Lickity Split Comes the Baby, Fidgety Fast Goes the World

Where to begin?

Gas is under $2 per gallon. That means I am saving roughly $0.85 per gallon from the high that I remember. That means if I get 24 miles per gallon and I drive 15,000 miles per year I would save $531.25 in a year's time. This is, of course, assuming gas remains at the same price or lower. And we all know that is a safe assumption.

As a corollary, the other day (or 2 days before yesterday, to be exact) I was thinking about one factor that I never hear about when it comes to changes in one's life due to having a baby. A baby causes a dad to drive slower in order to keep the baby safe. (This is an indisputable fact.) If I travel the aforementioned 15,000 miles per year but I reduce my average driving speed from 49-42.5 mph, over the course of a year I am going to end up spending approximately 46.82 more hours in my car. This is, of course, assuming the baby is always with me in the car and I drive according to the rule of the aforementioned indisputable fact. That's 46.82 hours wasted in a car. That's nearly 2 days, but not quite 2 days, if you don't mind my redundancy. Life changes in so many ways when a baby comes to stay. I suppose I was thinking about that because it's a mathematical, rational way I can predict how my life will change when our baby is born. Maybe you think it's a coping mechanism. But, I think it's just a way for me to deal with the stress of the unknown. Or, maybe...just maybe, it's both.

Excitement, anxiety, fear, pure joy, passion, curiosity. All these feelings undulate through me everyday. I say undulate, because I like the word and it conveys how fast I can go from thinking about the sweetness of watching a baby sleep to wondering what in the heck I'd do if my baby started to choke. It's like riding the Janglehopper Express (if Moose doesn't mind me borrowing his Hi-Larious term) at Rickety Rides Kentucky Carnival and Creepy Stuff. What?

"It's late...I better get home fast." Can you name that tune?

Anyway, on to my goals. This week's running didn't go as planned. It has everything to do with some major chaffing wounds I sustained last Sunday on my long run. Those wounds kept re-chaffing everytime I started to run this week and my fear was that they wouldn't be healed by tomorrow's long run. So, I only worked out 2 days this week. Monday and Wednesday. I only ran 2 miles both those days. I also did my 100 crunches/100 curls/100 push-ups those days. So I severely fell short of my goal. But due to my "injuries" and helping my dad (who is now temporarily staying at our home through the surgery next week) I think I can forget and move on to tomorrow and next week. So in about 6 hours I will aim to run 17 miles. I'll have an update tomorrow night along with next weeks workout/running goals.