Nothing to Report

I have posted in a few weeks because I haven't come across anything I felt blog-worthy in a while. We have had a month of nothing to report, other than this stuff:

I am still struggling with that darn oven! Since the banana bread, it ruined yet another loaf of pear bread (I decided to give up on that one), and it burned a blueberry pie. An oven thermometer has just moved up to the top of my shopping list. I don't think I can emotionally continue to try to bake and fail.

I ran a half marathon on Saturday with all my siblings and two of my siblings-in-law. This has been a tough training program for me this time around because Spiff has been so busy, and I haven't been able to rely on him to watch the kids. I also haven't been well rested because of my young baby who has decided not to sleep much these days. Because of this, my goal going into the Half was just to finish.

Then two days before the event, I decided that I felt really good after all, and I was going to try to PR. Race day was beautiful, the course was great, and I did, in fact, set a new personal record of 1:58:45, beating my time from 2 1/2 years ago by a whopping 10 seconds. I find myself actually being disappointed for not being even faster, but I have to remind myself that I didn't train for a PR, and I should be happy with my effort. I am grateful for my new running partner, Kalie, who has been there with me stride for stride with jogging stroller in tow, as we pounded the pavement over the past couple months. I am grateful for the friends and family who watched my children so that I could run. And I'm grateful to have had the experience of participating in a distance running event with my family, team SRT. When I started running 13 years ago, I never thought I would see the day when all of my siblings would run with me. I love it!

And also, Spiff and the boys and I have enjoyed some small hikes on Spiff's off days this past month. It has been a nice way to enjoy some family together time. It's free, it's out of the house, and it wears Gunner out completely. We did a 2-mile hike last week where Gunner actually walked 9/10s of the way all by himself! At a steep point in the hike, we told him that we were mountain goats, like the Billy Goats Gruff, and we were going to climb a mountain. It is the first walk we have taken with him in a long time that he didn't complain about being tired.

This is a pretty lengthy, wordy post for having absolutely nothing to say. Thanks for listening to my rambling.
Until next time!