A New Day

Today seems like a new day for some reason, like a new start on something.  What the something is, I'm not really sure.  It's almost like I woke up some something more than sleep this morning, although it sort of came on little by little as my early morning progressed.

Mr. Darcy definitely has the shingles and is taking his 1 g of Valtrex three times a day like a good boy.  I feel badly for him because it hurts (and it's none to pretty either, but there were worse pictures on the net).  As he said yesterday while laying on the couch, "This will be a fun Thanksgiving for me." The poor guy.  He decided to go in to work today though.  At the very least to work the day in the office and bring work home that he can do from home tomorrow while resting.  Although, I have a feeling he'll end up back in the office tomorrow. 

Mr. Darcy's Dad sent a nice email yesterday telling Mr. Darcy that he needs to not internalize his stress so that he ends up with shingles on a regular basis and that he needs to workout more than just tennis twice a week.  He also said that I needed to help Mr. Darcy make sure he relaxes and isn't always on the go so much.  The problem is that I honestly cannot take on more of the child rearing or household stuff than I do already without seriously imploding.  If I take on more then I cannot workout or have a social life (not that I have an overly active social life as it is) at all because I'm doing everything I can while working full time and doing what my body needs physically.  As it is, I don't usually have time to shower after working out and starting work each morning.  I don't do any personal shopping, and squeeze my personal hygeine hurriedly either during a lunch break or right before I go get my children from daycare.  I feel terrible that I cannot take more of the burden off of Mr. Darcy, but I just can't do it.

In fact, this morning, I realized that not only does Mr. Darcy need to take care of himself but I need to take care of myself both emotionally and physically.  I can't skip or stop or cut short my workouts like I've been doing as of late because it really is the only regular thing that I do for myself.  When I skip, I find myself to be not as happy and a wee bit grumpy.  We both need to find a way to be more wholistic in our approach to life.  You know it's not quite right when your idea of a great day is that you got your kids and husband out the door to work and school on time, got your full workout in and had time to not only shower but also put on makeup and accessories to go with your outfit, and that you put time and thought into what you wear that day... not just it's clean and quick.

But there's something about that realization that somewhere is giving me a lot of optimism that we can figure it out.  Maybe it's because I got my workout in this morning that all seems right in the world again.  Maybe it's because despite having his bone marrow biopsy yesterday where a nerve got hit and they had to remove and start again that my friend Doug sent a funny and yet serious email update about things.  Maybe it's reading a blog from someone who discovered that her faith in God and just living her life believing in God and finding out that she's helping others when she didn't even realize it.  Maybe it's the spirit of Thanksgiving and just being thankful for what I have.  Maybe it's all of it all at once.  But whatever it is, I like it.

I went for a 20 minute run this morning.  With the words of Coach in my head, "you need to heal completely and then we can work on speed work" as she teased last week after my fast mile, I set out with the thought that I needed to ease up and just do the run.  Coach has also wanted me to throw a minute of walking in (I can't think of the method's name at the moment...), so I decided as I set out that I would do 9/1's today.  Well, even with "taking it easy" I did my first mile in a hair less than 9 minutes, and the 2nd mile (only because of the 1 minute of walking I wager) in about 10 minutes.  So that set a nice stage for my 1/2 hour of yoga.  I did a session that is for legs, back and shoulders since that's been a needed area of focus as of late.  It was wonderful and as the words of the Namaste Yoga practitioner ended the session, I did feel "open to the universe."