Another year

So last week was my birthday.  It was really pretty low-key.

I woke up to run 8 tough miles with my running buddies.  The schedule said 8 miles easy.  Our group is mostly male, but I ended up getting into stride with 2 of the women and we really got moving.  We were talking and not paying attention to the pace.  Oops. 

Then I had a smoothie for breakfast, then ran to work.  It was crazy because while it was sunny when I left the house, some clouds moved in and the entire commute was blessedly shaded. 

At work, I was in the locker room getting ready, and I knew it was going to be a good day when this came on Pandora: 

 

Got to my desk and this was there to brighten my day:

 

It was a stack of three little bundt cakes from my accounting buddy!  She knows how much I love cake, and it was perfect timing since my bday was just before the one month pre-Berlin diet lockdown begins. 

 

The rest of the work day was very non-birthday.  I made progress settling a couple cases, and generally my case-load is more under control than usual, so no real complaints.

 

Unfortunately, I had made the decision to keep my miles lower for the week and have my hubby pick me up from work instead of running home.  Of course, that meant we'd also be able to go out for dinner instead of being all sweaty and nasty when I got home.  But he ended up with a couple very sad cases happening, one guy who lost both his legs when standing between a trailer with his lawn equipment and his car when a woman who was texting and driving swerved and accidentally hit him, so he was very late picking me up. 

 

So we finally managed to go out for dinner, Fireside Pies (a pizza place that I love, and as a birthday bonus, hubby doesn't complain when I ordered cheese salad AND cheese fondue AND pizza!).  But no birthday cake or presents (other than the one from him, because I knew what 90% of the presents from him were). 

 

But we continued the celebration the next night -- he had gotten me a cupcake and I finished my final bundt cake and got to open presents and cards from family and friends. 

 

Another year in the books... 

 

I want this to be the year of the marathon PR.  A crushing number of which I will be permanently proud...

 

But in reality, my life right now is as good as I could imagine it could be.  In some ways, having the goal of the marathon and the promise that it might happen is even better than knowing it either did or did not, and not having that goal on the horizon. 

 

It's like what I read in The Happiness Project -- generally the anticipation of something creates more happiness than the event itself. 

 

So right now I have the focus of training, the goal of the marathon, amazing friends to share the running journey with me, and of course the things that make my life good every day -- a husband who loves me more than I deserve and constantly strives to make me happy, a trip overseas on the horizon, a family that I love and is healthy and happy, my own health, a great job that's interesting and enjoyable and compensates me well, and a home that is nearly 50% ours.