MY HUSBAND'S FIRST MARATHON!

Well, today Jim ran his first marathon in Akron, OH with a final time of 4:30:38! WoW! And right by his side was our "adopted son" Marc Staton who had never completed a straight run of more than 8 miles straight before today ... I bet he is not walking too well right now.

It seems our lives have revolved around Jim' s running/training for nearly a year now ... I wonder if it will change? I kinda doubt it ... He is already talking about his next one (smile) - I am so proud of him doing this and for the first time, at age of nearly 53, he did it in an awesome time! I "ran my tail off" trying to catch him at different spots along the route and I guess I was more stressed than I thought I was over it all so that when we got home I "crashed" and Jim was still going strong! After about an hour nap, I decided I better walk for about 40 minutes then I felt better.

It was so good to know our kids were both thinking about their dad during the day and proud of him. For some reason it means alot to have your kids "keeping up with your life" and what is "happening" just as much as it means to them to have their parents "keeping up with" their lives and what is "happening". That is so hard to do, isn't it? We all have such busy lives that it is hard to schedule things where we can all work it into our schedules and, when you have worked so hard to do just that, it is a real "let-down" to realize that somewhere along the line someone misunderstood someone else and we all end up feeling frustrated. We are going through that right now as a family. One thing I really appreciate about our kids is how they try to forgive and forget and rebuild their relationship ... They have had some major hurts and disappointments between the two of them through the years, but they always try to work through them, put the past behind, and build new bridges in their relationship with each other. I have seen too many families let such things drive wedges between them to where they just stop talking to each other. I know the Lord helps, but we are human and sometimes our emotions make us believe things that aren't true ... like perhaps our loved one did something on purpose to hurt us. I know Sunshine has felt James has done that to her in the past and I know that James has felt Sunshine has done it to him as well. I just keep praying they keep on loving, forgiving, and growing in their relationship with each other. I know they will. I just wish I could make "life" easier for them. They are so precious ... so very precious to both their Dad and me.

I know my son will read this, and smile, and say "There's Mom, kinda preaching at me again. And yet he will take it well and love me anyways cause "I'm his mom". That's awesome! To feel assured I can just be "me" and he will accept it and love me as I am. I'm so blessed. I also know my daughter will most likely not read this. She is so busy with her job and her family pressures that she doesn't often get "on-line" ... not that she is not interested ... she just is pressured by the demands and "have-tos" of life. My husband would call it priorities. My daughter will call me almost every day and talk cause she can do "other things" while we talk and accomplish more in her time spent with me. My son will spend time blogging with me and others, and call on the cell phone usually when he is enroute ... but he has lots of pressures from his church responsibilities that demand his attention during many of those times he can call which require that time to be spent on others than family. But that's okay with ME, because when he does make contact with me ... It is so special. He helps me know I am loved and we sure are getting more and more "gut honest" with our feelings and understandings toward each other and "life" in general.

Relationships ... That is what makes life interesting, isn't it?