teach.run.pray.

Let me start with a quick recap:  About five years ago, I started having chronic lower back and hip pain. Last year, it was at it's worst. There were days I could hardly walk. I blamed it on exercise and my running form (which definitely didn't help at all). After several years of chiropractic care, several visits to an orthopedic doctor and sports orthopedic doctor, physical therapy, massage therapy, and a running coach, things started to look up. I was having minimal pain in my lower back and hips for awhile - until it started again (much less invasive pain this time around). Without the help of my chiropractor and running coach, I wouldn't be running today. To them, I owe my deepest, most heartfelt gratitude. I promise I'm going somewhere with all this gibber jabber... For those of you who have been reading from the beginning, you know the past twelve months have not been the healthiest twelve months of my life. Last March, I was lucky enough to experience both...

Thanksgiving 2015 Everytime I walk down the cereal aisle in the grocery store, Tony the Tiger puts a grin on my face - after all Frosted Flakes are GRRREAAT! Frosted Flakes are by far my most favorite cereal - and that milk once all the frosted has oozed in, oh so delicious! Well, as I was putting my bowl in the sink tonight, after my first bowl of Frosted Flakes in years, my heart smiled a little, and I remembered my dad (Frosted Flakes were his favorite too), which led me down the hallway, into our guest room, to a little silver box that smells like moth balls. Inside this silver box are letters and cards and poems and pictures that I haven't been able to part with over the years. Inside this box are letters from my grandmother (We were pen pals from elementary school to my early college days.) letters and cards from friends, a Christmas card from my oldest sister - which is the only thing I have of her's - some letters from my mom, and a letter to my mom from my dad....

Kim Bearden touched my heart the day I visited Ron Clark Academy with my colleagues. I sat in a classroom with at least 75 other adults and fought back tears, because I was embarrassed to cry, however, I really really wanted to. She spoke very vulnerably to a room of educators about some personal challenges and how those challenges brought her to where she is today. Her story resonated with me that particular day and even more so today. It has been floating around in my heart for awhile, and I've been wanting to write about it, but the time just didn't seem right - until now. She walked in circles on stage - front and center - and spilled some deep life lessons. She knows all too well that raw emotion of disappointment and heartache and pain and rage. She knows all too well how arduous it is to hold your shit together for everyone else's well being - when all you want to do is mourn and weep and pulverize life's problems. As she was telling her intense dramatic life...