Day 280

Wow, this year is going by fast, but it feels like the end is still forever away.

This weekend I gave myself permission to not be awesome.  That sounds weird, I know, but let me explain. 

1) I’ve been wanting to start running, but every time I start I get discouraged by how horrible I do—especially when my asthma has been complicating things—and then I don’t do it for several months, try again and fail again.  After some advice from experienced runners, I puffed on my inhaler and went for it, but started slow.  Today I walked half a mile, ran a quarter of a mile, and walked another half a mile.  I always walk around campus so I’ll get some walking in there tomorrow, then Tuesday I’ll go back and walk, run, walk once more.  I figure the more I get into the habit of going out the better I will be and I can slowly add more distance, even if I only add a quarter of a mile each time.  The part of me still attached to my pre-asthma days screams at how pathetically short my walk/run was today, but the post-asthma self is satisfied that I did something and I didn’t have an asthma attack.

2) I also realized today that no matter how horrible I do in Spanish this semester I already have an A in the class from when I took it several years ago and that my grade will not be replaced if I get a lower grade this semester. I can handle a B (the overachiever in me is screaming in protest).  Next semester I will have Mr. B here to help me out and I will do better (but I also have an A in the next class too, so that lessens the pressure some).  However, this does not mean I’m going to slack off, I still need to pass this class and know what I’m doing when next semester comes around.  Also, I need to know what’s going if I have any hope of fluency.

 

Another amazing thing happened this weekend.  I got a 4 am phone call from Mr. B asking if I had bought him a laptop.  I was very confused, but I know I hadn’t done any such thing.  He had been out in the field and when he got back he discovered that someone had anonymously sent him a brand new laptop.  I wish I had someone to thank, but I can think of a few reasons why someone would want to send something like that anonymously.  Every time I start to lose faith in humanity something happens, someone does something to restore my belief that we can’t be doomed quite yet.  My husband is excited, this is his first laptop and it will work SO much better than the little netbook he took with him.

 

Little Monster is almost done with soccer for the year.  Two more games and we’re done.  He is doing very well in school—his teacher this year has made all the difference!  So far he’s gone from a 4 reading level to a 12, in less than 3 months, he’s learning multiplication and inverse operations (2nd grade, really?), but gets frustrated with spelling because the words don’t always follow the rules.  He is growing up more and more every day and I am so proud of the young man he is becoming.