Momma never....

Binks, you have failed me.  As my mother, you are to teach me how to survive in this world.  In all your teachings, you never taught me what to do when I get served this for dinner:

 

Yes, that is a whole entire chicken (skin, bones, everything).  One question: How do you dissect a chicken with a spoon and chopsticks?   If you are going to give me a whole chicken, at least give me a knife and a fork (please).  When my coteachers saw me taking a picture, they asked me: "Why are you taking a picture?"  I said, "I have never been served a whole chicken before."  They said, "oh it is not an entire chicken it is a teenage chicken"  Huh?  A whole chicken is a whole chicken regardless of size (in my book.)  Thankfully there was a bowl in the middle of the table to dispose of the bones.  I did a lot of watching other people and then trying to mimic them.  The soup was actually pretty good.   Just a lot of work to get to the meat (in my opinion).

Are you asking yourself, "why was Alissa eating out with her coteachers?"  I am so good at guessing what people are thinking!  Let me tell you.  One of my co-teachers is pregnant and going on maternity leave and there is a new coteacher coming to replace her.  So we went out to eat to say good bye/congratulations to the pregnant co-teacher and welcome to the new coteacher.  (Click here to see what my job is like).  I am a fan of the new co-teacher.  I asked him a question the other day and he replied with, "Yes, ma'am"  First Korean I have met to say ma'am!  You get a lot of brownie points from me if you say sir or ma'am. 

I work with three different co-teachers.  Two of them have been the same since I came to the school in August.  The third one has changed.  Many times.  This (the new one) is the fifth teacher to take the position.  Good thing I am learning to be flexible! 

After reading this post, my mom, Binks, emailed me and said that she would like pictorial proof that I tuck in my shirt.  So here you go Mom:

I was on the verge of running late, hence the half smile

This is me on the way out the door one day this week.  Several things to take note of: 1.) My shirt is indeed tucked in.  I also have a tank top on under my shirt as my school is still cold   2.) The lovely jacket I am wearing I bought here in Korea.  Guess how much it was: 6.30 (US dollars) Cha-ching!  It is missing a button, so I will be whipping out my Caravan skills to sew it back on. 3.) I need to find something to do with my hair.  It still has a little bit of wave from the perm, but not enough to look good.  If you are a hair person, let me know what I should do with it (thank you!)

Question: what do you do when you are served a whole entire chicken?  I am looking forward to the answer.

P.S. Binks, you have not failed me.  I am a functional adult able to survive in this world (:  I'll give you a sticker for it next time I see you.

Weird-o!

Hi, friends.  I am a weird-o.

This is me:  in sweats and a tshirt.  The hubs who is amazing is visiting the DMZ this weekend.  I am home by myself (if you are bad person and now are going to come rob or hurt me, go for it, I have some mean self defense skillz).  Anywho, I am home by myself, guess what I am doing.  Cleaning!  hahahaha.    Who does that?  You are home by yourself...perfect opportunity for painting of the toenails, watching chick flicks, eating food that your beloved does not really care for.  But I clean.  I crack myself up sometimes.

I do have a lot of blog posts floating around in my head.  So once I get done cleaning and organizing, I will sit my derrière down and share with you the excitement in my life.

This is me keepin' it real:  First attempt at the timer on my camera

Second (or tenth) attempt:

If you are thinking to yourself, "self it looks like Alissa has make up on" you are right.  Not really a fan of putting stuff on my face everyday, but I did today.  I had to go to school this morning (yes, it is Saturday morning) and teach a class in front of the parents.  But within 5 seconds of hitting my front door, I was changing back into sweats. 

Question: what do you do when you are home by yourself?

Momaboma

I refer to my mother-in-law as Momaboma.  She is feeling a little under the weather right now.  I thought I would  give her a shout-out.  So without further ado, let me introduce you to Momaboma.

Yes, I agree with you, she is quite beautiful.

She is in an amazing woman.  Case in point: she survived living in a house with all men for 25 years.  This may not sound like a awe-inspiring feat, but it is.  Believe me.  I ate one meal with my amazing husband (before he was my husband) his twin brother, his mom and dad.  I thought to myself, "how did any woman survive in this environment for such a long time?"  I say this partly joking and partly not. (hahahaha) I love my amazing husband and his family.  But it was a 3 to 1 man to woman ratio before my sister-in-law and I entered the scene.  Let's just say, you could tell.

She has a great sense of humor too!

Also, my Momaboma has a lot of inner strength.  I had the privilege of hearing her testimony last year.  She has withstood struggles in her life with her her head held high and with grace.  She has taught me a lot about living life one day a time and not giving up when life gets tough.  She has shown so many that when we feel weak, Jesus Christ is strong in us.  She is a preserve-er (is that a word?).

Momaboma teaching my amazing husband how to make a paper crane.  I think he had just woke up for a nap at this point in time.  He had some crazy hair.  

I went camping in Rocky Mountain National Park with my amazing husband (when he was my fiancée) and his mom and dad.  Poor Momaboma had teach me about camping life!  She was patient and a good teacher. She also made/folded 1,000 paper cranes for our rehearsal dinner.  She taught me how to make cranes.  Like I said, she is a patient and a good teacher.

The finished product.  Obviously she made this one and I did not.

Momaboma has skillz!  She is a good cook.  She made me the most chocolatey, delicious cake ever for my birthday one year.  It was three tiers and pure chocolate!  She has some really good recipes for roasted asparagus.  I have stolen the recipe from her.  It is so good. She has been married for 30 years.  She is one of my role models for being a good wife.  I feel like it takes skillz to be married that long.  (obviously my father-in-law, Daddio, is amazing as well because it takes two to have a good marriage!) She is a good gardener too.  My in-laws have such a pretty front yard.  On the day we got married, she wore some really high heels.  Ya'll, I think I would have fallen over if I would have attempted those shoes.  You have to skillz to do that.  For real, I found a picture of the shoes.  Check it out.

Can you see those heels?  So high  (:

So here's to you Momaboma.  I hope you feel better soon.  You are a great mother-in-law and an amazing person!

I love you Momaboma!

Hoppy Easter!

We have had a great Easter Weekend!  Let me tell you all about it!

Saturday morning, I scrubbed our bathroom floor using baking soda (not what you were expecting?)  Let's skip ahead of my morning cleaning tirade and get to the afternoon....

Saturday afternoon, we headed to the orphanage.  We had the monthly birthday party then we taught the kiddos how to dye Easter eggs.  Keep in mind that most of the kiddos are junior high or high school kids.  There are a few elementary school kids, but not many  The children were so interested in the process.  I do believe that every Korean child I have met is a little artist.  They drew on their eggs (with crayons) before dying them.  I drew polka dots.  They were drawing mini-landscapes!  After the eggs, we got balloons out (the kind clowns use) and made balloon creations.  I was no help what-so-ever in this activity.  So I sat by the kiddos and talked to myself (I was talking to the kids, but the kids do not like to speak English, so it ends up being me talking to myself).  I did learn some new Korean words.  The kids are sticklers, they make you say the words perfectly.    The day ended with balloon sword fights (boys will be boys).  The Tall Boy as he is referred to by the kiddos (that would be my amazing husband) got some hugs from the little boys before we left.  It was precious!

These are eggs that the kiddos dyed and gave to my amazing husband

Sunday, we headed to church.  I love Easter Sunday!  Easter is a little bit different in Korea.  It, like Christmas, is just any other day of the year.  Some of the my students do not even know what Easter is all about (so I informed them).  My amazing husband and I got all dressed up for church today!  I wore a dress and he wore a suit.  It was nice.  (keepin' it real: we were late for church...guess it takes us awhile to get cleaned up...)  Anywho, after church, we had lunch.  It was delicious.  One of my favorite parts about the congregation of our church is the diversity.  Part of our congregation lives on the army base, so they have ovens (hallelujah!)  For lunch we had: rice, ham, turkey, broccoli salad, fruit salad, some form of kimchi, jimbang, cake (that was made in the aforementioned oven) and ice cream.  The meal was delicious!  Maybe I already said that.  I love Korean food.  I love American food.  I love eating Korean and American food with friends.

These are dyed eggs from the orphanage kiddos, can you guess which one was dyed by a fourth grader and which I did?

Sunday afternoon = nap.  Not planned, but my body is still recovery for the marathon (Sidenote: for each mile you race, your body needs that many days to recover.  Hence, 26 miles raced, 26 days of recovery).

Sunday evening, we attended a friend's  (I could explain to you how we know the man, but it would be a long boring story, so just know that we are friends with a random Korean family) birthday party.  It was awesome!  There was great food, great people, and the family owns a noribang, so after eating, we karaoke-ed it up.  I personally like to rock out to Under the Sea from the Little Mermaid, but whatever teeters your totter (that is for you, Cat!)  My amazing husband does a great job of singing 7 Nation Army by White Strips.  Let's just say a good time was had by all.

It was so humbling to be invited to this guy's birthday party.  His family was there, his wife's family was there.  And we were there.  The only non-family members.  Out of all of the people they know is Korea, they invited us.  Wow!

I never really pictured Easter being like this, but I won't have it any other way.  There will be plenty of years to come when we can spend Easter hunting for eggs, attending Sunrise services, and eating chocolate bunnies.  But we will always have the "one time when we were in Korea and ended up at the norribang for Easter" memory.

A Long Quote

I read Celebration of Disciplines by Richard Foster my sophomore year of college for a class I was taking.  I have to admit, it was good, but I did not really soak in the book.  I was also taking 2 math classes the same semester (read: 4 hours of math homework a night) and running 50 miles a week.  So I did the good ol' college "skim/read it while I am walking places, while I eat, while I check my email" etc.  Multi-tasking is not the best for absorption.

Anywho, I read part of the book again this past December.  And now, I am diving in to read the whole thing.  My amazing husband has amassed quite a few book about Spiritual Disciplines in our cozy little apartment.  So I am planning on reading a book by (gasp) Dallas Willard after this.  I am not sure I will make it through, but I will try.  Now I am rambling (what's new?)

I wanted to share this really long quote with you. It convicted me in December and it has been convicting me all week.  (If you get bored or distracted while reading, at least read the last two paragraphs, okay?)  Here we go:

"We are accustomed to thinking of sin as individual acts of disobedience to God.  This is true enough as far as it goes, but Scripture goes much further.* (*Footnote: Sin is such a complex matter that the Hebrew language has eight different words for it, and all eight are found in the Bible.)  In Romans the apostle Paul frequently refers to sin as a condition that plaques the human race (i.e., Rom. 3:9-18).  Sin as a condition works its way out through the "bodily members," that is, the ingrained habits of the body (Rom. 7:5ff).  And there is no slavery that can compare to the slavery of ingrained habits of sin.

Isaiah 57:20 says, "The wicked are like the tossing sea; for it cannot rest, and its waters toss up mire and dirt."  The sea does not need to do anything special to produce mire and dirt; that is the result of its natural motions.  This is also true of us when we are under the condition of sin.  The natural motions of our lives produce mire and dirt.  Sin is part of the internal structure of our lives.  No special effort is needed to produce it.  No wonder we feel trapped.

Our ordinary method of dealing with ingrained sin is to launch a frontal attack.  We rely on our willpower and determination.  Whatever may be the issue for us - anger, fear, bitterness, gluttony, pride, lust, substance abuse-we determine never to do it again; we pray against it, fight against it, set our will against it.  But the struggle is all in vain, and we find ourselves again morally bankrupt or, worse yet, so proud of our external righteousness that "whitened sepulchers" is a mild description of our condition.  In his excellent little book entitled Freedom from Sinful Thoughts Heini Arnold writes, "We...want to make it quite clear that we cannot free and purify our own heart by exerting our own 'will.' " (He cites this in the back of the book.)

In Colossians Paul lists some of the outward forms that people use to control sin: "touch not, taste not, handle not."  He then adds that these things "have indeed a show of wisdom in will worship" (Col. 2:20-23, KJV, [italics added]).  "Will worship" -what a telling phrase, and how descriptive of so much of our lives!  The moment we feel we can succeed and attain victory over sin by the strength of our will alone is the moment we are worshiping the will.  Isn't it ironic that Paul looks at our most strenuous efforts in the spiritual walk and calls them idolatry, "will worship"?"

Are you still with me?  You can go back and reread it if you would like (I personally like to read out-loud to myself but whatever flips your pancake).

Let's continue...
"Willpower will never succeed in dealing with the deeply ingrained habits of sin.  Emmet Fox writes, 'As soon as you resist mentally any desirable or unwanted circumstance, you thereby endow it with more power-power which it will use against you, and you will have depleted your own resources to that exact extent.' (He cites this in the back of the book).  Heini Arnold concludes, 'As long as we think we can save ourselves by our own will power, we will only make the evil in us stronger than ever.' (He cites this in the back of the book.)  This same truth has been experienced by all the great writers of the devotional life from St. Augustine to St. Francis, from John Calvin to John Welsey, from Teresa of Avila to Juliana of Norwich.

'Will worship' may produce an outward show of success for a time, but in the cracks and crevices of our lives our deep inner condition will eventually be revealed.  Jesus describes this condition when he speaks of the external righteousness of the Pharisees.  "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks...I tell you, on the day of judgement men will render account for every careless word they utter" (Matt. 12:34-36, [italics added]).  You see, by dint of will people can make a good showing for a time, but sooner or later there will come that unguarded moment when the 'careless word' will slip out to reveal the true condition of the heart.  If we are full of passion, it will be revealed; if we are full of bitterness, that also will be revealed.

It is not that we plan to be this way.  We have no intention of exploding with anger or of parading a sticky arrogance, but when we are with people, what we are comes out.  Though we may try with all of our might to hide these things, we are betrayed by our eyes, our tongue, our chin, our hands, our whole body language. Willpower has no defense against the careless word, the unguarded moment.  The will has the same deficiency as the law-it can deal only with the externals.  It is incapable of bringing about the necessary transformation of the inner spirit."

Only one more sentence to go ya'll: "When we despair of gaining inner transformation through human powers of will and determination, we are open to a wonderful new realization: inner righteousness is a gift from God to be graciously received."

All quotes taken from Richard Foster's Celebration of Disciplines, pages 4-6

This leaves me with two questions: In the words of my college track coach, "How is your heart?"  and "Am I worshiping my own will in trying to do what only Jesus can do?"

And yes, in case you were wondering, I am listening to Christmas music while I write this.

Happy Feet

These are my feet.  They are happy.

My amazing husband, unbeknowst to me, (uh, why is unbeknown a word and unbeknowst isn't?) scheduled a pedicure for me on Friday after school.  Of course he told me on Wednesday that he had a surprise for me.  When you say the word "surprise" in any sentence concerning me, it is not always the best idea.  I am like a 3 year old.  "Does the surprise include ice cream?"  "Does the surprise include other people?"  "When are you going to tell me what the surprise is?"  "If I keep asking you questions, will you tell me sooner?"  "Is it new sheets?"  (Side note: our sheets were on our bed when we arrived here and they feel like sleeping on sand paper).  "Are the new sheets blue?"  "Are the new sheets yellow?"  "Are the new sheets magenta and hot orange?"  "Is the surprise a vacuum?"  "Are you getting me a vacuum?!?"  "Is the vacuum hidden in our apartment right now?"

Then I started looking for the vacuum....to keep this blog post as short as possible, let's fast forward to 6:30 am on Friday.  My eyelids opened.  I turned my alarm off.  I shook my amazing husband until he was awake and asked, "what is the surprise?  It is Friday so you can tell me now!"  I think he reaction was to chuckle and most likely the word cute was in the sentence coming from his groggy morning voice.  My amazing husband tells me I am cute between  4 and 100 times a day.

End of story: my feet are pedicured now and they are happy.  Please do not tell them that they will start running again soon.  Right now they think they are vacation forever.  Sorry feet.  My figure and sanity will thank you though

Bob and Mark

Bob and Mark are Ian's co-teachers.  Well, Bob was Ian's co-teacher for 6th grade last year and Mark works in the same office as Ian.  Mark helped us a lot when we first moved here.

Mark is on the left and Bob is on the right

We made dinner for them.  Bob likes American food.

After dinner Mark and Bob tried to teach us to play a Korean card game called, "gostop".

My amazing husband learning Gostop

Bob is nice.  He brought me a present.

Cookies!

I asked Bob to take a picture of me with my cookies.  I said,  "Hey Bob, can you take a picture of me with my cookies?"

Bob said, "Sure."

So I smiled.



Then Bob said to my amazing husband, "Get in the picture too"
 

I was still smiling.


Then Bob said, "1,2,...





wait!

.....


Kiss!"




Long pause......






I started laughing.










.....



.......




finally

Click!

Black Day

Happy Black Day!  The following days are celebrated in South Korea: 

Feb 14th - Valentine's Day (the girl buys the guy chocolate)

Mar 14th - White Day (the guy buys the girl candy)

April 14th - Black Day

On April 14th, the single people get together and eat jajangmyeon.  I love jajangmyeon!  It is delicious and cheap!  Woo-hoo!  Jajangmyeon is a hard dish to describe.  Koreans consider it Chinese food.  Basically, it is thick wheat noodles covered in a sauce.  The sauce is made from a black bean paste.  Usually this sauce has some vegetables in it too (pieces of onion and carrots) and meat maybe?  It is served hot.  I have heard that jajangmyeon in China is served cold.  

Dish of the Day!

I think the reason that Korean singles eat jajangmyeon on Black Day is because it is a comfort food.  I think it is the Korean form of mac and cheese (not really, but kinda).  

The one thing that I do not like about jajangmyeon is that it is really difficult for me to eat.  I have not mastered the chopstick method yet.  I am working on it.  It is really great that slurping noodles is okay here because I usually slurp quite a bit while eating jajangmyeon (or just take a bite and let the rest of the noodles fall back on my plate).

Believe me: you need some mad chopsticks skills!

If you ever come to Korea, you have to try jajangmyeon.  Do not try the instant stuff, go to a Korean Chinese restaurant and try the real stuff.  It fills you up and makes you feel warm and happy inside!

26.2 miles later

Just in case you have not been keeping up with my blog as of late, let me fill you in on the excitement in my life.  I have been training for a marathon.  I (finally) ran the marathon!  I give myself a B-.  My B goal was to run 4 hours (my American partner totally ran 4:00:21 – you go girl!).  My C goal was less than 4:38.  I was closer to the B goal than the C goal, hence the B-. 

Let me sum up the marathon for you.  The first 13 miles (or 21 km) were wonderful.  The birds were singing, the sun was shining, I was running, I was happy, my running partner and I were chatting.  Life was good.  Maybe we went out a little too fast in our excitement…but life was good.  I was eating my gu, I was a happy camper.

I had one not three

Then we got to mile 14, I was like, “I am feeling good” I am going to speed up a little.  STUPID!  Note to self: next time I say this during mile 14 of a marathon, don’t speed up.  Wait a couple of miles.  Miles 14-18 were pretty blissful.  I was running by myself, but still birds singing, cherry blossoms blossoming, I was still feeling good.  Then I got to mile 18 (30 km) aid station.  I walked so that I could start in on my second gu and some water.  Then the 4 hour pace group passed me.  I was like, bah start running.  Then my running partner caught up to me.  At this point, we were still on pace to hit 4 hours (Thank you Garmin for being awesome like that).  I honestly do not really remember kilometers 31-35.  What I do remember is that I thought I was going to die.  I seriously thought my legs were falling off.  I was in agony to say the least.  I had hit the wall.  I remember at one point looking over (I think I was attempting to jog at this point) and seeing that the curb was unusually high…it looked like the perfect place for my derriere (um, I always thought that derriere was spelled dairyair until 5 seconds ago)   I really, really, really wanted to sit down.  I even stopped running so I could stare at the curb (I tried to look like I was stretching or something other than dying).  I thought to myself, “If I sit down, I won’t have to keep running.”  It was the most beautiful and most appealing thought in the world to me.  I knew eventually someone (a.k.a my Amazing Husband) would find me.  But then I also realized that I would not finish the marathon.  The first thought that came to my mind was, “If you can survive uprooting your life and living in Korea for 7 months, you can run for one more hour Alissa Jo!”

And then

Jesus came (I thought I was going to be at the pearly gates soon after this moment….I was like, “take me now Jesus!”) 

 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” 

I sang the Philippians 4:13 song (from the Donutman) in my head.  I started walking.  I sang the song again and I started running, jogging.  I sang the song again and kept running jogging.  The song was on repeat in my head.

I do distinctively remember getting to the water station at 35 km.  I finished off my gu and started chugging water and Gatorade.  My goal at this point in time was to finish.  Nope, actually, my goal was just to make it to the next aid station for more water and Gatorade.  As soon as I left one station, I would start searching the horizon for the next one.  

Eating chocolate with electrolytes

 To make this long story a tiny bit shorter, let’s just say that I finished.  Finally.  4:14:something. I placed 29^th out of 65 women that ran the full marathon.  As soon as I crossed the finish line, I found my amazing husband.  He had some Clif shot blocks for me.  (Note to self, do not eat shot blocks after the next marathon).  For whatever reason, I felt horrible after running and the shot blocks left a weird taste in my mouth…like I was going to upchuck.  So I did the logical thing, I laid down and went to sleep using my backpack as a pillow.  An hour later I awoke to the tent around me being taken down, so we moved to a different spot and I slept for two more hours.  I am not sure how many people lie on the ground and sleep for three hours after a marathon, but you should try it, it really refreshes you.  (and takes away the upchuck sensation in your stomach).

Training for and running a marathon changed my life (sounds cliché maybe, but true).  I never thought I would find a running partner in Korea.  I did.  I never thought I would run 50 miles a week after college.  I did.  Or do 18-20 mile long runs.  I did.  I never thought I would run a marathon.  I did.  I can all things through Christ who strengthens me!

Marathon running buddy (before)

Usually when I do not hit my time in a race, I get pretty disappointed.  I think it is a natural reaction, but honestly, I was okay with it.  My identity and self-worth is not in the time on the clock at the finish line.  There is this great song that I love to listen to on a nice day while driving with the windows down (not that I do that much driving now days…).  Anywho, here are some of the lyrics: I am not the shoes I wear, I am not the clothes I buy, I am not the house I live in, I am not the car I drive, I am not the job I work, you can’t define my worth by nothing on God’s green earth. my identity is found in Christ, it’s found in Christ.  I love this song!


For now, I am hanging up my running shoes....for an entire week!  I am going to let my body rest and recover and then start training for another race.  I am not sure the distance or the place...but I will race again!


Do you have any accomplishments in your life that you never thought you would obtain?

goals

I promise that I will stop blogging obsessively about running and marathoning in the near future, but for the time being, you will have to put up with it.  Sorry.  I have already planned my first non-marathon related blog: It will be about yellow dust.  I know, I know, you are now dying with anticipation.

Anywho, one useful strategy I have found while planning to race is to have a pyramid of goals.  If I have just one goal and the race starts going poorly in the beginning or half way, I just give up.  But if I have a back up goal, then I can still keep working towards something instead of giving up.  (read: the goal thing is all mental...)

I use letters (like grades) to explain my goals.  Yes, I am nerd.  My friends and I did this during college.  Sample conversion from last year:
Me: "Hi friend, what is your goal for Saturday?"
Friend: "Well, my B goal is (time) because that would be my PR, but my A goal is (time) because I really want to run sub-(another time)" so on and so forth.

The Pyramid of Goals for the Cherry Blossom Marathon 2011:

A: 3:55 - this is 9 minute pace for the whole 26.2 miles.

                             B: 4 hours!  This has been what I have been training for!  I do not care if I run 3:59:59.99999..(one time in college I ran an indoor 5k in 20:59.99)

                   C: 4:38:00 - this is the time that Ada (from Biggest Loser, Season 10) ran her marathon. 
          D: Anything over 5 hours (you are only given 5 hours to finish - eek!)
F : Don't finish.  Die.  Injure myself in some bad way.

This morning, I got a text on my lovely Korean cellphone.  It looked like spam.  I get a lot of spam text messages.  But I checked with co-teacher before deleting it.  It was actually the Mail Man (I am not sure of his actual position).  The Mail Man was texting me to make sure that I would be home between 10am-1:30pm to receive the package he would be delivering to me.  Thank you Co-teacher for calling the Mail Man and explaining the situation with the "waygook" (that is the only word of the whole conversation that I understood).
Anywho, the Mail Man finally found me and delivered my race number (the ever lucky #2048) shoe chip, free bag (I guess you get a bag and not a Tshirt?)  and some information in Korean.
Get this: the Korean Radioactive-waste Management Corporation paid for my bib number.  Thank you Korean Radioactive-waste Mangament Corporation!  I hope you are doing your job well.

I was trying to find some motivational quotes about marathon running.  I found this one from Ann Trason, "It hurts up to a point and then it doesn't get any worse." I think women say the same thing about giving birth. Awesome.

map and graph

I have looked at these countless times, but thought you might like to see them:

You can guess which colors I will be runnging

and the elevation map for the marathon.  You can click on it and it will get bigger.

freak.out.

BAHHHHHHH!

Ya'll I have to run a marathon in 5 days.  I am freaking out.  I wish it was tomorrow.  I just want it to be done. 

Bahhhhhhhhhh!

I just had another freak out moment.  This potentially might be the longest week of my week.  Well, the week of my wedding was actually the longest week of my life. 

bah!  I have to run 26.2 miles, that is 42 km.  bah!

Moving on...I finished reading this "book".  Black Heels to Tractor Wheels is by Ree D, the Pioneer woman.  According to her the story is about, "the bodice-ripping saga of how I met and married my husband. What started out as a few paragraphs turned into a forty-plus chapter online serial, which concludes on our wedding day..."

I really enjoyed reading this story.  I especially liked that the "chapters" were short.  I could take a break at school and read one and then get back to work.  I also like that since this was from the Pioneer Woman's blog, it was free!  You know how I love free.  Thank you Pioneer Woman for writing this story.  It provided me with many hours of entertainment. 

Did you know that I have to run a marathon in 5 days? 

Did you know that yesterday I was making the bed and I was humming?  I like to hum, especially while I do household tasks.  Anywho, my amazing husband chimed in singing.  Minor detail: he started singing a different song than I was humming.  Another minor detail: he thought it was the same song.

Then I sang him the song that I was humming.  He did not know the song!  He did not know it!   Important detail: the song was, "Up from the Grave He Arose!"  How can you be a son of a pastor and not know that song?  How?  We sang it every Easter forever.  It is like not knowing "Joy to the World" sigh.  I am trying to listen to the song right now, but there are some lovely F16s buzzing by (the joys of living 15 ft from an air force base...)

So, there may be an Easter song countdown (I need a more catchy title) coming your way.  I love Easter music!  Love it!  I sing it all during Lent. 

What is your favorite Easter song?    Did you know that I am running a marathon on Saturday?