Coffee is ALWAYS the answer - it's not supposed to be the problem!

I'll admit it, I'm tired.  This last week was exhausting.  I ran a half marathon, we had a HUGE inspection at work that took up a ton of time and effort.  I'm just tired.  And there's nothing wrong with that, life happens.  We all get tired and cranky.  The problem is when you're a single parent and you're tired.  Who do you turn to?

In my house, we're at the stage where there are no longer naps - this is very sad as I miss naptime with B.  Instead there can be 'episodes' we watch and depending on how tired I am is deeply correlated with how long she gets to watch and how many she can watch.  But it is what it is.  As long as nothing comes between me and my coffee I'm much easier to deal with.

Then there was Saturday morning....I was working on my laptop in bed when some crazy idea formed in her head.  I still have no idea what possessed her but she decided to take the pillow out from behind me without letting me know.  While taking the pillow out she proceeded to hit my coffee mug which hit the floor and shattered - with coffee still in it.

Seriously, ya'll I thought I was going to lose my mind!  You do NOT come between me and coffee.  I have never seen the child move so fast to clean up a mess in my life!

I can say it was hard - I had to work through the anger.  Seriously, it was my coffee!  At least it wasn't a good mug.  I held it together....barely.  Once she cleaned up the mess, I sent her to get dressed and we headed outside.  I knew if we had stayed inside it would have NOT been good for either one of us.

But we survived.  And we have endured another week of hills and valleys.  Another week where nothing goes as planned and it leaves us both exhausted.  But we have survived and we will be better for it.  That's all we can ask for.  That's all we can do....wait no from now on we will also have our coffee in spill-proof and non-breakable containers - at least for the safety of the child.  Now that's all we can do.

RAK Half Marathon in the Books!

Self-care is hard.  Self-care while being a single parent can be even harder.  The idea of training for a half marathon is daunting.  The idea of training for a half marathon while being a single parent is even more of a daunting task.  But, as I proved yesterday, it can be done.

Training takes support.  Training while raising a child on your own takes even more support.  So I ask my village for help.  I schedule training for when she has her gymnastics classes.  I use the treadmill when she's sick.  I do what I can to accomplish my goals.  When I accomplish my goals I show her that she's capable of those things as well.  That's why we need to do self-care.

Parenting is about showing our kids the type of people we want them to become.  We show our kids that caring for themselves is just as important as caring for those around you.  Just like setting goals and hard work, self-care should be a part of life.  A life that makes you and your child just as happy as anything else.

So when I got home from running my 4th half marathon - still surreal to say that - I was tired.  My body hurt.  So we sat on the couch.  She brought me a pillow, a blanket and snuggled me in.  When the pizza was delivered, I realized there wasn't any sauce for breadsticks, so she poured marinara in a bowl and brought it to me.  I love my child.  I love that she is so thoughtful and understanding about my goals.

To me, that's something I've done right.  She's amazing and I appreciate it and her.  She has an ability to be understanding and know what you need before you know what you need.  I needed this half marathon.  I needed to know that I could do it without hating myself and the world.  So now I'm better and she's better.  Goals come and go but love and understanding will stay, hopefully, until the end.

NaNo Kicked My A&$

I know it's been awhile!  Life had been super exciting with the first podcast interview in October and then I jumped into NaNo Month.  For the month of November, I worked on a novel, something I've always wanted to do but hadn't had the chance.  The month of November is set aside as a month of novel writing.  Ideally, you hit 50,000 words in the month and can publish a novel.  Sounds simple right?

Have you ever tried to write 50,000 words in one month?  On the same topic?  I can now say I have and it's definitely not easy.  Halfway through I switched stories so now I have two half finished books, one I had previously worked on which I'm not editing and a website and blog that has been extremely neglected.  But it's ok, because that's life.

Writing has been keeping me busy, which is a big win in my world.  The other part of life, B keeps me busier than I want to admit.  Between her gymnastics and keeping her social life intact, we've been busy.  Yet, now that it's slowing down, it's nice.  We work hard to just hang out and work together, which is good as there's another big event coming up for us....I've signed up for another half marathon.

Half marathon training is a challenge, as a single mom it's a bit more of a challenge, at least for me.  There are only so many miles I can do on the treadmill without going stircrazy.  Plus I like to run in the morning and not all of her friends are into early morning playdates.  So we do what we can.

Since she's my main training partner, as in she gets to pick my crosstraining regime and decide some of that stuff, she is really involved in the training.  Friday was a perfect example, we had a variety of activities going on and I needed to get 6k in.  The only way to do it was outside, she jumped on her bike and we made loops around the apartment complex.  It worked, not sure how many times it'll work but for now, we do what we need to do.