Archive for October 2012

Have a peek into my life

I know I have certain days set aside for certain topics, but, yeah. That really didn’t work out so well. Really it didn’t work out at all when I wasn’t blogging for the past month. But anyway, I guess it’s time to spill the beans about why I wasn’t blogging at all for a month, and not really so regularly over the past couple years or so.

The day after Labor Day, I drove my husband to a 65-day treatment facility for alcohol and drug abuse. He had started drinking again about 2 years ago, and it steadily progressed to the point where he was drinking heavily 5 or 6 days a week while denying it was heavy drinking and/or that he was really drunk. Also during this 2 year period I nagged him about it, fought with him over it, and threatened divorce. None of my tactics worked on him, and none of his denial and manipulation worked on me. All the while the kids retreated to their rooms attempting to block out the dysfunction around them.

In the meantime, we were all going through the motions, and putting on the masks of pretending nothing was wrong. He was leading a ministry and a small group at church, and I was standing up helping to lead singing every Sunday morning and many Sunday nights. Everything looked “normal” and “good” from the outside. But we were a mess.

I prayed and prayed, and was mostly left with silence and no change. I asked, “How much is enough?” The abbreviated answer was my wedding vow – “Til death.” Yet I still could not stop wanting a divorce, and finally had to share the full answer I got with 4 friends when I asked them to pray and hold me accountable. That’s when the voice telling me to push for divorce ceased. Not because of my prayer, but my friends’ prayers.

Gradually the fighting between us ceased, though each of us continued to hold our ground, and then the secret came out. He got drunk and took a sleeping pill and I couldn’t get him all the way awake so that he could make it to the Bible study he was leading. There I was left with spilling the beans to 2 couples why he wasn’t there, and what had been going on. I narc’ed him out, and it sucked. But, it didn’t suck near as bad as covering up the problem. He was confronted, held accountable, and rightly disciplined by being removed from leadership and teaching positions.

Still, he dug in, and finally decided he was going to confront back and argue his case. This put me in a very difficult spot as I neither agreed with nor supported his position, and prepared for opposing him publicly. But when we went to this meeting he called, instead of defending himself and fighting his position, he confessed everything and announced that he was going to rehab because he was not in control of his drinking. It was in control of him. We found a place, got him all set, and off he went. He only did about a month of the 65 days, but he came home a different man than I dropped off.

There will be more follow up to this, but in the meantime, here is the testimony the hubby gave at church this past Sunday. The audio is bad because he spoke without a mic and I recorded it with my iPhone, but I’m sharing it anyway.

Cupcake Classic 5k

I guess I should end my unintentional hiatus? I really didn’t intend to go a month (approximately) between posts, but, well, I’ll blog about that later. 🙂

If there is a virtual 5k going on, you can bet that Molly is going to find it and force talk me into doing it. This was all well and good until I started training for a half marathon, and, well, it is hard to work in a 5k (3.1 miles) when you reach the point in your training that your short run is 4 miles. But I signed up for Jess’s Cupcake Classic 2012 anyway because 1) there was a cool shirt to be had and 2) there was a cool medal to be had. The only problem was I ended up sick the whole week and did not run at all until Saturday. :sigh:

So Friday night, I got a text from Karyn about running Saturday morning. It was totally expected because that is the day we do our long run, and yes, I had avoided texting her about the same thing because I was wanting to remain in denial that I hadn’t run all week, and therefore running 12 miles Saturday morning was going to suck. Big time. Especially since I hadn’t successfully ran more than 10 miles. But we settled on a time to meet and I told her I was considering baking some celebratory cupcakes. After all, I still had that 5k to run. And yes, at this point I knew there was no way I would run a 5k Sunday which was the last day. So, I forced myself to bake gluten free blueberry/blackberry muffins (muffin/cupcake – it’s all the same to me), packed up a few for post run, and hoped the hubster wouldn’t snore too bad so I could get good sleepies.

Up and dressed, and ready(ish) to run:

Yes, I am totally faking a smile after the rash of crap I got on Facebook over the lack of smile when showing off my new glasses. So, Kate, that fake smile is for you. :cheesy: And I am holding my head up in a futile attempt to cover up the double chin. 😉

I kind of guesstimated where the 3.1 mile mark was during our run, which I guesstimated wrong when I stopped the timer on my watch, and had to guesstimate a little more accurately via MapMyRun. It was 37+ min which I have written on an index card on my desk at home. Remember I said Saturday was a 12 mile run? And I hadn’t ran more than 10? Yeah, it sucked. That last lap around campus climbing that hill the last time, I was just about done, and unconsciously dropped to a walk. I realized it after a few steps and forced myself back into a run with the “You have less than a mile and you are over halfway up this hill and it’s the last hill. Run! You can do this!!”

And this is the only post-race pic I have:

And Karyn said the only thing that kept her going was the promise of these at the end:

She finished like 45 minutes before me, and passed me twice during my 7th lap. At least I think it was twice during the same lap. I might have zoned out an entire lap. It was brutal for us both. She ended up with a rather nasty blood blister, and I got some crazy chafing that nearly had me in tears in the shower. But those muffins were good. I could write a post on what a pain they were to make, but I can sum it up with this: the batter was the consistency of soft taffy. I think I cussed more than once while filling the paper liners.

But anyway, Karyn and I are ready for the half marathon. 13 days…