No pity party

Some of you might know by now that we are in the home buying process and set to close in 8 days. Unfortunately a few bumps in the road on the seller's side could make it not happen at all. We've done all our part, inspection, financing, appraisal etc and now we wait to have all the other ducks in a row in order to make this happen. Boxes are out, work schedules rearranged, movers ready to call, family flying out to help and "hold on, wait a minute, not so fast" there is a road block. Emotions went from excited packing energy, looking at furniture, thinking about paint and carpets and the reopening of all the wedding gifts and putting them away finally after being stuck in the basement for so long...oh the excitement of almost finally being able to call our own house a home. Now they are anxiety, anger, frustration, annoyance, sadness and disbelief that it might not happen at all.

We realize that everything happens for a reason, and it is all in God's hands now. We know that someday we will be homeowners and will look back and realize what a small hurdle this is. We know that we are lucky to have our health, family and friends. We know that we're blessed not to be in the devastation of tornado alley. We watched the news in sadness last night as a widow described the last moments of her husband's life as he sheltered her body in the bath as the tornado blew over their home, killing him in the process. We held each other in gratefulness that we are ok and these emotions and this situation we are experiencing is so small compared to the burdens of so many others. We know we are blessed. We feel guilty to even be thinking that we are stressed when there are so many others in this world hurting and stressed from emotional, health, family, financial or work or safety worries. We now understand what everyone has told us "buying a home is the most stressful time in your lives." We get it.

In the meantime we are holding onto a glimmer of hope that it could still happen. We gratefully appreciate the prayers and well wishes from our family and friends. We anxiously await a time when we can invite you to our home and actually have a place for family and friends to stay- as our current shag palace is too small. Till then, we wait.

Running and rain

Today my running buddy L and I ran the Seattle "Beat the Bridge" 8K. The idea is to make the 2 mile mark and cross the University draw bridge before it goes up (usually 10 min miles). We signed up for this race weeks ago in the hopes it would be a good training run on our quest for our 2nd 1/2 marathon in June. Three weeks ago, our training and running schedule changed with some injuries. It's been a frustrating 3 weeks without running and enduring some hip pain when I tried. Despite the running drought, race day came and so did the rain.

We braved the weather, constant rain the whole 5 miles and we actually 'beat the bridge!" Having not run in 3 weeks, I did not think it was even possible. However when our heat started our options were to run or be trampled. So we ran, and our bodies felt ok, so we kept running. We had no aspirations to actually make the bridge in time but as we got closer we knew it was possible. The smiles across both our faces were evident and it was so inspiring to realize that we could do it!

With the rain, our drenched state and sore muscles we walked most of the remaining course; nonetheless we finished. We know that completing the 1/2 will be a challenge as our training plan is on standstill and progressing into longer runs is just not realistic at this point yet. These injuries are still a bother, but we will still try and see how it goes.

When I got home, I thought, "I'm not really that wet, I'll just change into new clothes", I was drenched, soaked down to the bone, hair dripping wet. It was the best feeling of accomplishment and the best hot shower in a long time. We topped off our morning with a victory breakfast and a little eggs benedict.