I Run These Towns

I love Christmas. It's long been my favorite time of the year. I wanted to have a Christmas wedding because I love this season so much. It's the season that also hosts my son's birthday. The Christmas season is filled with magic. Do you believe in magic? Christmas is also a time of reflection. This year I've been basking in the magic of the season and reflecting on magic elsewhere in my life. I see magic in my son's eyes every day as he learns more and looks at every day with wonder. This year has reinforced that love and support are magical. My husband has stood by my side and held down the fort in the roughest health year I've had in more than a decade. His love is magic.  Magic. In a year that could have rattled me professionally the exact opposite happened: I feel more confident in my professional relationships and ability than ever. The incredible affirmation I received from those with whom I've worked the last decade was flattering and humbling...

I've decided I suffer from the most first world of problems that I made up and diagnosed myself: vacation fatigue. We love to travel, and we do so liberally. We are rarely home (maybe 1-2 weekends at month at most), and that's the pace we like. Even after our son was born we have rarely deviated from this blistering travel schedule. There are so many places to see and really so little time.  In the last six months we've spent long weekends in northern Michigan in Traverse City and Boyne City, we've vacationed with my family in Canaan Valley, West Virginia, we've been to Portland, Oregon, Norfolk, Virginia, Las Vegas, and a cruise to the Bahamas. I also went to West Virginia three additional times including a week-long stay in September and an extended stay for Thanksgiving. This amounts to a total of 48 days away from home in a six month period or being gone just over 1/4 of the time. We also had a few getaway weekends in Detroit, and this does not count my husban...

Ten years ago my now husband and I decided to get a dog. We'd been dating for almost a year, and we were looking at houses together. Getting a puppy seemed logical at the time (we'd later learn nothing about puppies are in any way logical). For some reason I insisted we get an Irish Setter puppy. We found one in the classified section of the paper, and I called the breeder. She had one puppy left that she was going to save for us to pick up the following morning (a Saturday). We went to Petsmart and bought all of the puppy essentials. We went out to dinner where we decided we'd name our Irish Setter Murphy after Murphy's Irish Stout. We were ready to be canine parents.  The next morning I called the breeder to learn that she'd sold our Irish Setter puppy the night before. We were upset, but we were already ready to get a dog. We had our minds made up. We shifted and talked about a Golden Retriever instead. I checked the paper and we called about a puppy. Later tha...

There are a lot of things I don't understand in this life: wearing pajamas in public, the existence of PT Cruisers, rooting for Pitt. And while I have places I've traveled that I love more than others, there are very few that I basically loathe. Las Vegas is at the top of the loathing list. My husband had a conference in Vegas, and I decided to tag along. It seemed like a nice time for us to get away together and for me to give Vegas a do over. I've been once, more than seven years ago, for a wedding. At the time I did not enjoy it at all. I don't gamble, and while I love food and cocktails, I honestly found it boring. We were there for a long weekend, and it was probably two days too long. I thought this was an opportunity for me to reassess my thoughts about Vegas. It turns out my opinion did not change. At all. My first time in Vegas in 2009. My hair is...fluffy. We arrived Wednesday evening and stayed at the Paris. On our first trip our hotel wasn't grea...

Four years ago I wrote a blog about how amazingly supportive my husband is of my running/traveling addiction. I've had friends remark that it must be nice to have my own paparazzo at the finish line (it is). When I wrote that blog we'd been married about four years, and up to that point things had been pretty easy for us. When I wrote that blog there was a lot I didn't know about my husband. I didn't know that 2013 was going to be a shit year and test everything we thought we knew about one another. I didn't know that he'd shortly face the greatest pain of his life in losing his dad, and I still am unable to take that pain away. I didn't know that he'd patiently sit next to me as I sobbed when the vet was euthanizing my 15-year-old cat in the middle of the night. I didn't know that he'd be my rock when we had a birth mother change her mind after the baby was born. I didn't know that 2013 would contain all of that heartbreak and be a devast...

Some days I feel one errand or one more obligation away from losing my mind. I sometimes don't know how we (the collective busy "we") do it all. Being a wife and mother plus having a career is a lot, but then there are those events on which I don't that take up time in a schedule already bursting at the seams. I got the oil changed in both of our cars last week, and in one of them they forgot to put the skid plate (whatever that is) back on properly. I unexpectedly had to go back to the garage to get it fixed early this morning before going to the gym and then working the rest of the day. We've had two sick dogs the last few weeks, and it's meant multiple vet visits, tears and lots of money. I woke up yesterday to our Izzy having peed all over our couch, and she was lying in it. She's on steroids which make her go to the bathroom more, and she was wearing the cone of shame, so she wouldn't move. Sunday morning started by waking up my husband for toddle...

Twenty years ago I cast my first ballot in a presidential election. I was 18 years old, idealistic, bright-eyed, bushy tailed and uninformed. It was perfect. I, like many teenagers, didn't know a lot about politics. Many kids get their political views from their parents. My parents voted but did not (at that time - it's changed) have extremely vocal political views. I made my political choices in 1996 to be antagonistic. I'm sure that's not surprising. My high school brought all the members of my senior class (all 35 of us!) into the auditorium, and we were given the opportunity to register to vote. All of us but two registered as Democrats because that's what their parents were. Granted in a Dixiecrat state being a "Democrat" means being pro-life, pro-gun, pro-death penalty...you know, a Republican. I talked one of my friends into registering as a Republican with me, because we didn't want to be like everybody else. That was really the extent of my ...

Being a parent is the hardest, most exhausting and most rewarding job ever. Everyone tells you how amazing parenting is, and there's really no way to know it until it happens to you. When our son was born I told a colleague I realize why everyone thinks their kid is perfect: because they all are to their parents.  Parenting is also unequivocally the most exhausting thing I've ever done. When my son was a newborn I got through the sleep deprivation on adrenaline alone. That time is mostly a blur, but I remember being awake in the middle of the night and looking down at my wide awake newborn. I forced myself to take in the moment and remember it. It wouldn't last forever. When he was about 18 months old the sleep deprivation caught up with me, and I've been feeling like a zombie for nearly six months. Thank God for facials to help with the bags under my eyes. I may tell humorous (and frustrating anecdotes) about my child, but I'll never complain about the crazy mo...

Last month Hillary Clinton was under fire for not informing the American public that she had pneumonia. She was called "weak". In what was not America's best moment we vilified a woman for contracting an illness that any of us could get. Apparently getting sick makes one "weak". I'd say sticking to a brutal schedule with pneumonia actually makes her a badass, but then again, this is coming from a sick person.  I felt a lot of empathy toward Hillary because I know what it's like to be sick and feel like you have to hide it. I truly believe if we want to succeed women don't have the luxury of being sick. I would say this also applies to any person with a chronic illness. Moms don't get sick days. To keep up in the professional world we're expected to suck it up or be seen as weak. In Notorious R.B.G.: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg , it's noted that RBG was never gone from the bench while battling cancer. She quickly went back ...

I've had a rough year of barely running. I've written a lot about it, and I've tried not to make excuses. I simply haven't done the work, and I haven't been motivated. Period. It's been health issues/grief issues/plain lack of motivation. But somehow this past weekend, in a half marathon I had no business running, I found my motivation in the driving rain on Detroit's Belle Isle. I registered for the Detroit Domestic Half Marathon on January 11, 2016. I was still in my serious running hiatus after New York, and I thought having races on the calendar would help. Two of our good friends were also running, and it would be my girlfriend's first half marathon. It's always such an awesome thing to share someone's first race with them, so I was really excited to register. Fast forward ten months and the year has not gone as expected. Instead of my achieving my original goal of breaking 20 minutes in the 5k I ended up in a Crohn's downward spir...