Vegetables

Tonight Justin is at a CEO meet and greet sponsored by the Spartanburg Chamber of Commerce.  I guess he is CEO of our church plant and that's how he got the invite.  To celebrate supper with minimal preparation, the kids and I dined upon such choice delicacies as chicken nuggets, roast beef sandwich, Very Cherry fruit cocktail (once you've gone very cherry you can never go back to plain jane fruit cocktail), and Cheetos.  I do not even feel guilty about it.

If, tragically, the father of my children was to depart this earth, I feel sure that said children would never eat anything from the fresh produce department again.  A father who insists upon a balanced meal is a blessing from God, as much so as a mother who consistently insures that there is clean underwear in their little drawers when they dress every day.  We complement each other nicely as parents, I think.

Well, enough about the delights of processed cheese powder.  I just wanted to let you know that I am still alive and kicking.  I have been running, though I would need to run about three hours more than I do daily to offset cheetos and fruit cocktail.  My strategy when I am returning to running is to run/walk six minute intervals.  I start walking 4 minutes, running 2.  Any person, regardless of what shape they are in, can probably run for 2 minutes:  this is my thinking.  Then, every day, I shift the balance towards running 10 seconds longer and walking 10 seconds less.  Right now I am running 3:15 and walking 2:45.  This means at some point I only gave myself a five second shift.  It probably was a bad day.  I figure something is better than nothing.

Today I was about 40 minutes in and I'd been running in a light drizzle when suddenly, the bottom fell out.  The dog (my running companion) would bolt for a bush to hide under, let me jog by, and cower until the leash tightened up again and she was forced to bolt for the next bush.  I was concerned that my Ipod was getting too wet, so I took it off and tried to stuff it in my pants, arm band and all.  Once in my pants, it kept threatening to slide down one leg and fly out in front of my shoe, so I held it under my shirt for the rest of the way home.  I will pause here for a moment while you enjoy that mental picture...me, clutching my abdomen with one hand, and with the other, jerking on the leash to get the dog out of the bush.  In the pouring rain.  With cars flying past me, sending up nasty road water spray.  Well, the good news in all of this is that the Ipod survived and I ran faster and longer than I have in quite some time!  In fact, I ran all the way home, a good 20 minutes.  The bad news is that I am throwing the Ipod arm band away after its journey into my trousers, and I hate my dog.