Running My Race

I ran a 10k in Boise on Saturday.

It was a beautiful race. 

The weather was great. 

We started at the capitol building, ran through a tree-lined neighborhood with old houses, a greenbelt along the river, through a couple of tunnels, up to an overlook part of the city and finished at a park.

I had a good race, too. 

One of my fastest pace times (which I know is still slow, but I'm over that.)

Anytime I would start worrying about my time, I would remind myself that I just want to "run my race". 

For me that meant doing a run/walk. 

And it included noticing the other runners around me and giving high-fives and encouragement to others. 

I was just able to run with JOY!!!

The thing that brings me the most joy in my life is working with and helping others.

And noticing all the beautiful things in the world!

I need to remind myself about this when I start to get bogged down in the details of my life. 

It's not about my speed or my performance. 

It's about gratitude and loving others and just being me.

Running my race.

Menu problems (2014)

***(Read previous blog post about posting old drafts)***

I've started a little bit of a new life.

Since July, I have been working (mostly part-time).

It's been a huge change to our family.

Thankfully, I know that is was the right thing to do.

But, one of the things that has really gotten me down is my menu planning.

I felt like I had become a master at it.

But, for some reason, since I started working, I just could not get it together when it came to planning/making dinner for my family.

And yes, I know that I have a lot of kids that I could have cook.

And yes, my husband is an amazing cook and picked up a lot of the slack.

But, it was like a weight on my shoulders.

Every night - "what are we having for dinner?"

And every other week, when it was my usual time to plan my two-week menu/shopping list, I just could not come up with anything.

I asked on facebook for recipe ideas.

I thought that maybe a new recipe blog would spark some interest or desire in my to cook again.

It didn't.

That is when I realized that I just don't have time to be creative in the kitchen.  What I needed was function.

I went to my spreadsheet and wrote down all of the meals I could think of that we eat on a somewhat regular basis or that at least were in the rotation sometime in the past year. Also, we are trying to eat less processed foods.

As I put them on my spreadsheet, I would also make a column for what category that dinner would fall into (ex, Chicken, Non-meat, Mexican, Hamburger, Pork, etc.).  Most of them had more than one category.

I came up with 63 different meals.

Then I totaled all of the categories and came up with themes.

Sunday - Big Meat
Monday - Non-meat/Soup
Tuesday - Chicken
Wednesday - Mexican
Thursday - Crockpot
Friday - Favorite
Saturday - Curry/Fish/Grill

Then I arranged my dinners into a logical order (like not putting fish dishes in a row),  I had to use a few dishes more than once to get it to even out. And a few of the dinners did not end up in their proper category (whatever).

12 weeks worth of dinners that I don't have to think about ever again.  It gets me to the end of the year!  And then I can just start over.

It seems silly to say that this was almost a spiritual experience for me.  But it is amazing the weight that feels lifted from me.  These are dinners that I know and love.  Dinners that my kids know and well, know.

And since this post is already too long.  I'll do another post about what I did next.

Writer's Block

I am feeling writer's block.


I want to write because it is good for my soul.

It helps me think things through.

And right now, I have a lot of things I'm trying to process.

It would be great to write it out.

It's just not happening.


I have 10 previous posts that are still "drafts".

I'm going to start with those.

Even though some of them are not relevant anymore.

I'm just going to try and break this block and start writing more.