Pain, Trader Joes, and the bishop...

8/29/2007: 5.2-mile run, 49:18, 9:28 pace

This morning's run ended up going longer than I wanted. Not in distance, of course, but in time. by about mile 2 my left IT band had tightened up and my knee was starting to hurt. I had to slow down through the rest of the run and take two 1-minute walking breaks to keep the pain under control. When I got home I worked both IT bands over with my painstick, in addition to really stretching out well. I think the combination of the time change, my recent biking, my lack of regular running and two hours in the car yesterday sent my body into open rebellion. It should settle down by next week.

So, two hours in the car. The trip to Trader Joe's was just under 50 miles each way and took about about two hours round-trip. After 5 years in California where two-lane roads are only found on side streets, I was surprised to find that the "highway" we had to travel was largely two lanes. It wasn't too bad - I did get to pass a truck, and get passed in turn by a BMW - but the two hours of driving was almost more than I could handle. It was definitely worth it, though. We re-stocked our cereal supply and picked-up such goodies as: triple-ginger cookies, mango chili vinegar, crushed ginger, whole-wheat pizza dough, sun-dried tomato sausage, flax seed tortilla chips and milk-chocolate chips. While there we also picked-up sandwiches for lunch. I think we'll limit our visits to once a month - that's as often as I can handle a 100-mile, 2-hour drive.

Once we got home, everyone was sick of driving. So we decided to forget house-hunting in favor of my going to the DMV to get my NJ license and plates for Gandalf. After two hours of bureaucratic fun, I am now officially a New Jersey driver with a New Jersey car. Today we will probably send my wife to get her license. After that we'll only need to get Gandalf inspected so we can put the expiration sticker on his plates and we'll be done with the NJ DMV for at least a year.

Finally, I met with the bishop last night (at my request) to talk about how our family is adjusting to New Jersey in general and the ward specifically. During our discussion, he felt a strong impression to extend to me a calling. He said he had been pondering about 14 different callings for me but this was not one of them. The prompting he received was just so strong that he didn't feel he should wait to talk it over with his counselors. Of course I accepted. I won't tell y'all what it is until I am sustained by the ward, but I will tell you that I am very excited and nervous about it. I will definitely need the Lord's help to magnify this calling.

My body may be hurting but my spirit is flying high,
Brad