Thankfully

I was all set to write about how today has been a fabulously crap-tastic day. How it has been just one in a string of several truly terrible days. How for the past week, I've gone to bed each night repeating to myself "Tomorrow will be better. It just has to get better." And how, each day... it hasn't. From car issues to health issues to family issues (and have I mentioned that I really miss my hubby?), it's been a never-ending stream of worry and stress and overwhelming frustration that has left me exhausted and seriously disheartened. I feel like I'm expected as a military wife to either stay impressively positive and upbeat or to completely fall apart, and my pride leaves me no choice but to force myself into the first category. So my acting skills have been getting quite a workout this week, even though the poor cat has watched with concern as I've dragged home every night, collapsed, and burst into tears. 
As tough as the past few days have been, I hate being such a downer and was not exactly looking forward to writing about my bad mood. Thankfully, I don't have to. A few things happened this afternoon that, while small, were able to turn around my entire day. I've felt much better this afternoon, both emotionally and physically, and I feel like I owe a little bit of gratitude:


Thank you to Dan's cousin, who runs the mechanic shop at the car dealership near my work. I had to take hubby's truck in for an inspection, and of course they found several things that needed fixing: the air vent, the license plate light (am I the only one who didn't know this even existed?), the rear brakes... and the list goes on. Luckily, Dan's cousin gave me a great discount and was incredibly kind, telling me to let him know if I needed anything at all while Dan was gone. I was so touched by his thoughtfulness and relieved by the discount that I almost didn't feel the sting of having to spend more money on a vehicle.


Thank you to the girl working the self-checkout lines at Giant today. I ran in to pick up some packing tape for the hubby's first international care package (after fighting with the post office online forms and fees for at least three hours in the past two days), and also to grab a notebook of paper. When I got to the scanner, I realized that the notebook was conspicuously lacking in the barcode department. The young girl working asked if I remembered how much it was, and I was super honest and said "Two something.... maybe 2.79?" even though I was pretty sure it had been more like 2.20. She looked at me, smiled, and pushed a few buttons... "Well today," she told me, "it's $1.99."


Thank you to my legs, which seem to have finally gotten the message. I didn't run for almost a week when I was in Indiana, and getting back into it has been much harder than I expected. I've had a few decent runs since then, but tonight was the first time I felt as good as I had before the trip. With a race in 26 days, I'm really relieved to be back to feeling good and hope that I can keep it in gear and make that registration fee worth it.


And hopefully, thanks to silver linings like these in the thunderstorm that's been hanging around lately, tomorrow will be better.

   Love,

    Meg