This is huge.

No. Really. This is a big deal for me. I have never enjoyed running in my life, and while I won’t say that I just loved running for 20 minutes straight, I didn’t hate it either.

Two months ago I was happy just to run for one minute straight. I would say this is progress.

It also means I am beginning to really believe that I can do this marathon thing.

For real.

Also, I sweat so much I could feel it dripping from my elbows.

I’m sorry that was TMI. True though.

My schedule over the last two weeks has also forced me to do some working out in the evenings instead of the morning. Again, I am often the only one there, and when I arrive most all of the lights are off.

Except that one can light over (my) treadmill. It’s like having a spot light.

Pretty cool for the Blondie air drum solos for girls with purple…er, blue…pig tails.

Yes, blue. As you all know I was going for purple tresses, but what I have not told you (though many of you know) is that I am pretty much color blind. The eye docs call it color deficient, but I can tell you that I can always see the first “test” in the color blindness test book and then I am done after that.

So, all that to say, it turns out my purple hair is actually blue and I can’t tell personally.

So who wants to go to Sally’s beauty with me this week….because right now…the blue is fading and the blonde is starting to show through and it is a special green color.

There are no bible verses about green hair. I checked.

has Plenty of time.

Plenty of time to have an army of magazines tell her that outfit is all “wrong”.

She has plenty of time before the culture of her peers makes her feel that this kind of “spunk” makes her stand out and not “fit in”.

She will have her whole life to question and obsess over every detail of how she looks.

There will be years to think about how she could have posed better for the picture.

There will be too many years to obsess over what she eats.

Plenty of years to be chained down by what the media tells her is attractive.

So for now,

I’ll teach her to exercise because it’s fun.

I’ll allow her the confidence to imagine herself as one tough cookie.

I’ll let her dress herself, and encourage that sense of style that only she has.

…and if I’m lucky,

I’ll have raised a girl who has plenty of time…

to be herself.

…is it really all it’s cracked up to be?

I’ve been thinking on this ever since I gave birth for the first time. That’s when all this talk of balance began.

How to balance work and motherhood. (read all the books)

How to balance being a mother and wife. (took all the bible studies I could sign up for)

How to balance all the things on your checklist. (I was highly “effective” and had the planner to prove it)

Then came kid number two, the one we lovingly refer to as “Mobil Entropy Unit 2″.

And the scales began to tip and I started rethinking this balance thing.

Balance. Meaning the scales had to be even, …right?

Was my family really supposed to carry as much weight as my career did?

That was balance?

A kid that won’t sleep for the first two years of his life will make you start thinking crazy, and he will give you plenty of time in the night to do it. When you go for so many nights with out a good sleep and you can’t do anything about it…you can barely begin to see the ability to control balance for what it really is, an illusion.

The end of my  (already diminishing) career was about imbalance. I was forced to decided between family (both physical and faith) or a 4 hour afternoon of selling mammon.  There was no way to make the scales break even. I had to CHOOSE to tip the scales that day.

Full on motherhood brought new balance issues.

I had to balance me time and mommy time. Daddy time and kid time. God and I time.

I had to balance all those activities I was in charge of so I would feel balanced as a woman since I no longer was balancing a career.

Then came the news that kid number 3 was on his way, and I began to think I was suffering some sort of a short term “chemical imbalance”.

I was balancing ENOUGH ALREADY!!!!!

So I purposely became very imbalanced in my prayer life. The scales became very weighty on that side. And you know what happened? Peace.

I quit trying to balance interior design with warmth and heart in my home. I began to write scripture on all my windows and dared the neighbors to care. I didn’t fear being that “crazy neighbor”. And you know what happened? Comfort.

When it came to saying “yes” and “no” to busyness during this time of my life, I began to let the “no’s” weigh more. And you won’t believe what I found. Rest.

I realized I was chemically imbalanced…in a good way. There was more happy than there was sad.

I began to realize that the movers and shakers, they aren’t balanced at all. They are sold out to their passions, be it good or bad, and they are the ones that change things.

I want to change things.

Then,

just this week, over tea, my husband ( I like to call him Mr. H.O.T.T., head of the table)…brilliant man that he is spun my perception once again. What if, we balance each other?

Whoa! right?

…how often do we let others help us achieve balance that we think we need so much.

never.

We believe the lie that we are

meant,

supposed,

expected,

and even can do it on our own.

And we let it wreck us and depress us.

I realized with the hearing of my husband’s wise question, that part of the Joy I found last year, came from the balance of friends and family that carried me through hard times. God ordained relationships to bring that balance back to my life.

Relationships that tipped the scales toward Him once again.

Here’s the trick though. I had to let them.

There was me way over on one side of the scales trying to cope and balance all by myself those first few days.

And then my friends and family way over on the other side….until I nodded and they all came rushing over…(I smile here)

…to once again make me perfectly imbalanced.

I started playing with the idea when I had my first child in 2004. I had read that rolled oats and whole wheat could help boost your milk supply when breast feeding. When I went back to work I was desperate to keep my milk up since I didn’t have as many opportunities to pump while I was at work. I hated oatmeal, but I knew I really liked cookies so…I fiddled around with an oatmeal cookie recipe or two and this is what it has become now.

By the way, the first time I tried this for my milk supply, I went from pumping two ounces from both breasts together to pumping 6 oz from each, but I ate tons of them because they were so stinking good! Unfortunately, I think my body became kind of used to it because with in a week and a half I was back to the two ounces. I could lay off the cookies for awhile though and do it again in a week or two. It was crazy.

I can’t prove the effectiveness by any means, but it at least gave this mama a little confidence boost if nothing else. I’ll give you a strange way to tell if it’s working…(this only works if you used the fenugreek listed below)…your armpits, …they will start to smell like maple syrup.

I swear. It’s totally true.

A Note for the Dads: These cookies will not make you lactate if you are not already lactating!

Ingredients:

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar (I have also used raw sugar before)

3/4 cup salted butter (the wonderful amish butter is best if you can get it, I have a source if you need one)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 egg (farm fresh is best)

1/4 cup water

1 tsp vanilla

3 cups rolled oats (do not use quick oats)

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 cup all purpose flour

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp fenugreek ( optional…this herb has been shown to improve lactation…if you are pregnant though, hold off on using this in your cookies…It can also stimulate labor.I find my fenugreek at Dekalb Farmers Market)

1 cup of chocolate chips (totally optional but highly recommended. Also good is white chocolate chips and dried cranberries)

1. Heat oven to 350. In a large bowl, beat brown sugar, butter and sugars until cream. Add the egg, water, and vanilla until totally combined.

2 Add the already combined dry ingredients minus the oatmeal, a little at a time alternately with the oatmeal.

3. Fold in chocolate chips

4. Drop dough by the teaspoonful onto an ungreased cookie sheet.

5. Bake 11 to 13 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Remove to a wire rack to cool. Cool completely before storing in an air tight container.

This makes roughly 5 dozen cookies and they do freeze well.

Feel free to share with your pregnant and breastfeeding friends.

Today I wore pigtails.

They kind of look like firecrackers with that purple flairing out all spikey. I think they helped me get through my first ride on the eliptical pedal thingy. I could feel them swaying back and forth as I pushed through.  I felt spritely.

Robert liked them. That was a plus.

Nate did not. He said I needed to take them out so I would look normal again.

He said it was too raggity.

Adding 6 pounds to the weights you use for arms is significantly harder. Self coached labor breathing and doula talking helps. ( breathe…don’t tense your face…that is one less contraction…er….I mean rep)

Earbuds! I will never forget them again thanks to my bestie Maria! Look what she made me for my birthday!!!!

I just clip them to the strap of my purse and Ta-Da! They never get left at home!!! (She knows me sooooo well)

So, in the earbuds today, there was a little Brittney . I didn’t think I liked her till I started (sort of) running. Yeah, still at the sort of stage, but I did make it a full 5 minutes today with out dying.
There was also a little ZZ Top. “She’s Got Legs” was strangely motivating, especially since that lump my husband found in the back of my thigh is not a tumor, but actually my long lost hamstring. Who knew it was still there? This after finding my bicep again just last week.

And, if you know me at all, you know there was some Aerosmith. “Permanent Vacation” is the only reason (well, that and my pig tails) that I made 8 and a half minutes (I KNOW I AM A TOTAL WIMP) on my first ride on that eliptical thingy. You’d think a woman that survived 72 hours of labor with her first child could do a full 10 minutes on an exercise machine….

My  friend Adam (long distance work out buddy who keeps me motivated) says I need a new playlist. I’m taking suggestions. I’m stuck in the 80′s and 90′s apparently.

There will be more epsom salts today.

You know, I read somewhere that if you still look pretty after you work out, you didn’t do it right.

Does feeling pretty count?
I did not take a picture to confirm this.

Okay, actually I did, and the saying is totally true and for the record, I did not look pretty when I was done. I’m just not going to show it to you.

But…I did feel pretty.
….Once I started breathing on my own again that is.

This is from Song of Solomon 7

As I was preparing to write this blog, I did some word searches for the word “purple”.

Who knew! There is actually a verse about purple hair!  And the context involves a king that is captivated.

As I have mentioned recently, last year was all about Joy for me. I knew the difference between Joy and Happiness, but last year was about living that difference.

This year, already, something else, a different kind of theme has come along. I was expecting a word…an idea…a….philosophy?

But what I got was something different.

A color.

(quick! guess which one!)

What’s more it’s been a long time coming. It was something that I had been considering, and just as always things started coming along that confirmed that I needed to get cracking. These things will be follow up blogs hopefully throughout the year if the trend continues.

Here is a little background on how I got to the “root” of this theme.

I have a friend.

Stephanie Cann. ( I love this picture. She looks so fierce and sassy.)

We met very casually in 2005 at a MOPS conference in Nashville. About a year later, we ended up working on a major MOPS fundraiser in Atlanta and got to know each other just a little better. During that time, we both turned up pregnant. Our boys ended up being born 18 days apart…hers first. Both had very traumatic births, (my story on that at another time…and it too has a purple thread to it) but God allowed a much longer journey for her. You can read her story here.

After her second time facing cancer in five years, she decided to start dying her hair purple. Stephanie did this for a very specific purpose. It gave her a segway into sharing her grace journey. She shared a message of royal adoption, mercy, grace, and favor. She did this in the face of uncertainty and all the things that scare each of us the most.

The first time she posted pictures of her purple hair (and her whole purple posse of friends that supported her and took on that grace story challenge with her) I remember thinking, ” I wish I was brave enough to do that, but what would (enter a whole list of people here) think of me if I did that?”  So I held her in high esteem, and even though she inspired in me, a certain longing for some spunk…I shelved it.

…but it kept niggling at my brain now and then.

I can’t tell you the exact moment I decided I was going to do it.  I did get a small patch done just after Christmas, but it bugged me that it wasn’t noticeable enough.  When I got it done, my stylist, the fabulous Molly Barksdale at  Morgan Ashley Salon (whispers, go like them on facebook) ,  told me about a product that I could put on it myself to keep it up when I wanted too.  Something about that quiet little patch behind my ear though gave me the chutzpa to go crazy and color my fun blonde stripe that I’ve had the last year and a half.

This became clear after hearing another sweet friend share her story about her grace walk…a story I will again share in part later because of it’s unexpected purple thread.

So…here I am now, with this regal accountability in my hair. This reminder to myself to share that my life is good, and it’s good because of nothing I did, but because I have a king who finds me captivating, and he gives me good gifts when everything seems wrong.

I tried to get this blog out to the internet before we went out of town Friday…but being a mom, and chief trip packer, and laundress, and John’s family chef…it just didn’t happen. Guess what…that is good. I had several chances to try it out. It’s pretty noticeable, the tips are pretty much ultra violet. I was able to start with friends, but then there was the waitress at breakfast. … the moment of truth. I had to make it quick and powerful and not hang her up from doing her job.  It tumbled out of me awkwardly when she asked if it was just something fun for the kids…”oh no! I had a kind of rough year last year, and this purple stripe in my hair is there to remind me that life is good, and God is the one that makes it that way.”

Then it was a young woman in the public restroom.
Her: ” I love that splash of color in your hair.”
Me: ” Oh (blushing) thank you.”

Yep, dropped the ball on that one.

But right after that, I got to sit down with Stephanie, as well as some other friends, and she was so encouraging! She knows it’ll come.

I love too, that this first picture of my hair covers my face pretty much…another reminder to be transparent. It’s not me but the Light shining through me that matters. His light is the one that provides the Abundant Life (John 10:10), and that is exactly what I have…the Abundant Life.

Do NOT, …I repeat, do NOT take this blog too seriously.
Only maybe….just a little seriously, but not too seriously.

Now that we have that out of the way,

You might be raising a geek if …

your daughter poses as a zombie in family pictures.

You might be raising a geek if…

…your kid makes his own costume for Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week”.

You could possibly be raising a geek if…

If you daughter not only knows what a “chupacabra” is, but wants one for a pet.
(funny side note, she corrected me on this image, apparently this depiction of a chupacabra does not have enough hair and is therefore too nekkid)

You might be raising a geek if…

…your kid has his own pair of Ferengi ears.
(ok, really, these are the “listening ears” he made at church but I totally could not resist)

It is a pretty good clue that you are raising a geek if…

…your son sees a sub sandwich, and pretzel sticks and thinks, “stegosaurus sandwich”.

You are quite possibly raising a geek if….

your oldest child cuts the umbilical cord of your youngest child…in her pajamas no less, in your bedroom.

This one though….

I fear he may be turning jock….

“Myself “, I said, ” Now that you have started working out, you should post a before picture.”

“Uh, negative.” I replied

“No really, you already posted that flabby belly picture so this would be nothing.”, I argued.

“Fugetaboutit.” I was firm that time.

“And you could explain why you are doing this and what your plans are.”, I prattled on.

“I forbid it.” …and I crossed my arms and turned my back.

Next thing I know, I’m handing my camera to my 7 year  old…I let her take the picture. Let me see myself from her perspective, because she thinks I’m beautiful. (that is the BEST thing about kids, they always think you are pretty)

It took 5 shots before I could handle her perspective. …and I had to suck in. I didn’t do that in at least the first 3.

Overall, I think I’m pretty ok. Aside from the unflattering way I turned my hips, and the slouchy shoulders, I’ve never truly just hated my body. I’m actually amazed at what my body has been equipped to do. I mostly hate that I look tired and messy in the picture. It was about 6:45am on the way to the bus stop, and let me tell ya…she could not take those pictures fast enough. It was quite chilly. I was glad to get that polar fleece back on.

So here is the thing. I want to feel strong again. Strong like I did in labor. (Well except for that transition part where I told everyone I was going to die) So I have a plan to accomplish that.

A few years ago, I wrote a “to do before I turn 40″ list. I have accomplished most of that list.

I learned to belly dance.

I had two more children at home.

I sang a solo in church.

…and several other things too.

I think though, I must have been drunk or something when I wrote “run a marathon”.

I have no idea why I wrote that. I have NEVER enjoyed running.

But I did. So, I’m going to give it a go. I have two years to complete this one. So this year, I plan to run a half marathon in preparation for the whole marathon next year.

This is not a new years resolution. I’m not doing it to lose weight.

I’m doing it to get that high. I’m doing it because I want to finish something big. I’m doing it because I need a new challenge.

And now, I have put it out there for everyone to see…so…I have to do it!

I didn’t catch last year’s theme until it was almost over.

Joy.

I truly, finally, and absolutely learned the difference between joy and happiness last year. It was a very ugly year on paper.

Lots of loss.

Loss of family, mentors, and deeply close friends.

Loss of a new life I never got to meet.

Friends whose own losses made my heart ache deeply,… as deeply as my own losses did.

Loss both financially and materially.

If there is one thing I’ve learned last year, it’s that to have Joy, you have to have perspective.

As I’ve said before, I don’t do New Year Resolutions, but I do value old year revelations. Here is some of the Joy that came from putting a perspective spin on some of that loss.

I lost fear. I lost so much fear. It isn’t completely gone, but it doesn’t weigh me down as it did before. I’m no longer afraid of loss. I have begun to look at trials from a James 1:2-4 perspective.  I’ve stopped trying to get out of things too quickly. There IS Joy in that. With the loss of fear I gained perspective.

I lost some pride. It isn’t completely gone either, but as painful as it was, it made room for more joy. Losing some of your stuff, will open your eyes to what is really important in your life. …and important for me has been shown to be much more different than what I was culturally trained to believe it was. With the loss of pride I gained truth.

I lost indifference. I’ve been shown that I’m needed to make a difference in the lives of others. That sometimes I have to walk through some ugly, so that I can help someone else down the road, …or to even be able to see that there is someone that needs help. I can make a difference, and it is a lie to think otherwise. I think many times we get so caught up in dwelling in our ugly, that we miss that there are folks going through even uglier. With the loss of indifference, I gained empathy.

So, Joy has taught me that loss is not bad. It gives me purpose.

I see this year’s theme. It’s a color. Stay tuned…I have a few things to accomplish before I can tell you, but I can tell you, it’s regal.

1. Turns out that if you get up and study the prophets in the morning you may still be thinking about them when the song “What it Takes” fires up on the ole Ipod ap, and when that happens you are going to think of Hosea and Gomer.  Ok, maybe you wouldn’t, but I did, and now…if you are familiar with the story you’re probably going to go there too. And if you aren’t familiar with the story…read it. It’s just a short little book of the bible.

2. If you get to the gym early enough there is no one else there but the owner…and if he has to leave for a few minutes to get lightbulbs, then you may not be able to dance on the treadmill at 4 miles an hour, but you CAN sing loudly and play air drums to Blondie.

3. When the first person walks in at 10 after 8, and you try to tone it back down, it’s a good idea not to whisper/sing spontaneously, “I’m gonna getcha getcha getcha.”  It gets you weird looks and makes it harder to make work out friends.

4. Also, sometimes, when you start your TRX work out, the owner introduces you to the jazz album Queen Latifah made via Pandora, and you find that strength training to jazz, Queen Latifah in particular, is a beautiful thing.

5. Cold mornings are AWESOME to walk out into right after working out.

Have a good day ya’ll.