Making time for me...

With Kevin being gone, and having to be with the four kiddos proves to be quite tough on somedays - some are surely worse than others. I wake up with them, and put them to bed. Sometimes days run into each other and by the time the kids go to bed, I am fried. It's easy to get caught up in the kids 24/7 and leave my needs unattended to, but there is only so long one can go on that way before truly being miserable. Though, I have to say, I am quite thankful for those in my life who help me stay sane!

Since having Callum, I've tried getting back into running. Every few months, I'd hit some sort of road block, like moving...or extreme heat & humidity in Virginia and then fall came, and running in the evening was impossible because it was dark so early. So, I stopped running. Then again in February, I started up again, I signed up for a 5 mile St. Patricks Day race and ended up having some pretty significant IT band issues, and had to forfeit the race and not run. It was several weeks before I was up and running without pain again. It was a long, frustrating road. Then, we headed off to Mexico for a week and ended up getting a foreign object stuck in my foot.

This was immediately after coming home from the food doctor.
He had tried digging
the object out of my foot without any luck...
Believe me, it did NOT look like that when I walked
into his office - it was MUCH less impressive! 

--about "that" foreign object - I never blogged about or even mentioned it, but I guess I'll have to share all the fun I went through during the last few weeks of our time in Virginia. You may want to close your eyes in a few! So, anyways, our last full day in Mexico and Lilah wants to run down to the beach. So we RUN...and all of a sudden I feel something impale my foot. I wanted to scream. I looked down and it was a small puncture wound. I would have bet a million dollars that my foot was sliced open, but no, a small measly puncture wound. I hobble into the water with Lilah trying to ignore the pain, but I couldn't ignore it any longer. I hopped out of the water, sat down, and looked at my foot. There was surely something black embedded inside of my foot. Fast forward a few days - we couldn't get the object out in Mexico, so I ended up in the ER in Virginia. I had a foot doc try to dig the object out of my foot, but every time he tried, the piece of what we think was roof thatching would break off. It was then decided that if I didn't have pain, I should see if the wound will heal on its own. By the time we left for Maine, it still hadn't healed, but it was healing very slowly. Soon enough, I tried running and didn't experience any IT Band pain or foot pain, so I continued. At that point, you could still see black in my foot, but after several days at the beach and salt water, it appears as though the object has escaped my foot! It was a long road, but I finally feel as though my foot is truly healing! Who says the beach isn't healing!?

This was about 10 days or so after the procedure. After days and days of
soaks, it never came out...

This is when we decided to let it heal and see what happens. It didn't heal
too much after that until daily trips to the beach helped expel the object!
By mid-July you can almost not even tell where the area was! It took FOREVER!

 So, after that whole foot ordeal, I was just ready to run. Once the pain subsided, I started running a little at a time. I was afraid to start too fast after my IT Band issue, so I took it slow. Real slow. I joined a running group that a friend of mine had started, and signed up for my first half Marathon! On September 30th, I will be running in the Maine Half Marathon. I have never run more than 7 miles at one time, and have only done that once in my life.

Why you ask? I need to do it for me. It will force me to make time for me. While I don't love running, I love how it makes me feel when I am done. I love that I have a group of friends I can run with weekly, and I love that we can help each other out to run.

I guess I should start blogging on my muffin top blog again!? (http://stephs90daychallenge.blogspot.com)