Home Sweet Home

Wow! made it home with no real issues! Coolest thing ever is the new international customs. We actually cleared customs (for the USA) IN IRELAND! We got our USA/Homeland security stamp while still standing in Ireland. The best is that they check you back all the way through to your final destination now. You no longer have to claim your bag in the US, go through customs, then stand in line again to recheck it to your final stop. AWESOME. Probably THE coolest is that when you go through immigrations, they ask "is this your bag?" and on the screen is a picture of the bag you checked at the airport counter. Creepy and cool at the same time. Big Brother is soo here. The flights were long but good. This says alot since I hate to fly. I had the whole season 5 of Gray's Anatomy loaded on my ipod and I had one of those extra battery packs for my ipod so I was set. I don't know about y'all but I cry everytime I watch this show. They do a good job with character development and, well, I really do cry at hallmark commercials. So with that in mind, I spent 7 1/2 hours crying on the freakin' flight from Shannon to Philadelphia. Lisa was watching a wolverine movie and reading her kindle. we had no one in between us so she never even noticed that I was crying the whole flight. She finally looked over at me and was like WTF? What is wrong with you??!!! I probably looked like someone who was going home for a funeral or something. It was entertaining and kept my mind off of flying. I love my ipod. We got back into Richmond and Shawnee surprised us by already being at the airport terminal. THANKS! We went to O'Toole's for a celebratory Guinness and while it really isn't the same, it was still good. It was fun pretend talking with an Irish accent. Lisa makes fun of me b/c my voice goes up an octave or two. The girls waiting on us were only mildly entertained. We got in the door to our two sweet pups who about waggled their tails off. They are soooo sweet. They have been like velcro. Forgot what it was like having 2 dogs sleeping ON TOP of me. At least for one night it was sweet and I didn't mind, tonight will be a different story.

Got up this morning and decided it was time to start working off the 6 pounds of Guinness and Soda Bread I brought back with me. I got my garmin out and my shoes. I was slightly dreading it until I saw that the temperature outside was not even 70 yet - awesome. I also grabbed my ipod. I decided to try and be smart and only go for 3miles, 2 if I was feeling bad, walk if feeling worse. I am retarded for signing up for IM Canada! I am determined not to be "injured girl" this year. I am going to start slow, stretch, ice do all of my strength training (slowly) and rest when I need too. Easy to say now - we will see. I am going to find this book I heard about that talks about stress and the subconscious. Basically, it thinks that your body takes your stress and basically displaces to a part of your body where the oxygen supply becomes limited and then you have pain. At this point I am beginning to wonder if I am a nut case for how long it is taking me to heal. Anyways, I love my IPOD. I wsh they would let us have them on the IM Run. It really makes running fun. I put a large variety of music on my shuffle and keep it on shuffle mode. That way I don't get bored and become surprised to hear an old song pop up. Today the song that I hit the replay button for was Steve Winfield's "Bring me a higher love". I am not a religious person, although I was raised Catholic. I am, however spiritual. For some reason this song today felt very spiritual and was very uplifiting. These versus inparticular:

Think about it, there must be higher love
Down in the heart or hidden in the stars above
Without it, life is a wasted time
Look inside your heart, Ill look inside mine
Things look so bad everywhere
In this whole world, what is fair?
We walk blind and we try to see
Falling behind in what could be
--and--
I could light the night up with my soul on fire
I could make the sun shine from pure desire
Let me feel that love come over me
Let me feel how strong it could be

Cheesy maybe, but it made my run. Hope everyone is having a great holiday weekend. I have to write up my eval to turn in tuesday ---ugh. I need some "spiritual" right now.