Running and Christmas Festivities

I'm not quite sure where Sam's fever came from on Thursday night - it disappeared quickly - but left behind a cold with a nasty sounding cough, one that has kept us up the past few nights. Sam ended up in our bed last night, as that is just easier than getting up every few minutes for a whole hour in an attempt to calm her down and get her back to sleep after long bouts of coughing. I don't think the cough is anything worse than bad post-nasal drip, but it's still no fun. Of course, Sam is a totally restless sleeper, so her kicking finally kicked Ryan out of bed, and left me with only the very edge of the pillow/bed. Still, she managed to sleep until almost 7am this morning, which was much appreciated and much needed by all of us. 

With the late start, I didn't get out the door until around 8am for my run, and I wasn't feeling super peppy at that. It was a raw and windy morning, the sky overcast and the temperatures under 20 degrees. I am not sure I ever truly warmed up during the almost 1:20 I was out there - brrr! I headed out into the Cathance to get in between 7 and 9 miles. I ended up settling for 8, which I deemed perfectly acceptable given lack of sleep and the fact that there were other things on the agenda for the day that needed to be tended to. 

Aside from the crunch of the deep hoar frost beneath my feet and the rush of the water in the river, the woods were silent. So silent, it was as if the forest, and all its inhabitants, was holding its breath. Pace varied greatly as I ran along, as the hoar frost was so bad in spots that walking was necessary if I didn't want to greatly turn an ankle!

After Ryan got in his run, we headed out for brunch and then picked up a Christmas tree on our way home. In all the 13 years that I've been married to Ryan, not once have we had a real Christmas tree. But this year, I finally convinced him we should get one, so that Sam could experience a "true" Christmas :-) After a bit of swearing and huffing and puffing, the tree was erected (relatively straight) in the corner of the kitchen. Sam was dancing all around, so excited for the tree and to decorate it. She opened up all the boxes of ornaments, and diligently hung many of them on the lower tier of the tree. Of course, half of those ended up on the floor at least once during the ornament hanging, as she simply placed things right on the tip of the branches :-) Ha. But she had fun, and in the end, the tree looks pretty good and is the perfect size for our little house. I love it! Of course, chances are good it will get taken out by the cats and that many of the ornaments will fall to the floor, or that Ryan will sneeze for two weeks straight, but hey, I have a real Christmas tree, isn't that what counts?! :-)