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.

Running from Danger

Let’s be honest: catastrophe is always lurking just outside the frame, like a raccoon in your garbage or a toddler with a marker. You can have your emergency fund, your canned beans, and enough insurance paperwork to wallpaper the Taj Mahal, but the universe remains stubbornly unscripted. If you think you can predict the future, I invite you to my house on banana-buying day.

Would I even want to know the future? I’m not sure my ego could survive it. It’s hard enough living with the knowledge that, in 2019, I bought a bread machine. If I knew everything ahead of time, I’d probably just curl up in a ball of embarrassment and never leave the linen closet. Honestly, most of my “big” decisions these days involve the produce aisle and the inscrutable dietary whims of small children. Bananas, for example: buy two, and the kids eat them in a single, frenzied sitting. Buy five, and they sit untouched, quietly evolving into fruit flies and existential regret.

Then there’s the matter of who gets to turn off the TV. In my house, this is not so much a simple request as it is a high-stakes summit meeting, complete with negotiations, shifting alliances, and the occasional threat of sanctions. Honestly, the Geneva Conventions could learn a thing or two from the way a three-year-old leverages bedtime against screen time. Choose the wrong delegate for this task, and you’re risking a meltdown of historic proportions—possibly involving tears, definitely involving accusations of gross injustice, and always requiring a follow-up peace treaty (usually brokered with applesauce or a cheese stick).

It’s a funny thing about decisions: what seems trivial to you can be life-altering to someone else—usually someone under four feet tall and heavily invested in Paw Patrol. As a parent, you’re not just steering your own ship; you’re captaining the whole flotilla, snack requests and all. The pressure is immense, but, as they say, pressure makes diamonds. (Or possibly just very tired people who dream of diamonds.)

By the time you’ve weathered three kids and a quarter-century of negotiations over bananas and TV remotes, you’re not so much a diamond as you are a well-worn pebble—polished, yes, but mostly from being rolled around by the tides of daily life. Maybe that’s why retirement is so sweet: it’s the first time in decades you get to decide, with no consequences, how many bananas to buy. And if you get it wrong? Well, there’s always banana bread.

Running from Holidays

It’s a peculiar thing, really—this unwritten law that mothers must moonlight as the chief engineers of all holiday enchantment. If there’s a magical event on the calendar, odds are I’m the one quietly orchestrating it from behind the curtain, like some seasonal Imagineer with a glue gun and a to-do list. Santa Claus? That’s me. Easter Bunny? Also me. Leprechaun? For reasons as mysterious as the origins of Figment, yes, me again. Meanwhile, my husband approaches Christmas morning with the same wide-eyed astonishment as a tourist discovering a second entrance to EPCOT—utterly delighted, blissfully unaware, and, crucially, not the one who wrapped the monorail set.

Last Christmas, my oldest, in a moment of honesty only a child or a particularly blunt park guest can muster, asked if perhaps I’d been a “bad girl” since Santa had forgotten to bring me anything. I shot my husband a glare so frigid it could’ve closed Blizzard Beach for the season, then shrugged and moved on. Sometimes, you have to pick your battles, especially when your only weapons are tinsel and a patience level that’s dropping faster than Rise of the Resistance boarding groups.

Now, if you think holiday magic is just a matter of popping into Target and grabbing whatever’s on the endcap, let me assure you: this is a covert operation of the highest order. My children are drawn to hidden presents like guests to free Wi-Fi, and will sniff out even the best-laid plans with the tenacity of a Disney blogger hunting for soft openings. Thus, I’ve developed hiding spots so ingenious that I occasionally lose track of them myself, leading to the annual spring tradition of “Why is there a Hatchimals egg in the linen closet?”

And let’s talk about the gifts themselves. There is a very specific subset of toys—tiny plastic things, anything that shrieks, and games requiring adult participation—that I avoid with the same fervor I reserve for rope-dropping a park on a holiday weekend. There’s only so much forced merriment one can endure before considering a strategic retreat to the garage with a mug of something “festive.”

So, here’s to the mothers: the unsung Imagineers of the festive season, the ones who keep the magic alive, year after relentless year. And let us not forget our shared, silent loathing for that infernal Elf on the Shelf, who, much like a malfunctioning animatronic, always seems to cause more trouble than he’s worth.

Happy holidays, and may your patience last longer than the line for Peter Pan’s Flight.

Running from Decisions

Decision fatigue, I’ve discovered, is not just real—it’s a kind of existential jet lag. There are days when I feel as though my brain has been mugged by a gang of particularly indecisive squirrels. These are the days when I am required to make an endless series of choices, ranging from the mildly irritating (“Should I answer this email now or in three years?”) to the wildly consequential (“Should I quit my job and move to a remote island where the only decision is coconut or mango?”).

I have, in fact, left jobs over this. Some people thrive on decision-making, but I am not one of them. What’s good for the goose, as they say, is often just a migraine for the gander. There is something peculiarly exhausting about having the fate of things—projects, people, snack selections—resting in your hands. It’s not just overwhelming; it’s like being handed the controls to a nuclear reactor and told, “Don’t touch anything, but also, everything depends on you.”

As a mother, I am required to make decisions with the frequency and urgency of an air-traffic controller, except my “planes” are small, loud, and sticky. Making choices for myself is one thing, but making them for others is a whole different kettle of fish fingers. People, it turns out, care deeply about the decisions that affect them, and if you get it wrong, you will hear about it. Loudly. Possibly with interpretive dance.

So, in an act of self-preservation, I have whittled my daily quota of decisions down to the bare minimum. This has, admittedly, put a slight dent in my previously go-getterish persona. I’ve taken a job that allows me to spend more time with my children and less time making decisions, and, through some cosmic clerical error, I’m actually paid more for it. I am, it must be said, bored at times—bored in the way that only someone who has spent an hour comparing brands of dishwasher tablets can be bored. But I love my work, my workplace, and the people I work with.

Perhaps, when my children are older and no longer require my guidance on matters such as sock selection and the ethics of eating the last cookie, I’ll wade back into the decision-making fray. For now, I am content—grateful, even. My biggest daily dilemma is what to serve for dinner, and honestly, that’s quite enough excitement for me.

Running from the Dentist

I hate the dentist. I mean, truly, deeply, passionately hate the dentist. If there were an Olympic event for avoiding dental appointments, I’d be a gold medalist, standing proudly atop the podium with a plaque commemorating my years of dodging fluoride treatments and awkward small talk about flossing. It’s not just the discomfort of the experience—it’s the sheer absurdity of willingly choosing to spend your days poking around in other people’s mouths. What kind of person wakes up one morning and thinks, You know what? I want to peer into cavities for a living! Surely, there’s some sort of psychological study waiting to be done on this.

My last visit to the dentist was right before my stroke—a momentous occasion that now feels like a grim punctuation mark in my personal timeline. Afterward, life became a whirlwind of chaos: a cross-country move, a new job, the exhausting process of finding new doctors. Dental care somehow fell to the bottom of the priority list, buried beneath layers of more pressing concerns. Fast forward three years, and here I am—mouth so numb after finally biting the bullet (pun intended) and going back that I could gnaw on barbed wire without flinching. It’s both horrifying and oddly liberating.

Teeth are terrifying little things when you think about them. They’re like tiny landmines hiding in your gums—silent, unassuming, and ready to explode into pain at any moment. Things break without warning. You wake up one day feeling fine and by lunchtime you’re Googling “sharp pain in molar” while spiraling into existential dread. And then there’s the dentist themselves—a mysterious figure armed with drills and mirrors who speaks in cryptic terms about “pockets” and “enamel erosion.” You nod along as though you understand, but really you’re thinking, Are they just making this up? Should I trust them?

Let’s not forget the sheer indignity of dental procedures. They numb you up until your face feels like it’s been replaced with a slab of concrete, or worse, they knock you out entirely. Laughing gas? Don’t get me started. It’s like being invited to a party where you’re the only guest who doesn’t know what’s happening. You leave feeling compromised—unable to eat properly or form coherent sentences—and wondering if this is what defeat feels like.

Doctors aren’t much better, though they do have slightly less terrifying tools at their disposal (no drills, thank goodness). But visiting them is its own kind of ordeal—wandering through sprawling facilities that feel more like labyrinths than places of healing. You sit there in sterile rooms while they poke and prod, never quite sure what they’re looking for or whether your headache is just a headache or an ominous sign that something catastrophic is brewing. And let’s be honest: Googling symptoms is practically an act of self-sabotage. One minute you’re searching “sore throat,” and the next you’re convinced you have six months to live.

And then there are the accessories—the rubber gloves snapping ominously against wrists, the surgical masks muffling voices into eerie half-murmurs, and those bizarre magnifying glasses that make doctors look like they’ve wandered off the set of a sci-fi film. It’s all so unsettlingly clinical that you can’t help but wonder if they’re secretly auditioning for roles as mad scientists.

In short: dentists are scary, doctors are slightly less scary but still unnerving, and teeth are downright treacherous little monsters lurking in your mouth. If I could opt out of all of it entirely—teeth included—I’d seriously consider it.

Running from my Identity

To know where you are going, you first have to know where you are. This is a truth so obvious it feels like something Confucius might have muttered after a particularly satisfying lunch, but it’s also a truth I’ve been grappling with lately. Somehow, I’ve managed to stumble from 2014 to 2025 with all the grace and clarity of someone trying to find their glasses while wearing them on their head. The years have passed in a blur, and the culprit, I suspect, is motherhood—a phenomenon that seems to simultaneously rob you of your sanity while gifting you moments so absurdly wonderful they make you question whether sanity was ever necessary in the first place.

Let me be clear: I love my kids. I love them so much that if licking them were socially acceptable, I’d be first in line. They are hilarious little creatures, full of quirks and chaos. But—and here’s the part where I feel compelled to duck for cover—I wouldn’t do it again if given the chance. Not because they aren’t delightful (they are), but because motherhood is less a journey and more an endurance test disguised as a Hallmark card. Since their arrival, sleep has become a distant memory, like an old friend who moved away and stopped returning your calls. Eleven years without sleep—imagine that. It’s not just inconvenient; it’s practically a science experiment.

The funny thing is that while my life seemed to unravel in the wake of parenthood, my children somehow stitched me back together in ways I didn’t expect. After my stroke—a terrifying event that left me questioning everything about myself—they reminded me of who I was, or at least who I could still be. Depression has since taken its toll on my fragile brain, leaving me feeling like a poorly assembled IKEA shelf: functional but precariously balanced.

And so here I am, pondering reinvention—a word that sounds far more glamorous than it feels. Reinventing oneself is tricky business when you’re not entirely sure where you stand to begin with. How can you chart a course forward if you don’t even know your starting point? It’s like trying to navigate with a map of Narnia when what you really need is Google Maps.

The truth is, I don’t always like myself. In fact, most days I feel like a terrible person—a sentiment that’s both exhausting and oddly comforting in its consistency. Misunderstood? Certainly. But also deeply flawed in ways that make me wonder if reinvention is even possible or if I’m simply destined to muddle along as I am.

Still, there’s something oddly liberating about acknowledging all this messiness—the sleepless nights, the existential crises, the moments of joy so profound they make your heart ache. Life isn’t tidy; it’s a sprawling, chaotic narrative full of plot twists and questionable character development. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe knowing where you are—messy and imperfect as it may be—is enough to start figuring out where you’re going next.

Running from Dinner

Being a mom is, to put it mildly, like being the CEO of a company where the employees are perpetually confused, demanding, and prone to losing their shoes. It’s not that being a dad isn’t hard—dads have their own set of challenges—but moms are expected to know everything. We’re the keepers of the appointments, the grocery lists, and the precise location of every sock in the house. We’re also tasked with feeding everyone dinner every single day (as if hunger weren’t enough of a problem without adding meal planning to it) and ensuring there’s always underwear for the foreseeable future. Honestly, it’s a wonder we don’t just throw in the towel and declare cereal as an acceptable dinner option every night. Thank goodness my kids like cereal.

And yet, my responsibilities don’t stop with the kids. Oh no, I also worry about my husband’s stuff. Did his co-workers like him today? Does his boss think he’s doing a good job? Did he remember his coffee mug this morning? These are not things I need to worry about, but I do anyway because apparently my brain has decided it’s a good idea to run on overdrive at all times. The result? Exhaustion. Most days I’m so drained I can fall asleep before my kids do—though, admittedly, the stroke hasn’t helped matters in that department. By 8 p.m., I’m done for, and I’ve stopped pretending otherwise.

As if all that weren’t enough, volleyball has added a new layer of mental gymnastics to my life. Coaching requires brainpower—lots of it—and that makes my already pronounced exhaustion even more pronounced. It’s as though life decided to hand me a wrench and then gleefully watch me try to juggle it along with everything else.

And can we talk about dinner for a moment? Who decided moms need to be responsible for answering all food-related questions? “What’s for dinner?” “Do we have ketchup?” “Why don’t we have ketchup?” How am I supposed to remember if there’s another bottle in the pantry when you inhaled the last one like it was oxygen? The whole thing is absurd.

This is why running is my ultimate sanctuary. It allows me to escape the chaotic landscape of my mind—a realm cluttered with endless lists, nagging reminders, and mental post-it notes that seem to multiply like rabbits on caffeine. For a blissful stretch of time, I get to silence the cacophony of thoughts and simply be. It’s a liberating experience that reminds me I still possess a semblance of sanity.

And when I return home, something magical happens. The tasks that once loomed like Mount Everest now seem like mere speed bumps. Running is hard, yes, but it’s a reminder that if I can conquer the road, I can conquer anything life throws at me. Plus, it’s the ultimate multitasking tool: I can listen to podcasts, push kids in strollers, run with the dog, and rack up my steps all at once. It’s efficiency at its finest—a symphony of productivity and peace.

So here’s my conclusion: running is not just a survival tool for moms; it’s a lifeline. It’s not just exercise; it’s therapy, a sanity-saver, and a reminder that we’re capable of more than we ever thought possible. Vote for me in 2028, and I’ll make sure cereal dinners and mandatory running become the pillars of a new national wellness policy. Together, we can create a world where moms can thrive, one run at a time!

Running from Volleyball

In the summer of 2020, during what I like to call the “Tiger King Era”—a time when the world collectively decided that binge-watching eccentric zoo owners was the best way to cope with a pandemic—I made a monumental decision. I left my volleyball coaching job at Fort Hays State University. To be clear, I hated every thought of leaving, but Covid had done something strange to our family’s perspective. It was as if the virus had snuck into our comfort zone and whispered, “Time to shake things up.” And so, we did.

Since then, life has been a bit like a carnival ride operated by someone with a questionable grasp of mechanics. Baby? Check. Stroke? Check. Cross-country move? Oh, absolutely. Any one of these events could have been enough to send us spiraling, but we managed to survive all of them—barely—and emerged stronger and more resilient than ever. Problems that once seemed enormous were suddenly reduced to mere inconveniences. It’s amazing how life-altering chaos can recalibrate your sense of scale.

Fast forward to Ohio in the spring of 2023, where I found myself presented with an opportunity to coach volleyball at my high school alma mater. Nostalgia aside, I knew I wasn’t ready—not physically, not mentally, not even logistically. My job demanded too much of me, and my family needed even more. So I shelved the idea and carried on.

Then came 2024, and with it another twist: a co-worker asked me if I’d consider coaching a boys’ volleyball team in spring 2025. I hesitated but said I’d think about it. My new job required far less brainpower (a blessing), and for the first time in years, the timing felt right to get back on the court.

But fate had other plans—or perhaps it just enjoys being dramatic. On December 28th, my mom woke up with a shattered scapula for no apparent reason (a condition I’ve dubbed “spontaneous broken wing syndrome”). A week later, my dad decided to test his snow blower’s blade sharpness with his fingertip—a decision that ended predictably poorly. As if that weren’t enough, my husband Chas tore his calf muscle while skipping in a preschool gym class (yes, skipping). By January 19th, my own heart joined the rebellion, landing me in the hospital for three days with AFib/Atrial Flutter. At this point, quitting seemed like the most logical option—but somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to say no.

And thank goodness for that stubborn streak. Once I started coaching again, it was as if my brain had rediscovered an old friend it didn’t know it missed. The rhythm of practices, the camaraderie of the team—it all felt wonderfully familiar. Boys are easier to coach than girls (as anyone who’s read my other posts will know), but they require persistence—a trait I’ve learned is key both on and off the court. We’re not great yet; we’re young and learning. But every day brings progress that makes the effort worthwhile.

The moral of this chaotic tale? Sometimes you have to dive into something you’re convinced you can’t do—post-stroke or otherwise—and prove yourself wrong. It’s terrifying but deeply satisfying to discover what you’re still capable of achieving. And who knows? Maybe persistence really is the secret ingredient for surviving life’s carnival ride—even when it feels like it’s spinning out of control.