Many Good Things

Ah, hello there, Friday! It's good to see you. Although work has been calmer this week, it's still been a very long, busy week -- final play rehearsals and performances for Rainbow, a board meeting for me, and the usual weekly stuff. But it's also been a week filled with some good things, and there are more ahead this weekend.

First, perhaps inspired by last weekend's marathon, I achieved something pretty exciting in my running. If you've been following my running journey for a while, you might remember that I had to stop a couple of years ago due to a hip injury. When I was able to start again, I could run without pain, but I was mainly doing a lot of interval training -- running a bit and then walking a little to catch my breath. On Monday, I decided to see if I could go longer before I stopped to walk and was able to run a full 5K (that's 3.1 miles) without stopping. That's the first time I've done that since before my injury! And I did it again on Wednesday. My pace is still on the slower side (somewhere in the neighborhood of 9 minutes per mile), but at the moment I'm focused on endurance rather than speed. I'm also focused on not hurting myself again, so I've been limiting myself to no more than three runs a week and I'm always sure to stretch when I get back.

Last night, I also finished up my sister-in-law's first Mother's Day socks, which I hope she will love:

I used my vanilla sock recipe for these, but I did a tubular cast-on and 1x1 rib for the cuff to change things up a bit. The yarn is Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce in the colorway Cuddletime, which was the name of the tea that accompanied it as part of Lisa's Tea for Two club. If you look really closely you'll see they're not quite perfectly matched, but they're pretty darn close; I don't think anyone would really notice if they weren't lining them up and inspecting them closely.

Good thing #3: Spring seems to finally be here to stay, and we've had some beautiful weather this week. I have seedlings started inside and a new planter put together that we're going to put in the front yard (which gets tons of sun) for our vegetables. I have flowers and some other plants order through our synagogue's annual preschool plant sale (pickup is next Sunday), and I've asked the Mister for a trip to buy some additional plants for my Mother's Day gift. Our lilac bushes are in full bloom right now -- they smell wonderful! -- and yesterday I noticed that our roses have started to bloom.

Finally, there will be lots of good family time this weekend. The gang is going to be all back together for Friday night dinner at my parents', so we'll get to spend time with my nephew -- I haven't seen him in a week, and Rainbow hasn't seen him since the day he was born! And my brother-in-law and sister-in-law are hosting their usual Mother's Day brunch on Sunday. Lots of baby squishing will be happening over the next several days!

I hope you've found some good things this week, and I wish you a lovely weekend. Happy Mother's Day to those of you celebrating, and gentle hugs to those of you for whom it's a difficult day.