I have discovered the secret to running. Basically it involves pride and stealing.

(Former) roadblocks to running:

1. I don’t pace myself.
2. I hate the feeling of not being a regular.
3. I quit easily.
4. My feet hurt.
5. I lack a strong motivation.

Trick to triumph:

1. Borrow your mother’s 2006 Hartford Half-Marathon shirt, and don’t give it back, and then wear it when you run.

This is working for me. I’m aware that I did not run a half-marathon, but I am happy to let the people that I pass in the park think that I did. Those words on “my” shirt allow me to run at my own speed, for my own distance and in the location of my choice (now that I have a long-sleeves option). I can think to myself about how the people I’m passing just might think that I’m training for my next marathon when really I’m only training for my first mile. While long past the insecurities of high school, I am still quite capable of utilizing the judgments of others to the advantage of my own motivations: I realize that not a soul in Memorial Park except for me is noticing or caring about my run, but it’s a pride thing; I’m more likely to just keep running a little further if I tell myself that the people around me are expecting me to keep running a lot further. I like to comply with positive expectations. Also, running on a gravel trail is so. much. easier. than running on concrete. It felt like heaven to my feet. With my shirt, I feel like I belong on that 2.5 mile gravel trail instead of on the 1/4 mile concrete loop in front of our house. I’ve been on my own version of runner’s high ever since and I’m excited to go back tonight, excited to push myself a little harder and break through and on to my second mile, and on to my thirteenth.

Because really, the whole reason for running is so that I can tell Trevor I need another plane ticket for next October. I’d never ever stick with training if it were for any other marathon… but Hartford? Here I come.

These have given me some fun ideas. I did something like this once, but had forgotten. Now that I’ve been reminded, expect to see it again in some form in the future :)

Time to live is my new vacation priority. None of this whirlwind sightseeing for me. Being gone for two and a half weeks was, with the exception of Trevor’s absence, the best decision I made (I didn’t have a choice, really - with a voucher it is apparently all or nothing - but I will now take the credit). We got to unpack, we found a routine and adjusted to the time and temperature (I have definitely become a weather wimp). Max had leeway to warm up (the non-weather kind) and feel comfortable long before our flight home, so he actually got to enjoy and be enjoyed. We walked, shopped, dined, laughed and partied. We drank clean water and breathed clean air (and Max ate some possibly not-so-clean leaves and sticks). We wore hoodies and didn’t watch any television and kept good company and received our mail in a real mailbox.

Life is in the air there. Somehow all that busy Puritan work ethic doesn’t interfere with the calm and charm, somehow the random roads and uncontrolled greenery feel more harmonious than neatly planned communities.

It feels whole and is fabulous.

It’s been a gorgeous trip, full of Fall. He’s grown up immensely, and I have lots to think about.

Looking forward to seeing you Trevor!

The best thing I missed during the hurricane was my one day of fame! :) My new best blogging friend gave me an award, and said such nice things about my little site here. Thanks Alisha! Ironically, at the time my site was completely neglected due to no power and then was in shambles while we did some relocating. I hope it can start living up to its name soon! Anyway, her new blog is wonderful and her photography is even better; you should check it out! Trevor and I went to her senior photography exhibition (not sure what it’s officially called) at BYU a few years back and really enjoyed it. She’s got quite a talent and I’m excited about whatever work she’s got coming up next!

And now I guess I get the pleasure of being in charge of the next award :) Amanda, here’s to you! Her blog is one I am always inspired by, whether it be the written insights, creative perspective or just daily example. This post, while short and many months ago, is always the one I think of when I remember her blog. I’m not sure why it stands out so much except maybe it just shows how to decide that life is beautiful. So, everybody head over there and get some goodness!

My shop is coming along well. Promos will start in November (if all goes as planned) and I am just bursting at the seams to be ready faster. I feel like this one home video we have of Caleb “playing” the piano when he is probably two years old and he keeps wiggling so much on the bench that he looked like he really did have ants in his pants. And that is how antsy I feel. Be excited.

With that feeling is coming the timeless battle between my selfish me and my selfless me. My family will always win; I’m certainly 100% set on that issue. I think I just didn’t ever expect this choice to be hard; mom-ing full-time was always the plan and I liked it that way. I am therefore now entirely unprepared for the fact that it is, in fact, hard. I didn’t think there was a close second. There were career possibilities I would have enjoyed pursuing but they didn’t hold a candle to being at home for my children. They still don’t. But this? It’s a tempting pursuit that’s very… here. It’s with me, at home, constantly on my mind and constantly evolving. I’m going nuts wanting more time for this. New ideas just give me these explosions of energy that have nowhere to go, and so they stay trapped and demanding to get out while all I get to do is sit on the floor and build another block tower with my wonderful perfect son who deserves full attention and instead gets me - a mother mentally absent 40% of the time. I doubt I am the only mom whose mind has a hard time staying on the task at hand, but sometimes it feels like I must be - am I? - and I should do better.

I want both parts of my life, and I know that both are possible if I were just better at making it all fit. (Like, say, if I didn’t ever need to sleep. I resent sleeping.) I need to become as successful at compartmentalizing my time and focus as I am at compartmentalizing tangible objects, and words on a list, and food (I’m not sure how I compartmentalize my food but I’m pretty sure I could probably do it). Reasons I need both include:

One, I dig a crazy life when it’s due to something I love. Having these beautiful ideas not-so-patiently waiting for their turn is much preferable to having those maddeningly slow days of repetitive-block-tower-building (which, let’s face it, are an inevitable part of parenting regardless of what else I do) that would and did used to come anyway with nothing super swell to look forward to at the end of the day. Long sentence.

Two, everybody knows you’re a better parent when you get your personal time. Max is still new enough that three hours to myself is enough to make me miss him. I want to be careful to not use the rejuvenation reason to unfair advantage though. I think the moms of the generation before me gave up lots more than I’ll ever have to give up, and I feel slightly like a wimp. They didn’t get to be constantly connected to the rest of the world all day long (no power certainly taught me about that one!) and didn’t have as many opportunities to mix home and work. My mother chose me over a college degree and has never taken a day for herself since then, it seems, and never complains about it either. I am not that selfless of a person. Life with children will help me along in that direction I’m sure, by brute force if necessary. At some point my kids will take up enough of my time that there won’t be enough left for me to have a side business. If I’m ever going to try it, now’s the time. I enjoy it so much that it’s got to be here, even if only in little amounts.

Three, I’ve found that having this constant choice of how to use my time has actually made me a better mom by nature of the fact that I’m more focused on remembering my priorities. When I’m aware that all I really want to be doing is working with paper, I’m also aware that unless it’s those designated hours a week for paper, those little hands grabbing at my hair and clawing my neck and begging for my breakfast spoon are more important. And so I treat them more importantly. Being in first place doesn’t mean anything different from being in last place unless there’s something in second place. I’m learning that I need there to be something in second place - a lesser of two good things to push the better thing forward. So far I’ve felt like it is helping my days pull in favor of my son. I think that once I get in a groove, it will work out well.

Also, I just remembered that hello, we just had a hurricane, so maybe I should write something about that since it is the cause of my long absence. I’ll give more details later but after two weeks without power, all is well. I have finally caught up completely with the 200+ items I had waiting for me in my Google Reader when I finally got to a computer. I’m sorry that I can’t comment on as many as I usually would but it would just take up my entire day! But know that I read them and enjoyed them!

(The only blogs I am not caught up on yet are the ones set to not allow RSS feeds, which means I can’t put them on Reader, which means I usually only read them once a week or so when I remember to check them individually. I highly recommend using Reader, by the way. It has saved me oodles of time every day. Anyway if in the last 3 or 4 months I suddenly became a sparse commenter on your blog, it not being available for RSS is probably the reason. I will do my best to catch up when I can!)

In case it is not obvious, my blog is not as it should be. We (and by we I mean Trevor) are moving it back to smallperfections.com, since putting it at new.smallperfections.com was just a quick fix in the first place and never intended to be permanent. Anyway, so if you are a person who has been coming directly to new.smallperfections.com, that’s why things here are not normal (had to re-install WordPress). And if you go to smallperfections.com, well, it’s just an index list and you won’t be seeing this until the future. If it’s the future now and you’re here, I’m glad you kept checking back to give my blog another chance!