Avocado Fetish and Christmas Thanks

I've been packing and planning, planning and packing for Arizona, to run Across the Years.

I worked 3 days in a row at the beginning of the week and it wiped me out, I was still a vegetable as of Thursday. As a result I only got 30 miles in for last week. And this week I planned to take it easy anyway, so I guess that makes it a taper.

An unintentional taper, that is. But it means I have no reason not to run my butt off. If I can be smart about my breaks, I will have a great race. I need to be overly organized before it. Everything in easy grabbing distance. No bending over to get stuff out of the cooler, it will have to be on the table.

I won't be overly intense, I want to have fun. I do plan to Facebook about it, and I'll take the midnight toast and lap with everyone. I got a portable battery recharger for my cell phone so I will be able to have power through the 24 hours.

But I plan to be too busy running to text much, and I'll do the brief updates on Facebook as I can, on my walking segments. Maybe I'll even find someone to write them for me.

We spent Christmas Day playing in the snow with the girls. We're not much into the holidays, not much into gift giving, certainly not into shopping. The girls got a new duck and some treats, and I made a special Christmas dinner for them with kangaroo meat, rice and carrots.

We actually splurged this year by putting up Christmas lights in our front windows, inside the house. I was thinking next year maybe I'll decorate the woman cave. We don't have a Christmas tree either, instead we use the avocado plant Dennis has been growing for a couple of years now.

He secretly wants to be an avocado farmer. I have to throw all our avocado seeds away before he can get to them, otherwise we'll have a crop of a dozen little jars with water and avocado seeds propped up by toothpicks on all the windowsills in the house. It's like a fetish.

We got 3 new inches of snow on Christmas eve. We need the snow, and I'm glad we're getting it, I like it better when it comes in small, steady doses instead of one big dump. And did I mention it's FREAKING COLD?!!!

Arizona looks a little better...

I've been occupying myself with blogging about trivial things. It's actually been a hard week, not feeling like diving too far into the real stuff that's been on my mind. This time of year, people struggle, and I've been watching it with a front row seat.

At work, we see patients barely hanging on through the holidays, and we know they might not be around by the New Year. It's hard to send a patient off to Hospice when you've cared for them for months or years, especially young ones.

People who have suffered losses over the past year feel their grief even more intensely during the holidays. And some people are unfortunate to get a bad diagnosis or bad news at this time, which makes things overwhelming and terrifying.

I am thankful to have my health and that the health of my family is intact, and that we are all so fortunate to have what we do have.

I am thankful for so many good things in running this past year. I had a great running year, I ran two races I'd never run before: Cornbelt 24 Hour and 24 The Hard Way 12 Hour, and both turned out to be awesome, fun, superbly organized events that I look forward to running again.

I had a blast running the Mickelson Trail with Ed Green. Toughing it out through our little adventure through adversity in the Black Hills was a run I will remember forever.

This year I met Shannon Price "Wheaties Boy" and he has turned out to be the key that unlocked my renewed enthusiasm for fast running and going after my unfinished business. He's been a great running buddy and an amazing source of positive energy for this sometimes jaded old runner.

And one more thing I'm thankful for: Today I was getting dressed so we could take the girls out to play in the snow, and I was looking for my windpants. I own two pairs of windpants, one is size extra small that I haven't been able to fit into since 2008, and a size small pair with more room in them that I use all the time now.

I pulled the windpants off the hanger in the closet, was pulling them up over my tights, and they were a little small over my hips, but I managed to get them on and they fit fine. I was a little disturbed that the pants that have always fit with plenty of extra room were hard to pull over my butt and hips.

Then I realized, I was wearing the extra smalls!!!!

WOOHOO! Christmas bonus!