Organizational blues

I have ...let's see, I need to count... four purses going right now. There's something in every single one of them. It's getting annoying. I know I have this or that, but I can't find it. If I go to work early without the black bag, I can't get into the building because there's where the access card lives.

Case in point. Just as I wrote that, I realized that I sort of remember digging the card out and putting it into another location completely. I need to check that as I *intend* to go to work early tomorrow.

I'm looking for some lip stuff. Can't find it. I know it has to be somewhere, but I've looked through three of the bags. One bag holds two bags. I have a little wallet thingy and then I have a dainty black purse in case the wallet thingy looks dumb.

Heh.

Looks dumb. There's a very high probability of that. The bag those two items are in is a cloth messenger bag sort of thing that looks very Mother Earth. So in case the wallet thingy doesn't look dumb, I have the Mother Earth bag to help out.

The lip stuff is probably in the bathroom. I'm trying to pack for the marathon and I am feeling a little bit stressed. I did sleep well last night, but I'm still not feeling great, so I am going to try again tonight. I bought nifty new shoes and should wear those in. They are exactly the same shoe as the ones I have been wearing, so I will take both pair. I am making checklists for the day before the race and race morning.

If you are familiar with marathons, there is a policy of discarding warm clothing along the route. A group comes along and picks up all the clothes that have been cast off and the clothes go to a charity like Goodwill. So after work today I went to Goodwill.

Goodwill has a policy: a certain color tag is on sale for $1.99. Today's color was green. My mission was to find a jacket or vest that opens in the front so as not to conceal my runner's bib (runner - ha) that had a green tag so I didn't pay much. I looked and looked and looked and what do you know?

I found it. It is in the dryer right now having gone through the wash. The zipper is broken. It is pink. It has a hood and it is velour. Velour and a hood = good and warm for race morning. The facts that it is too small for me, has a broken zipper and is dead ugly are all very good things.

When I get warm I will not regret taking it off and casting it aside. Last year in the Des Moines Marathon, I got to keep my clothes because Cindy rocked the universe taking care of me. She fed me bananas, picked up my clothes, took all the things I no longer wanted in my hands, and a couple blocks from the finish line, when I felt like I was about to die, there she was cheering, "Caron! Way to go, Caron!"

I will never forget the way my friends took care of me that day.

On Saturday, due to security on base, there will only be people at the start/finish and in one spot. On base, well, I don't know. I assume it may be fairly isolated. It will be a good test of my mental stamina. If you haven't done this sort of thing before, I encourage you to head to a marathon and cheer people on - hang out at the curb for a 5K - stand a few yards from the finish line at any event - cheer, clap, encourage. You don't know how much it helps.

It will be fun for me to tell you how the AF Marathon goes this Saturday. I'm looking forward to it: not just the marathon, but blogging about it as well. I hope you'll check out the results.