A Humid Tent full of Over-Achievers.

We finished.
On Friday right after my physics class, Dana, Dustin, and I drove down to Logan, Utah. We went to the temple, then to the delicious spaghetti buffet, picked up our race packets, then went to bed. We woke up dark and early at 4:35AM, got on one of the buses around 5:30AM, and waited at the start line. Because we were up the canyon, and because it was still really dark and freezing cold, they had some ginormous tents set up with blasting heaters. There were no lights, and when I first walked in the tent housing about 3,000 runners all I could smell was sweat and bad breath mixed with a little bit of excitement (alright, that was cheesy). Left and right people were dousing themselves with Anti-Chaf and deodorant and sunscreen in the darkness. As soon as the sun barely rose, we hustled out of the tent and awaited the gun fire. Some guy wearing a kilt and a huge, long, wooden gun of sorts blasted his weapon and we were off. And, because there were thousands of runners, it was a bit anti-climatic as it took several minutes to actually cross the start line.

Just after the first mile marker, there was a huge poster that read,

"You're Almost There!"

Some of my other favorite posters were the following:

 

"Chuck Norris never ran a marathon."

"Do your feet hurt? Cause you're kicking so much butt."

"If you made it to the start line, you can make it to the finish."

"Hurry up, I'm getting tired from watching you."

"Toenails are overrated."

"Envision the Baconator at the finish line" (Barf.)

"I'm Proud of you, Complete Stranger."

"Pain is temporary, Pride lasts forever."

"Milk was a bad choice."

And to make a long story short, we crossed the finish line.

For me, The first 18 miles were awesome, I felt really strong and energetic. I was keeping up a pace of 8:53 up to that point (a 3:55 min. finish overall). However, because I'm no expert on pacing myself when running 26 miles, after that you could say that I hit a wall. I walked for about 2 minutes at mile marker 19, then I finished running a tad slower. My hardest miles were 18-19, and 23-25. Conquering those miles was the hardest physical task I've ever done. Every thought in my mind was telling me to stop and walk, slow down, run into some bushes and walk back to the car, or fake an injury. The great task of finishing a marathon isn't the physical fitness aspect, it's more so the endurance and power over adversity and internal criticism.
As I turned the last corner and saw the finish chute, it ended up being an emotional experience as I couldn't help but think about all the preparation spent preparing for this one moment. I was a runner in high school and college, but took a bit of a sebaticle after I became Mrs. Erika Miller. I ran my first 5k after that in June of 2009 (when I was pregnant with Jack) and have only made more and more goals from there. It took 3 years to get to this point. Combine those thoughts with thousands of cheering spectators, the announcer yelling out my name, seeing my time of 4:20 and receiving my medal--It made it all worth it.

Dustin had very similar feelings. He's been battling a knee injury in his left knee over the past 7 weeks, and wasn't even sure if his knee was going to allow him to finish. Miraculously, his knee performed perfectly. He said he felt strong through the majority of the run but had difficulty getting through those strenuous miles at the end. When he came around the corner, I couldn't believe how great he looked. Dana and I got all the spectators around us to cheer for him, so all around we could hear loud screams of, "Bring it on in, Dustin!" "Dustin is too legit to quit!" and "You did it, Dustin!" It was neat watching him finish, knowing how much he's trained over the last 15 months or so when he first started running again. Dustin has completed three 5k's, three half marathons, a Ragnar race, a century ride, and a full marathon in just 15 months.

After a nice meal at Ihop, we drove home and are still in the process of recovery. As soon as we can walk again (or get off of a toilet seat for that matter), we'll do it again. Go us!

The artistry of canning... and other mediocre news.

Today was my first day of school, again! This is my last year and I'm hoping that it goes rather quickly. I have a hefty credit load this semester and am already feeling overwhelmed. Thankfully I love what I'm studying, but without a doubt, modulating Baroque era songs into natural, harmonic, and melodic minor keys without a key signature is a bit challenging--especially for my first day back "reviewing" past material.

On another note, our entire house is spic and span. Like, all the way. We took a large load of clothes I'll never fit into and crap that nobody ever needs to DI on Saturday (where some large furniture may or may not have fallen out of the truck) and are feeling more peace and tranquillity because so. There are no more mystery drawers.

On Saturday, our 2 bushels of peaches ripened and we had no choice to but can them all that night. We started canning around 9:30PM and finished canning 26 1-liter Mason Jars of peaches around 3AM. We have beautiful jars of peaches taking up all that space we just cleaned! It appears as though the other 2 bushels of pears are now ready, so that's tonight's homework (on top of my 5+ hours of "real" hw). I know, I know. I'm so domestic. I was even barefoot and wore an apron. Regrettably, I could not convince Dustin to do the same. Here's to 50+ jars of canned fruit!

AND, we found out on Wednesday that we didn't get our house. After patiently waiting for 4 1/2 months for lots of really complicated reasons on the sellers end, their bank received a higher offer on Tuesday (its 4th offer) and took it and ran with it. We didn't even have an option of countering. Am I upset? Sure. I spent a good portion of my Wednesday morning sitting on the couch with tears and tissues, but the next day I figured everything would be okay. After 9 months of this real estate roller coaster ride, we've decided to take a little break from house hunting. So no, I don't want to hear about the new house in your neighborhood that just got listed.

And because I should never end a blog post on such a solemn note-
Dustin's dad painted a beautiful picture of Lillie and Jack. It was suppose to be a house warming gift (tear) but he gave it to us anyway. We all love it so much! Isn't it just wonderful?

2 1/2 Hours of Country Music and Mopping.

The best part about having a blog is writing whatever I want. Hello Universe! Sometimes (like now) I have absolutely no idea what I want to write about but somehow I'm still typing away like a crazy person. It's very refreshing. Jack is sleeping, Lillie is coloring on the floor, Dustin is busy away painting an entire house some shade of off-white and fixing some lady's water heater. With all of this quiet and all of my rambling thoughts, I turn to my good friend: Mr. Blog.

Last night Dustin and I spent about 2 1/2 hours cleaning our room. Obviously this isn't our dream house. Obviously this isn't even our "I-guess-it'll-work" house. This house has it's benefits (awesome ward, crazy cheap rent, full manifestation of "love grows in small homes" theory) and also it's downfalls. While we technically have a sink that is held up by exposed 2x4's and plywood, and a slanted floor of 2-5% grade, we get by quite fine, actually.

So anyway, back to the story, another con to this house would be that there are no closets. Like, none. Actually, we have one closet that is underneath the stairway that goes up to the attic unit. Our nephew, Easton, nicknamed it the "Harry Potter closet." That tiny slanted closet has a lot of random scraps of different wall paper plastered to the walls and many layers of linoleum peaking out and smells exactly like you would expect a 90-year-old house to smell like--and is where we lock our kids up when they're naughty.
JUST KIDDING.
The only things that are naughty enough to have to live in there are Dustin's extension cords, some space heaters, and my cleaning chemicals (ironic).

So ANYWAY, we spent 2 1/2 hours cleaning our room because we don't have any closets, and we use our bedroom as one giant one for the entire house. It's stressful to even walk in there, or wake up in there. My reasoning that making our bed with lots of throw pillows will somehow mask the floors, dressers, nightmare under the bed, and stack of pictures that are bound to fall over hasn't really been working out. But at least our bed is made every day. Ok, I'll be honest. While we do have loads of old checkbooks, immunization records, past pay stubs, and Dustin's montage of Ceder Badge memorabilia in piles everywhere, 95% of that mess was made by me. I "apparently" have a bit of a problem with trying on clothes and throwing them on the floor. I also have a problem with trying on shoes and then throwing them on the floor. I also apparently drink too much Diet Shasta these days, and (you guessed it), throw the empty cans on the floor.

In my defense, the other 1100 sq/ft of our home is immaculate. I was a housekeeper for 3 years, afterall.

So, Dustin (who is the sweetest) helped me organize all my crap. We even moved all the furniture and swept and mopped underneath everything. We even wiped down all the baseboards. I'm not even going to tell you how many garbage bags we filled with garbage and DI stuff. But really, it's embarrassing. And I keep telling myself that if we had closets and storage space (or even a garage) that this would never happen. And Dustin smiles and says, "I know, Erika." and I know he's lying, and he knows I'm lying. BECAUSE OF HOW MANY BAGS WE FILLED.

So I made an itinerary of rooms to thoroughly clean for each night this week. I think starting school in 6 days will be much less stressful knowing that even the rods to our blinds are sanitized. There won't be any more secrets come Friday night. And I can't lie, you can't even being to imagine how much my innermost dreams have come true when I hear Dustin singing every word to every country song on 105.5 The Hawk while we clean. He even said last night, "The people who don't like country music haven't even given it a chance. I used to be one of those people."

(SUPER LOUD SIGH)

And really, I do love this house.