One Step at a Time

Thanks for everyone’s kind words. I know some stuff about the situation at the doctor’s, but not everything … and what I do know, I haven’t yet shared with my family or close friends. I feel I need to do that before I can blog about it, somehow. I’ll spill all of the details when I can, I promise.

I deal with stress of the extreme variety very poorly. Medium-intensity stress … I’m great with that. I kick in to gear and take names. Extreme stress though … well, it shuts me down. I want to crawl into a hole and just be by myself with a box of kleenex, a pen and paper. This was a hard weekend for us. I acted so irrationally … as in control freak irrationally (“Why did you spill water on the deck!??!!? Grrrr!!!!!” )… to my kids on Saturday, that I’m truly embarassed. I don’t lose it often … in general, I’m very even-natured with my kids … so it upsets me a lot when I do. I did meekly apologize to them today about it, but I am ticked at myself, because I’m a firm believer that adults should just behave well … and I did not. My family would’ve certainly been better off this weekend if I’d just found the hole and took some time for myself. Sigh. Do better when you know better.

On a running front, I did buy new shoes. Saucony’s, like my other pair, which I’ve adored. The Running Room Shoe Guru basically quoted Jon … and even said that running in snow / rain can beat shoes up quickly. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to run in these new shoes yet, because I can’t even walk much of a distance without limping. I was on my feet a lot last night, as we had to go to a 40th birthday party of my friend’s husband (in my mood, this would have been about 4,394,322 on the list of things I wanted to do, but it was a surprise and I had to bring ice and taco dip and ) … blah, blah, blah … anyways, the side of my ankle was even swollen yesterday. The doctor said not much … stay off it for a week, ice it, ibuprofen, and then gradually get back into the swing of it. I guess in the good news department, my doctor has resigned himself to the fact that I’m going to run.

Okay … with all of this low-mood stuff … I almost forgot to share the FANTASTIC news that I received on Friday. I have been accepted to a workshop for ‘promising children’s writers’ in May. There is about 500 applicants, and only 100 have the opportunity — 50 for Western Canada, and 50 for Eastern. When the woman called me, I almost thought it was a prank. And the ironic thing is that the story I submitted with the application is one I literally wrote within half an hour. Lesson learned: go with your gut.