Finding a new "nOrMaL"

I've officially been in Roosevelt for two weeks, tomorrow.  The past two weeks have felt like I'm just on vacation.  One of the hardest things for me, is finding a new "normal".  I am very much a routine type person.  I do certain things routinely.  Josh can tell you all about this, and it drives him crazy most of the time.  Since everything here is new to me, I've been trying to figure out a new routine.  So far, it's not really working.  Everything here is so unfamiliar to me.  
If anyone has ever been to Roosevelt, you should know that there isn't much here.  One of my big cons in moving to this small town, was not being able to do what I want to do, when I want to do it.  Living in cities since I graduated high school many years ago, has kind of spoiled me in a way.  If I want to go to Target, I just go there.  I don't have to figure the next time I'll be going to Salt Lake, to go to Target.  There isn't a whole lot to do here, and I don't really know anyone besides our friends that we are currently staying with.  I have definitely caught up on some much needed sleep in the last two weeks.  That has felt nice, but also makes me feel a little lazy at the same time.  
On Monday I will be starting my new job.  I am going to be an administrative assistant, for the Duchesne County School District.  This will be something totally new for me since all I have done is retail the last 12 years.  Josh went with me to my new office last week, and helped me organize it and clean it.  I'm excited to start something new, but scared at the same time.  I'm looking forward to being able to actually enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas this year.  In the past, I would of had to be at work at 10pm on Thanksgiving night, to work overnight.  I could also never really enjoy Christmas, because I always had to work the next day at 6am.  Josh and I are both looking forward to being able to enjoy the holidays, even if we are snowed in.  We have to go through two canyons just to get to Salt Lake, so who knows how many trips we'll actually be able to take, once it starts snowing.
So here's to finding a new "normal" for me.  I really hope to find this balance in my life soon!

The fun in moving.....

Over the past month that Josh had been gone to Roosevelt, I had been working on packing up the house.  What a project!  You don't realize how much "stuff" you have, until you have to pack it up and move.  As I packed up the boxes, I tried my best to either give things away, or take them to the D.I.  Even after my efforts, we still have too much stuff!  We rented the largest UHaul they have, which is a 26 foot truck.  I thought that this would be plenty big.  We do have a house full of stuff, plus a basement, garage, and shed.  I figured that we probably don't have that much stuff compared to people that have kids, so this size of truck should be plenty of space.  I was wrong.  On Sunday, September 15, we asked a few family and friends to help us move.  We filled the entire truck up, and then still had about half of our garage left, with odds and ends.  So on Sunday, we took the first load of stuff to our storage unit in Roosevelt.  The drive to Roosevelt went really well.  When we got to our storage unit, that was a different story.  It had rained quite a bit in the past week.  There aren't any paved roads at the storage unit.  The "roads" are all gravel and dirt.  Josh was driving the UHaul.  He did his best to avoid the standing water and the obvious areas where other people had probably gotten stuck at already.  Even though I think that Josh did the best he could, he got stuck too!  We were about 100 feet away from our storage unit, and stuck in the mud!  So close, yet so far away.  There was no way we were going to attempt to carry everything off of the UHaul and to the storage unit.

Luckily, the friends that we are staying with for a little bit, knew someone with a heavy duty truck to pull us out.  He did it no problem, but then we got stuck again.  This whole area was pure mud, and no way to avoid getting stuck.  He pulled us out again, and this time we made it to the storage unit.  An hour later, and we had the whole thing unloaded.  Thank heavens!  
We went back to our house in Magna, again on Wednesday, and got a 10 foot UHaul.  We were able to get the rest of our stuff in this trip.  Even though pretty much our entire house is sitting in a storage unit, I'm so happy this part of moving is over.  Moving is no fun, and I really thought we were done moving when we bought our house a year and a half ago.  I have been graduated from high school for 14 years, and I've moved 11 times.  That is way too much for one person!  For a few months we're staying with friends until we figure out where we want to live.  Then we'll be moving again.  Lucky us!

Half Marathon......COMPLETE!

On Saturday, September 14, I completed my second half marathon.  My first one was on April 21, of this year.  Since that race, I had knee surgery.  I wasn't able to run or doing anything too active, for two months!  That is a super long time in a runners mind.  After those two months, and several physical therapy visits, my doctor finally gave me the okay to run again.  Greatest day ever!  The next day I started training for my half marathon which was four weeks away.  I felt like I was starting over on building up my endurance and strength to run again.  Since about the time I found out I needed to have knee surgery, I went back and forth on deciding if I should cancel my registration to run the race.  I knew it would be a challenge for me, and I didn't know how my knee would do running 13.1 miles.  As soon as my doctor gave me the okay to run again, I decided I was going to do the half marathon, and wasn't going to focus on my time or placing.  I was just going to do it to the best of my ability, and as long as I crossed the finish line, that's all that mattered.
During those four weeks of building my strength back up and my endurance, the most I ran was 10 miles.  Even those 10 miles had walking stretches in them.  I didn't feel like I could push myself the way I wanted, because of my knee.  When I had originally registered for the race, I had convinced my brother Shane to do the race with me.  I'm not quite sure if he said yes because he really wanted to do it, or if he got sick of me asking him about it.
Bright and early Saturday morning, my alarm went off at 2:55am.  I woke up, showered, and got my running gear on.  I was super anxious for the run, since I wasn't sure how my knee would do.  I met Shane and his friend in the parking lot of Cottonwood High School, around 4:30am.  It was freezing, and we all wondered what we were thinking!  We had to take shuttle buses to the starting point of our half marathon, which was 9 miles up Big Cottonwood canyon.  We got up there, and had to freeze to death until 6:40am.  It was beyond freezing cold!
As soon as the race started, I decided I wasn't going to push myself too hard, but I wasn't going to walk, if possible.  As long as I could jog, and my knee didn't hurt, that was my goal.  2 hours and 1 minute and 24 seconds later, I crossed the finish line!  I did it!  I ran 13.1 miles, didn't stop, and beat my time by one minute from my previous half marathon in April!  I placed 971 out of 2112 runners, and placed 608 out of 1524 female runners.
The feeling that I get every time I cross the finish line, is priceless!  Knowing that I'm accomplishing a goal I set for myself, and doing something I thought I'd never do, is an amazing feeling!