Kindred Spirit Will Have to Wait

Mird and I had this awesome plan to chase down one of my bucket list items this year. It was planned on my birthday. It was supposed to be an awesome display of me honoring my destiny. Oh and we planned to sneak in an all natural (as in clothes optional!) 5K race while we were at it and get North Carolina done. It was a solid plan. It was a solid plan that involved a required reading of the Nicolas Spark's book, Every Breath. A solid plan that required a willingness to throw caution to the wind and travel to the mysterious place of Kindred Spirit North Carolina for five days. For a short time, we thought we might actually pull it off. We even had a sweet house booked just a short drive from Kindred Spirit.  As time went on, it was apparent that it wasn't my destiny after all.  At least not yet...

The timing was all wrong and like so many things this year, the plan simply didn't pan out.  I had a pity party for a few days when we decided to cancel. Yes I definitely sat around feeling sorry for myself for about a week.  I was injured and not running at the time so that made matters worse and the pity party more serious.  And then I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself and plan an epic stay-cation birthday bonanza event!  It ended up pretty awesome.  

The pivotal moment in this shift to positivity was when I sent a text to my Kirby's Angels team inviting them to run brainy day trail on my birthday (a Wednesday mind you) with me and to do dinner and a sleepover the night before and within I'd say conservatively a nanosecond two people had responded they were in!  I felt so loved and excited!

My Mama came to my birthday party too.  I don't care what anybody says, even at the ripe old age of 44, having your mom at your birthday party makes it special, better! Since Mird was coming, I invited mom because I thought she might like to drink coffee with two of her three daughters and eat cake. I mean who doesn't love cake and coffee! I honestly expected her to be too busy, or to pass on account of running not being her thing, but even she signed up almost immediately!

So on my birthday eve we had a delicious dinner at Two Tony's in Spring Lake. I recommend the Brussel sprouts.  They're hard to beat.  Then Mird, Marisa and I hustled about my house cleaning and cooking in preparation for the morning run, coffee and cake event.  Then we had a couple of vodka nightcap drinks and off to bed we went.  We had a 4.4 mile run the next day and we wanted to be well rested especially me since I was fresh off an injury.  Many beloved friends came to our house.  We ran. We drank coffee. We ate cake, strata and quinoa! And we had a jolly, lovely time.  It was the highlight of my birthday month. 

Now about the gifts. I should've said NO GIFTS when I invited everyone out because I certainly didn't need any gifts. Lesson Learned!  That said, I appreciate all the gifts a lot.  I have delicious snacks, wine, bath salts, red vines and coffee and more!! Very generous of everyone.  Thank you so much!   Barbara, thanks for the unique and heartfelt gift. I love it! It made me feel known and appreciated for who I am and that is a special combination so I wanted to acknowledge that. 

The bracelet was in the bag!  Pretty Awesome Combo!

Now these two ladies typically are found at ridiculously early hours of the morning running with me in the early bird crew.  For this birthday gig they had to take care of their young kids first and get them safely delivered to school and then come party so they got to wear normal clothes and they were officially the "late birds" for the first (and likely last) time ever! Love you Mary, Adrienne and Baby Rose!

Rose- the baby who completed our party!

Gangsta sign for 44 the double fours, 4-4!  The rest of the birthday gang.  Thank you for making my special day special.  Without all of you lovely folks, I would've been sad and lonely.  Love you all!

And just look at Heather's jubilation at the prospect of running her virtual brainy Day 8K. It's positively contagious!  It's not too late you can still sign up and run your very own Brainy Day 8K and you can be filled with such jubilation too!  You have three days so hurry!

So Kindred Spirit will have to wait and I am okay with that. I've learned you can't force things. You must be patient and wait for the right moment for the really big stuff especially. So someday I will drink a glass of wine on Sunset Beach and head out on a long spiritual walk to Kindred Spirit to see what my destiny holds. Until then I am so very thankful for all of my friends and family. Thanks for the awesomesauce birthday!

Love Vern