Piggyback
I never though this would happen in a million years! Me on my husband’s back? Sha! Right! But this was us at St. Edward Park on Saturday morning, where we shared a lovely hike with a foggy, dripping understory in our lovely, PNW, temperate rainforest. Our kids made a resolution to run more this year, so we spent the lower, flat part of the trail, near the lake, doing intervals. Once again, it was illustrated why getting out often is important as our hearts were filled with nature and love was shared. We reminded our kids that their strong heartbeats were just the heart’s way of saying ‘thank you’ with every beat. It was a nice hike.
My friend, Hannah, is a photographer and I recently inquired about having our family portrait done by her. She surprised me by asking about my family’s favorite place; what place in the world is embedded in our soul, our home away from home. I’ve been stuck for a few months, delaying the photo session because I didn’t know what to tell her, until recently it occurred to me: St. Edward Park! Duh! We go there once or twice a week, have always gone there since Gigi was a baby, I learned to hike there, I learned to trust myself as an athlete, and never in my life have I been to a place where I feel almost as much at home as in my backyard. I’m protective and territorial of the place and am shocked whenever someone I know hasn’t been. It is a beautiful, wild and sacred place to us- definitely our home away from home. When we get them done, we’ve chosen to be photographed in the fairy grotto sometime this summer. The pictures will be warm, buttery, beautiful and in the prettiest room in our home away from home.
{the grotto in spring}
Last week was exhausting. It got to be Wednesday and I was sapped of energy and I was in disbelief that we had two more days of this mess! My kids in my class were exhausted, thus, squirrelly and a little naughty, my kids at home melted into puddles of exhausted tears midweek, whining and fussing at how hard school was, how tired they were, and how much they missed it being the four of us at home every day. Boy, did I feel their pain!
That said, I did well for the diet (lost one pound). I don’t know about you, but it takes me a few days of detoxing before I can really hit the ground running with a solid diet again, after I’ve fallen off the wagon. Stepping back into work made controlling my food easy, again, and that felt good. I found myself freaking out again over the fact that I have a hard time working out and training around my work schedule. I got up early one morning to run and just loved that. I vowed to do it again, but then I started having anxiety and was losing sleep over working out, so I decided I’d better just do a morning workout when it makes sense, not when I’m already tired. So I worked out twice after work and once in the morning this week.
I had great plans for working out this weekend, but I’m coming down with a nasty cold and decided that walking will suffice for my workouts this weekend. I felt lazy. I let myself sloth a little, after all, our kids were gone and I had my husband all to myself for 24 hours. Would you diet?? We hiked yesterday, today we walked a little over five miles. Not too shabby! 🙂
My goal this week is to work in at least four workouts and stick with the lower calorie diet.
{loving the foggy forest this weekend!}