Melinda Morley

So, today I officially started the year. I made my list, planned my day as follows: Up at 5:30. Read my scriptures and then run. Then make breakfast, shower, and then write. Then lunch and I’m off to the Scout office to get the awards for pack meeting tomorrow (aren’t you enjoying this laundry list of my life?) and then I’ll take my kids to the museum. Yes. My three youngest are out of school for another week. I’m using this to my advantage. Or at the least fitting some kid-time into my schedule. Which is to THEIR advantage, I’m sure.

So, my alarm didn’t go off. And then I woke up at 6amish. And thought about not getting up. Running on the treadmill, bleh. But this is the only time I can fit in into my schedule. At least today it is.

Anyway, I swear my body was screaming at me to get up and get going. You see, Mondays are power days for me. I love them. And the first Monday of the New Year is like the Holy Grail of Mondays. I’m just saying. I couldn’t sleep in on this day! No way! The world is my oyster. Whatever that means. Oysters may or may not contain pearls. I don’t need pearls. But I digress. Where was I? Oh, yes.

So I ran a whopping three miles on the coat-tails of the stomach flu and the, what, sleeves(?) of a head cold. But, I did it, just like my running schedule told me, and I think it’s totally fair to hold onto the bar of the treadmill. It’s not cheating.

My poor ugly little treadmill. My treadmill was free from this little old lady who died and they were tearing down her house. My husband is frugal like that. I felt a bit like a hamster on a wheel, but I still did it. Yeehaw. Don’t get me wrong–it felt sooo good to run even when it feels like I’m standing still with an extreme amount of effort.

See, I didn’t exercise at ALL during the holidays. Don’t let this concern you, as the aforementioned stomach flu took care of any extra weight I may have gain. So, in spite of the night I spent lying on the carpeted floor outside my bathroom door (the tile was just too hard to lie down on and bed too far away from the porcelain throne) and the fact that my stomach was pretty much turned inside out (don’t quote me on that), there is a silver lining. I don’t recommend it, but sometimes mother nature is wily, uncontrollable force. Not to be reckoned with but only survived. Eye of the tiger, baby. Bloodshot, light-hurts-your-eyes, I-can’t-look-left-or-right-without-extreme-pain eye of the tiger.

So, I bore my testimony in church yesterday. (For my Non-Mormon friends, there is one Sunday a month where ward members can go to the pulpit and share their convictions of Christ and His church.) So, now that I have revised what I said in my head several, oh, thousand times since yesterday, I must say. It’s brilliant. Now anyway. And I’m still not sure why I bore it in the first place with all my ramblings. See, I still was dealing with the ill effects of the stomach flu. I think it rendered me delirious. Perhaps I should have just stayed home…. I don’t know.

But, now I must write my book. I’m DETERMINED to get it DONE. And I’m behind schedule, because of the stomach flu I wasn’t thinking laundry and woke to no clean underwear. So, I didn’t get to shower on time. But I’m not letting this get me down. Not on Monday.