Saturday, September 23, 2023

Saturday, September 23, 2023

Tonight's picture was taken in September of 2007. Mattie was five years old and that weekend, Mattie was visiting Peter's parents in Boston. All the cousins went out on a boat together for a tour around the harbor. As you can see, Mattie was right in the mix and loved the adventure. 

Quote of the day: In times of grief and sorrow I will hold you and rock you and take your grief and make it my own. When you cry I cry and when you hurt I hurt. And together we will try to hold back the floods of tears and despair and make it through the potholed street of life. ~ Nicholas Sparks 

Since January of this year, Peter has been working on losing weight and exercising. Slowly he has built up to being able to run for over an hour, and runs practically everyday regardless of the weather. Today he participated in his first 10k. He successfully completed a 5k on Father's Day. 

I have never been an long distant runner, so the fact that Peter is able to achieve this is remarkable in my book. Today was damp and pouring rain, yet he managed and came back energized. 

Peter ran with our neighbor, who is also a runner. Dave snapped a photo of Peter!

If you click on this photo, you can see that Peter placed #5 and did this race in 49  minutes. Amazing!

Meanwhile for me, today I hit another low. It has been a red letter week for me. Before we left the house, my dad had two large bowel movements. Honestly you would think he would have nothing left to give! I should be so lucky. At lunch my mom was peppering me about so many things. At times she becomes so overwhelming that I literally have to tell her to STOP talking. Unfortunately my commentary never stops her. I live in a high stress environment in which everyone likes to take their unhappiness and frustrations out on me. I am ONE person and I truly can handle just so much, but that doesn't stop anyone. Do any of them want to hear about my thoughts and feelings or help me? The answer is no. 

It was so unpleasant at the restaurant table, that I got up and walked away. I went outside, stood in the pouring rain, and tried to regroup. If this was the extent of my lunch that would be bad enough, but my dad had two big bouts of diarrhea at the restaurant. All over himself, me, the floor, and the toilet! There was no amount of hand washing that removed this smell from my hands. Of course 30 seconds later my dad forgot that any of this happened. But I can't! So between runs to the bathroom and being made to feel like I am responsible for everyone's stresses, I am on overload.