I'm Ba-ack!

After taking a four-and-a-half-month hiatus from blogging, I finally decided to get back into it. And cooking and cleaning and exercising and reading the Bible and all the other things I've taken a hiatus from. And I have my better half to thank for it.



A few weeks ago, Ryan starts reading a book he got at a coaching clinic. It inspires him. The end of the books goes on to challenge him to read a whole bunch more books on leadership.  So, he goes for it. And gets all sorts of great ideas to improve his coaching and his life. And mine, too, apparently. This, while I'm in the midst of an "I'm a first-year teacher again" slump. He's all eating healthy and working out and being positive and setting goals and I just want to gripe about how tall my ungraded paper stack is and how I don't have my lesson plans made for next week and the laundry is overflowing. Zig Ziggler responds to my whining with motivational advice about making important things a priority and making good choices even if they're hard ones and I'm just like, shut up and pass me a cookie.





But he finally got to me. Well, him and a snow day. For once this school year I was able to get caught up in every area of my life and feel a little margin and I had a weak moment and agreed to work out with him and a few of his runners after school the next day. I nearly died. But then I felt amazing and went on to have the most productive evening of my life. I came back for more the rest of the week and even though I can barely walk, I've never felt better. Well, maybe not NEVER, but not for a long time. I've exercised five days this week, only eaten sweets on one day (unless you count a super tiny sliver of homemade toffee that the lunch lady practically forced me to try...), read the Bible and prayed regularly, kept the laundry folded and put away, kept the house in relative cleanliness, got ahead on some school stuff, and wrote seven blog posts! Whattya think of that, Ziggy?

All In

My hubs is a coach. Not just any kind of coach. He's the all in kind. He sits home crunching numbers for hours after races. He researches training techniques, injury treatment, shoe types for overpronation. He knows what overpronation means. And he loves his sport, but he loves his athletes more. He agonizes over the girl whose mom barely lets her stay for practice, knowing that she might have to quit and then do no telling what during her after school hours. He stresses over how to get the boy he knows can run minutes faster to believe it himself. He gives me motivational pre-race talks without even realizing he's doing it. He sets goals with his runners and his team--and his heart breaks when they don't achieve them. Then, he gets back up and figures out how to make sure it doesn't happen again.

We have a yearly end-of-season party at our house, affectionately dubbed "Laytonfest" by his team a few years ago. You'd think the basketball goal and trampoline (we bounced the springs off of our old one) were for our own kids, but we didn't wait until Christmas to purchase them. We did make sure they were assembled in time for Laytonfest. That's what this team is to him - his kids. And when they're wrestling with my little boys and drinking my hot chocolate, they're my kids, too.

My hubs is a coach. And I couldn't be more proud!