One year

It's hard to believe that it's been one year since we became Southerns.  This time last year I was making the 500 mile drive with my two dogs in the back of the car, knowing that my final destination would be at a hotel near the new house were Tom was staying with our moving truck.  We'd only stay there one night (which thank God because it definitely wasn't the Ritz) and would get the keys in the morning, but the way the moving process had gone, I was super nervous that something was going to happen that would prevent us from getting into our new home.

But alas, everything went smoothly (besides the new neighbor "introducing herself" and all of the neighborhood rules about an hour before closing, which resulted in my sobbing the entire way to closing, asking "what did we get ourselves into"). 

We love our house.  We love the South.  We love Suwanee.  We love our neighbors (well, most of them).  We love our new friends, and the weather (although I did see snow flurries yesterday and that's not cool), and the parks.  We love being close to Atlanta, but far enough away.  In other words, we made the right choice!!!

And looking back in the last year, so much has happened.  Lots of ups and downs.  Lots of being tested and being rewarded.  And in the end, Tom and I are closer than ever, a true team and that is all that matters.

This next year is going to be amazing - challenging as always, but amazing!  We have a baby on the way (you didn't know that, did you??? haha).  Tom recently was forced into a career change and although the unknown is a little unsettling (especially with me being 8 months pregnant), we're navigating through some options and ultimately will be working together again which is ideal.  We have some racing ahead of us, - new destinations, new courses, new goals.  Our sponsorships keep growing which is always fun.  I know that I'll see my family more and more this year (even if they are only coming to see Abigail, I will take it). And those friends that I mentioned loving... I know that our relationships will continue to develop and that they will be a huge part of our lives.

Thanks for sticking with me through the transition this year!

Thank God for phones

I sat down with all intentions of writing some witty post, that generated a lot of "this was a great blog" comments, but let's face it... I just don't have the writing bug lately.  I want to write, but about what?  Training?  That's not happening much.  The house?  Yeah, we're settled and you've all heard about that enough.  Racing?  Haven't done that yet this year.

Honestly, if you want to know what I'm passionate about these days, what really gets me ticking, it's things like macaroni and cheese, baked Cheetos, flip-flops. 

What, did you think that I'd have something really significant that gets me out of bed these days?? :)

Actually, I did have a fabulous last 4 days.  My mom and dad were here this past weekend and it was awesome.  I'm totally the girl that talks to her mom 29 times a day.  You think I'm kidding?  And it's not like a simple "hi, just checking in. Things good?  Okay bye" kind of conversation.  They go on and on and on.  It's kind of funny.  I mean, really, what could we possibly have that much to talk about?  Ha... my love of reality tv and celebrity gossip had to come from somewhere my friends.

I digress...

So the 'rents arrived on Thursday and I was bubbling with excitement.  This was the first time that they had seen the house.  Or Atlanta.  And I'll be kind of cocky and say that I was excited to show off all of the hard work that we put into the house.  (Who am I kidding... I've just shopped for things we needed I wanted for the house while Tom did all of the work). Thursday was a beautiful day - we walked the dogs, we walked the neighborhood, walked Town Center.  I wanted them to really get a feel for the hills city of Suwanee. I think at one point my dad told me that he wouldn't be able to walk the next day because he had to cut my dogs toenails. :)

Friday we did a bit more of the same, until that night when we had tickets to see the Gwinnett Braves play the Toledo Mudhens.  This is some good baseball people.  We introduced mom and dad to Mellow Mushroom (they of course can't wait to go to the one in PCB).  Saturday we shopped (in case there was anything that I needed for the house that I hadn't already found... there wasn't.).  Yesterday we had a great time celebrating Mother's Day and we went to Coca Cola World.

Now, let me explain something. 

Hi, my name is Colleen and I'm addicted to diet coke.

Going to the Coca Cola world was like bringing a crack addict to the Andes mountains in south America.  I couldn't get enough of the history of my drug of choice.

But again... I digress...


This morning came too fast as my mom and dad were back at the airport by 8am. :(  Although I'm adjusting to being a Southern, and loving just about everything in Altanta (I could do away with the spiders and the red clay), I miss my family.  I miss seeing my mom and dad, sister and brother-in-law on a Saturday at Costco.  I miss Sunday dinners or Saturday night poker nights.  I miss the ability to just pick up the phone and say "you want to meet in 25 minutes?"

But I cherished the time that we had together the last few days.  I loved that my dogs adored my parents (they are kind of finicky around guest... always have been).  Buddy even cried this morning when I came home without the treat lady. I look forward to the next visit... this time back in Ohio.

And thankfully, I know that my mom is always just a phone call away.  She might have spent the last 4 days with me, but since dropping her off this morning at 8am, I've talked to her three times.  And I have to call her now to remind her that the Bachelorette starts tonight. :)

What's new in your world?

Knock Knock

Hello?  Is anyone there?  Is this thing on?

Ahem...

Hi.  Sorry that I've been gone so long.  Life threw me lemons and although I'm fairly good at making lemonade with them, I decided that this patch was worthy of more - like some tequila and salt.  It's been a long road, but we're in Georgia and loving it.  I love the town of Suwanee where we moved to, the house is amazing (albeit FILLED with projects that seem like they will never end) and I'm starting to feel like I'm home way faster than I ever thought I would.  That's good. 

But with all the good going on, I've been doing a lot of self evaluation and while I like some things, there need to be some changes too.  I think that's good to do every once in a while, as hard as it may be.  Honestly, sometimes you might not like what you find out about yourself.

For me, it's not about what I don't like about myself.  I just kind of feel like I'm on a never ending ride of commitments - all things that I brought on myself and things that no one else would ever give a damn about, but they eat me up inside.  I'm the kind of person that wants things done yesterday.  That's hard to do with a move.  Real hard.  And with training.  And with work.  You see how it starts to spiral.

So in my latest self evaluation, I decided that I needed to take control again.  I mean, this is MY life and I can do what I want with it.

Our first visitor comes on the 27th of April. Kristin dear, the house ain't gonna be done.  I will try to have a mattress for you to sleep on and I will have appliances in the kitchen to cook with, but there might be spackle on the walls, paint on the old floors, a bathroom without a sink.  We'll work around it.  The next set of visitors come in May (my momma and dad... yay!!!!).  For them, well, I know my hubby and that's why we're working such long hours each day - I kid, I kid.  We want to show off the house to you.  But, there will still be boxes laying around.  And there might not be new floors down yet. Heck, we might STILL have the poison ivy infested beds out front (okay, no, we won't), but I know that you'll love the house just the way it is.

As for training - here's the big one.  I had a nice little chat today with the best coach in the world.  She gets me right now and right now, my heart is anywhere but in training.  I've been in training for 6 years.  Longer if you count the "marathon years" (haha... the ones where I ran just one marathon a year as my only race... oh the days).  It saddens me that training has become a chore.  And this is probably the thing that I've struggle the most with through this whole move.  I want to run and bike and swim.  I love those things.  But I need to do it because I want to do it, not because I have to do it.  My season is changing a lot this year from what I had originally planned.  This is something that I struggle with too, but I know that I'm doing what's right for me right now and that's a good feeling.  I've been loving my nighttime exploration runs where Tom and I leave our neighborhood and just explore.  We've found some awesome trails and parks and old town Suwanee.  We talk about his day and mine (as we adjust to us not being together all day) and what we want to do this week, this month and this year.  I'm going to just "wing" it a bit for the time being and see what happens.  It's good for my mind and my soul.  I don't know if I'll be racing in Knoxville in less than a month and that doesn't worry me in the slightest.  I might not race at all this year.  We'll see.

And work... we'll business is booming which is amazing.  And I'll make due with the fact that my warehouse is in shambles and I can't find half of my inventory.  My customers know no different.  I'm getting into a daily routine that's better than it's ever been - I wake up early, walk the dogs, hit the office, fill my orders and before I know it, Tom's coming home and we're starting our day.  I'm getting used to this.

So life is good. 

One last thing about training.  So, these hills in Georgia. HOLY FREAKING WOW!  If you can't bounce a quarter off my butt after running these every day, nothing will stop the jiggle.  I think in the last 11 days I've run more net elevation gains that I have in 32 years of my life. 

And I'm loving that too.

I'm back people... Thanks for being patient with my absence and for being understanding as I figure out this game we call life.