Project 365 and Triathlon Training

I have been introduced to two new hobbies this month - taking a picture a day for Project 365 and training to participate in my first triathlon. I know, as if I need one more thing to do on top of loving the Lord, loving my hubby, loving (and training, correcting, rebuking...) my children, and loving the people the Lord puts in my life. This is a little tangent, but on the topic of loving those around you, I was reminded in my quiet time this morning how the Bible displays love as an action, not a feeling, most of the time - "For God so loved the world, that he gave His only Son.." - extreme action. To love is really hard, exhausting work. For me, love for my family fleshes itself out in doing the dishes, washing clothes, mopping floors, changing diapers, playing Candyland for the 100th time, studying God's Word, cooking meals, scratching backs, listening to lots of stories, teaching God's Word to my kids, did I mention changing diapers :), etc. How silly of me to get frustrated by those mundane tasks. Those are the ways God has allowed me to show my love for my family. I hope I can remember this tomorrow when I wake up and face the dirty dishes from breakfast.

Anyways, back to my new hobbies. Project 365 is where you take one picture a day and journal about it. You compile all of your pics and journaling in an album and that's it for your scrapbook for the year. Amazingly simple, yet I'm already playing catch up! What's wrong with me? But, I'm having a lot of fun thinking of what my picture will be each day to capture our family for that particular day. You can check out the concept on the Creating Keepsakes website, under Kit of the Month, Project 365.

My other hobby is exercise. My link for this new hobby is www.mapmyrun.com. It will keep track of how far each of your runs is and count all of those calories burned while you're exercising. Keith and I have been pretty consistent for the past three weeks with our running, usually around 2.25 miles each time. Also, the other day I biked 6 miles and then swam a total of 600 meters (26 laps). That liked to have done me in - is that the phrase? I seriously wanted to quit after the "warm-up" laps - they were not warm up in my book. The only reason I didn't is because I'm pretty competitive against myself and didn't want to be the only one in our little group of four ladies to quit. But, I have to tell you that I'm more than a little nervous about the swimming phase of the triathlon. And, to top it off, I hear that we're swimming in a dirty lake. I have no idea what is motivating me to do this.

My friend, Rachel, came to the house this week to take 6 mo. pics of Brynlee. Here are a couple of the pics...she does an amazing job.



It's 2:00 a.m. I better go to bed! Goodnight.