Jobs

This week, I've been struggling with motivation: to exercise and to go to my cleaning job, mostly, but also to mow the lawn and to vacuum the house. I don't know if it's the weather, or if it's the fact that I work 3 part-time jobs for an average of 50 hours/week except for last week and this week when I worked 60 hours/week. I don't mean to complain. I am truly thankful to have each job, since it allows for bills to be paid. I am just getting tired of working from 7am-9:30pm at least once a week. And last week, I worked 7am-10:30pm on Monday, 8am-9pm on Tuesday, and 7am-9pm on Wednesday. That's 40 hours in 3 days. Yuck!

I have applied for and received my Wisconsin teaching license, and I've been applying for teaching jobs when I come across them. But the school year doesn't start until August, so I still have to make it through the summer. And there's no guarantee that I'll be hired as a teacher somewhere. It has been 9 years since I've been a classroom teacher, and in case you haven't noticed, the economy still sucks. There are a lot of people looking for jobs, including teachers. That said, if you have any connections in any school districts, I'd appreciate any advocating on my behalf.

On the upside, I'm spending this Saturday volunteering at Habitat for Humanity with my parents. Hooray!! And without requesting the night off, I'm not waitressing afterward. Even bigger hooray!!

Lake Monona 20K

Well, this past Saturday, I completed the Lake Monona 20K! It's a 12.4 mile run around Lake Monona here in Madison. It's really a very scenic route. It follows the bike route, so if you want to bike what I ran, you can! Just follow the spray painted markers on the pavement that say LMR.

A friend of mine and I had been training together, and we agreed to run together. The first half of the run was good - the wind was at our backs, and we were inspired by all the other runners. We were on pace for an 11-minute mile, which is significantly faster than we'd done any of our long runs (which were consistently 11.5 minute miles). And then we got around the northern side of the lake. The wind was now in our faces. My knees started aching. My upper thighs started chafing. My running buddy got her second wind. I slowed us down. But I didn't alter our run-walk pattern of run 2 minutes-walk 1 minute. Toward the end, I was reminding myself that I only needed to run for 2 minutes. No problem! I can totally run for 2 minutes. And I was singing "Just keep swimming" (from Finding Nemo) in my head, substituting the word running for swimming. I crossed the finished line, with tears in my eyes, 2 hours and 20 minutes after I started.

I'm really proud of myself to undertaking this run. I've never run that far, and it took a lot of training to get my body and my mind ready. Another friend of mine has asked if I might be interested in doing the Madison Mini, which is a half marathon (13.1 miles), in August. I'm considering it. . .