By the title of this post, you may think its all negative, but it actually has a very positive, optimistic outlook by the end.

 Its been a really long time since my last post and I have very good reasons for that.  Mainly, the biggest one, ITS WINTER IN MICHIGAN!  If you happen to live on the West side of Michigan, LAKE EFFECT SNOW is something you are probably very familiar with.  Yes, I choose to live here and you would think I would be used to the winters as well.  This one so far has been a very, very, very harsh one.  Even for Michigan standards. 

 That’s why the 3^rd week in January is the most depressing time of the year.  Is this a statistical fact?  I don’t know, but someone told me that many years ago and it sure makes a lot of sense.  Top 10 reasons the 3^rd week in January is the most depressing time of year:

1.)    The holidays are OVER!  No more Christmas lights, no more holiday parties, just COLD, HARD, WINTER!

2.)    It has already been a hard winter and there is still a long way to go until spring.

3.)    No paid holidays until the end of May!!!!

4.)    Less hours of sunlight=less vitamin D = lethargy and depression (they don’t call it SAD for no reason)

5.)    If you financed Christmas, your bills are probably starting to arrive!!!

6.)    Most people that are going to quit have given up on their New Years Resolutions by now (good news for regulars at the gym)

7.)    Cough/Cold and flu season is peaking (probably from all that lovely holiday togetherness!)

8.)    Cabin fever is setting in, in a major way but its just too much effort to get out of your driveway to leave the house!

9.)    You’re probably still carrying around some extra ‘holiday weight’

10.) If the reasons listed above aren’t making you depressed they are likely making those around you depressed so people everywhere are rude as $ell!

 Ok, hopefully that made someone laugh.  For our family personally, too many of these ring true.  I was very proud of myself for getting in several training runs in horrible weather conditions.  They took a lot of mental energy, but ultimately were building my confidence because I was still able to ‘grit’ through them.  I was going to write a whole post about this. 

 Then we got hit with more illness.  Through it all, I’ve surprised myself by staying mostly positive because I always remind myself things could be a lot worse.  Still…I’ll just say how I’m feeling.  I’m sick of winter, I’m sick of snow, I’m sick of cold, I’m sick of being sick and of my family being sick.  I’m sick of not going anywhere except to work and the grocery store!  There, I got it out of my system. 

 Every time I start to feel like I’m making great strides in running, something happens and I feel like I lose so much.  I had a couple of great long runs…a 14 miler and 15 miler and the workouts were starting to click.  Ok, enough whining.  It wasn’t all bad.  I did manage to run in the morning before work for the first time since Alex was born!  That felt like a huge success.  I was in TX for work.  Yeah, a nice break from the Michigan weather, right?  Well they jam packed our schedule so full the only time I had to run was at 5:30 am after I pumped.  So I did the first day and it was really dark and even though I had reflectors and a head lamp I just didn’t feel safe running by myself in an unknown area.  There were a lot of homeless people on the street, which I’m sure were harmless but I just didn’t feel safe.  The next day I had a window of exactly 1 hour from when our last session finished for the day and our dinner started so I managed to get in a 20 minute run that included a trip to CVS to buy some cough medicine.

 At this point, I’m still planning on running the marathon, however I’m trying to not get my hopes up too high since every time I seem to feel good about it, I miss training. 

 Anyway, my point about it being the most depressing time of the year is that after you get through it, it gets less and less depressing, right?! 

 As far as family life goes, my sweet daughter is starting to really exert her authority around us.  I’m actually taking this as a good sign.  Who are we the toughest on?  The people we love the most right?  Clearly, she trusts us enough and is confident in the fact that we love her no matter what that she’s not afraid to really test her boundaries.  I really thought we wouldn’t have to deal with this stuff until she was at least over 1, and yet it doesn’t really surprise me either.  She has always been a strong willed baby. 

 Meal times have become very stressful.  She used to love her finger foods and would gulp down pretty much anything we put in front of her (except green veggies).  Now she takes 1 or 2 bites and doesn’t want it anymore.  And feeds the dog.  And throws food on the floor.  And begs for my food to throw on the floor.  So for a while now I’d get up about 10 times during dinner and we’d go through about 10 different foods to try to get her to eat something.  We were wasting food like crazy.  I was worrying about her not getting enough nutrition.  So I talked to the daycare today and found out she eats great there, its just at home. 

And she’s been throwing complete tantrums when she doesn’t get what she wants.  Last night I felt like every other minute she was screaming or whining or crying or throwing her body on the floor and kicking her legs.  Like I said though, it’s a good sign.  I love her just the way she is and as hard as it is on my ears sometimes, I wouldn’t have her any other way.  She’ll learn.  In the meantime it’s a good exercise for Tim and I in patience.