One Good Thing

Since my running is very limited right now, I don’t have a lot to write about my workouts. Oh, sure, I could write about my elliptical training.

Last week, I ran six days on the elliptical for a total of 32.33 miles.

That’s a pretty short post.

I could tell you I am fairly happy with my plank challenge progress. I can now hold a forearm plank for 4 minutes 30 seconds.

Still pretty short.

Instead of discussing my very limited fitness activities in this post, I am going to, um, appropriate my blogging friend Cora’s idea and write about a few “One Good Thing“s.

One Good Graphic

Thank you to Christine from the blog Poetry for Healing.

This is my attitude when I am grocery shopping. I live in the same town in which I was a high school teacher for 30 years. If I taught 150 kids each year, that’s 4500 former students in total. Add in the parents of former students, former colleagues, and other assorted random acquaintances, and I know a lot of people in this town. And they all seem to go to the same grocery store as me.

Grocery shopping is my least favorite chore. I go in armed with a list to expedite my excursion. I am a fairly social person, but not in a grocery store. There, I just keep my head down and plow through. This graphic sums up how I feel in the grocery store.

One Good Running Quote – Inspirational

How many mornings have I deliberated with myself about whether I wanted to go for a run or not? I can honestly say I can never remember a time when I regretted going. There were many times when I regretted not going, in fact, almost every time I opted not to run, I later regretted it.

Running has changed my life in so many ways, all of them for the better. It has made me stronger, given me more self-confidence, allowed me to feel calm and at peace, increased my patience, taught me that I can do hard things if I persevere…should I keep going? The best thing about running is the people it has brought into my life, both in person and online (Dear Reader). It has, without a doubt, changed my life, and for this, I am forever grateful.

One (OK, Two) Good Running Quote(s) – Funny

This Jimmy Fallon quote says a lot about us marathoners. We do tend to be pretty full of ourselves, don’t we? We find smooth, insidious ways to work our recent running exploits into any conversation.

My Friend: “I got fired from my job.”
Me: “I’m so sorry. Did I tell you I just ran a marathon?”

I use this one alllllll the time!

This quote makes me think about all the moments I fritter away doing something mindless like scrubbing the kitchen floor on my hands and knees. At the end of my life will it really matter that you could eat off my kitchen floor? Is this really the best use of my precious and finite amount of time on this earth?

The housework will still be there when I get back from a run. Unless, of course, Bill does it while I am running (even better!)

One Good Book

I am reading “White Picket Fences” by Amy Julia Becker. I know this book was recommended to me by a blogger I read, but, for the life of me I can’t remember whom! If you recommended this book and are reading this, please say something in the comment section. It is a great book!

This book about privilege is told with a gentle storyteller’s voice. Amy Julia tells stories about growing up in a small town in the American South. She discusses her family, her experiences, and how she came to examine her views on race, disabilities, and poverty.

She writes about an incident when Caroline, her African-American caregiver when she was a little girl, called her father years after the family moved away from their North Carolina home and asked him if he would send her money to buy glasses.

Her father agreed, then asked why. Caroline told him that she wanted to learn how to read. Her mother had pulled her out of school when she was six because she thought it was not safe, so she had never learned when she was a child.

“At first I heard that story as beautiful, a testimony to Caroline’s perseverance and creativity, to my father’s generosity, to the years of trust and respect built up between them. But then it struck me, like a blow to my windpipe. How many years had that longing gone unfulfilled? And how many of those years were spent with me nearby, curled up in a chair with a book?”

In this book, Amy Julia Becker tenderly urges you to think about perceptions you have of those who are different from you, always a worthwhile topic to consider.

Tell, me what is One Good Thing you have come across lately?

 

I am linking up with Fairytales and Fitness for Friday 5, Holly from HoHo Runs and Wendy from Taking the Long Way Home for their Weekly Wrap, Running on Happy, Crazy Running Girl, and Coach Debbie Runs  for the Coaches’ Corner, and The Blended Blog for Friday Loves.