January / Winter

We've made it just past the halfway point of "winter" without any school snow days.  Around here, winter is basically the months of January, February and March.  We've had blizzards and major snowstorms during the last week of March, so while other parts of the country are feeling like it's almost spring, we're happy to have reached the halfway point.


(I took this one morning after I dropped the girls off at school.)

We really haven't seen any significant snowfall and what has fallen has been swept away by rain.  Ice has been our greatest enemy.  Fortunately, the biggest ice storm we had took place over a holiday weekend.  Unfortunately, the girls were attending a dance workshop, which refused to cancel, and while the roads were mainly wet on our way there, everything iced up while the girls were dancing.  I couldn't even open the back door of my van so I started scraping off the ice with the handle of a hairbrush.  Thankfully, a friend was parked nearby and rescued us.







Each month, the girls' school recognizes two kids (usually one boy and one girl) from each team who display good effort, kindness to others, a positive attitude, etc.  The girls have wanted to receive this award because in the spring, all of the 6th graders, who were recognized throughout the school year, work with the 5th graders on their transition to middle school.  There are about 90-100 kids on their team, so your chances are low to begin with.  Although, if you remove the slackers and troublemakers, you'll eliminate about a third, maybe even half, of those kids.  This isn't about grades either.  As we all know, a kid can try her hardest and walk away with Bs or Cs.  So this isn't about achieving all A+s.

I told the girls that their chance of receiving this award was low to begin with and how maybe their teachers may not nominate them because they would feel it was unfair to her sisters.  I hate to say this but a part of me did not want to deal with the backlash, drama and emotional upset of one kid receiving this award.  I've always told their teachers to treat them as individuals, but when you look at the type of student the school wants for this award, they all fit the bill.  It would be difficult to separate them on that.

So, I'm extremely thankful for teachers who understand them.  In an unprecedented move, the school gave all three of the girls the monthly student award for January.  I had three very happy kids and needless to say, I'm extremely proud of them.







I ran 45.5 miles in January.  I sort of slacked off that last week, with good reason.  Something happened to one of my big toes and it felt like there was a needle poking into it every time I took a step.  I thought I had stepped on a rogue shard of glass but there were no marks on the outside skin.  So that set me back a few days as I was walking around with my toe up.  Life was a little crazy later that week and I was running around, not home and that's fine, life happens.



Back before the holidays, I sort of felt like I had reached a plateau with my running.  I added in some weight lifting at the beginning of the year hoping that would change my attitude, but that didn't do the trick.  I ended January realizing that I needed to change things up and I did.  (I'll tell you all about it in another post.)  I like running and working out but when I don't feel like it's doing anything, my motivation dies down.    



This is the worst time of the year for me.  I suffer from the lack of natural light.  I seriously miss warm weather and feeling heat from the sun on my body.  There are some days I feel like it takes a great effort just to change into my workout clothes because I'm so cold.  Not working in the city and having to deal with that freaking commute has been amazing these winter months, but winter does seem to be drawn out without the distraction of busy, tax work.  





We're going to keep on keeping on, patiently waiting for warm weather to roll in.