Mum time

Now that I'm in the swing of my sahm schedule, I've been able to make some adjustments to our daily life that I'm getting some solid 'mum time' in just to myself.  It's revolutionary.  

As I mentioned before, I've been running on a regular basis (5-7 days a week).  I started out so slow and just running the perimeter of our yard (which 4 times around is a mile!), but now that I have more confidence in my breathing and abilities - I've been jogging the trails behind our house and around the neighborhood.  In the beginning I was only able to run a mile and I was cursing and having trouble breathing the whole time.  After a few weeks now, 2 miles feels great and 3 miles feels good in a challenge sort of way.  

And can I just be honest here and say, it's awful to get started every morning - like battling myself, but it's actually my body that wants to get out and run, it's convincing my head that's the worst part.  I like to go first thing in the morning since no one else is awake yet and I can get it done when I know there will be no interruptions.  As soon as I get outside and put on my sneakers though - I automatically feel better and excited to start.  

Sometimes I do end up having to take the kids because of an early rise for them or a late start for me.  Those runs are always a little shorter and start-stop-start-stop kind since it's a battle to get them to either sit still in the stroller and run alongside with me.  The farthest distance with them in the stroller has been 2miles and that was a really hard one.

The real reason that I keep running is because I love seeing my miles stack up for the week.  It feels like a gold start sticker at the end of the week when my miles equal 8 or more.  And at the end of the month to see how many miles in total I've ran is also a big motivator (I use RunKeeper).  That total miles part is what gets me running everyday, even if its only a short/quick run - at least it was contributing to the overall total. 

I initially started running thanks to a dose of major inspiration from Ashley from the Big White Farmhouse and also in preparation for a 5K my whole family & two family friends signed up for called The Gladiator Rock & Run.  We actually ran it this past weekend and while the kids played and hung out with Ninna and Uncle Jonny - we all ran, climbed, scaled, and swam through a 3mile course of 10 obstacles and a whole ton of mud.  It was such a great time.

Another very exciting 'Mum time' activity that is starting this week - is my enrollment in Jessica Roscoe's How to Write a Novel E-course.  Jessica writes over at The Creative Mumma and she has designed a course specifically for Mums who want to write a novel but can never find the time with the responsibility of, ya know, keeping children alive and all.  I read this from her e-course description and knew I needed to sign up:

Jessica Roscoe - The Creative Mumma

The first week of the course starts this Friday 9/13/13 (so you still have time to enroll and get the earlybird rate on the enrollment price!!  Come be my classmate!!)  The 12 week course is scheduled to cover topics ranging from goal setting, fears & insecurities, to editing, and self-publishing.  Public shout-out thank you to my friend Jamie (hi, Jamie!) who introduced me to The Creative Mumma site and will now have to have a special thanks in my acknowledgments section of my novel.  She is always introducing me to inspiring things and half-nude pictures of Joe Manganiello (which in and of itself are inspiring).  thank you Jamie! 

And this writing course is coming at great time considering I've been experiencing a serious case of writer's apathy.  bleh, sorry for the lack of posts recently.  working on overcoming my apathy :(

What are you doing to make sure your creative and Mumma sanity gas tank is full these days?