Blessed.

This upcoming week brings St. Francis' Feast Day in the Catholic Church. St. Francis is one of my favorite historical figures and amongst other things he is well known for his love of animals so his feast day often includes a Blessing of the Animals/Pets at many Catholic churches.
I looked up what was going on in our fair city and found that there is a Franciscan monastery within a few miles of where we live AND that they were having a blessing ceremony TODAY for animals & pets.

So we went!

Guinness is now a bit holier.

This particular Franciscan was quite taken by our dog! He called Guinness "beautiful".

It was mostly dogs {& their owners} but I also took note of several cats and there was even a hermit crab.

I love this tradition in the Church and I love the stories of St. Francis.

We walked away with a certificate and a medallion for our pooch to wear on his collar.

Have you ever participated in this? Has your animal been blessed?
Good week ahead to you!
xoxo, natty ♥

10

Ten...that's what we ran today. Ten miles were good today. Ten miles were hard today. Ten miles were fast today. Ten miles were the farthest I've run since the 26.2 that I did in October and for that I am ever so grateful and happy since this means I'm on the up and up mileage wise and I'm getting close to another race...although I could also argue being somewhat apprehensive about that race, but that's the way I feel before every race, so whatever to that. I haven't blogged much about my relationship with running, but it's one that I value greatly and feel so lucky to have. I started running to run, not just running around a yard or something, when I was 14, and I started running on a team about two years later. I ran cross country and track in high school but it wasn't until I started running cross country and track in college that I actually put effort into the running and got faster and more dedicated to it. Towards the end of my senior year in college and at the beginning of outdoor track season I started to really slow down and felt like I was running through pea soup. I was apparently a very anemic girl at that point and had to stop running which was "ok" by me since it had gotten so exhausting. It would be two more years until I started running again. When I was found to be so anemic and had to stop running, I was actually really ready for a break. I had been running steadily and heavily for several years and was a prime candidate for time off. However, my first two years of teaching kicked my boot-ay into the atmosphere and beyond so it wasn't until my third year after college that I felt ready to get back into running. Physically I was better and I finally wasn't comatose after school each day, so there I went. 
I've since done two half marathons and a full one as well as a handful of shorter distances, things I never felt like I could do in high school or college when races were super stressful. The marathon, in my eyes, is worthy of its own post, so be patient, fair reader(s[?]) but I can say now that I've really loved having the outlet of my daily (or maybe every other day!) run and the racing is just a bit of extra (sadistic?) fun. If I'm exhausted after school, I don't always make it out the door, but on the days that I do, I feel better and less tired than I would've imagined earlier that day. 

Anyway, this is so not well written and a bit rambling, but it's what I'm thinking; I love running...most of the time and whether I realize it or not. There; I said it.

Also, we had pizza for Ben's birthday last night and I took some pictures...yay! We made one batch of dough that didn't rise so well and cheated with some Trader Joe's ready made dough. 

Mike and the Birthday Boy pizza making…

All participating...

Gretchen

Cooking…

...cooked!

Everyone kind of pitched in and made his/her own pizza and there was salad and a Dairy Queen Reese's Blizzard cake...delish! Mike and I got Ben some sort of Nerf gun and the gift bags at Target were a bit too small so I grabbed a gift "sack" but failed to read the dimensions and when Mike opened it we realized that it was big enough to fit like two adult bikes, so we supplemented the gift with bunched up newspaper...Ben was pleased. 

The giant birthday bag…

We ended the night with sparklers and I quickly fell asleep when we got home.

We just finished dinner and I'm dreading tomorrow since I'm taking almost 60 kids on the light rail to Mountain View on a field trip and I get just so anxious about field trips. I breathe the biggest most dramatic sighs of relief when we get back to campus. Wish me well and enjoy the pictures from last night. Also, have a great start to the week!

A photogenic couple if I may say so myself ☺

 Yes...I take the majority of my pictures of animals...so what

Michael wasn't so thrilled with the cat

But I sure was!

One of the kids decided that Mike was chilled and needed a cover...he didn't resist.