Hello, friends!

Time sure flies, doesn't it?! I can't believe it's been a month since my last post. It's been a busy month. Here's what I've been up to:

• Life with 3 kids is pretty busy. Our baby boy had a pretty scary infection a few weeks ago, but after a trip to the doc and some powerful ointment, he's as good as new. And, man, is he getting big! He eats a lot, sleeps ok, and is so stinkin' cute. I'm definitely a proud pop.
• I had my follow up visit with the doc about my blood pressure last week. I had been monitoring it all month long, and was very pleased to see that most of my readings were in the normal range. I was really excited to see a few under 120. I thought I was doing a pretty good job managing my stress. Then, the day of my appointment came, and of course, I had to have a stressful day at work. When he checked me, I was 180/90. "Great!" I thought, "Meds, here I come." I pulled out my chart with all my readings, and he was a little relieved to see the normal readings. Relieved enough to not prescribe anything yet. He wants me to come back in 6 months and see how it is. So, that was good news. But, he also said that even if I can get it under control in the near future, I will probably need to be on meds within the next 10 years, and stay on those meds for the rest of my life. At the end of the check-up, he checked me again, and it was down to 140/70. So, it was a positive visit, but not as positive as I was hoping.
• I have a new favorite BP friendly breakfast. It's really tasty, and each ingredient is supposed to help with lowering blood pressure. I cook some oatmeal, throw in a handful of almonds, sunflower seeds, frozen berries, bananas, dark chocolate, and some honey to sweeten it a little. Mmm mmm. Good stuff.
• The track season ended this week. It was a good season. Definitely better than last year. We had some really good athletes, and grades didn't even take too many away. We did lose a couple to behavior problems at school, some moved, and others just quit, but we did end the season with 9 kids as opposed the the 4 for last year. The conference meet was this week, and we had a couple athletes place in the finals (we would have had another, but he didn't come to school the day of the meet, so he couldn't compete). That was great for them. They did an awesome job. I am really proud of the kids. 
• I've got a 5k next Saturday at the zoo. Ever since the first time we went to the zoo, I thought it would be the perfect course for a race, so I am really excited to run this race. Just gotta get myself registered. Running has been going really well. My knee is behaving, so that's definitely good. I'm taking it really easy, and kind of enjoying starting over again. I've really gotten out of shape, and each run is tough, but I still look forward to each run.