oh, office stress...

Tension around the office has been running pretty high lately. We've got a lot going on, and we're planning for a move, and I think several of my coworkers would love to strangle one another. (And I'd like to take part in strangling a couple of them, too!) Moving and transitions are just stressful things. We have one of our caseworkers leaving in July, we're leaving and heading to a new office in June, and both of these things just need to happen already!

I admit that I'm a control freak, but I get really irritated when people just keep asking the same stupid questions about the move and can't handle not being in control of what's happening. There's NOTHING you can do about it, so just chillllllll out and let it happen. We can make adjustments once we're done and moved in, but right now, you're pissing everyone else off by carrying on and on and on and on and on and on. You're not going to die because your office isn't set up the way you want it to be. Just move it when we get there! Grr. Okay, breeeeathe!

It doesn't help that at home we're stressing about moving, too. Eric is super frustrated with our realtor (I'll agree that he isn't giving us the best "customer service"), but I just really don't want to even think about that. I am sick of cleaning the house all the time! We have another open house on Sunday, so we'll keep our fingers crossed. And we did drop our price, so hopefully that helps a little? We'll see. 

Random thing I've learned about myself in the last few months: I love people who are elderly! I always said I would never work in gerontology (much like I said I'd NEVER go to Calvin...), but I could really see myself doing work with older adults. Gosh, I'm so weird! 

46.25 hours to go of my internship... 10 more days, over 5 more weeks! and 27 days until graduation/being done with class!!! Woot! One night in class I made a list of things that I'm excited to do once I have some more time off :)

• exercise!
• volunteer at the humane society or streams of hope
• take a spin class
• join a tennis league
• visit the library
• take a vacation
• go garage sale-ing
• plant flowers for everett's
• cook dinner for my awesome hubby
• spend time at the lake
• run a half marathon

I suppose that if I set some goals, that'll keep me motivated. I'm worried that once I have two days a week off again, I'll get super lazy! Maybe I'll give myself a week to lounge :)

Anyway, happy long weekend! What are your plans?

the 25k story - 2011 riverbank run

Well, we did it! It was a tough and disappointing race, but we finished. Here's the story:

On Saturday morning, we parked at some friends' house to meet them and walk to the starting line. There was a whole group of us, and it was raining pretty steadily on our way down there, and I'm thinking, It's going to be a loooong morning! But by the time we started lining up, the rain let up to just a light mist. Eric started up with the 8.30 pacers, while I was back around the 10-minute-milers, and getting started I felt great! I stuck with a pretty steady pace and then at mile 4 I settled into a perfect stride. I pass mile 6, and I start thinking, Wow! I can't believe I'm actually doing this! I had been so terrified, and it's really not that bad!

Then I pass the water tables, then the aid station, and all of a sudden I hear someone yelling my name, trying to wave me down... I'm jamming to my ipod, not paying any attention and just running away, but then I look over at the aid station, and there's Eric sitting in a chair next to the medics. I immediately flip into panic mode, thinking the worst is happening. He tells me that he started feeling a pain shooting through his shoulder and up his neck almost to mile 6 and then he suddenly couldn't breathe. A medic on a bike saw him stumbling around near the edge of the road and was able to lead him to the aid station. Then they called an ambulance over. At that point I'm thinking, Okay, that's it. This is over. We made it 6 miles, and that's okay. We can't control this. Our race is over.

The paramedics checked his heart rate, pulse, and blood sugar, and everything was normal. After having sat in the back of the ambulance for a half hour, Eric was actually feeling a lot better. We knew my parents were up a mile or so at Johnson Park, so I figured we'd ride in the ambulance and then my parents could take us back to the car. The paramedics strongly recommended that we not go any further. But Eric told them that he wanted to at least walk to meet my parents. So we started walking. Then he was feeling good, so we took off at a slow jog... by the time we got to my parents around mile 7, he said that he wanted to finish the race. I told him okay, but he was going to have to run the rest of the race at my slow 10-minute-mile pace.

At mile 8, he had had enough of my slow running... so he took off at a quicker run. I could still see him up ahead of me for a while, so I wasn't terribly worried. And we had gotten so far back in the group of runners, that we were passing people like crazy. That was the hardest part... not running in the group anymore once we fell so far back. I just had no idea how fast I was running. I kept passing people, but it was hard to keep my normal pace because I didn't know how fast anyone else was running. But at that point I had decided that just finishing was enough for me! It was tough to start running again, too, when I had been convinced that we were done just 30 minutes earlier.

Eric was struggling with cramping, and I caught back up with him about 12.5 miles in. From there we ran/walked the last 3 miles together. Before the whole fiasco, Eric was on pace to run a 2.15, and I was shooting for about 2.35, but we finished at 3.06. Nothing to shake our heads at, because not many people we know can run 15.5 miles!!, but Eric was really bummed. He is in amazing shape, and he's run 14 and 15 mile training runs several times before this. So he knew he was going to do well. After training for 5 months, it's really disappointing to have it blow up like that. But I keep thinking, there's always next year. I'm so proud of Eric for pushing through and finishing the race. And maybe our third time running the 25k will be the charm :)

Here's a couple of pics from the race:

Me passing my parents the first time, about mile 7.
Notice the slow old ladies we're running with ;)

Me passing my parents again, about to mile 13.
And I'm feeling good!

happy birthday, eric!

My amazing hubby is 26 today!

A month from now, and we'll have been married for two years; I can't believe it - time has flown. Almost four years ago, I saw this guy who had started coming to our church... I recognized him as a basketball player at Calvin, but I had never met him before. I knew they called him Bear, but that's about it. A few weeks after first spotting him, he approached me after church. We started talking in the foyer after Sunday services, and then I invited him to sit with our family. He told me about his barefooting and about a tournament he had coming up. He offered to give me his phone number so I could call him if I wanted to come... heck, I wasn't going to call him! No way! If he wanted me to come, he could call me with the details, so I said, "Why don't I give you my number," pulled out a pen and wrote it down for him. And, I found that piece of paper two weeks ago when I was cleaning out our office... :)

That Wednesday night, I got a phone call. I didn't recognize the number, but I knew it was him. He was calling from the hallway of his hotel in Louisville, KY. We talked for a long time, and I remember being so excited that he actually called!

I convinced Steph to come with me to his barefoot tournament that Saturday at his cottage on Payne Lake, only a couple miles away from my family's place on Gun Lake. I remember wearing a cute teal t-shirt with cutoff jean shorts... and he looked great in his bathing suit... I got a little side-hug from him when we got there. The rumors started immediately, "Bear, is that your GIRLFRIEND?!" "NO, she's not my girlfriend!" He convinced his sister Kaitlyn to come talk to us to make us feel welcome... and then, their neighbor came over and strangled me with a towel, thinking I was someone else. Whoops!

When I saw him at church again, I decided to invite him over to my parents' for Sunday dinner. He came. We talked at the counter all afternoon. And then my mom asked him if he was staying for supper... And then we even went out for ice cream later...

All that said, the rest is history. I never thought I'd meet my best friend, my soul mate, and my husband at church. But I'm so glad I did. I have to thank Steph for braving the tournament with me (I think that's why she's still Eric's favorite!) because I never would have gone without her. And who knows, maybe it never would've ended up the way it did?

Happy birthday, babe. I love you. :)
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And I can't not write a shout-out to Britley... it's her birthday today, too! The big TWENTY-ONE!

I'm so excited to have Britley as a sister. I can't imagine anyone else better for my brother. She's a really great person, and she fits our family so well. She's bubbly and energetic and ALWAYS positive. Can't help but love her :)

Happy birthday, Brit! xo!

sunshine, tulips, and other happenings

Happy May! I figured it's about time for another update, being that it's been a while :) So my tulips are about to burst, and I am so very excited to have that splash of color to send me off and welcome me home every day. Just something about tulips makes me smile. Probably the fact that it's spring-time and the sun is starting to shine, and life is all-around more colorful than it's been in a long time. But the tips of the buds are just starting to reveal this year's colors (I plant a random mix every fall - which is always beautiful). I love the pinks and purples and yellows. I'll post pictures once they've popped!

Yesterday afternoon we had an open house, so we spent a few hours at my parents'. Eric and I were so excited to enjoy the weather; we threw a football, jumped on the tramp, said hello to the neighbors' horse (which welcomed us by trying to bite off my boob!), and just hung out outdoors. I just love my parents' yard, it goes on forever... when we got home to our little corner of the cul-de-sac, it looked so much smaller than usual!

We had two couples come through that both loved the house. We'll see if it brings any offers... otherwise we have another open house in a couple of weeks. We're starting to get really anxious about selling, because we've gotten to the point of being so excited to move! A house we had our eye on dropped its price by $20,000 so we called about getting a showing... turns out, there are renters in there that had planned to rent to own. Their funding fell through, so now they're not allowing the home-owner to do any showings while they're still in it. So the homeowner started the eviction process, which means that everything is on hold for 30 days. Because we haven't sold our house yet, this buys us some time... so we're praying that our house will sell soon so that we can potentially make an offer once we can finally go see that one! (There were several others that had requested showings after that price drop...) Luckily, though, there are two houses in that same neighborhood that are very similar, and we've been eyeing both online. I guess we'll just see what happens :)

Saturday marked two weeks until the Riverbank Run. And it was my most frustrating run in a long time. I've been planning on running the 25k for so long, but my body is just falling apart, and honestly, I'm not sure if I'll be able to finish. I've been dealing with aches and pains for a while, and I haven't even been running as much as I should be... This spring has had so much going on, that I haven't been running like I should, but with the body stuff I've had going on, I haven't physically been able to do it either. Every 10+ mile run, I get to a point that I physicially can't run another step. From the waist up, I'm fine. Mentally, cardio-wise, I can do it. It's just that the rest of my body refuses. I had planned to run around 13 on Saturday, but I got about 3 miles from home, and I had to start walking. I tried to do the whole run for a minute, walk for a bit, run, walk, run, walk thing, but I simply couldn't run. I had to make it home to get ready for Kait's graduation, and since I was taking so long, Eric finally came out to look for me. He found me about a mile and a half from home, and I got into the car and just burst into tears...

So right now I'm trying to figure out what to do. Do I go for the 25k and just see how far I get? Do I run the 10k because I know I can do it, no problem? I'm so disappointed in myself, because I wanted this so badly. I have a few friends that are doing the 25k, and I feel like if they can do it, I'm going to feel dumb if I can't. And if I opt to do the 10k instead, I feel like I'm wussing out. I just feel like a failure, you know? Eric was really encouraging about it this weekend, but I'm still bummed... and not quite sure what to do.

The Access Gala last Thursday was a success, so that's good. Feels nice to finally have something off my plate that I've been working on for a while. We have other events coming up, though, so my focus will just shift onto other projects. We went to Kaitlyn's graduation from GVSU on Saturday. It was so good to finally see her finish her degree. Now she's off to U of M in the fall for grad school! Gosh, I'm going to miss that girl. Seeing pictures of the GVSU girls that I've been interning with at their graduation made me want to go to mine. I've been toying with the idea of not going for a while, just because it feels like no big deal. We have a teeny ceremony with about 40 of us at WMU's downtown campus, so it's not a big production or anything. What to do, what to do?

So that's what's new in our little world! What's going on in yours?