The reason for blogging

I’m back from my baby shower in Minnesota! The weekend was a lot of fun and not without a few incidents that kept us on our toes. But I’ll blog about that later this week. I’ll also do my 32 week pregnancy update once I take a bump pic.

Today, I wanted to share some thoughts that I’ve had for quite a while now. And please understand that I’m not judging anyone. This is meant to inspire discussion, not condemnation.

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Blogging is kind of a strange thing when you think about it. I don’t read celebrity gossip magazines because I don’t want to spend more time finding out what’s going on with Lindsay Lohan or Kim Kardashian than living my own life, and yet, by reading blogs, I know what a girl who lives out in California had for dinner last night.

Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing – either for me to know what she ate, or for her to share. Blogs are personal and the author can post about anything they want. If I have a problem with it, I can just stop reading.

But it’s funny how that works. Blogs can get sort of addicting. I find myself wondering how Person X did in their race. I see something at the grocery store that reminds me of Person Y. Or the reverse happens – I’m out on a run and start writing out my blog post in my head. I take pictures of random things “for the blog.” I share more details about my life on this blog than I do with some of my friends (because I’m the only one talking here!).

I think blogging touches on a desire in every human soul. C.S. Lewis said it best (as always): “All enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise. … The world rings with praise — lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game. … I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with. . . .”

We want to share experiences.

What once went unshared or was only shared with the closest of relatives or friends – the parking ticket you just got, how traffic was on your evening commute, what kind of peanut butter you think is the best, what you did on the weekend – can now be shared with the entire world.

That’s the aspect about blogging that I love the most: being able to connect with other people who share my same interests and experiences. When I was training for my marathon last year, I was inspired by reading running blogs. Since getting pregnant, I’ve added about a dozen pregnancy or motherhood blogs to my Reader list. If no one in your “real life” circle shares your interests or is going through the same thing, someone in blogland does or is!

But just like with any online community, I think there is a line. Do I know more about a girl I will never meet than I do about a girl in my care group? Do I share things on my blog to serve and inspire others, or just to talk about myself?

From time to time, I’ve fallen into the trap of thinking that my blog “should be” a certain way or I “should be” a certain kind of blogger.  I should post once a day, document everything with pictures, be on Twitter and Daily Mile and Pinterest and go to blogger retreats. Or I read a certain blog because they read mine, or because I’ve been reading it for months. But the truth is, I don’t want to be more connected than I am now. I should read only those blogs that uplift and inspire me. And I want to be more engaged in living my own life than I am in reading about others’.

I really do benefit from the blogging world and don’t have any foreseeable plans of discontinuing my blog (though that is a question I’ve also wondered – what is the lifespan of a blog?) or of not reading others’ blogs. But I do think I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to accept that I won’t ever be a “conventional” blogger. I can’t post quality thoughts every day. I don’t want to share every detail about my life. I won’t be buying an expensive camera to take pictures of my food in natural lighting.

But I will share my life journey and what I’ve discovered brings joy. I will reveal what God is teaching me. I will point to Jesus as the only way to heaven. I will share my love for endurance sports again someday.

All that said, I hope that my blog is a blessing to all of my readers. And I hope that you are out there, living your own life with gusto.

If you blog, why do you blog? Why do you read others’ blogs? 

Ten random observations of Colorado (by a Minnesotan)

{While I’m off trekking around Alaska, please enjoy these posts from the archives and random thoughts library of Life, Really.}

–Originally posted February 21, 2008–

1. The same street can have two completely different names. On one side of the intersection, it’s South Boulder Road and on the other side, it’s Table Mesa Drive. Makes it kind of hard to follow directions.

2. They never plow the roads when you need them to and they do plow them when the snow is gone.

3. They’re not very creative with street names. The same name, for example Arapahoe, is used in any combination they can think of: Arapahoe Street, Avenue, Road, Boulevard, Circle, Square, Lane, Pathway, Alley, Sidewalk, Gutter, etc.

4. They named the road in front of our apartment Table Mesa Drive. Mesa means table in Spanish. So technically they named the street Table Table Drive. ???

5. No matter what the temperature, Coloradoans always complain about it being cold outside. It can be 65 and sunny and they’re still complaining. Try living in Minnesota for a week. That’ll shut you up.

6. There are organic, overpriced grocery stores everywhere and they’re just as big as the regular grocery stores. There are literally four in Boulder alone. I personally have not yet stepped foot in one, anywhere.

7. It must be a hoppin’ auto market out here because I see more people driving around with the registration paper taped to their back window than I do people with actual license plates. (When you buy a car and are waiting for the registration to be processed by the DMV, you put the paper in your back window…we are one of those people.)

8. People regularly drive under the speed limit. This is unheard of in Minnesota. Absolutely unheard of. Are people just happier out here? More laidback? Or maybe their feet are lighter on the gas pedal because of the higher altitude?

9. Everybody loves to talk about how the weather is so great in Colorado. Except for this winter. And last winter. And the winter before that. Well, the weather is great in theory at least.

10. I love Colorado: 300 days of sunshine…………….5 days of winter.

Wise words.

When Friendships Fade

June 2012 marks 10 years since my graduation from high school. It’s crazy how fast time goes! TEN YEARS have passed. A Facebook group for the Mayo High School Class of 2002 has been started and plans for a reunion are getting underway.

I’m not sure I’m going to go. I mean, I guess it would be kind of interesting to see what everyone else is up to now and there are a few people that I wouldn’t mind reconnecting with. But overall? Meh.

It’s not because I had a bad experience in high school — I actually loved those years and I had some really close friends. But I don’t talk to them anymore. None. Not a single person from high school.

When I went to college, I remained really good friends with a few girls. But eventually, those too dropped off, mostly caused by my becoming a Christian and doing a 180 in how I lived, essentially making everything we used to bond over things I no longer did.

Once you lose the commonality of shared interests and hobbies, you lose what inspired the friendship. C.S. Lewis writes this in his book The Four Loves:

Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, ‘What? You too? I thought I was the only one’….

I still remember the first night that I realized my old friendships were fading. I was sitting at home alone waiting for my best friend from high school to come to town, only to find out she had arrived quite a while earlier but was  hanging out at one of my friend’s houses with my college roommate – without me.

It felt like a slap in the face. I hung up the phone and sobbed. Matthew 10:39 gave me comfort and reassurance that the pain was worth it – “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” I knew that to follow Christ, I had to let go of my old life – including old friends.

It was hard to watch the friendship fade into nothing, knowing that it was my choice. I was the one who essentially walked away. But what else could I do? Jesus had changed my life – I couldn’t go back.

When you have so much history and so many memories with a person, it’s hard to let that go. It’s hard to not feel like you should stay friends, if only for the sake of old times.

But that didn’t work for me. I tried to stay friends with her, but through a series of events, it became clear that we were very different people. The only thing keeping us together was memories. Little by little, we stopped calling each other. We stopped emailing. We lost touch.

Would I say hi to her if I saw her on the street? Of course! I have no ill will against her, or any of the other friends I’m no longer in touch with. But I have found that it’s hard enough to keep in touch with my good friends from Campus Outreach, who understand and encourage me, and whom I truly love and appreciate. You have to cut your losses at some point.

Out of the 5 bridesmaids in my wedding, I only regularly talk to 2 of them anymore. Even at the time, I knew that I was growing apart from 2 of them. But it felt weird to me to have them at the wedding, but not in the wedding, since they were such a big part of my life at one point or another.

Looking back on that, I’d probably have more of my family in our wedding party instead. After all, I’m still talking to them and will hopefully grow closer to them over the coming years. But those friends? I might never see them again (unless I go to the reunion, huh?).

Just today, I was putzing around on Facebook and noticed that one of those friends had removed herself from being tagged in some of my pictures.

Even though it shouldn’t matter, I was hurt. It brought back that feeling of losing friends. But I can’t say I completely blame her. I was a horrible person before becoming a Christian (so much so that I am amazed she kept being my friend then), and even after I did, I still handled some situations with her very poorly. I’m sorry for the pain I caused her and hope that she forgives me.

A part of life is that people change and move on – friendships come and go throughout the different stages of life. I think the biggest reason why I have lost so many friendships over the years is because I have changed so much – for the better (by God’s grace!).

So do I want to go to my high school reunion just to take a stroll down memory lane? Maybe. Maybe not.

Did you or are you planning to go to your high school reunion? Were you happy with your decision?

Have you ever let a friendship go because you drifted apart?

Five Randos

1. I started reading Long May You Run by Chris Cooper (with many contributing authors) the other night. If you’re a runner, this is an awesome book. Each “article” is only a page long, there are fun quotes and tips from amazing runners, and it includes a lot of fun stats and information about running that I never knew.

2. I love getting low on groceries. There’s something I love about using up the things that have been sitting in the fridge or cupboard for a while. I know, weird. Last weekend, I used up the last of our bagels that we’ve had for weeks, and last night, I used up our butternut squash, potatoes and part of a ginormous zucchini. Look at this thing:

3. There are two kinds of a’s. As I was driving to work this morning, I realized that while most people hand-write lowercase a‘s as a circle with a vertical line on the right, printed things use the kind of a used in this very font. I guess there are formal names for such a distinction but I just find it interesting that your brain can see these things without observing them.

{source}

4. I have serious baby fever right now. And I mean serious. As in, “Maybe I shouldn’t do a marathon so we can start trying right now” kind of serious. (But I really want to do a marathon and I’m pretty sure Travis wouldn’t jump on the bandwagon earlier than we’ve talked about. So…)

I’m trying to remind myself to enjoy the freedom and peace of not having kids. I can do things like spend hours upon hours running each week. We can go out of town at a moment’s notice. We have a lot more money for fun things, like elk hunting and races. I can have a clean house without toys scattered everywhere. The only loud noises we have to deal with are dogs barking (and then, we can shove them outside). I don’t get spit up on my clothes. My body is (roughly) the same it has been for the past 10 years.

But still, about 95% of the young married couples I know (IRL) either have kids or are pregnant. I can think of 3 who don’t or aren’t (we make 4). I can think of at least 10 women who have recently had babies or are pregnant. I mean, seriously. Married without kids is a dying breed. 

Anywho…

5. Working out this week most likely isn’t going to happen. Before Thursday night, I need to:

• Go grocery shopping
• Make pumpkin bread, chili, and chicken wild rice soup
• Clean the house
• Pack for elk hunting
• Help Travis set up the wall tent
• Go to Book Study tonight and Care Group tomorrow night

Yeah… I’m a little overwhelmed.

Just a thought…

I had this posted in my shower in high school and when I was in Rochester yesterday, saw that it’s still there:

Today is yours for the taking. Do with it whatever you want. But remember that days don’t stockpile themselves. If you waste today, it’s gone. Life is short. Live it now.

Where’s the panic?

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I’m sure this has happened to you. You’re walking through a parking lot, or sitting on a restaurant patio, or chilling in a hotel room – and all of a sudden, a car alarm starts going off.

What’s your reaction?

If you’re anything like me, your reaction is “Ok, where’s the idiot owner who will shut this blasted thing off?”

Not “Someone’s being robbed!” or “A car is being stolen!” but sheer and utter annoyance.

“Gah! Doesn’t that person know I’m trying to watch The Bachelorette here?!?”

How did this happen? 

I’m sure we’ve all observed (but certainly never done ourselves) someone accidentally hit the alarm button on their car remote (aka fob). While the obnoxious alarm cries wolf and echoes off walls, windows, and other cars, the mortified auto owner fumbles around with the remote, pressing every button they can get their fingers on, trying to get the thing to just shut off already.

We’ve also observed those overly sensitive car alarms that bark and hiss at you if you even look at their host car the wrong way. “I won’t let you get within 10 feet of me, so help me God!”

Add together those two situations, and subtract the number of times you’ve actually seen a car alarm going off because the car was being stolen (most likely zero, unless you live in North Denver), and you have the amount of times no one will panic when a car alarm goes off.

I recently observed a similar thing. I was at the grocery store on Tuesday night, buying ingredients to make Chicken Pesto Pasta and Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Bars. As I walked through the frozen vegetable aisle on my way to the dairy case, the fire alarm went off. The white lights were flashing, the sirens blaring. I stopped walking and looked around, unsure if it was for real or not. As I did so, I looked at my fellow shoppers.

No one cared.

They all kept shopping as if it there was not a 115 decibel sound ringing in their eardrums. The people in line at the pharmacy just stood there, waiting. Seriously? We are now desensitized even to a fire alarm?

I have to admit, once I saw no one reacted to the fire alarm, I also continued shopping. Meh, if the flames aren’t anywhere near me now, I definitely still have time to escape if the fire is real.

These two situations are prime examples of when technologies that are supposed to be helpful end up failing miserably. The thing about technologies is that they’re still being used for and by humans. Until we’re out of the picture, we just have to admit that they’re not going to function like they were intended to. We are continually messing things up, finding ways around them.

It’s too much work to panic every time a car or fire alarm goes off. So we just stop panicking altogether.

Although, I had this thought as I stood in line at the Express Lane 15-item Self-Checkout behind a guy who obviously had something more like 40 items, the fire alarm still blaring away: if the sprinklers went off in addition to the alarm, there would be a greater likelihood of people clearing out. But I’m sure there would still be that old stubborn lady, bound and determined to buy her prune juice, who would refuse to leave until the flames were licking at her feet.

Dear Lord, save us from ourselves.

(Disclaimer: I realize that standard fire protocol says that you’re not supposed to panic but to proceed to the nearest exit in a calm, controlled manner. But I think we’ve taken that advice a little too literally.)

You know you work for a big corporation when…

As a person with a work history mostly at small non-profits, I have noticed that things in Corporate America look a little bit different.

You know you work for a big corporation when…

1. You wander around for 5 minutes after work trying to remember where you parked your car that morning.
2. You don’t work in a building; you work on a campus.
3. Your office location is 6 digits/letters long, with designations for building, floor, wing and hallway.
4. You don’t know what 99.995% of the people do who work there.
5. There are thousands of people working at the same company you’ll never even see, much less meet.
6. Your campus has its own coffee shop, cafeteria, fitness room and conference center.
7. You have co-workers in 12 different countries.
8. There’s a person for everything. (No odd jobs here!)
9. The marketing department actually has (and uses!) a brand manual and AP style handbook.
10. Rebranded assets include company cars, conference rooms and hallway signage.
11. There are indoor walkways connecting each building.
12. You have 7 different bosses (did you get the memo?).
13. Your company has its own softball league, no outside participants needed.
14. You need a security badge just to go to the bathroom.

Do you work for a big corporation? Any insights you’d like to share?

A Blogger’s Manifesto

This morning, as I was contemplating writing a post about why I love blogging and what I strive to be as a blogger, I stumbled across the Blogger’s Manifesto website. They read my mind! So of course, I had to sign their honor roll and grab a badge for my site. If you’re in Reader, check it out.

The tenet of the Blogger’s Manifesto that I agree with the most is:

Be Authentic.

This has been the driving force behind my blog since Day One (which happened to be January 15, 2008). Do I understand that my religious beliefs might not appeal to (and may even repel) those who happen upon my blog for triathlon-related information? Yes. Do I realize that my crazy exercise habits might inspire some yawns or cringes from those who had been reading for my spiritual insights? Yep. Do I believe that there are other people out there, just like me, who are dedicated to both faith AND fitness? Definitely!

Instead of catering to the masses in an attempt to garner a bigger following (and believe me, this is definitely tempting!), I have resolved to remain true to myself and my beliefs by being honest and by sharing the truths about the gospel that not everyone wants to hear. I believe God is more honored by my not wavering from the truth than  by my chasing after subscribers for my own ego.* If I stopped blogging about God and my faith, I would no longer be authentic. Because God is my life.

This is also what I love most about reading other people’s blogs: authenticity. Getting a glimpse into other people’s lives. Connecting over common struggles and sharing in their victories. Offering advice and support. Being inspired to appreciate beauty and music. Having my horizons expanded. Gaining the courage to go after goals and challenges that once seemed impossible.

Travis thinks it’s weird that I read other people’s blogs, specifically people that I don’t know in real life and probably never will. He looks at it the same way as being obsessed with celebrities – that I must be so discontent with my own life that I have to live vicariously through reading about other people’s. Totally not true. In fact, I love my life. I feel very blessed by God to be where I am, doing what I’m doing. But I also love hearing about other people’s lives. I think this is a natural thing. Humans long for connection. We want to hear that other people are going through the same things we are. We want to have our voice heard. By blogging, we’re putting our thoughts out there, for all to read. I hope that others are inspired and encouraged by what I blog, as much as I am by what they write.

Another great thing about blogging is that it’s a great way to easily connect with other like-minded people. For instance, I love triathlons, but I only have 2 other friends that do them. So I read about the triathlon feats of Erin, Kelly, and SUAR, and the running feats of Brie, Lisa, Kate, SkinnyRunner, ChicRunner, and Kier. Camaraderie at my fingertips!

Which brings me to:

Be Appreciative.

Link love! This is something I am trying to do more, because I do really enjoy these awesome blogs and I think other people would enjoy them too. I also try to comment on several posts a day because everyone likes to know that something they wrote resonated with their readers, or was at least enjoyable enough to elicit a response. And I read a lot of resonating, enjoyable posts! This kind of connection isn’t always possible in day-to-day life. I mean, how often do we get to sit down with friends and talk about what’s going on in our lives in detail (and with pictures)? In my opinion, not nearly often enough.

So I’d like to know: Why do you blog? Why do you read other people’s blogs (like this one)? What is the main principle behind your blogging style?

*I am most definitely not saying that every blogger who has a large following is doing this. Just that if I were to do it, that would be the motive.

Faith, Farming, and Running

{Enjoy this belated guest post from Lisa over at Cow Spots and Tales! I’ll be back tomorrow with a recap of my training for the past 2 weeks.}

Something about rural countryside– maybe in particular Midwest rural countryside – just evokes religion. Now, I know people define religion differently, but in this case I’m talking about tall, stately steeples with bells that toll on Sunday morning.

I’m also talking about myself because I grew up in a community such as this.

I feel fortunate that my parents brought me up in the church, and I feel even more fortunate that God grabbed onto my heart when I was a teenager. He showed me why it was important to place my ultimate faith in him, and I’ve never looked back.

Yes, I am one of those people who’s sure I’m going to heaven. Not because of what I’ve done, but because of what He’s done for me.

Besides identifying myself as a Christian (as well as a daughter, sister, friend, and more recently a wife), two other large parts of my life include farming and running.

That may seem a strange combination, but I think God had a distinct purpose in leading me to both.

I grew up on a dairy farm, and I wasn’t always sure that was what I wanted to spend my life doing. I generally enjoyed the farm life, but the work did get long. I envied my friends who spent carefree days at the beach while I toted water to calves under the hot summer sun.

As I grew up, went to college, and met my future husband, it became evident that I did like the farm life. Once you move away from something, it’s definitely easier to miss. My now-husband also came from a dairy farm, and I knew if I married him, I was definitely signing up for a lifetime of farming.

I now work at the farm full-time, and I think it does have its blessings. I see God’s miracle of birth nearly everyday, and I can enjoy the beauty of creation much more than when I worked in a climate-controlled office.

Life still isn’t perfect. I also deal with the reality of death, the harsh extremes of temperature, and the feeling of having so much to do outside, it’s hard to know where to begin. I’ll be the first to admit farming isn’t a perfect life, but it is a good life. Something that helps me break up my long days and remind me that there is a world outside of the farm is running.

I’ve been running on and off since high school, but it wasn’t until shortly after I got married several years ago, that I got serious about it again. I think God must have planted the seed in me because I’m not even sure where the desire came from.

Suddenly, I was running several times per week, tracking my miles, and even making plans to do my first race in years. The act of running helped me relax and feel good about myself during a time when I was going through tremendous change. I was still a fairly recent college grad who had moved away from many of my closest friends. I was also working at a new full-time job, part-time at the farm, and I was a newlywed.

Things were just moving too fast, and God saw I needed an outlet. I remember praying for strength to deal with all of this chaos, and I think running was the answer. Running has also provided a unique way for me to witness to others. Just 2 years ago, I could hardly run 3 miles without stopping. This past May, I ran my first marathon.

When people ask me about it, I can share how God gave me the kick I needed to start running again and helped me through the rough patches on my way to becoming a marathoner. Everything good comes from God, and so I know where the credit for my success is due.

Running doesn’t solve everything, and sometimes if my running is going badly, it can even be a source of stress. It is still a gift I give thanks for, and I hope to keep using it my whole life.

If you want to read more about my farming and running adventures, you can visit my blog at http://cowspotsandtales.wordpress.com.  I also share about my faith from time to time. While some posts reflect a casual mention of thanks, others focus more specifically on my current thoughts on God and faith.

Thank you, Kathy, for asking me to share a bit about myself with your readers. I appreciate the spiritual and athletic insights you give on your blog, and I hope I was able to pass on a little of the same.

{Thanks for sharing Lisa!}