off and running

A friend of mine recently returned from nearly two weeks away, and noted that there hadn't been a post in all that time. It seems hard to believe that I am busier now than in the summer, but it seems that way. Time is chopped into narrow chunks - 6 a.m. up (unless Thea wakes earlier, which seems to happen more often than not). Out the door by 7 a.m. to drive Liam to school. Liam gets dropped off at 7:45 a.m. Thea gets dropped off back at 8:10 at Nikki's. Then I have a little time. I can't get into the library until 9 a.m. at the earliest. So what have I been doing?

Running.

The first day I went, I barely made it a mile before I had to walk. The next time, maybe a mile and a half. By the end of that week, I had made a huge leap, running more than 3 miles. By the end of the second week, I was up to 4.5. Now I'm running 6.5 miles comfortably, with the exception of a swollen knee that I am ignoring with great resolution. It is, in short, the best thing I've done in months. I'm so excited to be seeing such progress. For years I chonked away at the gym and never broke 4 miles and never enjoyed it. But this, I love it. At the end of a run, I sometimes hit this point where I feel like I am flying. This week, I logged 24 miles of running. Crazy.

Some days, I go to Two Sisters and work, but more and more, I find myself turning the wheel toward the Spit, regardless of wind and rain. It just seems like a cleansing thing to do and I rarely regret it once I get out there. Now, if I can just get this knee thing under control.

But enough about me. Thea and Liam have been cruising through the busy weeks like typical American kids, rarely pausing long enough to breath. It's getting colder and darker, and since we've decided not to do Hawaii this year, that's intimidating. Thea is working on talking with great determination. She seems to grow a bigger personality every day, though that hardly seems possible. She's also very interested in being helpful, though not much of what she does actually is. It is a constant challenge to come up with new ways to include her in the day-to-day chores, as she loves doing them, and without direction, will gladly empty the entire dishwasher - the entire dirty dishwasher - onto the floor.

Liam has been experiencing cowboy poetry at school as a cowboy poet from Montana has been visiting the school. Tonight he was strumming his guitar and singing, "Oh, give me land, lots of land, under starry, starry skies, don't fence me in...." Too funny. He is also writing tons, much of it understandable in a wonderfully phonetic way. He's not as interested in reading yet, but writing seems to be his thing. Poor kid.

Matt's back from surfing adventures in Yakutat, and determined to get wood as the temperatures are dipping lower and lower. We've had one really hard freeze, and lots of crisp mornings. It seems early this year, but maybe it always seems that way.