Lessons Learned

I have learned several things today that I would like to share with you.

1. I don't know if you can be too rich, I know that you can be too thin. I also can ATTEST that you can eat TOO MUCH chocolate chip cookie dough.... YUCK.

2. I get "geeked" up about weird things.

The prospect of possibly finding goggles that don't raccoon, the perfect water bottle, and this race. I am super excited to be asked to be part of a team and to run!

3. Participating in said race will be a test. -- Not a physical/stamina test, a mental test.

To be clear it's a try to get over being a "parenting control freak" test.

It will be the first time that I am away from my children (overnight)with the exception of giving birth to another child. (To give you an idea of how tight I have my apron tied, I begged and was released to go home 24 hours after the birth of my last child -- no 2 day hospital stay for me, no siree!!) There is no one that can parent my children as well as me. I am not saying that I am flawless, I think that I am marginal at best, but I KNOW that I LOVE them BETTER and MORE than anyone else can.

I am coping with the idea of the race fine now (we may need to revisit closer to the actual date) because I know that my husband will be there to parent -- My second in command, schooled in the Spie method of parenting, familiar enough with the house rules to know when they are broken, capable of feeding them the nutrition that they are accustomed to, etc.... He's not me, a fair substitute at best (joking!!!-maybe..), but am I still somewhat comfortable with it. After this test, we will see if I can cut the apron strings enough to have a grandparent parent for a weekend. (Right now the answer is still a resounding NO!)

4. I have little or no motivation to do my tasks that need to be done today. The in-laws will be here on Saturday for a weekend visit and my house is in shambles... and I am sitting here blogging, because I really do not want to clean. There is clean and then there is in-law clean and I cannot managed to rev myself up to tackle that task yet.

5. Finally, coaching/lessons may actually work...

I complained, maybe publicly --definitely to Mr. Spie, that I did not gain much from my recent swim class. The skills that were taught were beneficial, but they were small changes from my previous stroke. Nonetheless, being the academic pleaser that I am, even after my class was over, I continued to key in on and practice some of the tips that I thought would be the most beneficial. Today, at the end of my swim workout, I had planned to swim a 200 negative split. I decided to time it to check progress. I swam it at a comfortable pace, increasing speed on the last 25 (this was my negative split -- I was tired and the first time in the pool all week after my daughter's flu ravaged the entire family, including me) and whaddaya know??? I came in 3 seconds faster than my previous best, not sprinting/racing, or lets be honest really trying... WHO KNEW?