprising tactic, given that my dad is a history professor. Then, after a bit, he would sneakily crawl out, being careful to avoid the squeaky boards in our hallway.
My mom's technique was to use soothing imagery to help me fall asleep. Our favorite "place" was lying on rafts on a lazy river (we got to pick out new colors for the rafts every time), feeling the warm sun on our faces. Approaching our favorite, pink speckled rock, and lazily sunbathing. Truthfully, when I'm so stressed out I'm not functioning, I still go back to our place.
I'm so glad for my mom, and the joy she brings to all her friends and family, especially me :). I think the photo above of my mom sleeping is one of the most beautiful photos I've ever seen. Though, I guess we must all think that our mothers, particularly when they were young, are the most lovely of all women.
Mom, early 1970s, New Orleans
