stride, modify and embrace change

i need to find my stride (in all things 😶 i suppose)

i need to work on my stride [as i sit here i think back to the times when I was in my stride, and what that felt like]...to find, remember or realize my stride...here is a 'but-kicker' or 'burpee'...my stride will have to 'change' as my path shifts or as my pace (or drive even) adjusts to a task; i am going to have to embrace change.

Pretty much the moment I get going into a "double time" I begin to feel like I am just going to fall down dead if I run another step; or run smack into a wall that went up at my start somewhere along the way. So my trainer says to me, she says "...you will find your stride..." and it resonated
Stride: a step or stage in progress toward an aim...Granted it also simmered on the back burner of my brain for days...

Once my ears quit ringing and thoughts settled down what i heard was..."It is Okay to Modify!!!"
Modify: make partial or minor changes to (something), typically so as to improve it to make it less extreme.
This is not something (i remember) any one person saying but it is something that I have learned. I am not saying that i have never been told "do not modify", it just means i realized that if there is truly no shame in my game, I have to be honest and realistic in my approach to conditioning and training my body.  Modify the lap!!! I modify other exercises (definitely insert someone saying to me "here is a modification for this"...) why not modify the long ass warm up lap(s)...I actually facepalm(ed) myself when this was suggested...why in the Sam H.E.DoubleHockeySticks didn't I think of that?

On an off day, I got a wild hair and ran/jogged/double timed to the mailbox...(the most glorious work affirming (striding!) four tenths of a mile) and it was awesome! and I got to do this with my kids who were amazing, supportive and (frankly) faster than me!

I have to embrace change...and stop building walls to avoid it.
{{{spoiler alert! i have already started , and had no idea , #CHANGEingMiLife }}}
?why do I get so frustrated???...with my kids or an alternate schedule or a work challenge?
... Because things are changing (and i have come to feel like I don't do well with change)
...i feel like when things are changing i will lose (the) little bit of control in whatever it is I have been working on because things are different, new to me. {{{double mind blown emoji}}}

Then...a foam roller...
a friend gave me one some years ago and it got moved around a lot and used a few times but not actually using a foam roller.

You see,,,the way i see it... Actually using a foam roller requires Needing to use a foam roller and if you need to use a foam roller you have been doing some work and can actually (by actually ((here)) i mean properly/effectively) use a foam roller...#yagetme?
I spent a few days rolling around on the floor on my back, even trying to get my kids to foam roll me before i figured out to stand against the wall...{{{insert another facepalm here}}}

I have been able to, and find more energy to be more productive and just better. I am working to embrace burpees (they are still uber stoopid!!!) and overcome my own anxieties that I am not good enough to be good.

i am Thankful, i am Grateful and i am good.

until next time,
...thanks for reading

the first time we were pregnant...

  About a week before my first prenatal visit (~6.5 weeks) I started spotting so I went into my OB's office and had an exam and after some perceived hesitancy from my doc who felt this was just a little bit of "probably nothing to worry about", I was scheduled for an ultrasound later that day.
 So my first prenatal ultrasound was with a technician who after searching around my uterus for a moment asked me... "are you sure your pregnant?"...and promptly ended the exam.
 My Best Man and I sat in shock on a waiting room bench in a foyer of the doctors office only to be told we could go home. There was no discussion about what to do next or about what had just gone through; or as we would soon come find out, what we Were experiencing.
 This was the first time i heard the term "spontaneous abortion" as that was the only explanation  we were given as to why I was (apparently) no longer pregnant.  Everything was so numb at that point that even if i could have brought myself to ask the questions, nobody was there...We were alone (sitting there on an island, in a busy ob/gyn office where we had just been handed devastating news). Alone.
 After tears and a lot of discussion about how or why we felt this happened and eventually decided that we would be fine, and regardless of this loss, we would try again.
 A week or two later is when things really got strange. I had not heard from my doctor's office and was told when we left the office that anything left in my body would flush naturally, so I continued life as I knew it, dental appointments, Vicodin for dental pain/anxiety and a particularly fun night full of libations and laughter. Waking up the next morning with a hangover and what I thought was a giant gas bubble in my belly made the idea of going to work a little daunting, but I was ready to go an hour and a half early, kissed my husband goodbye as he went off to work and let him know that I wished I could "poot".
 Little did I know that what was really happening was that my right Fallopian tube had burst open due an ectopic *ectopic pregnancy:a pregnancy in which the fertilized egg implants outside the uterus* pregnancy. Unbeknownst to me, over the next few hours my abdomen began filling with blood. I called a neighbor over because I was pretty sure I had passed out and I suddenly was so drenched in sweat that I was no longer wearing clothes. My best was called to come home and my job was called to let them know I was too sick to come in (damnit it!!! I was ready to go early, prepared to take that day!!!). It was not until my husband made it home from work, helped me to the bathroom, watched me pass out and vomit (one right after the other) that we decided to call an ambulance (since I could no longer sit up with out blacking out) to come get me.
The EMTs that got me to the hospital were kind (putting socks on my sadly/badly maintained toes as my neighbors gathered to check on the 'sitch...) but it was the slowest bumpiest ride and my husband made it to the ER before we did...
Here is a thing...

..this is all happening like two weeks after our perceived miscarriage, and having found out about it after an ultrasound and hearing those words i will never forget..."are you sure your pregnant?"...anything maternity related was not even on my radar, honestly by the time I got to the hospital I could barely keep it together just to breathe, as the pain rushing through my body was becoming unbearable. 
It was my best man that thought to mention to the attending about our miscarriage (basically saving my life) when we began to piece together what was happening. Things get pretty fuzzy from here, I remember there was a woman in the 'curtain' next to me in actual labor and I kept apologizing because I was making such horrible noises that I didn't want to scare her...

Once my doctor arrived and began to examine me I had some kind of seizure...she told everyone to back up and push some morphine that we needed to get to an O.R. Things are fuzzy(er) still from this point but I saw clearly the pain in my husbands face and had it not been for the morphine cloud i suddenly found myself on, I would have hugged him tight and told him how much i loved him...as his face was telling me.  I don't know that I will ever be able to fully relate how sorry I am for leaving him alone with no answers or clarity or even reassurance that I, that everything was going to be fine.

 I woke up in recovery to find I had my right fallopian tube had ruptured (due to and ectopic pregnancy) and been removed, that I had been bleeding internally and had two liters of blood removed from my belly and also been given a transfusion of two units and the best part of waking up (definitly not Folgers folks)...my amazing Best Man smiling down at me.