I Must Be Crazy

If I'm honest with myself, I've always wanted to complete a half marathon.  Mind you, I have no goal whatsoever to run even one step of it, but something about finishing the 13 miles seems like such a monumental accomplishment. 

So, its time.  Thanks to a do-able training plan from my friend Kimberly and some very great friends who have committed to walk this journey with me, today I signed up for the Nashville Women's Half Marathon on September 28th.  I'm a lot scared and a little giddy - maybe thats from too much iced coffee today.  I hope its all I imagine it to be.  The most nerve-wracking part of the sign up was estimating my finishing time...  Oooh thats hard.  I put 4:30.  Walking for four and a half hours seems crazy and nearly impossible but with the right company and the right attitude, I know I can do it.  After all, 42 chemo treatments seemed crazy and impossible.

If you're in Nashville (or even if you're not) and you'd like to join me in the walk, please let me know.  I will share Kimberly's training plan and we can plot out how to work together.  September 28th will be one year and one week from the last chemo treatment so it seems a wonderful way to celebrate a year of cancer free living and a great way to re-commit myself to fitness.

Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the day I graduated from West Point.  Wow, 20 years.  Sure does make me feel old.  When we were in Florida this weekend, my brother & I calculated that there are only about 200,000 graduates of West Point in the history of the country.  That number seemed incredible small to me - and I felt very proud to be part of such a small group of folks.  And of those, only about 3,500 are women.  An even smaller group of folks.  Wow.  Pretty cool.

Life is good at home - we had a wonderful time in Florida including a spectacular surprise party for Cara's 40th Birthday.  The girls barely got out of the pool!  Here's a pic of my brother, myself  & my Dad this weekend.  Not much resemblance there huh....

Good friends...

It's been a crazy, stressful week in many ways. Housing market recovery is a wonderful thing but it sure creates a bunch of new headaches we haven't had to deal with in our business for years. That and having three jobs have me feeling a bit under the gun. 

But I wouldn't trade this for how I felt a year ago. No way. 

I have been in Washington DC most of this week at a "Marketing Leadership" meeting. Pretty cool actually - I was asked to be a member of this group made up of CMOs from leading building products manufacturers. Nice honor & it was really helpful to hear what challenges our peers face. 

So being in Washington is always a treat because its a beautiful and grand city, but also because my roommate from West Point lives here!  We had drinks last night and lunch today. Here we are this afternoon. I decided we look every day of our 42 years. Especially me. Hard to believe we have been friends more than half our lives - thru school, drama, graduation, deployments, tragedies, marriages, divorces, kids, jobs, cancer. Cori has always been there for me & I love her so much!

So I have some other exciting news. I was asked to be a member of the Board of Directors of a wonderful charitable organization in Nashville called Interfaith Dental Clinic. They do amazing work helping people with jobs and no insurance get very expensive, high quality critical dental work done for very reasonable costs.  They are looking for some help with their brand & websites in order to increase contributions and awareness which will allow them to serve more of this deserving population. It's an honor to be asked to help them and I'm thrilled to be able to use my skills to give back a bit to the town we love. 

In other news, the garden is doing great. Kendall took over management of it this year and it clearly benefits from his attention to detail. We have harvested radishes, arugula, baby kale & baby leeks so far. Here is one of my Don Juan roses about to bloom - they were Moms favorite. 

The girls have only 10 school days left!  Seems hard to believe we almost have a first and eighth grader!  Tomorrow is Eri's grandparents day performance - cant wait to watch that. 

The laundry room construction has begun. Last week they took out a wall, all the cabinets, the flooring, a closet & a doorway. It's hard to photograph but we tried. This week hopefully they will complete the plumbing & electrical. Next week drywall & tile.  We have a porta potty in our driveway!

That's about all the news we have!!  Happy Mother's Day!