health scare.

I'm going through somewhat of a health crisis right now. and I really could use some prayers.

it started on Saturday.  My right quad was a little sore, but I attributed it to running and tried to stop thing about it.  I was still able to walk on it at that point.  I did notice a little zit looking spot on my thigh, and I kinda picked at it to see if it was an ingrown hair, and it looked liked it was.  Nothing to worrisome.  Sunday morning i woke up and couldn't get out of bed.  My leg hurt so bad i couldn't bend it, bare weigh on it, straighten it.  I noticed it was starting to swell too.  felt kinda hard underneath the skin too.  I went along my day, but was starting to feel pretty crappy.  By the time i went to work Sun night, I was shivering cold, and could not get warm.  I was covered in blankets camped out at the nurses station only to get up to go into my patient's rooms when they needed something, and that was a struggle.  I was fatigued, nauseous and had a headache.  I forced myself to finish out the shift, but by 5:30 am, I was puking in the bathroom, had a 101 fever and the swelling was double the size.  Luckily, my lovely charge nurse Laura grabbed the first nurse who walked through to door on day shift and forced her to take my patient quickly so I could get out of there.  I crawled home, shivering and wanting to die.  I rechecked my temp at home and it was now 103.  I started taking ibuprofen and aleve every few hours, pushed fluids, tried to sleep.  I did sleep on/off for about 18 hours.

Since Monday, I"m still bedridden.  Takes everything in me to stand up so that mady can go out.  I've been in and out of the bathtub about a million times.  I've ice'd it, heated it, killed my poor stomach with ibuprofen and aleve.

I finally called my doctor this morning and said that I needed to be seen right now, so they were able to fit me in at 6 tonight.  I'm praying that they'll give me a bag of antibiotics and let me go ,because I cannot afford a self-pay hospital visit.  I am uninsured right now by accident.  Last year I started a new job, and I signed up for insurance.  2 months after  I started, open enrollment started, which I thought meant making changes to insurance, not re-signing up for insurance.  (that's how it was at my other job and this was not explained to me in orientation).  So I didn't re-sign up for insurance and lost my benefits.  Although I wrote letters to HR and the insurance company explaining the misunderstanding and the fact that I cannot afford insurance on my own and would therefore be uninsured, they refused to allow me to sign up for benefits.  So basically I'm uninsured until January 1st.  Please pray for healing and quick recovery, relief from the pain and swelling.  i'll keep you updated.

updates.

I really need to get better about posting.  I started this blog as a kind of online diary, where I could look back for years and read exactly what I was feeling at each of those moments.

Lately, life seems to be consumed by wedding.  Dresses, flowers, music, church, candles, mason jars (so many FREAKING mason Jars).  Engagement pics are this weekend.  Getting closer to deciding what we're going to wear, but still trying to nail all of that down.  I looked at the forecast and I was not particularly pleased....it says it will rain in the a.m. but then hopefully clear up by the afternoon.   Which will leave for a big muddy mess for Jon and I to play in and try to look cute doing.  eeeeek.  i'll just keep praying on that one.

Our marriage classes finish up this week-- cannot believe it's already been 8 long grueling weeks of therapy.  We really have learned a lot.  We learned that we have different love languages, and completely different personalities, but we also learned the tools to make it work.  We really, really love each other.  I never go a day without being told how much he loves me, how beautiful I am, and how he can't wait to marry me.  I mean what more can you ask for??

Now, onto the fitness portion of the update.

I've been doing myfitnesspal for 34 days now and I'm finally seeing big results.  i still refuse to weigh myself-- but all of my clothes are loose and my SKINNY skinny jeans are too big.  My scrub pants are falling off at work.  I feel great--- it's been a lot of hard work, a lot of crazy running and learning how to eat just enough, but it's working.  I want to look beautiful for my husband on our wedding day.  Coincidentally, Jon loves me the way I am and tells me everyday to not lose another pound, i'm too skinny already, but really, I want to feel good for ME.  When a woman FEELS good, she looks that much better to her man.  I'm getting there.  I have a dress appointment next week, which I'm actually going to KEEP this time.  I'm fierce and ready to get at it.  Bring them on!

Brutiful.

I have to share something with you.  Lately, I have found a new blog.  It's called Momastery.  People, I'm obsessed with this blog.  This women, Glennon, is the most beautiful writer I've ever read.  Her heart is bigger than anyone I know.  She FEELS things.  She FEELS things like me.  I've never related to someone so much in my life, and I don't even know this woman.

Anyways, lately I've been saying that I feel like things are harder for me than for other people.  I was born a little broken, maybe.  So I was reading her post from today and it hit me, and it all made sense.  here is a modified exerpt...

Some of us are born with an otherness that we feel right away . . . awareness of our otherness is often our first memory. We have this feeling that maybe we were dropped off in the wrong place, because nothing seems familiar. The people in this strange and harsh and  require us to play role after exhausting role. We are afraid of things that don’t seem to scare other people. Friendship, love, commitment . . . these things seem so big, so important, so murky and confusing and dangerous…how could we dare enter into them? We decide it would safer not to. We see that other people seem comfortable taking these risks, but we feel different. We feel more aware, and less capable. We rationalize that maybe others take all of these risks because they don’t foresee the pitfalls that we see. We decide, subconsciously or not, that we are different. And we are so full of this knowledge of our difference that we must find a way to relieve our fullness. We are like volcanoes with no exit for our hot lava.

OMG.  That is brilliant.   I remember as a little girl, thinking I was different.  I felt a certain awareness, even as a tiny blonde perfectionist.  I felt like I knew things about the world, about people, about myself....and I wondered- do other people feel this same awareness?  As I've gotten older, a little anxiety has crept in and there is a fear that comes with this awareness.  I now WORRY.  I worry about  others....loved ones and ones I don't know.  I worry about myself.  

I'm working on it.  J is so bothered by it that I have to work on it.  He hates to see me worry.  He hates to see me look at the world in all of its brokenness and only see dark, forgetting the light.  He accepts me for who I am, but I know it bothers him to see me worry so much.  And God doesn't want me to worry so much.  Sometimes I think I take the verse "break my heart for what breaks yours" too literally.  After all, He also told us, "Be anxious about nothing..." 

Just had to share that today.

29.

I turned 29 yesterday.

Next year, I'll be 30.  That's insane.  Ew.

Needless to say, it wasn't THAT happy of a birthday.  I finally understand what people meant when they said birthdays aren't fun anymore when you're old.  I'm old.  I may or may not have scanned my entire head for gray hairs yesterday.  (Thank you, Jesus, I did not find any).  I would've totally lost it if I had.

I don't like getting old... and honestly, it's not really the vanity.  I feel my body getting older.  When I do a double digit run, I feel more sore the next day than I used to.  My back bothers me most days.  It's harder to get my body out of bed in the morning.  Granted, I should be happy I can still do double digit runs.  My back pain has never bothered me enough to have to take meds....and I HAVE a bed.  I'm pretty damn lucky.  But still...

I feel like I'm a little behind the 8-ball.  I'm 29 and not married yet (...8 more months!)  I'm not preggo.  I don't have little ones running around.  I don't yet own a house.

Lucky for me, my fiancé is amazing.  He puts everything into perspective.  Who cares that we aren't the youngest out of our friends to get married, he says... we'll have a better marriage (not better than them, just better for us) because we waited until it was right for US.  We got to enjoy our twenties without much responsibility.  We're happy.... Amy, you're more beautiful now than you were 5 years ago.  We can still have a bunch of little ones....heck, we'll start on our honeymoon if you want.

 He really is wonderful.

So, I'll stop my whining and embrace my 29th year.  It's likely going to be the biggest year of my life, so I'm going to try to enjoy every minute of it.  I'm going to have a beautiful wedding to the love of my life.  I'm going to get to see my little adopted girl Dashi grow a year older, start preschool, and drink clean water.  I'm going to travel to Hawaii, Virginia, Houston, and California.  I'm going to run more miles this year than I ever have before.  And next year, when I'm celebrating #30, I might be celebrating with a third little Nilles in tow.  (you never know :) )

Happy 29th to me.  It's going to be a brutiful year.

Monkees...

Monkees---

Is planning a wedding this hard for everyone?

Sometimes I think I was born a little broken....just to be brutally honest with ya'll.  Everything just seems HARDER for me... I stress, I worry, I stress some more.  i'm a perfectionist of the worst kind.  This does not bode well for a little girl planning a wedding.  Every piece of this thing just seems SO HARD.

And trust me, I know, there are monkees out there with worse problems.  My close friend is 8.5 months pregnant, trying to fix up a new house, and trying to take care of her sick mom through months and months of hospitalizations, heart surgeries, amputation, rehab, more surgery, potential heart transplant, repeat.  Her mom will likely have to move in with her and her husband and their brand new baby so that she can take care of her mom and her newborn at the same time....and work full time....night shift. And I feel like I complain a lot more than she does sometimes.  Why is is SO HARD for me sometimes?

I worry that it won't be perfect.  I worry that I won't find a dress I love.  I worry that we won't be able to pay for it all.  I worry....etc.  One thing I don't worry about is who I'm marrying.  Lucky for me, that is the easiest part.  I'm smitten with my fiancé and he does everything he can to make it better.  He always tells me.... Tell me what I can do to make it easier... I'll take care of it...stop worrying.   One night amidst a breakdown he made me repeat over and over again...."life is too short.  God made me this way..."  over and over again until I was calm.  then we took a lipstick and I wrote it on my standing mirror so I can look at it everyday.

It's not just the wedding.... I worry about much more than that.  I worry about my friends who are hurting.... I worry about my adopted little girl Dashi in Sri Lanka and what she's going through and who might be hurting her.  I worry that I may have problems having my own little girl someday.

When it gets really rough, God always seems to send me a message to calm me down. This morning, I was driving home from a night at work (unscheduled, I was just there to help the girls since it was crazy-busy and I ended up staying all night....after not sleep-preparing for it, I was DEAD at the end of the shift--- I digress).... anyways, I started worrying that we won't find a church in time to have our wedding (Willow doesn't do weddings on Sundays so we're looking for plan B).  Just then, my mom texted me....7:45 in the morning.... "How are you doing today! Be anxious about nothing.  But in everything with thanksgiving give your requests to the Lord."  Thank you Mama.  thank you Jesus.

And I drove home in peace.

to Jonny..happy birthday!

What to do at 4:30 in the morning when your body is completely screwed up due to working nights and you can't sleep?  Blog of course...

Today is my fiancé's birthday...the big 27.  Little brat....here I am turning 29 in a few months and I've robbed the cradle with a younger man.  I remember when we first started dating--- it took me MONTHS to finally give into my crush on him because I was so against dating someone younger than me... he's only a grade younger than me in school, but I was always dating older guys, chasing my brother's friends around and god forbid I'd stoop so low as to date a JUNIOR when I was a SENIOR....

Eventually he won me over with his humor and dark good looks.... hahaha.  Seriously though, he took me out one night and I was actually just trying to get over a boyfriend I'd recently broken up with.... he made me laugh harder than I ever have in my life.  I was intrigued...  then a month or so later, he asked me to homecoming.  Reluctantly I said yes... and it just happened that I fell in love with him the week of the dance.

There was a high school talent show during homecoming week.  He and his friend Brett were signed up to perform an act called "Precision Aerial Grape Spectacular."  Basically they had a routine where they did stunts that involved throwing grapes into each other's mouths.... sounds insanely stupid, but it was beyond hilarious and AWESOME to watch! When the song "Regulators" by Warren G came on and he and Brett got on that stage, the crowd went INSANE.  I fell in love with Jon that night....it might have been his humor....his quirkiness....or maybe it was his confidence.  But I was hooked.  We kissed for the first time that night.  And a few days later, we had a blast at our first of many high school dances together.

We dated for a year before I had to leave to go away to college at U of I in Champaign.  Leaving him was honestly one of the worst days of my life.  by then, I was completely head over heels for this guy.  That first year we dated turned out to be one of my favorite of the 11 years we've spent together.  I ended up spending a lot of weekends of my freshman year at college coming back to see him, coming to his football games and cherishing every second we spent together.  I would so look forward to the weekends when I'd finally get to cuddle up to him again.  I realized that year that this man would one day be my future husband.

The next year, he joined me at U of I and we had a million great memories there.

11 years later, we're engaged and getting married in 10 months.  I CANNOT WAIT!  I am so incredibly lucky.  Sometimes I look at him and just can't believe how richly God has blessed me with this man.  My parents prayed for my future husband from the time I was born-- that He'd give me the kind of man He wants for me... and God couldn't have been more right on.  Jon is the most caring, loving, affectionate, sweet, funny, genuine person I've ever known.  Most importantly, he loves me for me... I never, ever feel judged or feel like I have to be perfect....he loves my imperfections.  And for someone like me who is the ultimate perfectionist, he's exactly what I need.  He makes me laugh on a daily basis.  He ALWAYS makes me feel loved.  He tells me he loves me a million times a day, and that I'm beautiful 2 million times a day.  What more can you ask for?

He's gonna be such a great husband and dad to our future kids.  I can't wait to be able to wake up next to him every morning, make dinner with him, go to bed with him every night, holding hands under the covers while we pray together for our marriage and our babies.  We can't wait to have our own family next year.  May 26, 2013 will be the best day of my life and I know it will only get better, because it always has, everyday for the last 11 years.

Happy birthday baby!  I love you so much!

Log Off. Shut down. Go Run.

Thought of a few more notes to add to my Runner's Tale post.

One of the most important things you can do for yourself if you want to be a runner is get yourself the right equipment.  You NEED a pair of shoes that work for your feet.  The first 3 or 4 marathons I ran, I was running in Nike running shoes.  I couldn't figure out why I was icing my knees constantly and had pain at the bottoms of my feet.  My Uncle Ron (an avid Marathoner himself) recommended Asics, so I headed to the local running store to check them out.  This is one of the best pieces of advice I'll give you.... GO TO A RUNNING STORE for your shoes.  Don't go to the mall, or to Dick's, or Footlocker.  Go to a speciality running store where they'll (for free) study your feet and your form and fit you for the RIGHT shoe.  Some brands that I've found good are Asics, Brooks, and Saucony.  I will ONLY wear Asics however.  Here are my babies that I'm wearing now:



They weren't cheap (reg 190 but I think I got them for 130 with a marathon discount). but they feel like HEAVEN.  Specialty running stores will measure and study your feet, fit you in different brands, and even watch you run to figure out exactly what shoes you need.  Make the investment.  Trust me, it's worth it.

Second.... invest in a good pair of running shorts, running tights, and Under Armour.  That way you have no excuse-- it's too cold, it's too hot, etc.  My fav running shorts:


I literally own these in every single color.  They're soo comfortable. they wick away moisture and they even have built in underwear (that don't ride up your butt).  If it's cold I throw on a pair of running tights under them.  One thing I wouldn't recommend for the serious runner is substituting yoga pants for shorts/tights or specialty running pants.  Yoga pants are made specifically for yoga and don't tend to have the breathability of running tights/pants/shorts.  You end up shortening your stride and slowing yourself down.  My running coach taught me this a few years ago and it's made a world of difference for me since I focus a lot on speed and extreme long distance.

Finally, get yourself some good running socks.  You need something that is gonna cushion your foot and let them breathe.  These are my absolute favs. Notice how there is a left and right sock.  These guys are so awesome that they realize your left foot is shaped different than your right foot- thus your sock should also be.  The dry fit wicks away moisture and those side panels shape and support your foot.  These socks are soo great.




Now.... get out there and go.  And thank you so much for the emails/messages you've sent me about your progress.  It is so motivating for me to hear that someone caught running fever by reading this blog.  I am so in love with the sport and it warms my heart that anyone could possibly be motivated by my ramblings.