Well, guess its been a couple months, and here I am. About a month and a half ago my sister in law suggested that we use our FB motivation page and start a Wellness Challenge. So the Running Commando Wellness Challenge was born. Although my weight loss has been painfully slow, I love having the support of a group of people! We set it up as a two month Challenge, and we are just starting week 6. So far I am down 15 lbs, but lately have been plateaued big time. But I'm a fighter, I will survive, I'm gonna rock dat bitch! I love motivating and encouraging others, it also helps keep me focused on my own journey, and keep me motivated as well. I guess its also provided me with an opportunity to move my focus from being unemployed and getting nothing but "thanks but no thanks sweetheart" emails from my applications. Nothing like trying to find a job to make you lose any self esteem or self worth you ever had. (Warning, rant about to commence) I have an Associates degree, a Bachelor's degree, and will be completing my second Bachelor's degree this June, yet apparently I'm not qualified to do anything. Seriously, I can't even get a call back from factories. Grrrrr....

    So about a month ago my crazy ass decided to move up my training goal of doing a Half Marathon. Originally I was set to do my very first Half Marathon on October 26th. But I felt like I was ready to push myself, so I traded up from doing a 10k race on the last day of August to doing a Half Marathon. It ended up being one of those runs where everything hurts, I felt sick through the whole thing, and really did not have my running mojo at all. But I still finished, 14 minutes off my goal time, but I finished. For some reason, I'm having a lot of trouble being proud of myself. I tell my brain, we ran 13.1 miles!!!! That is crazy, and something that I could have never even dreamed of doing a year ago. But the brain replies, "but you didn't meet your goal, you should have done better". My brain is kind of a dick sometimes. I want to be proud of me, but I keep feeling like I failed. I am doing a new training program for my next half, based on the book "Run Less; Run Faster". This has been week one of the training and holy rusted metal batman, I hate it! I hurt everywhere. So I think that means I'm getting results! But I have a starting point for my next race, a place to move forward from.

   
   Life has gotten weird. In the last few months, I have become an aunt again, a great aunt, and my mom has been diagnosed with cancer. I get the feeling that there is some big cosmic joke being played out in my life. Its like one thing always has to one-up the last catastrophe. I'm glad I don't have a dog, cause I'm pretty sure that would be the next thing to go. My car has been going to hell in a handbasket lately, held together by duct tape and prayers at this point. This whole year has made me feel like I'm in limbo. I can't plan anything, can't do anything, I don't know what's going to happen from week to week. Being a bit of a control freak, feeling so out of control of my own life has been driving me crazy. I don't want to make plans, because I keep thinking "well, what if I find a job before then". I don't want to spend money, because let's face it unemployment barely makes the bills, and my savings has been shrinking not growing. People have been telling me how great I have it, not going to work everyday, no cares in the world. But the truth is I want nothing more than to have a job, and know that I have a steady paycheck to count on. Even my dreams have been plagued by my jobless woes lately.