3.7 miles

The weather has been unusually warm, and with its coming, an entire host of opportunities awaiting. I've been busy in so many ways I don't know how any normal person could accomplish what I do without stimulants. My stimulant of choice is good, whole bean coffee which I have been entirely enjoying way too much. My mother in law graced me with my very own espresso maker and I've been making entirely too good a use of it. Add to that the recent unexpected shifts I've put in this past week and you have a recipe for one jittery chick! I see a needed caffeine fast coming on, of which I am trying not to think about. Among my list of "things to do" includes many phone calls, business paperwork, house hold disaster of laundry, and cleaning of all sorts, correcting and assigning of school work, overdue meetings, I don't know if I can bear to go on. As you can see I'm blogging which isn't accomplishing anything but my own entertainment. A chicks gotta do what a chicks gotta do ;-)
Yesterday, I was overdue for a good run with Mist. I started our date by falling and sliding down our steep drive. I had grabbed my car keys and a red pepper to share with her. I thought I'd grabbed my spikes, but forgotten them right by the door. By the time I was halfway down, I figured I didn't need them. Boy was I wrong! The drive is glare ice now, and the time of the year we strongly discourage its use. Of course one must go up and down it for activities of daily living, which causes a huge dilemma. Right now, the bottom third is wet, glare ice all the way to the road. I stepped wrong and BAMO! I found myself on my back in the middle of a fast slide with no stopping. Keys and pepper still clutched in my hand, I began to pick up momentum. "Well I thought to myself, at least I'm not going to fall down the rest of it, trying to look at the bright side, but I was picking up speed and by now my entire backside was soaking wet. By the time I hit the bottom, my heart was doing flip flops and my lovely red pepper dirty and crushed. My brand new running shoes were scuffed. I was soaked from head to toe (just on the back side). Scrapes on my forearms and hands attested to the fact that I had seen (just a wee bit) my share of trauma. I considered going back up the hill to change, but figured by now Mist was on her way to meet me and I wouldn't catch her in time. I also couldn't stomach the thought of braving it again so soon. With a stiff upper lip, and damaged good, I got into the seat of old Rowena and began to drive. I was glad to be running on black top. I'd had enough ice for one day. Rowena's wipers suddenly began flying back and forth - both the front and back ones. It may have been that she was trying to warn me about the pot holes ahead, but I was so shocked she'd turned them on that I hit the first one square on. Icy water sloshed everywhere and hit the windshield. Ice, mud, dirt and rocks collided in a gut churning drive as I made my way to our running destination.
I showed Mist all my terrible injuries, which consisted of a couple of scratches and a wet butt. I was hoping it would be a good excuse for my being a bit late. She looked at me sympathetically, but not sympathetically enough. She was ready to get going and stop listening to my sniveling. I began running. I kept on running, hoping I would start to sweat so I wouldn't notice that I was wet. On and on we continued until we reached a significant point. We walked a ways beyond it and then walked back till our "last mile" point where we always run. We talked about all kinds of interesting topics, but among the most interesting was about her husband's brother who is a missionary. He recently went on a trip to Haiti. As his plane was flying overhead, all he could see was white everywhere. He was puzzled. As they touched down, he was to find out that Hatians all over were celebrating 3 days of praise and worship to God rather than their usual pagan festival. According to the brother, the pagan festival included orgies out in the open and idol worship. He (the brother) was really excited because there is currently an incredible move of the Spirit of God going on there right now. He said that no media is picking this up, but that many people have given their hearts to Jesus and even was a party to many supernatural healings. Mist chattered on and on about the revival in Haiti. For this, I was glad, because the topic was of interest to me and distracted me from the great distance that we were running. Before that she discussed artisan bread making in great detail and my masochistic pain was much more brought to my attention.
Tonny, a nice neighbor lady driving by stopped to chat. During the conversation she figured we were running "about 2 miles". After the conversation, we both looked at each other and said "its gotta be more". After all that work, we jumped into my car and clocked it on the speedometer. We'd run 3.7 miles and walked about 2 miles all told. This is the girl who last year REALLY BELIEVED she couldn't run a mile. Selah!

Above Photo : My husband and son are getting our wild land fire fighting equipment ready for inspections.