The Final Push

There was a point when I ran the Ten-Miler last year - somewhere between mile 7 and 8 - when I knew I was going to finish that race.  Starting with the day I paid the registration fee and at least once a day every day in between, I had doubts.  Would I give up?  Would my feet survive? Would I get scooped up by the Van of Shame?  But that moment when I realized I could finish was even more emotional for me than when I actually did finish.  Sure, there are a hundred things that could have gone wrong in those last 2-3 miles.  But the doubts were gone.  I knew I was going to do it.  I was doing it.  The worst was behind me, and I was able to look around and enjoy my moment.

Fast-forward to today.  I got my 2013-14 academic planner in the mail from World Campus and flipped to May.  There it was in black and white, printed and bound and in my hands...

May 9-11
Spring Commencement Weekend

I took a picture of the planner page and posted it to Twitter. Someone from the World Campus team tweeted back and said, "you didn't fill it in yet!"  It hadn't even occurred to me.  It's still so far away... hundreds of things could still go wrong.  But then all of a sudden I knew. The doubts are gone.  I know I'm going to do it.  I am doing it. The worst is behind me and I'm going to enjoy this.  So I went online and looked up the spring commencement schedule and I filled it in:

I haven't decided whether I'll make the trip up.  It's expensive.  It's impersonal.  I don't want to go by myself.  But it's not the ceremony that matters.  283 days from today I will finally be a college graduate.  And 4-6 weeks after that, I'll have a piece of paper to prove it.

...and maybe, just maybe, a year from today I'll be getting ready to start grad school. 

To Be Continued...

For now, I want to remember this day, when I got irrationally emotional about filling in a date on a calendar.  Today I realized I might not be close enough to the end of the race to see the finish line, but I know exactly where it is and the route I need to take to get there.  This is my moment.

This is the day
See it sparkle and shine
When all I've lived for
Becomes mine!

12.43

I didn't do any more running after I nabbed this screenshot from my RunKeeper app, but did walk a slow 1/2 mile with Scott. I thought I was DONE, but 4 houses past ours, I was ready to run again.

12.43/mile. The me of 8 months ago (and 6 and 4 and 2 months ago) can't freaking believe it. The me of today is looking forward to adding a second sub-13 mile in a row, but knows that's at least a month away. She also knows it'll happen. After all, my previous PR was 13.02!

She's feeling sort of invincible right now.

Service? I'll Say!

I renewed my vehicle registration online at noon yesterday, and my new sticker came in the mail today.

Holy crap!

The back of the Lake County Tax Collector envelopes says, "Serving you is our only business." Apparently yesterday afternoon, serving ME was their only business.

Celebrity...ish

Earlier tonight, I was standing in the waiting area shared by The Restaurant and another restaurant chatting with Number Two (actually, dishing about how The Restaurant is like the "grown-up" table at Thanksgiving and the other restaurant is like the kids' table). As we were wrapping up our conversation, my focus was shifted to a family of four - two grown ups and two little girls - waiting for their table at the other restaurant. A man in a bright blue Mickey t-shirt (which is probably why my attention went there) walked past where the family was sitting, stopped dead in his tracks, and took two steps backward (no - didn't turn around - actually back-stepped).

blue shirt guy: You look just like Moderately Famous Writer
family guy: Nah...he's much better looking than I am.

At which point family man stood up and shook blue shirt guy's hand and said it was a pleasure to meet him. Blue shirt guy said something friendly back, walked away, and family guy went back to being the family guy. So yeah - I was 5 feet away from someone I aspire to be when I grow up: someone who writes funny stories about their life, has a mass audience, and makes money doing it!

It was pretty cool.

I was also pretty impressed about how that situation went down. Both men were, I think, the perfect amount of friendly. There was no pestering for autograph and also no aloof-celebrity-ness. It's how I'd like to imagine the day I meet any of my boyfriends... although I would be happy to sign an autograph for any of them!

Sadly, none of the managers of either restaurant knew who he was. It sucks being star-struck when no one around you is as impressed by the situation as you are. Oh well... it still tickled me to death!

Birth of a Miracle

For anyone out there having a crisis of faith, or who just needs some inspiration or a good cry, I urge you to visit Nathan and Rick's blogs.

Nathan is the husband of Tricia, who has cystic fibrosis, and father of Gwyneth Rose, who was born very very early. Both mother and baby are going to be in the hospital for a long time, but this family (Rick is Nathan's dad) have such amazing faith that it's positively contagious. They are all also amazing writers.

Gwyneth was born 2 weeks ago, so if you're looking for a place to start, I recommend this post, followed by this one, because it catches you up on how the story started.

Big Deal!

I've witnessed a lot in the past 24 hours. I watched a baby being born, held her when she was just minutes old, and I even saw a placenta (which they don't show you on A Baby Story!).

Mike and Reyna were nice enough to invite me along for the birth of their fourth baby. We went in last night and they induced her around 10 p.m. After some scary moments when they thought she might have to be born by c-section, she stuck it out and was born at 7:19 this morning. She's 7 pounds, 9 ounces and absolutely beautiful. She didn't even have that squished-face thing going on. And I was the third non-medical person to hold her.

I still haven't slept, and am pretty much delirious at this point, so I'm not even going to attempt to describe what it was like watching her go from a blip-blip-blip on the monitor to a live human being in just a moment. It's crazy to even think that I watched another human being start. I saw her first breath, heard her cry for the first time, and watched her make her first mischief - getting the black footprint ink all over herself and the baby nurse from kicking and squirming on the table.

Welcome to the world, Cadence Katherine (I am so calling you Catie Kate forever!)! Thank you for coming out the natural way. And thank your mommy and daddy for letting me tag along and be a part of your birth day. I hope you've stopped crying by now...