Showing posts with label Sunday. Show all posts

I feel GREAT

They say that exercise is the best therapy for your mood, and after a week of establishing a daily running routine I have to agree.  I've only been running a mile every morning, but it's amazing how great I feel.  You have to understand that although I was very athletic growing up, I have NEVER had endurance.  I played softball for 10 years and even ran track in middle school and was recruited to run in high school, but I was a sprinter- 100 yds max.  Running long distances has always been a challenge for me.  But for the first time in my life, I'm facing that challenge head on.

One of the main problems I've had with exercising as an adult is establishing a routine and sticking to it.  I can find an excuse to take a day off on any day of the week.  It's only been a week, but already I've fought great excuses to maintain my motivation.  When I woke up Friday morning after increasing my weights at my class at the Y the night before, I could barely walk down the stairs... and I still found the motivation to run.  On Saturday morning when I woke up feeling like I'd been hit by a bus, I still laced up my shoes and hit the road.  And today when I woke up to pouring rain, I put on a hat and watched the rain fill the lake as I ran by.

When I started running last week I was having a lot of pain in my ankles and knees, and assumed that the old, worn-down shoes I was wearing didn't help.  After a few recommendations from friends I made a special trip to Fleet Feet to get fitted for running shoes.  I couldn't have been more impressed.  I was there for nearly 2 hours while the salesman measured and inspected every inch of my feet, and found the perfect choices for me.  He even went as far as watching me run on the sidewalk in each of the 3 pairs of shoes he had chosen, to make sure they were keeping my feet and joints aligned while I ran.  It was an amazing experience.  I left with brand new Mizunos complete with padded inserts, 4 pairs of fancy socks, new shorts and shirts (who knew you weren't supposed to run in cotton?), and a big smile on my face.  If you're in need of new shoes or have never been fitted for the right shoe, I highly recommend them.

As if I needed another reason to feel great, Nick will officially be home before I know it.  I can't give a specific date (as if the military would even let me know one), but it will be MONTHS earlier than expected.  I'm on top of the world, but mostly still in shock.  It just doesn't seem real.  As crazy as it sounds, I don't think I allowed myself to believe that he would ever come home.  We all deal with deployments differently, and the only way I knew how to adjust to life without him was to imagine that my life would always be without him.  That brings me to another subject... I'm so nervous about his return.  I'm finally in a place where I have established my own routine and found contentment as a pseudo-single adult, and I'm terrified of readjusting to having him home again.  Not that I would trade it for anything in the world... it's just a little scary.  I can still hear myself telling him multiple times a day after he returned from BCT that he was doing something wrong, because that's not how we did it here anymore.  I have to remind myself that it's okay for the dog bowl to move to a different location, or for the laundry to quadruple in size, or for the bed to shrink to half of it's size... it's just great to have him home.  I was talking to a friend of mine the other night at dinner about my worries and concerns when he comes home, and she reminded me that I feel this way EVERY time he's about to return after a long absence.  She also reminded me that I worry myself for nothing, because after about 2 weeks of readjusting and fitting him back into each day, it's like he never left.  She couldn't be more right.

In other news, I'm hosting one of my best friend's baby showers next weekend!  The details are coming together and I'm busy working hard on some final touches, but I can't elaborate yet because she likes to quietly stalk this blog.  I really hope this shower proves to be everything she has hoped for... and I can't wait for little Caroline to be here!  If there's one thing I've been missing in Nashville for the last few years, it's a cute little baby around to spoil rotten :)

happy Sunday!
babies deployment running
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random sunday thoughts

I got the best nursing education available in Tennessee from the accelerated nursing program at Belmont University.  I'll be paying for it for the rest of my life.

When Nick told me that we were moving from the sunny beaches of Wilmington to a city in Tennessee I'd never heard of (if you aren't familiar with MTSU, you probably haven't heard of Murfreesboro either) I thought "at least I won't have to deal with hurricanes anymore".  I didn't realize I'd be trading a couple of hurricanes a year for weekly tornadoes (and now ridiculous flooding).

There are 27 colleges and universities in Nashville.  Many of them offer nursing programs.  No wonder it's so hard to find a nursing job after graduation.

My dogs are incredibly loving, sweet, and innocent.  I think I take them for granted far too often.

I would move to Chattanooga in a heartbeat.  Aside from being the home of most of my extended family, it's one of my favorite cities.  Just spend a day walking the riverfront streets downtown, and you'll know what I mean.

I am dying to live in an old, historic Craftsman home.  I'm constantly browsing what's for sale in downtown Nashville, Winston Salem, and Wilmington.

I'd never heard of straight line winds until I moved to Tennessee.  If you haven't experienced or heard of them, consider yourself lucky.

My tattoo is almost out of the itching phase.  And for that, I am thankful.

The month of May produces the most rainfall on average of any other month in
Nashville.  The average is 5 inches.  For the whole month.  It's May 2nd, and so far we've had 15 inches of rain in the last 24 hours.

Nick has been gone for 148 days... 5 months.  I think that's long enough.
Sunday
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spring has sprung

I celebrated the start of Spring by finally renovating our patio.

This is what our sad, pathetic patio has looked like for the last 7 months:


When we first bought this house it was completely over-run with a jungle of huge trees, 4-foot tall weeds, and dead flowers.  Nick and the in-laws spent an entire weekend digging everything out (of course I was there to supervise), and we were left with an empty, barren, uninviting outdoor space.

Now that the air was warm and the sun was shining, and we had a little money in the bank account to make my visions a reality, I decided the first day of Spring was the perfect day to get to work.  It was long overdue.  After a long day of digging and sweating, I'm pretty proud of my work in progress:


I added stone pavers to edge the patio, a few azaleas and tomato plants, tiki torches, and mulch.  I also refinished the patio chairs we've had for years.  It's amazing what a can of spray paint can do.




There's still a few things left to do, but luckily there are months of beautiful weather to come.  I want to build a fence around the ridiculously loud AC unit, buy new patio furniture, add more plants and lattice to the cinder block walls, and buy a new gas grill (Nick may appreciate charcoal flavor, but I am way too impatient for that).  

Nick will be shocked to learn that I really do understand the concept of a shovel, and can handle supervising and working at the same time.  Actually, I think I might just tell him I hired someone.  I don't want him to expect too much when he gets home.

After a long day of intensive labor I expected to wake up with sore, aching muscles. What I was not prepared for was the bloating, cramping, and always unwelcome AF that also greeted me at 8am this morning.  Not the way I want to start any day of the week.  I know I've always been a little vague about it, but Nick and I tried to get pregnant all of last year with no success.  I've hated this time of the month even more ever since.  It used to mean an inevitable end to a week of negative pregnancy tests, followed by a morning (or often an entire day) of tears and disappointment of another failed attempt at starting a family.  Now that I know I'm not pregnant long before the dreaded day comes, it has still remained a loathed day in this house.  Now I almost feel like my period is mocking me every month, reminding me that I have a long time to wait and many more months of disappointment before any little Armstrongs will be running around our house.  Thank you, Eve.  And just for the record, we're still not friends.

I was hoping to show off my hard work by inviting friends over for a cookout today, but along with my other surprise this morning was rain.  A LOT of rain.  Now it really does feel like Spring.  
spring Sunday
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oh sundays

If there's one thing I remember about the 14 weeks of basic training, it's that Sundays without Nick are the worst. I'm not really sure why... I don't know if it's the loneliness of ending a week without him, the fear of starting a new week without him, or just knowing that we usually spent our lazy Sundays together sitting around and watching football or movies. No matter what the reason, I always miss Nick the most on Sundays.

I have something to look forward to this week... something great. My pinning ceremony is Thursday and I will officially be a nursing school graduate after the ceremony on Friday. It doesn't even seem real. I'm excited, but I will be much more excited when I take the NCLEX and actually receive my license as a registered nurse. I would also probably be more excited if Nick was going to be at graduation... or if any of my family was going to be at graduation. Luckily I have a lot of wonderful friends in Nashville that will be there to support me, and hopefully help me forget that Nick is not there. I'm being pinned with Nick's mother's nursing school pin, which is pretty much the coolest thing ever. Hopefully there will also be another nurse in our family in the future that can be pinned with the same pin as well. There's so much hard work and determination behind a nursing pin, and only a nurse can truly appreciate graduation from nursing school. It's unlike any other undergraduate degree.

Now back to watching a movie, crocheting, and drinking coffee... because that's what Sundays are for.
deployment nurse Sunday
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let the freaking out begin.

I think it has finally hit me, and I'm starting to freak out... I only have 18 more days with Nick before he leaves.  Of course I will get to see him for 5 days over Christmas before he is officially gone for 12 months, but I know those days are going to fly by.  No amount of time is long enough with your best friend.  We will be on our way to NC for Thanksgiving next week and will be spending Christmas in NC as well.  I'm so excited to spend the holidays with our families this year, but I can't help thinking that the little time I have with my husband has to be shared with too many other people.  It's important for him to have good quality time with his family before he goes overseas, but it doesn't leave much quality time for the two of us.

While Nick was in basic training at Fort Benning, we began counting down the number of Sundays until we would see each other.  It was a much more optimistic way of looking at things, because the number of Sundays left always sounds much better than the number of days left.  Unfortunately this is how I count everything down now... and I only have 2 Sundays left until he leaves.  On a good note, our last Sunday together will be spent on our drive back from NC.  We are notorious for having our best conversations on long car rides because we never turn on the radio- not even on our 14 hour drives to and from Sarasota.  As graduation nears I have more and more free time, so hopefully we will be able to spend every minute together during the last few days that he is in Nashville.

As hard as this is going to be on me, I can't help but remember that this is a million times worse for Nick.  I am losing one person for 12 months, but he is losing a lot more.
deployment military NC
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