Week 2,548

Most of the last two weeks were taken up by this tire. It kept us running and tyring to get a non-leaky yet affordable tire. The mission was accomplished just in time for my birthday on Saturday :)

Faith and Collin's new kitty is adorable! She is a long-haired domestic cat just the same age as Luna, but her meow sounds like an old coffee drinker's meow. Her name is beauty and Faith thinks it's a literary reference to Black Beauty because her meow sounds almost like a horse! She is beautiful and a few pounds lighter than Luna, so she looks small to us. What an adorable addition!!

This is a link to one of my favorite stories that Faith did this week that sets the record straight about high schoolers having off-campus lunch. Finally a story that puts teenagers in a better light!

Will got some very cool pictures of him welding. It's fun to see and he is having more and more success with it too as well as making friends with people in neighboring booths at the welding school.

One thing Ivy and I do together is go to Target. We laugh about some of the things we see and wish we had others. Ivy calls every very long sweater an "I'll Wait Sweater,". Picture your English teacher huffily wrapping her sweater around her as she says, "I'll wait," (until you're all quiet.)

This is the biggest I'll Wait sweater we have ever come across.

I wanted this Frida Kahlo hoodie. It has a skeleton on the back instead of Frida's face - I'm not sure why I like that more.

We ended up buying the dinosaur hat for Luna even though we knew she'd hate it. I usually don't give into these things, but....

Ivy had a couple of races this week. Her mid-week race was at Sonata. Basic's team was there too, so it was fun for me to know some of the Basic runners too.

Her other race was at Huntington Beach this weekend (but this picture is actually from her Woodbridge race in California last weekend.

One day this week the moon was so big as I was driving up to my school. I had to take a picture of it before I entered the school. What a beautiful morning!!

Luna is especially affectionate when Ivy is away. I had some quality cat time on Friday :)

The other fun thing this week was having a birthday. I got to talk to almost all my siblings along with Dad and Marj as well. My in-laws even sent this cute led-lit outside turtle. Faith and Collin called together on Saturday morning and sang to me. Saturday night we had pizza and cheese cake with Will and Ivy. Ivy picked up a pretty turquoise necklace for me from Huntington Beach, Will got me a funny card and Bill got me new Hokas to run in (along with a new tire!) 

 Bill also took me to a place we have been wanting to try out called Tres Cazuelas for their all you can eat paella brunch. As we pulled up we were pretty concerned about the venue. It's just west of the I15 on Spring Mountain Rd. The food was pretty good. It was fun to have paella after so long. (We decided that it had been since the year we got married since we had eaten paella!)

As I begin my 50th year (and only have one more year in my forties) I just have to express how much I have surprisingly loved my 40s. I didn't know how much I would like turning 40. It was freeing and it felt like I found a whole different gear to drive in. I started substitute teaching (which was interesting every day and gave me great stories!) I started teaching full time high school Spanish and found that even on hard days and at hard schools I still love it. I truly enjoy having a full time job. I love it that my kids learned to do laundry and make their own lunches. I loved that my schedule was the same as theirs in school. I felt more engaged in my own marriage by providing health insurance for my family and financial resources (even though it may be a small contribution!) I started running half-way through my forties and it has been the most effective mental health treatment I have found. I don't adore it, but it keeps me happy. I am still learning lots of lessons. Read, there is still pain and there are still hard days, but those lessons are priceless. Maybe I'm starting to not take the pain so seriously :) At least that's the goal.