I Run These Towns

It's easy to take the good life for granted. Life gets stressful and busy. Things that should be wonderful - Christmas shopping, decorating for the holidays, baking, spending time with friends and family - start to feel like a chore. The to do list is so long that these blessings start to feel like burdens.  There's been a lot of unwelcome drama in my life in the last few years, and it's been easy to ignore the blessings. But sometimes that drama is what makes you appreciate what you have. This summer my world was rocked as I spent several weeks in the hospital. When I was informed I had a blood clot, I had a moment where I wondered if this was it. Maybe this was how I was going to go out, and that wasn't acceptable. I've spent a lot of time the last few years lamenting the things that went poorly instead of being thankful for the things that have gone well. The news of that blood clot made me realize I had to reassess how I was looking at my life. There are so ...

When I moved to Norfolk, Virginia in 2003, the mermaids were relatively new. In 1999 the idea was introduced to have "Mermaids on Parade" with mermaids being displayed throughout the community. Around the time I moved there was also a campaign to bring people back to live in the City. You could pick up signs that said "Welcome Home to Norfolk" in businesses across town. I have one in my office at work to this day to inspire me by the vision of leaders in that community. Working for the City of Norfolk is what piqued my love of cities, and it will always have a special place in my heart.  My brother and sister still live in Norfolk, and I went down for the weekend to visit. I also registered for the inaugural Harbor Lights 5k , so I was looking forward to running the fun downtown course. I was actually registered for the "Get Lit" challenge to run the 5k and then the half marathon the following day, but some health issues put the kibosh on that idea.  ...

Last year I wrote the first edition of this blog about how hard the wait for a family is, and how running and traveling are my sanity. That is still true, but the extra time has given and continues to give me time to reflect about the kind of mother I want to be. For a lot of my impressionable young life I felt that I didn't really get along with other girls. I had some girlfriends, but I also had a time in junior high where not a single girl in my class would talk to me. I remember going to class and all the other girls were sitting on the other side of the room talking about me loudly, to ensure I would definitely hear them. I came home crying every day for months.  I remember being on the school bus and girls in my class passing me the nastiest, name-calling notes. I have those notes to this day somewhere in my basement. I've kept them as a reminder that people can say terrible things to me, but I'm stronger than whatever they're dishing out. When I was a li...

Last weekend marked by 4th trip to Washington, DC this year, which is actually down from the last few years. It's one of my favorite cities, and I'm always looking for a reason to go there. We go to DC so often that we have a weird ritual of things we do that are not at all touristy.  As a matter of fact when I travel I generally try to be the anti-tourist. I want to see cities like a local, especially if it's somewhere I've been repeatedly. Here are some ways in which we are anti-tourists in Metro DC: We always stay on Courthouse Road in Arlington. There are two hotels across the street from one another: a Hilton Garden and a Clarion. We stay at one or the other depending on who has the best rates. Last weekend the Clarion won, and we had the largest hotel room I've ever stayed in for $87 a night. We had 1½ baths, a separate bedroom, a full kitchen. I'm not sure how we ended up with this room, but it was ginormous. It's a few blocks walk to the Metro, a...

For a brief period of time when I was little I wanted to be a veterinarian. I love animals, and I loved the idea of working with animals all the time. Then I found out that vets have to put animals down, and the idea lost its luster. Then for the bulk of my life I wanted to be a journalist. I remember writing extensive stories in second and third grade. I would fill journals and notebooks with the things I would write - stories, poetry, anything. I wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of my life writing, and journalism seemed like the best path for me. I told my junior high gym teacher that I wanted to be on SportsCenter. This was back when women were not on SportsCenter. Maybe Linda Cohn was...I don't recall. I went to college as a broadcast journalism major. My first class at West Virginia University was an introductory journalism class. I took it with several hundred of my closest friends. I liked it well enough, but that same day I went to my first political science cla...

I am effusive about my love for living downtown, and I continue to sing its praises. Walking downtown for dinner or brunch is fantastic. Walking my dogs around the Capitol is lovely. Walking to work is amazing. The one and only snag I've found is a new running route. It's been quite the challenge to find the right route. In our old neighborhood I had a perfect 3 mile running route. I ran along Moores River drive in Lansing's fanciest neighborhood, and I always felt safe. I'd run in the dark, in bad weather, almost always by myself. It was a great route, and I've run it more times than I can count. I have also logged lots of miles on the Lansing River Trail, but always in daylight hours generally on Saturdays when I know it's well populated. There are portions of the River Trail that seem unsafe, so I've always been careful about it. I love our new neighborhood, and I don't feel unsafe in any way. The safe pocket we live in, however, is a bit limited...

In the last few weeks I've had a couple of people characterize me as "fearless", and it's the best compliment ever. I love that description, but it's had me wondering if it's true. Am I really fearless? The dictionary defines fearless as: without fear; bold or brave; intrepid. (Also intrepid is another fantastic word). I'm admittedly not afraid of a lot of things. I think sometimes people confuse my being fearless with being aggressively candid, but I suppose that's another kind of fearlessness. It takes cojones to say what you think, and I do it often, without reservation. My general thought process is that I like to know where others are coming from, and I hope people appreciate that they always know where I stand. It may be something simple like the abomination of wearing leggings as pants or a complicated legislative issue, but my opinions rarely come as a surprise to anyone. In that sense I am perhaps fearless. But what about overall? I'm ...