Coffee rambles & the SMALL MOMENTS!!

A little rambling while I drink my morning coffee......

I am sitting here wrapping up my week at the beach with my sweet family - looking out the window at the ocean and the sunshine (YES - the sun - even at the Oregon Coast  in the spring!!!).  It has been a much needed break from the scramble of our daily lives and some good time with our favorite guy in the whole world - DADDY!!!  My sweet husband works very hard, and travels quite a bit with his job and is just coming off of a VERY busy travel season.  The kids have played every game they could think of with him, built every lego vehicle possible, wrestled him to exhaustion, said "daddy, watch this" hundreds of times and gotten in some REALLY good daddy snuggles.  It has been a good week!

The beach always seems to be a time of reflection for me.  Maybe because I am forced to slow down - maybe because it represents some of my favorite times with family, my husband and my sweet mom.  Somehow my head seems clear of all the unnecessary and I am reminded of what is important - what is right in front of me.  It is easier to take in those "small moments" when we choose to slow down - those moments that I have a feeling will mean the most in the end.  When I feel my life getting on "overload" - which seems to happen in a blink of an eye these days - I feel a little nudge from my mom telling me to slow down and LIVE instead of just getting through the day.  Even among school schedules, volunteering, keeping up with the house, dance and basketball, my own running schedule, birthday parties...........I want to learn how to take in the small moments.  When my sweet mom was sick (read here how her fight keeps me going in running and in life!!) we were forced to slow down, and I was blessed with the opportunity to be by her side for her battle with cancer and take in the small moments - the good and the bad.  Those moments hold extreme value to how I face my daily life.  Loss - it can actually be used for growth - but only if we allow ourselves to drudge though the yuckiness of it and use it to grow.  

What are the small moments, the valuable moments that I allow the noise and distractions of my life take away from me???  When I am just trying to get through - whether with my kids, my husbands, my friends, the person right in front of me at the store, making dinner - even those small moments when I am just trying to get through a run instead of really experiencing it.  I know the reality of being a mom - adds an expected amount of craziness...............but moments like these - when I have chose to slow down on a vacation at the beach remind me............. I am going to figure out how to return to "my world" and re-claim some of those beautiful "small moments".  

Ok - not so much about running today - but it's all this that we carry through those logged miles - Right???  And we if don't change much more than our pace or distance we can run - what is it all for anyway??

Now to pack up - head home.  Get my head in the game for BOSTON in a little over a week!!!  And party with Run Like a Mother for their Anniversary party - be there or be square (forgive me for my current 80's obsession!!).