Tis the season to be jealous?

There's nothing quite like the holidays to change our season of happiness into a season of envy.

Is everyone dating someone but me?

Is everyone engaged but me?

Is everyone pregnant but me?

One of many downsides to Facebook/Instagram/whatever the cool kids are using (and I'm not one of them) these days, are its ability to make us feel like we're not measuring up.

Like we're not enough.

And everyone else has what we want.

We secretly resent the good that comes to others and wonder "why her and not me?"

A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones. Proverbs 14:30

Story time:

3 summers ago I was studying abroad in Italy. Chris and I tried to Skype every other day while I was there (6am my time/12am his time).

Toward the end of my trip, an acquaintance of mine from college got engaged and posted pictures on her Facebook account.

At this point Chris and I had been dating for two years, with two thirds of that time being long distance. The promise of getting married was made when the decision to go long distance was, but a ring was not in the picture. Not yet at least.

I was not happy about yet another Facebook post showing someone else getting engaged and I had no problem letting Chris know it too.

This Skype call did not end on the best of terms, with me essentially saying, "I'm tired of all these people getting engaged when they haven't been dating as long as we have."

Blah, blah, blah (insert typical bf/gf argument from any 90s WB series).

I knew our plan (to wait until I graduated & for Chris to establish his career in a new market) was what was best for us. I had been fine with that plan when we made it.

Until someone else had what I wanted.

What I didn't know at the time of our Skype call was that earlier that day, Chris had gone on his lunch break to buy me a ring.

To buy me a ring to propose on a time table that was right for us. Not someone else. A timetable that was best for our schedules and our needs.

He proposed five days after that call. In the airport when I got home. 

If only I had known...

We have to stop wanting what other people have.  

This Christmas instead of wasting another moment wanting what someone else has, how much better would our days go if we decide to let what we have be enough.

"All of You is more than enough for all of me

For every thirst and every need

You satisfy me with Your love

And all I have in You is more than enough"

~BarlowGirl

When expectations do not equal reality...

You might remember me saying I'd blog about training for my half marathon.  I do too, but then October happened quickly and it just didn't get done. However I've been thinking a lot about my race and this past year and I wanted to share something.

The day of the race was perfect. 50 degrees and partly cloudy. I was in corral 14 and the race started off great. I tried to keep pace with the race bunny to finish at 2:30. After the first mile it was pretty clear I was not going to make that time. It was fine I thought, I'm just here to finish.  

Selfie at the 10k mark...still feeling good.

At 16k in, I could barely walk. I felt immense pain in my left foot from possibly the worst blister I have ever gotten.

Slower pace means stopping to take pretty pictures

At 3 hours, 11minutes, I hobbled across the finish line. At almost half an hour slower than my first race, I felt disappointed.

I wasn't prepared for that. I was expecting a successful race with my personal best time.

Race #3 in the bag! So happy to have finished.

Of course this isn't just a lesson for people who run long distance races.

Jen Hatmaker writes in her great new book"For the Love",

"We must prepare the child for the path not the path for the child"

My mother-in-law got to meet Jen at a conference.
She knew how much I loved this book
and brought me an autographed copy!

I believe this holds true for us adults as well, "We must equip ourselves for our journeys, because we can't always control what happens in them. That's God's job. If you're a control freak like me this is where we get into trouble. 

I thought if I knew the race route, trained properly, got fitted for the right running shoes, I'd be fine.

I wasn't expecting to get very sick two weeks before my race and missing my last two practice long runs. I had also done two half marathons before this, including one on the same route last year.

While reflecting on my race, it reminded me a lot of my journey through the past year and a half since we moved to Vancouver.

I spent most of last year praying for God to move us out of Canada. I swore I'd vote for any Presidential candidate who promised to move the film incentives back to the states. And I'd be lying if I said sometimes those thoughts don't still cross my mind.

 When we moved here I thought I knew what would happen because I had moved before - seven times, including internationally. 

I prepared for the path of moving-just not myself for moving.

• I wasn't prepared for more job struggles and new health challenges.

• I wasn't prepared for how much harder it is to find friends as an adult working full-time and  for how much I would miss my family and friends on the east coast.

• I wasn't prepared for how different it would be to go from being a stay-at-home wife to a working wife. 

It was hard.

I thought my circumstances would change my attitude, but really it's my attitude that changed my circumstances.

My daily prayer has changed and that has made all the difference.

I stopped praying for God to move us out of Canada (Sorry mom.) 

Instead, I pray for God to give me strength to stay.

"That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Corinthians 12:10

The Wilsons Go Camping

If you went on the great camping trip with the FBC Batesville crowd in 1994, you were there the last time I went camping.

Until August of this year that is.

Chris and I packed up our car and drove about 3.5 hours east to Penticton, British Columbia to our camp site with some good friends of ours.

Our home away from home

The men on the trip called our weekend "gl-amping" you know glamorous camping since we had running water and restroom facilities.

You mean people go camping without that?

 Day One:

We rode bikes to several wineries.  The area is beautiful and we could not have had better weather.

We visited five wineries on the Naramata Bench: Upper Bench, Misconduct, Township 7, Red Rooster, and Bench 1775.

Been a while since I rode a bike, but fortunately... it's like riding a bike. 

This winery had my favourite Merlot.

The view from Red Rooster winery. 

After a long day of bike riding, we ended our day with a dinner of fish and poutine. Poutine, one of the foods unique to Canada, is french fries topped with gravy and cheese curds.  Our friend's parents started the first food truck in Penticton called Jeffer's Fryzz. It's delicious!

Day Two:

This was the more relaxing day of our trip. We retraced our ride to the wineries, in our car this time, and picked up some bottles of our favourites from each winery.

Then we came back to join our friends before heading off to our next adventure.

We rented inner tubes and floated down the channel. We didn't have our cameras to take pictures but here are some pictures from their website.

Until next year....

The Wilsons Go To Seattle

Back in March, Chris and I visited Seattle for a belated second wedding anniversary trip. The east coast hogged all the snow this past winter and left the ski slopes in the Pacific Northwest bare. Whistler’s loss was Seattle’s gain as we had great 60 degree sunny weather that weekend.

This trip marked the first time we could use our Nexus cards to cross the border.  We’re able to use a “fast lane” when crossing the border as we have already gone through a customs interview and application process. Instead of taking anywhere from thirty minutes to two hours, it takes five minutes (if that) to cross.

Best fifty bucks we have ever spent!

We drove for three and a half hours before making our first stop at:

REI flagship store

We spent two hours shopping here. (And by “shopping” I mean I played Candy Crush by their beautiful fireplace while Chris found boots for ice climbing while reassuring me that 'Vertical Limit' is not realistic.)

We ended up keeping our car parked in the REI lot and walking to the sites in the downtown area.

We determined that a city-pass would be our best bet and we resolved to see as many things as we could in the short weekend we were there.

The City Pass

The city pass combines admission for five attractions for a discounted price. It also enables you to skip the long tickets lines at most places as well.

The Space Needle

The Space Needle was built for the World's Fair in 1962. The observation deck is 520 feet high.  It's a small world story- my former boss at the 9/11 Museum worked at the Space Needle before coming to NYC. That was one of the reasons I wanted to visit.

A few yards away from the Space Needle we entered the:

Experience Music Project (EMP) Museum

Chris learned just how much I don't know about Seattle’s music history (or his type of music in general) when we walked through this museum.  I was able to recount some of what I had seen on E! True Hollywood Story about Kurt Cobain though. 

It was a neat experience to trace the music scene that started in Seattle. Some of my favorite highlights included:

The guitar sculpture:

The interactive musical instruments:

First Starbucks Store

Our first "we're just friends" because he lives in California and I live in Tennessee four hour date and our first "I guess we're more than friends now" kiss, (because God works miracles!) eight months later,  happened at a Starbucks in east Tennessee.

It was fun getting to visit the first one in Pike Place Market. I’m a sucker for all things sentimental.

  

The Science Museum

The kid in us loved this museum.

We enjoyed walking through the butterfly exhibit, seeing the scary dinosaurs, and running on the hamster wheel!

Ferry Ride

After walking nonstop for the first day and a half it was nice to relax during our ferry ride around the city .

If you look closely you can see the stadium where the Seahawks play. I don't do football, but I did find it interesting when our tour guide mentioned a few years that  an earthquake registered on the Richter scale from all those 'twelfth men' jumping up and down after Marshawn Lynch scored the "Beastmode" touchdown.

Crazy.

Seattle is a great city!

Here We Go Again...Training for Half #3

Three weeks in and nine more to go.

Can I be honest? Had I not signed up for this race at last year's expo for a discounted rate I might not be running. I may have looked into changing to the 10k, but I'm not a quitter, so ready or not, here it comes.

For every race I've done I always pick a theme song to encourage me during training. The song for my first half was "Let It Go."

"The fears that once controlled me, can't get to me at all."

For last year's Rock N Roll  half it was "The Middle" by Jimmy Eat World.

"Just try your best, try everything you can. It just takes some time, little girl, you're in the middle of the ride. Everything will be just fine."

This year's theme is (drumroll please) "The Climb." (yes from Miley Cyrus...well pre-foam finger Miley that is. And mom please don't google that)

In order to re-motivate myself I had to return to the excitement I felt last year at the expo when I signed up. Revisit why I'm doing this and why I want to. Maybe you need a reminder too. If you're scared. I've been there. Heck, I'm there right now. You can do it though. We can do it.

I can almost see it: that dream I'm dreaming: but there's a voice inside my head saying you'll never reach it.

It took seven years after running my first 5k to get enough courage to run a half marathon. The biggest thing that changed my mind was when I saw the New York City marathon two years ago. I saw runners who looked like me, who ran like me. I thought, "Maybe I could do that too."

Always gonna be an uphill battle

This is the first race I'm training for while working full-time and I'm exhausted.  I also didn't know that I'd still be working to take half of the 20 pounds that crept on my body after being diagnosed with Hashimoto's disease and polyocystic ovarian syndrome* last September and January.

The first ten always come off easier than the last ten, don't they? And can I just say we should all give ourselves more grace about our weight and how we look. More grace for not looking like supermodels who have been retouched in magazines, who have money for trainers, stylists and makeup artists. More grace for those who fight health issues, or who are working hard to get their pre-pregnancy bodies back.  Grace for accepting our bodies where they are today and not where they were a year ago or where we want them to be next year.

Ain't about how fast I get there.

I was always the last one to finish the mile in high school gym class. I was the slowest in college tennis conditioning. I used to be so scared if people found out how long it takes me to run a half marathon that they would disqualify me as not being a real runner.

It takes me about 2hours and 50min to 3 hours to run 13.1 miles. That's about a 13:00-13:30 min/mile pace.

You may be faster, you might be slower.  If you're scared you'll be the last one to finish, don't be. You are a runner the minute you decide you want to be.

The struggles I'm facing, the chances I'm taking, Sometimes might knock me down, but I'm not breaking.

I took a nasty spill last fall during my training. There was construction going one of the roads and when I turned to cross the road my toe caught the edge of the pavement and down I went in slow motion.

Life can feel like that sometimes. Everything is going well and out of left field, something knocks you off your feet.

Get up, keep going, you will be okay. We can't always control what happens to us, but we can control our attitude.  

Keep movin', Keep climbin', Keep the faith...Keep your faith.

Last March, I crossed the finish line for my first half marathon. 

I remember passing the 11th mile mark and being ready to call it quits. 

I was freezing! It was cold and rainy, my clothes were soaking wet. It was a smaller race and almost all of the runners had already finished. 

I was scared I wasn’t going to make the three hour time limit.

I prayed, “God if I’m going to finish this,  You’re going to have to help me, because I cannot do it alone.”

And with one foot in front of the other, I crossed that finish line.

When the time came a few weeks later for us to give Chris' company an answer about moving 3000 miles across the country into Vancouver, Canada,  again I prayed “God if we’re going to do this, You’re going to have see us through because we cannot do it alone.”

*There's a lot of information on the Internet about these illnesses. So much in fact that when I was first diagnosed my doctor told me to stay off of the Internet. Because of her advice and because I frankly don't want to reveal everything about my life on the Internet, I'm not going to go in depth on my treatment plans or my diet advice, etc.  However if have found yourself recently diagnosed with these illnesses and want to talk about it. I'm happy to do so, off line.