A couple weeks later, we spent 10 days in Michigan with the Jacobs side.\u00a0 We crammed 12 of us (my mom, brother and family, nieces and my kids) into my mom\u2019s New Buffalo condo.\u00a0 It was cozy, but we made it work.\u00a0 We played Scrabble, went tubing, played on the beach and in the pool, watched sunsets, hiked up the dunes, picked blueberries, ate A TON and just generally enjoyed ourselves.\u00a0 Are you sensing a theme here?\u00a0 We\u2019re Jacobs.\u00a0 We like to eat.<\/p>\n
We celebrated Silas\u2019 10th<\/sup> birthday.\u00a0 We celebrated Greyson\u2019s (my bonus kid\u2019s) 8th<\/sup> birthday.\u00a0 We started planning a wedding. \u00a0We took all the kids to Johnson\u2019s Shut-ins, which they deemed the coolest place in the world, after whining the entire 1.5+ hour drive there that it wasn\u2019t going to be worth it.\u00a0 (Just a hint: It\u2019s totally worth it!) We sent my oldest off to high school (very bittersweet!).\u00a0 We watched a total solar eclipse, sadly not together, but it was absolutely stunning.\u00a0 It\u2019s been a fun, and somewhat exhausting, summer of Lindsey.<\/p>\n But it wasn\u2019t all fun and games.\u00a0 I spent quite a bit of time working on some projects around the house as well.\u00a0 While the kids were gone in June, I spent a couple days peeling wallpaper, painting and surprised them with a makeover in their bathroom.\u00a0 They loved it so much, they all stopped using my master shower and moved back into their own bathroom, that only took 5 years of living in this house.\u00a0 I guess I should have done it sooner.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the shift in shower usage, also revealed a leak in the pipes, resulting in a hole in my kitchen ceiling that is currently under repair.\u00a0 Thanks, Roger!<\/p>\n The wallpaper removal has continued, with the kids\u2019 help in the upstairs hallway, stairwell and into the front room of the house.\u00a0 We recently hit a stall there, but will pick back up after these few nice days that St. Louis has for the year pass us by.\u00a0 I also started a project of refinishing a couple of old chairs.\u00a0 Since one of the dining room chairs busted several years back, we\u2019re down to 5.\u00a0 We need to rectify that before there are six of us sitting around the table on a regular basis.\u00a0 Of course, that will also require that the dining room become a place to eat, as opposed to its current state of \u201ccraft and game room\u201d.\u00a0 Ah, well, life is all about redefining purposes, right?<\/p>\n Another thing that happened this summer was I spent several hours working in the yard.\u00a0 This is something I always enjoyed the excuse of, \u201cI\u2019m in nursing school, so don\u2019t judge my yard.\u201d\u00a0 To my dismay, it was time to let go of that excuse and dig in.\u00a0 As many hours as I spent digging, you wouldn\u2019t know it to look at it.\u00a0 I\u2019ve made a dent, but it\u2019s a never-ending process.\u00a0 Oddly, I did find it somewhat satisfying every time I filled a yard waste bag to drag to the curb for pick up on Thursdays.<\/p>\n You want to know what I didn\u2019t do much of this summer?\u00a0 Run.\u00a0 If I got in an average of one run a week, I would be surprised.\u00a0 I\u2019ll tell you this, running in St. Louis in the summer humidity is abysmal.\u00a0 Any confidence you ever had in your abilities can be wiped away as soon as you step foot out the front door on day that its 95 degrees and 95% humidity before the sun is up.\u00a0 As soon as you try to make your feet move you wonder who put lead in your running shoes.\u00a0 Gross.<\/p>\n I found that doing yoga with a background of Pandora\u2019s Instrumental Chill station was just as productive and better for my mental health.\u00a0 I\u2019ve also found that after a long hiatus from the pool, as in the lap pool at the gym, I look forward to the soothing sound of myself blowing bubbles in the water.\u00a0 Silence IS golden.\u00a0 Especially when your house contains boys.\u00a0 I\u2019ve also averaged about a book a week, reading for pleasure is nice.\u00a0 And it\u2019s hard to run while reading, so I jumped on the elliptical with my book more often than not.<\/p>\n But between yard work and not running, here\u2019s what I figured out.\u00a0 This summer was not just about the summer of Lindsey because I got to play so much, it was more about the summer of redefining Lindsey.\u00a0 I started thinking\u2026I used to be a runner.\u00a0 But does the fact that I don\u2019t want to run because St. Louis is miserable this time of year mean that I should change the name of this blog to Rambling Swimmer Girl or Rambling Yardwork Girl?\u00a0 I\u2019m no less a runner just because I\u2019m not as fast as I once was, or because I am only running when I feel like it and, sit down for this runner friends, WITHOUT a Garmin (Gasp!\u00a0 The horror!)\u00a0 I\u2019m no less a runner when I average 5 miles a week than my friends who are posting about having a hundred-mile week\u2026well, ok, maybe I am less a runner than them, because I literally AM running less.\u00a0 A lot less.<\/p>\n But ya know what?\u00a0 I\u2019m ok with that.<\/p>\n The other day while I was sitting in a church parking lot with one of my best friends in the entire world waiting for the moon to eclipse the sun we were discussing how my relationship with running has changed.\u00a0 I used to run 2 or sometimes 3 times a day.\u00a0 Seriously.\u00a0 It was kind of a sickness to be honest.\u00a0 I had so much inner turmoil, my head and my heart were such a mess, that I felt this need to make the outside hurt just as much as the inside.\u00a0 Every time I ran and pushed to the point of feeling sick.\u00a0 Now I don\u2019t think of that as particularly fun.\u00a0 I told Lynn, \u201cRunning is there when I need it, but I no longer need it to be everything.\u201d\u00a0 Redefining Lindsey.<\/p>\n So where is the metaphor in this summer?\u00a0 Because I\u2019m RRG, and you know I\u2019m all about metaphors.\u00a0 Well, here you go.\u00a0 I distinctly remember one of those days of working in the yard, I was a sweaty dirty mess in cutoff jeans that I\u2019ve had since college and orange rain boots.\u00a0 What?\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to come across some long slithery thing and have it take a stroll across my foot.\u00a0 No thanks!\u00a0 And besides, the one time I went out in sneakers, I ended up with poison ivy on my shin.\u00a0 Grrrrrr.\u00a0\u00a0 Anyway, I was out there trimming hedges and gathering the clippings and pulling weeds, but it wasn\u2019t just about making the parts you can see presentable, there were points that I was on my hands and knees digging underneath the bushes pulling out old, dead, rotted leaves that had collected in hard to reach places.\u00a0 It gets nasty under there.\u00a0 And I\u2019m still bearing the battle scars of evergreens, holly plants and pricker bushes.\u00a0 It got pretty ugly.\u00a0 But it was necessary.\u00a0 You have to clear out the crap to keep everything healthy and growing.\u00a0 And it\u2019s NEVER going to be finished, it\u2019s always a work in progress.\u00a0 There\u2019s going to be blood, sweat and tears sometimes, but it\u2019s going to be worth it in the end.\u00a0 I guess you could pay someone to do it for you, but where is the satisfaction in that?<\/p>\n I am no more a gardener and no less a runner than I used to be.\u00a0 I\u2019m just RRG, doing what makes me happy.\u00a0 And somedays that looks different than other days.\u00a0 I will continue to redefine who I am, or maybe refine is a better word.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure I will find another race to train for in the not too distant future, but in the meantime, I\u2019m going to leave the Garmin at home, or read my WW II novels, or whatever.<\/p>\n So, what\u2019s next? The year ahead will be one with some pretty major transitions.\u00a0 I\u2019m going to start working again full time.\u00a0 I\u2019m planning a wedding.\u00a0 I\u2019m trying to finish some projects to get the house ready for 2 more.\u00a0 Redefining and refining.\u00a0 The leaves will fall, weeds will keep popping up, and so forth, but I\u2019ll keep doing the best I can.<\/p>\n People have also been asking what exactly I want to do when I get a job.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been answering that I\u2019m not really sure, so I\u2019m keeping my options open.\u00a0 I know I do not want to work in a nursing home, I prefer OB or Peds to geriatrics.\u00a0 About a week and a half ago, I decided it was time to send out a resume with some intention, now that the summer is winding down I should start what has the potential to be a long, tedious process (like yard work?).\u00a0 So, I sent a resume.\u00a0 Yes, \u201ca\u201d. And yesterday afternoon, I was offered a job that feels completely meant to be.\u00a0 Without knowing exactly what I was looking for, it is exactly what I was looking for. It doesn\u2019t always work out that easily, but sometimes, like every 400 years or so, the sun and the moon align.\u00a0 And when that happens, it\u2019s a beautiful, beautiful thing.<\/p>\n I\u2019m a nurse.\u00a0 I start September 5th<\/sup>.\u00a0 Stay tuned for more\u2026<\/p>\n
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