Oxygen

So far homeownership has been akin to what I imagine a fast bleed must be like. Small purchases, big purchases...I'm constantly purchasing. The fence company is on day two of their build, Girl's super expensive 3-day-blinds just went up on day 14 (that's a rant for another time), and I just got a landscaping design and proposal that will require me to sell at least part of my liver.

Yesterday was my mom's last day in town. In the afternoon, she started doing her typical mom thing of straightening up unsorted piles and organizing a bit. I stopped her and told her what I wanted more than anything was to play with the kids while I left the house alone for the last time ever. She understood.

I don't have any non-PJ pants at the moment, so I went to try on jeans. I attempted to pull on a couple pairs, when I realized that what I really needed was a gym membership. I left the shop, drove straight to the closest gym with a daycare, and joined. I didn't hesitate to toss significant change at the personal training program. I start with a trainer on Tuesday and I fervently hope Boy won't get uninvited from their kids' center.

In an effort to squeeze as much as I could out of my mom's last couple hours in Colorado, I took the dog on a run this morning. Well, I ran, Dali trotted along like it was nothing, which was sort of insulting but no matter. My first conclusion is: where have all the oxygens gone? It's like some oxygen-stealing goblin flies around and steals alllll of the molecules and brings them to sea level, because there sure as hell aren't any left here.

To be fair, Estonia is essentially sea level. Exhibit A: there is no word to distinguish a hill from a mountain (both are "mägi"), as there aren't any of the latter and there are hardly any of the former. Exhibit B: Big Egg Mountain isn't. And when I ran (read: plodded) along the Gulf of Finland, passing a friend who had come out to clap for me, around mile 8 of my half marathon, I declared that the whole experience was worse than childbirth and whatever my body was doing at that moment, it was certainly not efficiently processing oxygen.

This is all to say, maybe it's me. Although it's also definitely the altitude. But it's really mostly me. For all the many commitments and contracts and purchases of the past few days, this is the one I'm most excited about: a little mom time, some great exercise, and hopefully more than a little self-confidence. Despite the perks of working motherhood (salary, adult time, you can sit down occasionally, I don't carry anyone at the office), fitness was the one thing I constantly sacrificed. I was gone from the house more than ten hours of the day and when I was home I was cooking, cleaning, reading stories, etc. The idea that I would take an hour of what time I had left and exercise just seemed, well, exhausting. I needed it, and I should have done it, but here we are. A fresh start.