First day of Kindergarten for our Riggy-boy

After a summer of feeling like August was so far away yet knowing it would be here before I knew it, when it arrived I felt the first day of school looming over me like dark cloud. We tried to enjoy Riggs' last days of pre-school life as best we could, while gathering the things he would need for the school year in a way that made it feel like a special thing to Riggs. We picked out some new clothes he needed, ordered a backpack for him and went school supply shopping, looking so like the newbies we were with the list clutched tightly in my hand.

And then before we knew it, the week of school was here. Monday we went to drop off supplies and reacquaint ourselves with the classroom and the school, since it had been months since we had visited potential schools in the spring. 

Carrying his little tub with supplies into the school.

Riggs and his teacher, Kim, writing his name on a tag for his cubby.

 Riggs came home from that visit so very excited to go to school in the morning, and I could barely swallow I was so choked up with the emotion of it all. How could my baby be going to kindergarten? It felt unreal - this odd sensation like I was watching someone else's life instead of my own. That night we laid out all our clothes for the next day (me included), packed most of Riggs' lunch, read stories and then went to bed, right on time at 7:30. We had spent the prior week preparing for the early wake up times (and consequent early bedtimes) required to make it to school on time at 7:45a, and they both went right to sleep like I hoped they would.

6am came before I knew it, and I was glad I had practiced waking up to an alarm the week before. I got right up, wide awake with anticipation for the day ahead of us. The kids woke up on their own right around 6:15 and I could tell Riggs was as excited as I was. I fixed their yogurt and granola and finished packing Riggs lunch while we talked about getting our clothes on and backpack packed. Riggs ate in record time, got dressed and put his hat and backpack on then grabbed his lunchbox and said, "I'm ready to go mom!" It was 6:45 and we didn't really need to leave until 7:30, but that morning I had a special surprise for them. My mom was flying in on the 7am flight from Anchorage to participate in the first day of school fun.

We drove to the airport, thinking the plane would have already landed and mom would be waiting for us, but when we got to the airport a heavy fog was hanging just above us and everyone was still waiting on the airplane, which was circling waiting for the ceiling to lift just enough that they could land. We waited and waited and then had to leave to make it to drop-off in time. I was so disappointed, mostly for my mom that she was stuck up in the air circling instead of being with us to take Riggs to school. She ended up having to go back to Anchorage, but then luckily she made it on the 11:30 flight and was able to pick him up with me and spend the rest of the day until her 8p flight back to Anchorage.

We got to school and Riggs practically ran into the building, putting his stuff in the cubby he had picked out the day before and then turning to me to say, "Bye mom!" easy as you please. I laughed and told him I was staying for a little longer, but then when I did leave it was obviously much harder on me than him. It felt so wrong to leave him there, but I knew he was in good hand and would have fun.

He had to have a picture with Tutka in it too.

The beauty of the morning awed us as we took our 'first day' pictures.

Running to his class.

His little cubby &heart;

Part of Riggs' classroom...

Circle time area...

Free play nook.

Doing his 'work' - what they do every morning during drop off time before gathering for circle time.

When we picked them up from school they were picking carrots last year's kindergarten class had planted in the spring and playing happily on the playground. We let Riggs pick what he wanted for Dinner, any meal at home or out, and he picked Finns Pizza of course. It was a great day. We only wished that Steve could have been there but he's working in Kenai during the week right now and couldn't take a day off. He facetimed Riggs before school and wished him a very happy first day, and we reminded Riggs that daddy would be able to drop him off and pick him up all winter after he was done with linework for the year. I know it was harder on Steve than Riggs, which made me feel bad, but that's just the reality of Steve's job.

After we picked my mom up at the airport we went to the Fresh Sourdough Express for lunch.

So happy to see my little guy again.

He was happy to see grandma &heart;

Dinner at Finns

Friday his school had a back-to-school potluck at Karen Hornaday Park and he rode a bus for the first time to get there. The big Fireweed kids (3rd - 6th grade) got there first and made an arch with their arms to welcome the little Fireweed kids (K-2nd grade) as they arrived, completely impromptu and voluntary, no adults told them to or anything, which was really sweet.

Riggs and his little friends after coming through the arch.

Kim is the best teacher I could imagine for him and he loves everything about school so far, and I couldn't really imagine a better first week of school. Here's to the rest of the year going just as good!

Raina's 3rd birthday!

It's hard to believe that nearly two months have passed since Raina turned three. Her birthday celebration this year was a big improvement over last year - tailgating in a gravel pullout 10 miles down some Big Lake backroad, a cinnamon roll in a to-go box with two candles stuck in it substituting for a proper cake (a story in itself, too long to tell here). This year, most of my family was in Homer for the week, celebrating my parents 40th wedding anniversary, which happens to be July 2, the same day as Raina was born (I don't think I'll ever be able to top that anniversary gift ha).

We hosted the party at our property, right in the garden with a fire in the old wheelbarrow-turned-firepit and foil packet dinners with blueberry cobbler and vanilla ice cream for dessert. I loved having everyone in the space I had worked on so diligently since the snow had melted, it made the special day seem almost enchanted in some way to me. 

Moana for the tired girls who couldn't hang at the campfire ♥

Raina at three is a whirlwind of energy and emotions and pure joy; our girl is a sassy little spitfire to be sure. She's still on the tiny side, but she makes up for it with her big personality. She loves horses and cheese and kombucha, dancing and singing too. She loved to do whatever Riggs is doing, and has really taken off on her strider bike lately. We love her so very much and watch with awe as she blossoms and makes her own way through the world.

We celebrated with Steve's family a few days later at Steve's mom house with grilled salmon and root beer floats, which was really fun for the kids. Dotti wanted to start the tradition for Raina's birthday because her own mother always had root beer floats on her birthday on July 5 (Dotti's mom died along with her dad and little brother of carbon monoxide poisoning during a camping trip when Dotti was 16, so I knew this was an extra special tradition to her).

Riggs turns Five: Happy Birthday Son!

Riggs' birthday this year falls on a full moon, the Wolf Moon, and I find this so fitting. Like the wolf, Riggs is a social creature, yet capable and independent. He's always moving and always thinking, calculating, and watching everything with his flashing green eyes. He's sensitive and can howl with the best of them, yet he's playful too.

I'm not really sure how it's possible that my little wolf pup is five years old today, but I've felt the truth of the milestone over the last 24 hours, like some emotional shift in my soul. Last night it was all I could think about after I put him to bed, and I took an hour to think back to five years before, the last night as spent pre-children with Steve. Then I thought about our labor and delivery process and finally his actual birth. What precious memories. As I heard hime waking this morning I snuck in his room and told him a simplified version of the events that transpired leading up to him being born - he sat there in bed propped up on his pillows, so still and sleepy still, yet listening intently, a tiny smile curling up the sides of his wide mouth.

Every moment I've had with this child is precious to me, and the moments that have already passed in the five years I've had him earthside with me have slipped away so quickly and quietly, I'm left grasping for them, wondering what's happened. So I endeavor to write more down, and maybe take more video, but mostly to be there with him, present in the moments we share together, wholly investing in whatever we may be doing.

brand new

six weeks old | one year and six weeks

Here are some videos of his first and second year, captured day by day during the 365 projects (a photo a day for the entire year) I did those years. Now to work on finishing some more recent slideshows/videos!


Riggs 366 2012 from Whitney Harness on Vimeo.



Riggs 2013 from Whitney Harness on Vimeo.

2017 Running Update

winter running in 2016

Running still isn't a part of my life right now, and it's taken four full months to fully accept and embrace the time off and rehab I've been doing on my knee, hips and glutes. It was so very hard in the beginning, in fact I don't think I've ever been more frustrated or felt more out of control. I went from running five times a week including 10-17 mile long runs on the weekends (with no significant injuries over the past year and a half of consistent training or the past 15 years of casual runs and races) to nothing over the course of about a week. To be totally honest, it was devastating. I love running. You can read some reasons why I love it and read some race recaps in some of my previous posts, here and here. 

It was the very end of July that I noticed a bit of a twinge in my knee, after I was home from my runs, not during them. It was pretty minor so I took and extra rest day and figured it would resovle itself. Then by the first week of August, it grew more constant, still only after I completed my run, I felt no pain while running. At first, I was optimistic. I thought if I took a week or two off and foam rolled and stretched the crap out of it, I would be fine. I was weeks away from running the Run Fest Marathon in Anchorage and had felt great during training up to that point. My racing schedule over the summer had been rocky mostly due to moving from Palmer and the homeless-limbo we were in the first couple of months we were here in Homer, but my runs had been consistent and were truly a life-saver for getting through the stress of all the changes we were going through as a family.

I quickly realized, however, that my knee wasn't improving from rest, and that simple things like squatting down to be at my kids level and lifting my leg to reposition myself in bed were getting more painful, not less. I started to get really worried. I found a doctor in Homer that could fit me in that day and had them look at it so I could get a referral for physical therapy. The doctor thought it was a tracking issue, which is very common for women runners. My quad was doing too much and pulling the tendon behind my knee out of alignment, and my glute muscles on the same leg were underdeveloped and not activating correctly. Unfortunately, the PT I had been recommended by several friends and the doctor wasn't able to fit me in for two weeks, so I waited. I tried going on a run about a week in, but felt pain only five minutes into the run and made it two miles before I realized I had to quit then to keep from making it much worse than it already was.  

last run that I felt great on, July 2016

last run, ever (for now)

So I got my bike out and started riding everywhere, but that hurt my knee too, especially going uphill. I replaced running with walking, just to get outside and stay active, but I was starting to get really worried. I had made so much progress over the last year and a half and was feeling edgy and grouchy all the time. I felt bad for my family because of my constant sour mood, but also like no one understood how hard of a time I was having or how deeply upset I was. When I was finally able to see the PTs, they officially diagnosed it as Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome, which is often called runners knee. They said basically what the doctor had said, except in more detail and that my case was pretty severe, since I was having pain almost anytime I bent my knee while my quad was engaged. I was warned that damaging it further could be permanent, and that as it was it was going to be months before I would run again. 

As I said earlier, this was utterly devastating to me. Even now as I type this the tears are flowing. Running has been such a gift to me, a part of me that is mine only, something that I feel proud of and makes me feel disciplined and like I have a small part of this crazy life under my own control. Even though I usually had the kids with me while I ran, it was something I did just for myself, it was my 'me' time and I loved it in a way I can't even put into words. I went to PT and did the exercises but many otherwise great days were often ruined during August and September by feeling that hated pain in my knee when I squatted down just so or walked downhill a certain way. My emotions were a mass of conflict, on one hand I was having a giant pity party for myself and on the other I felt guilty for allowing an injury to have so much control over my life and the lives of Steve and the kids as a result. 

I worried about losing strength and speed and endurance, and I worried about gaining weight from inactivity, since all I could do basically was walk. Biking and most hiking aggravated my condition and I couldn't even swim all of October and November because I had surgery on my chest in September and couldn't get the incision wet. We were also living in our Airstream and trying to make decisions about our building plans and thinking about our winter plans, so I was really overwhelmed with stress and looking back now realize I was probably more depressed than I allowed myself to admit. Cookies and ice cream were like the only thing that made me feel better (temporarily, of course - feeling overfull and not being hungry for real food led to even more guilt) and I ate more sweets in two months than I did in the previous two years combined. So of course I gained about 10 pounds pretty quickly, and then felt utter misery at knowing just what I had feared was happening - but also knowing that I was making things much worse by my emotional eating. 

By December I had actually started to accept that my knee was going to need a lot of time to get better, and that running just wasn't going to happen for a while. The holiday season was actually a blessed distraction for me, and I started to feel a lot better than I had before - so much less self-pity than the previous months. But the holiday baking led to more emotional binge eating and I noticed my clothes, which had already fit a bit tighter, were now in many cases just not fitting at all. Despair is the only word I can think of to describe how I felt. My heart hurt so much, and I felt that the unfairness of having an injury had such a long-term rehabilitation period in some way justified treating myself with more sweets than was healthy.

Christmas was a turning point of sorts. As I went to parties and dinners and cookie decoration parties and ate more than felt right, I still knew in that back of my mind that I was ready to get back to treating my body the way it deserved, by making healthier choices both in regards to food and self-dialog. When I got home from visiting my family in Anchorage, I decided to cut out foods with added sugar for a while as sort of a reset, and I've been doing immensely better. It's actually hard to believe that just two weeks ago I was eating peanut m&ms by the handful (but my sisters will attest to that fact, ha). 

Skiing has also been a life-saver for me. If I'm careful about my form and keep up on cross-training and my PT exercises and foam rolling, I don't notice any extra strain on my quad and knee, and I've been able to get out three or four times this week to hit the trails and build the muscles in my glute and hips that I need to fix the physiological problems that are causing my knee pain. Of course I greatly anticipate the day that I will be able to begin running regularly again, hopefully this summer. My knee is healing slowly, but it has improved so much since August and September, and I try to remember that whenever I start to feel frustrated. 

Writing this has been so therapeutic for me, and I hope that those who read this to completion are able to find something to relate to in my story. We all struggle with something, and many times we choose to mask it from our friends and family and bear the load alone, all to protect ourselves from some imagined judgement. But I wanted to be open about this because I think it's important to share ourselves with each other, even the hard, sometimes ugly things. Thank you for joining me as I share in this little online space I've set up, it means so much to me. ♥

Skiing this week with my babies

First Day Hike or Ski: Eveline State Recreation Area (Homer, Alaska)

Starting the New Year at the beginning of the week felt especially exciting, and I've felt something awaking inside that motivates and inspires me to chase after my goals and dreams with a renewed vigor. We spent New Years Day doing some of the things we love best; attending a great church service, getting out to enjoy this beautiful place we live in with friends, and eating a great meal with family.

After church we packed a lunch, grabbed our gear and headed to Eveline State Recreation Site to take part in the fourth annual First Day Hike/Ski/Snowshoe event being held there. About 13.8 miles out East End Road, Eveline boasts 80 acres of beautiful views and great snow conditions even when its just puddles and ice in downtown Homer. There's a designated parking lot and an outhouse, plus a picnic table just off the trailhead. I hadn't actually ever skied on these trails and I'm just blown away with how beautiful the landscape and views are from nearly every trail. The trails are well marked with maps posted at various points and connect to the  greater McNeil trail system.

I had never heard of First Day Hikes before hearing about this event on our local public radio, KBBI, and through the Kachemak Nordic Ski Club. From the American Hiking Society Website:

First Day Hikes are part of a nationwide initiative led by America’s State Parks to encourage people to get outdoors.  On New Year’s Day, hundreds of free, guided hikes will be organized in all 50 states.  Kids and adults all across America will be participating in First Day Hikes, getting their hearts pumping and enjoying the beauty of a state park.  Last year nearly 28,000 people rang in the New Year, collectively hiking over 66,000 miles throughout the country!

First Day Hikes are led by knowledgeable state park staff and volunteers.  The distance and rigor vary from park to park, but all hikes aim to create a fun experience for the whole family.  People are invited to savor the beauty of the state park’s natural resources with the comfort of an experienced guide so they may be inspired to take advantage of these local treasures throughout the year.

I love the idea of starting the New Year off taking part in something that shows your commitment to getting outside regularly as well as supports the efforts of your community in encouraging others to do the same and supports State Parks at the same time. A total win-win in my opinion! And while I realize that the next chance to participate again is a year away, if you're interested in finding out more about First Day Hikes in your area, visit the American Hiking Society website, here. 

We had a great time getting the kids on skis in a group environment where they could see people of all ages skiing and snowshoeing as a community. There was also hot dogs, treats from Two Sisters, hot cocoa, and a warming fire. The weather couldn't have been more perfect, with bluebird skies and warm sunshine (but not too warm to cause trail conditions to deteriorate). 

We went back to the trails Monday to enjoy a sunset ski with the kids in the Chariot for most of the time we were there. The Eveline trails are also dog-friendly (always check before you bring your furry friends to groomed ski trails with you!) so Tutka got a good run in as well. If you're local to Homer or visiting from the surrounding communities, I highly recommend a ski, snowshoe, or hike at the Eveline State Recreation Site.