After several races and dozens of awful pictures that I never want to post, someone finally took a decent one of me during a triathlon. Thank you, mystery photographer!
Other news: After a week of house/dog sitting in Rosemary Beach, I'm back in my own place. It seems smaller somehow. Hmmm... I guess staying in a 3000 sq.ft. house with hot tub, movie room, vaulted ceilings, massage chair, etc. kind of spoiled me. But I am thankful that I have my own bed back. When I crawled under my covers last night, I let out a deep sigh of relief. I love my bed! It was good to be able to make some fun money (yes, I took all of it shopping) and I actually have some good referrals out there now for other easy side jobs like that.Big plans tomorrow: A bunch of us are meeting at the West intersection of 30A and 98 to ride our bikes to the other end of 30A and back (40 miles). I am expecting 7-10 people to show up, which is a good group for being so last minute. We are going to dilly dally just enough to stop for lunch, some beach time, and refreshments along the way. I'm just looking forward to being outside all day after a long week at work.
Deep Musings of late: I’ve been reading this book called Journey of Desire that is opening my heart to realize that I have been suppressing a lot of my feelings, desires, dreams, passions, frustrations, etc. for most of my life. I try to stay so calm and keep everyone in my life happy and make them feel good about themselves. After all, I am the peacemaker, the glue that holds it all together. Right? But I’m seeing that some of that is simply a control issue. I don’t want to get my hopes up. I set my expectations low because I don’t want to be disappointed yet I allow people to expect so much from me. I never want to ask too much yet I give everything. I want to be as easy-going and low maintenance as possible so that no one ever feels uncomfortable, at the total sacrifice of my own peace. Because I rarely express how deeply I’m hurt by rejection, neglect, & carelessness, the people I care about never realize how I feel, and that causes me to resent them for not seeing it. I know that it’s important to Forgive, but I think I’ve lived my life with a gross misunderstanding of what that really means. I haven't figured it all out yet, but I'm on my way.
