Category Archives: My Life

Running from Neurological Oddities

There are few things more humbling than spending your lunch hour watching videos of yourself learning to walk, talk, and generally function like a human being again. Today, I found myself rewatching the TikToks I posted during my stroke recovery—a sort of highlight reel of my greatest hits and near-misses, all set to whatever pop song was trending in 2022.

I was, if I may say so, impressively strong back then. Not because I was aspiring to be some inspirational poster child, but because, frankly, I had no other option. I chronicled everything: therapy sessions, daily triumphs, the occasional existential dread about the future. It’s all there, preserved in 60-second bursts for posterity—and, apparently, for my own forgetful self.

What struck me most was how much I’d forgotten. For example, I completely blanked on how much my body temperature regulation went haywire. I’m always cold, which is a fun little bonus when you’re also on blood thinners. I also forgot that I lost nerve sensation on my right side. My brain, ever the improviser, now guesses if something is hot or cold based on what my left side is feeling. If you hand me a mug of coffee and I grab it with my right hand, I couldn’t tell you if it’s piping hot or ice cold. It’s like living with a thermostat that’s been installed by a committee of squirrels.

Showers are a particularly surreal experience. If the water hits only my right side, I have no idea if I’m about to be poached or frozen. It’s weird, I know. But then again, the human body is basically a collection of weirdnesses held together by hope and duct tape.

Another delightful quirk: my sense of hunger has left the building. It’s been three years since the stroke, and my appetite is still on vacation. The cruel irony is that, while I don’t actually feel hungry, I still exhibit all the classic symptoms of hanger. My husband can attest to this, usually from a safe distance. Imagine being grumpy, irritable, and irrationally upset, but having no idea why—sort of like a toddler, but with a driver’s license.

Cognitive symptoms are another fun surprise party that my brain likes to throw, usually when I least expect it. Take last night, for example: I sat through a baseball game and froze my tukis off, and my brain responded by turning into a malfunctioning computer. The cold, combined with the sensory overload of the crowd, left me unable to think straight for the rest of the evening. I couldn’t find words, couldn’t remember which pedal was the brake, and brushing my kids’ teeth felt like assembling IKEA furniture without instructions.

Once I get my muscle memory going, I’m usually fine. But sometimes, just remembering how to start is like trying to recall the plot of a dream you had three years ago.

While I’m not exactly running marathons these days, walking and exercise in general have become my secret weapons. They help me feel sharper, more focused, and a little more like the version of myself I remember. Finding tools and routines that work for me is empowering—proof that, even when your brain is throwing curveballs, you can still swing for the fences.

The trick, I’ve learned, is being honest with myself about how I’m feeling. Denial is tempting, but the worst lies are always the ones we tell ourselves. So I keep walking, keep laughing, and keep sharing—even if it’s just with my future self over lunch.

In the end, recovery is less about “getting back to normal” and more about discovering a new normal, quirks and all. And if that means my right hand is forever confused about coffee temperature, well, at least it keeps life interesting.

Running from the Indestructable Seven-Year-Old

There are certain inevitabilities in life: death, taxes, and the school nurse calling me at least three times a week. It’s become so routine that I half expect her to start our conversations with, “Hi, it’s me again,” as if we’re old friends catching up over coffee rather than discussing my seven-year-old son’s latest misadventure.

The calls always come around lunchtime, which is no coincidence. Recess follows lunch, and my son’s face—blessed with the classic Thompson head, which is, let’s be honest, a bit larger than the industry standard—seems to act as a homing beacon for any airborne object within a fifty-foot radius. If there’s a stray basketball, a rogue frisbee, or a meteorite hurtling toward Earth, you can bet it will make a beeline for his forehead.

Most of the nurses’ calls are about nosebleeds, which we average about five a week at home. The primary culprit? Wrestling that breaks out in my living room every afternoon from 3 to 8 p.m. But nosebleeds are just the beginning. We’ve also had incidents involving mysterious goose eggs, rope collisions, bee stings, and the full spectrum of scraped knees. In short, all the classic “boy things,” as the medical textbooks no doubt describe them.

In a strange way, I’m almost grateful that these incidents happen at school. When he was younger, I used to worry about taking him out in public, fearing that someone might call Child Protective Services after seeing his collection of bruises. But then my babysitter, having witnessed his Thompson head in action, became my unofficial alibi. Now, with the school nurse meticulously documenting every bump and scrape, I have a veritable archive proving that my child is uniquely qualified to injure himself in ways previously thought impossible.

My son is a marvel of perpetual motion. He arrived seven weeks early—clearly in a hurry—and has been moving at top speed ever since. He is, quite literally, the kid who saved me. After losing our little girl and enduring a rough patch in our marriage, I found myself in a dark place. His arrival was a lifeline, pulling me back into the world. This isn’t something he needs to know right now, but it’s why I look at him with a mixture of joy, gratitude, and mild terror every time he launches himself off the couch.

He also seems to run at a constant boil. Teachers frequently report that he rolls up his pant legs in the dead of winter because he’s “too hot.” He eats like a linebacker preparing for the Super Bowl—constantly, enthusiastically, and with no discernible impact on his weight, which has remained unchanged since 2023. I suspect he may be part hummingbird.

He’s one of the reasons I run. I know he’s proud of me, and I want to keep it that way. I work out and eat right not just for myself, but to show him that this is what you do: you keep moving, you take care of yourself, and you try to outrun the flying soccer balls of life.

I can’t wait to see what the future holds for him. I suspect it will involve a lot of movement, a few more nosebleeds, and maybe a Nobel Prize in physics for discovering new ways to collide with inanimate objects. Until then, I’m just over the moon to be his mama—even if it means keeping the school nurse on speed dial.

Running from Survivor

It’s that time of year. Boys volleyball season, with its endless shuttling of knee pads and water bottles, finally came to a close. In theory, this should usher in a period of serene evenings, perhaps spent reading or reacquainting oneself with the concept of “free time.” In practice, of course, it means baseball season, along with the inevitable parade of rainouts, reschedules, and the existential dread of finding a dry pair of socks, in my new pasttime.

It’s a rare and beautiful thing to have a night free from kid activities. Last night was that unicorn. My volleyball banquet was scheduled, but with only nine kids on the team, I knew it would be a brisk affair. Add to that the fact that it was being held at one of our favorite pizza joints, and you’ve got yourself a classic case of parental efficiency: dinner and a show, all in one. As the old saying goes, it’s like killing two birds with one stone—if only to address the surplus of birds and the chronic shortage of stones in modern suburban life.

Now, the true genius—or perhaps the greatest folly—of this particular pizza place is its game room. It’s a room that seems to operate on the same principle as a Vegas casino: bright lights, no clocks, and the faint but persistent hope that you might leave richer than you arrived. My children, who can barely muster the patience to chew their food, will spend approximately three seconds eating and the next ninety minutes in a frenzied search for quarters. They always find them, somehow, and proceed to invest them in the pursuit of prizes destined to become tomorrow’s vacuum fodder.

At one point during the evening, I did what every responsible parent must: I went to check on the boys. To my mild horror—but not, I must stress, my surprise—I discovered Wynn, my three-year-old, perched atop the claw machine. The thing is at least six feet tall, and how he got up there remains one of those mysteries best left to the ages, like Stonehenge or how socks disappear in the laundry. Was I shocked? No. Embarrassed? A little. Mostly, I was just grateful he hadn’t tried to operate the thing from the inside.

This, I should mention, is not a one-off event. I have been blessed—if that’s the word—with three natural-born climbers. Fences, grocery store shelves, the interior of the refrigerator—if it can be scaled, my children have summited it. At this point, I’m barely even scarred, physically or emotionally. I’ve reached a state of parental Zen where I simply accept that gravity is more of a suggestion than a law.

After your third child, you find that your threshold for shock is dramatically reduced. It’s actually quite liberating. Parenting becomes a little like an episode of Survivor: Expect the Unexpected. Everyone is inexplicably covered in sand, sleep is a distant memory, and someone is always searching for an idol—or, in our case, the missing TV remote. There’s constant strategizing, alliances form and dissolve over who gets the last breadstick, and you half-expect Jeff Probst to step out from behind the soda fountain and narrate your every move.

In the end, you’re just trying to outwit, outplay, and outlast—at least until bedtime. And if you can do it with a slice of pizza in hand and only minor embarrassment at your child’s climbing exploits, you’re doing just fine.

So here’s to the end of volleyball, the beginning of baseball, and the eternal quest for a quiet night. May your pizza always be hot, your quarters plentiful, and your children safely on the ground—at least most of the time.

Running to the Land

If you’re a Disney World devotee, you likely have a favorite ride-perhaps even a meticulously ranked list, one per park, cross-referenced by time of day and snack proximity. True Disney adults, of course, go further: we have favorite smells (hello, Rome burning!), napping nooks, people-watching perches, and secret fireworks vantage points. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

For reasons I can’t entirely explain, EPCOT has always tugged at me. Maybe it’s the park’s age-just a hair older than I am, thank you very much-or maybe it’s the sense of breathing room. Unlike the sometimes claustrophobic press of the Magic Kingdom, EPCOT’s pavilions and wide walkways feel positively expansive. With an average of over 32,800 visitors a day, that extra elbow room is not just a nicety, it’s a necessity.

After a few years of health challenges, my days of braving the big, fast, and wildly spinning rides are behind me (not that I ever queued up for Mission: SPACE with gusto). Add in the lingering side effects of a stroke, and the fun of thrill rides is replaced by the fun of not needing a nap in the First Aid station.

But one attraction has always been my EPCOT North Star: Living with the Land.

Nestled in The Land pavilion- an architectural marvel of glass and angles since 1982- Living with the Land is a gentle, 15-minute boat ride that glides you through both a classic Disney dark ride and working greenhouses. It’s a hybrid: part animatronic diorama, part science fair, part “please let me live here” greenhouse tour.

The ride begins with a float through recreated biomes: tropical forests, arid deserts, and sweeping prairies, all narrated with a soothing cadence that could lull even the most caffeinated park-goer into a state of Zen. There are 35 audio-animatronics, but the real stars are the living, growing crops and the innovative farming techniques on display.

You’ll see:

  • The Tropics Greenhouse, with rice, sugar cane, and bananas under a 60-foot dome.
  • The Aquacell, where tilapia and catfish swim in tanks, part of Disney’s sustainable aquaculture.
  • The Temperate Greenhouse, showcasing intercropping and specialized irrigation.
  • The Production Greenhouse, where tons of tomatoes, peppers, and lettuce are grown for use right in EPCOT’s restaurants-including the rotating Garden Grill and the quick-service favorite, Sunshine Seasons, both just steps away.
  • The Creative House, where crops dangle from trellises or float in air, suggesting a future where farming might take place on space stations or, at the very least, in your living room.

If you’re craving more, the Behind the Seeds walking tour offers a closer look at these agricultural marvels for a modest fee.

The Land pavilion itself is a microcosm of EPCOT’s mission: education, innovation, and a dash of whimsy. Alongside Living with the Land, you’ll find Soarin’ Around the World-a hang-gliding simulator that’s the pavilion’s most popular draw-and Awesome Planet, a 10-minute film narrated by Ty Burrell that’s equal parts documentary and pep talk for the planet.

And if you need sustenance, Sunshine Seasons is a food court that’s a cut above, with many ingredients harvested mere yards from your tray. For a more leisurely meal, the Garden Grill serves up family-style platters and character hugs, all while the restaurant gently rotates above the Living with the Land ride path.

Living with the Land is rarely more than a walk-on-unless you’ve arrived on a major holiday or during a torrential Florida downpour, in which case, welcome to the club. With a capacity of 1,600 riders per hour (16 boats, 40 guests each), the line moves quickly, and the ride’s nearly 15-minute duration offers a blissful respite from the Florida sun.

EPCOT welcomed nearly 12 million visitors in 2023, and yet, Living with the Land remains a tranquil corner of the park, a place where science, sustainability, and storytelling float along in perfect harmony.

If Disney ever dares to change it, you’ll find me at the entrance, picket sign in hand, ready to defend my favorite boat ride. Until then, you’ll find me in the greenhouse, dreaming of tomatoes and quietly plotting my next nap spot.

Running from The Great School District Shuffle

Picture, if you will, a family of five. Now, imagine them scattered across six school districts and one babysitter, like a deck of cards flung by someone with a grudge against organization. This is not a math problem designed to torment eighth graders, but rather the daily logistics of my household-a feat of scheduling so complex it would make NASA mission control sweat.

Let’s break it down: my kids attend elementary school just down the road, the very same halls where I once roamed, likely with less homework and better brains. I work at a Career Tech high school about 15 minutes away, in a neighboring city, and when spring arrives, coach volleyball with the enthusiasm of someone who has only occasionally been hit in the face by a rogue serve in another district. My husband, meanwhile, is employed by a county education service center, but his week is a whirlwind tour of two different districts. Just to keep things spicy, he also coaches wrestling at another. The toddler? He’s off to the babysitter every morning, blissfully unaware of the intricate game of educational hopscotch the rest of us are playing.

Our older boys, not content with merely attending school, have taken up baseball, wrestling, and football-tackle for the eldest, flag for the middle. Spring and summer are devoted to club wrestling, which conveniently takes place at the school where my husband coaches, because apparently we have a collective allergy to free time. My own volleyball season ramps up in the spring, and at this point, our family life resembles ships passing in the night-if those ships were powered by caffeine and granola bars, and occasionally collided over who gets the last clean pair of socks.

Speaking of sustenance, the current family diet is best described as “expedient.” Granola bars are our food pyramid’s foundation, and Sunday nights are spent assembling bologna sandwiches in bulk, which are then distributed with the precision of a relief operation as we dash out the door each morning. Add in my ongoing recovery from heart surgery, and our daily routine starts to look less like a schedule and more like a high-wire circus act-one with fewer sequins and more spilled juice boxes.

As the school year draws to a close, I’m confronted with the Herculean task of planning the summer schedule. This is especially ironic, as I’ll be working all summer while my husband and the boys enjoy the kind of rest, relaxation, and outdoor play that would make a Labrador jealous. Still, if I don’t organize some daily activities, the complaints will reach a decibel level capable of numbing my ears-a fate I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy (or even the inventor of bologna).

So here I sit, highlighter in hand, staring down the summer calendar like a general surveying a battlefield. And as the chaos of our school-year routine fades into the relative calm of summer workdays, I find myself quietly grateful for the peace, the quiet, and the blessed reduction in bologna sandwiches.

Family life: never boring, occasionally nutritious, always entertaining.

Running from Walking: A Staggering Return

Space Mountain Lighted Tunnel- Property of Joe Penniston

Let’s be honest: calling this a “running blog” is a bit like calling a toaster a “bread spa.” Yes, the original idea was to chronicle my athletic exploits, but if you’ve been around for more than five minutes, you know it’s mostly a catalogue of my minor health crises, parental misadventures, and the occasional existential whinge. Still, that was always the point. This is my corner of the internet, and if I want to use it to document my slow-motion journey back to fitness (and sanity), so be it. Besides, writing is cheaper than therapy and, crucially, doesn’t require insurance approval.

Tomorrow marks the start of my latest “running” adventure. I say “running” in the same way one might describe a sloth’s commute as “parkour.” The cardiologist has finally given me the green light to exercise, and I am positively itching to get started. There is, however, a catch: thanks to my heart medication, my blood pressure and heart rate now behave with the wild unpredictability of a British queue-steady, polite, and not prone to sudden excitement. So, running is out. Walking is in. Very, very slow walking.

To be clear, I’m not talking about the brisk, purposeful stride of someone late for a train. No, my current pace is more “lost tourist at EPCOT after three churros.” My stamina, as previously discussed, is somewhere between “elderly tortoise” and “houseplant.” But everyone starts somewhere. This is less “couch to 5K” and more “couch to mailbox and back, possibly with a nap.” Still, as any seasoned training plan will tell you, progress is not linear. Sometimes you ebb, sometimes you flow. Right now, I am ebbing so hard I might be mistaken for a receding tide.

Complicating matters, I am also attempting to plan a Walt Disney World weekend for my son’s 10th birthday. For the uninitiated, a day at Disney is less a vacation and more an endurance event. You will walk 10-12 miles a day, minimum, most of it spent dodging strollers and wondering if you should have taken out a second mortgage for a Dole Whip. If I don’t get my stamina up, I’ll be lucky to make it past the first popcorn cart on Main Street, USA.

The good news is that my family loves the outdoors. We hike, we walk, we play. My kids are at that magical age where they still think I’m fun and not just a mobile wallet with opinions. I’m grateful for the chance to join in this summer, even if my role is less “intrepid leader” and more “caboose with snacks.”

So, what’s the moral here? I’m looking ahead, not back. The tunnel isn’t dark; there’s light all the way through, and I’m confident I’ll be back on the running side before long. For now, I’ll take it one slow, meandering step at a time. After all, every journey starts with a single step-even if that step is followed by a sit-down and a long, thoughtful sigh.

In the immortal words of all good writers (and exasperated parents everywhere): onward, slowly, and with snacks.

Running for The Boy Mom’s Field Guide

Let us begin with a simple truth: if you are the mother of boys, you are not so much raising children as you are attempting to survive a long-running, low-budget circus, minus the elephants but with all the mess. For the uninitiated-those fresh-faced, hopeful “boy moms” who still believe their living room can be both stylish and functional-consider this your orientation. For the veterans among us, think of it as a comforting nod, a knowing glance across the playground, and perhaps a prompt to add your own hard-won wisdom to the canon.

1. If It Smells Like Pee, It’s Pee

There is no need to consult a flowchart or conduct a chemical analysis. If your nose so much as twitches, you can be certain: it’s pee. And it will be somewhere you never thought possible-behind the curtains, inside a toy truck, or, in a feat of physics, on the ceiling. Accept this early, and you’ll save yourself hours of fruitless denial.

2. Cheese Sticks and Fruit Snacks: The Universal Solvent

It is a well-documented fact (by me, just now) that boys will never eat the dinner you lovingly prepared. However, announce bedtime or suggest dental hygiene, and they will be gripped by a hunger so profound it borders on the existential. The solution? Cheese sticks and fruit snacks. These are the Swiss Army knives of boy parenting: they resolve tantrums, mend broken spirits, and, on occasion, substitute for actual meals.

3. You Can’t Have Nice Things

At some point-usually after the third shattered lamp or the fortieth marker mural on the wall-you will utter the phrase, “This is why we can’t have nice things.” You will say it daily, sometimes hourly. It is not a complaint; it is a mantra, a rite of passage, and possibly the title of your future memoir.

4. The Wardrobe of the Perpetually Disheveled

Knees will be ventilated, shirts will be adorned with a Pollock-esque array of stains, and you will be tempted to throw them away. Don’t bother. Any new clothes will be similarly decorated within hours, and your children are blissfully unconcerned with appearances. Consider it early training for Silicon Valley.

5. Something Broken? It’s Always the Second One

If you have more than one boy, brace yourself: the second child will be the one to break it. Whether it’s a toy, a gadget, or your last nerve, the first child might be the careful experimenter, but the second? The second is the wild card, the chaos agent, the reason you now have “fragile” stickers on everything

6. The Emergency Car Toilet

You may believe your car is for transportation. Your sons believe it is a mobile restroom. Always have an empty bottle or a lidded cup at the ready. The need will arise, usually on the highway, and always when you are out of options.

7. The Paper Tsunami

Each day, your children will return from school with a stack of papers that could be used to wallpaper your house. Sort through them, keep the one with actual importance (there will be one, possibly), and dispose of the rest. After two weeks, throw away the “important” ones, too. Your kitchen table will never be clear, but you can slow the encroachment.

8. Did I Just Say That?

You will find yourself saying things that, in any other context, would result in a wellness check from concerned neighbors. “Get your penis off the wall” and “Crayons do not go there” are just the beginning. Embrace the absurdity.

9. Your Husband Counts

Remember, you are raising more than your own offspring; you are, in a very real sense, raising someone else’s son as well. Your mother-in-law will be delighted.

10. Soak Up Every Minute

Despite the chaos, or perhaps because of it, these years are fleeting. Laugh, play, and try to remember it all, even the bits that smell suspiciously of pee.

In summary, being a boy mom is less a job than an adventure-one with fewer safety harnesses and more cheese sticks than you ever imagined. Enjoy the ride, and remember: you are not alone.

Running from the Random

If there’s one thing I’ve learned as the parent of three small boys, it’s that the universe is not governed by the laws of physics, but by the availability of cheese sticks. The second most important thing is that nothing, absolutely nothing, will ever go as planned. I used to think I was in charge of my own life, but that was before I found myself negotiating a ceasefire over a half-eaten string cheese at 6:45 a.m. while simultaneously stepping on a Lego and contemplating the existential meaning of a chalk mural on the porch. In short: I’m not always laughing, but I am never, ever bored.

Take, for example, last Tuesday. I wandered into the kitchen, which, in our house, is less a place for food preparation and more a staging ground for minor acts of anarchy. There, my seven-year-old was lying flat on his back, surrounded by a blizzard of computer paper, bellowing “LOBOTOMY! LOBOTOMY!” at the ceiling with the sort of conviction usually reserved for Shakespearean actors and people who have just stubbed their toe on a coffee table. I had no context for this scene, and, frankly, I was too frightened to ask for one. Sometimes, as a parent, you learn that ignorance is not only bliss, it’s a survival strategy.

Now, I’d like to say that I handled this tableau with the calm, measured wisdom of a seasoned parent, but the truth is, after a recent bout of health problems, including heart surgery, I’m mostly just trying to keep everyone alive and the house from being condemned. Cleaning, organizing, or preparing for the days ahead have all taken a back seat to the more pressing goal of making it to bedtime with my sanity (mostly) intact.

But necessity is the mother of invention, and so I have discovered a few ingenious ways to keep the children occupied while I attempt to rest and recover. Chief among these is the “Lego Dump.” This is a highly technical process in which I upend a tub of approximately 17,000 Lego pieces onto the sunroom floor and announce, with the gravitas of a NASA mission director, that I require them to build something very specific, say, flowers for me. This, in theory, should spark a harmonious burst of creative energy. In practice, it triggers a 90-minute debate over who stole Lego Spider-Man’s bottom half, followed by the construction of a swimming pool for a Minion, complete with a Lego parrot lifeguard and a suspiciously surly-looking unicorn.

The sunroom is now less a place for relaxation and more a minefield of plastic bricks, each one lying in wait to ambush my unsuspecting foot. I am convinced that, should archaeologists excavate our home centuries from now, they will assume we worshipped a pantheon of tiny, multicolored deities who demanded blood sacrifices in the form of parental toe injuries.

Still, the “Lego Dump” buys me precious minutes of rest time to recover from the Herculean effort of, say, moving from the couch to the kitchen on a Sunday. Recovery from heart surgery, as it turns out, is not the breezy spa vacation I’d hoped for. The good news is that I’ve lost weight, despite having done little more than sit very still for the last ten days. It’s a bit of a Catch-22: I can’t move much, but apparently, neither can my appetite.

So, here we are: three boys, two tired parents, a house that looks like the aftermath of a toy factory explosion, and a sunroom that doubles as a medieval torture chamber for feet. It’s not always pretty, and it’s rarely quiet, but it is, without question, never dull. And as any seasoned traveler (or parent) will tell you, sometimes the best stories come from the journeys you never planned to take.

Running towards Change

Let’s talk about crossroads. Not the Robert Johnson, “sold my soul to the devil and now I can play a mean blues guitar” kind, but the more mundane, “should I take the left path, the right path, or just sit down and have a sandwich?” variety. Life, it turns out, is littered with these intersections- some clearly marked, others disguised as perfectly ordinary Tuesdays. Sometimes you don’t even notice you’re at one until years later, when you realize that deciding to sit next to that stranger in Chemistry 101 led to marriage, children, and a lifelong inability to remember where you left your car keys.

Right now, I am standing at one of those crossroads, and not the metaphorical kind you can ignore until it disappears. Last Friday, I had heart surgery. (This is the sort of sentence that, if you’re lucky, you only have to write once in your life.) I’m in recovery, which mostly involves lying very still, contemplating the ceiling, and wondering if it’s possible to develop six-pack abs by sheer force of will. Spoiler: it is not.

The good news is, I’m on my way back to the body I knew before atrial fibrillation and a stroke decided to make themselves at home. The less-good news: I now have the stamina of a slightly asthmatic sloth and a to-do list that includes things like “walk to mailbox without needing a nap.” Progress, I’ve learned, is not a sprint. It’s more like a meandering stroll through a museum where half the exhibits are closed for renovation. And that’s okay. Sometimes watching things evolve slowly is its own kind of beautiful.

I’ve always been an athlete, or at least someone who owned a suspicious number of moisture-wicking shirts. My childhood was a montage of sports practices, muddy cleats, and the faint aroma of liniment. I majored in Sports Management, then doubled down with a Master’s in Sports Administration, because apparently I wanted to be able to administrate my own sports. I got married in a suite at a Cincinnati Reds game- a fact that is both romantic and, in retrospect, a logistical nightmare for anyone who dislikes stadium nachos. I’ve run four marathons, seven half marathons, two 10ks, and more 5ks than I can count. I coach volleyball. My husband coaches wrestling. My kids play sports. If you cut us, we bleed Gatorade.

So here I am, at a crossroads. One path leads to the couch, where I could spend the rest of my days as a professional spectator, perfecting the art of yelling at referees from the comfort of my living room. The other path is, frankly, a lot more work: getting back into shape after four months of enforced inactivity. (Technically, it’s been four years since I felt “normal,” but who’s counting? Oh, right. Me.) First, there was the stroke, which put a hard stop to regular exercise. Before that, I was pregnant, and my body decided to start practicing contractions at week eleven, which is a bit like showing up at the airport six months before your flight.

Anyway, I’m choosing the road less traveled. Not because I’m particularly brave, but because, as they say, “rent is due every day,” and I’ve been living rent-free in my own body for a bit too long. I want to feel like I’m in charge again, even if it means taking the scenic route, with plenty of rest stops along the way.

After all, you never really know what’s waiting around the next bend- maybe it’s a fresh challenge, maybe it’s a chance to surprise yourself, or maybe it’s just the satisfaction of putting one foot in front of the other again. Either way, onward.

Running to My Husband

I never really understood why, but I always wanted to be a wife. Not in the “I want to be June Cleaver” sense, but more in the “I need a permanent audience for my daily musings on laundry and the existential crisis of mismatched socks” way. So, after seven years of dating—a period in which we both became experts in the fine art of waiting for the other to propose—my now-husband finally popped the question. I suspect, if I’m honest, that after seven years he simply ran out of plausible alternatives. It’s either get married or start a competitive stamp-collecting hobby, and he’s never been good with glue.

The early years of our marriage were, in retrospect, a bit like the opening act of a play where the actors haven’t quite memorized their lines. I knew he loved me—he did, after all, tolerate my penchant for keeping the tv on while dead asleep every night—but I wasn’t entirely sure he liked me. I was there, keeping small humans alive, contributing to the family bank account, and occasionally reminding him where we keep the can opener. It took another seven years (because apparently, we do everything in seven-year increments) before we rediscovered the spark that brought us together in the first place, and realized we actually wanted the same things out of life—namely, a working dishwasher and children who don’t use the curtains as napkins.

Now, nearly eleven years into this grand experiment called marriage, I can honestly say we’re growing together. We have shared goals, synchronized hopes, and—most importantly—a mutual understanding that whoever steps on the stray LEGO has earned the right to pick the next family movie. We’re strolling through life with a sense of purpose, trailed by three small boys who operate with the energy and coordination of caffeinated ducklings.

I never imagined being a boy mom would be so entertaining. My sons are perpetually grubby, constantly ricocheting off furniture, and have turned minor household accidents into a competitive sport. Every day is a blend of slapstick comedy and impromptu science experiments involving mud, gravity, and whatever was once clean. It’s the best kind of chaos, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. My life is overflowing with more love (and laundry) than I ever thought possible, and for that, I am endlessly, comically, and profoundly grateful.