See author and CEO Michelle LeBow's home office.  She explains how to create a book with Memoir of Me.  It takes 3 minutes!   

My mom says I ran out of the womb and haven’t stopped since.  It’s true.  Running, I feel most at home.  My dad, who broke the state mile record in 4:26, ran after work and I rode my bike with him.  I loved the angle of the late afternoon sun on the green grass, my feet on the bike pedals, and my dad running next to me.  When I got older, I ran with him.  I’d run next to him and I’d get tired.  I’d want to stop.  He would say, “Feel that pain? Yes, Michelle.  That pain is when you have to get your guts up.” 

The pain that suffocates you from your lungs down to thighs.  I started racing in junior high and I felt the pain.  That’s when I would say to myself, “Get your guts up, Michelle.”  I began to understand, every time I went to the start line, that’s all racing is.  The person who can take the most pain.  I knew, at the start line, I could take more pain than anyone else on that line and I would be the one to finish first.  That knowledge is when I started my racing career.

Running to me, though, isn’t racing.  Running is my passion so deep in my core, it’s like breathing.   It’s the one time of the day that I am free.  A oneness.  In earth, mind, and body.  Where my thoughts become my lungs and my hear t and my feet.  The earth, and all its beautiful elements -- blustery wind, bleating snow, simmering heat – become me, too.   I am free to be that thing I was before I was born.  I become the earth and the earth becomes me.  

Because of this passion, many of my life events have taken place around running.  Like my most intellectual and deep conversation with my equally geeky boy teammates.  Like my college weekends riding in vans to Midwest campus tracks.  Like running in practice until I would hurl and be bed-bound until the next morning.  And, finally, like running 22 miles of the women’s national marathon championship unknowingly pregnant with my soul-changing baby boy. 

My passions have not changed.  They have morphed.  Both my family and friends trump running, now.  And Memoir of Me might rank a little higher than running in a list of priorities.   But the racing lesson I learned early -- the person who can take the most pain -- is a life lesson really.  Life is pain.  In an expansive, lusty, breath-taking way.  The person who can take the most pain and bounce back and take more is the one who has the capacity to continue on their spiritual quest and become the thing that they were put on this earth to be.

This is running to me.  What about you?

This is me hugging my SCSU (where I was rently inducted in the the Hall of Fame and deemed the greatest distance runner in St. Cloud State history) teammate Darla after a race, not a run.

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Yesterday, was a day that I will remember when I'm 70 years old.  A memory of my son Tucker, 14 years old, sitting across the table from the super smart, seriously sweet executive production team of Bizarre Foods as they pick his brain for the teenage perspective of a Bizarre Food show.

Tucker -- who, in his high chair, wouldn't touch his cheerios, but gnawed a red pepper like an apple. Tucker who prefers eating feta cheese on his burger to American.  Tucker -- who won't eat pizza, but sautes clams, minnows, June bugs and crickets from our backyard with "butter, salt, pepper, and sweet basil."  Tucker -- who has one of the highest IQ's I know of, but has raging ADHD.  Tucker -- who can talk about the conflict in the middle east, but can't turn in his social studies assignments.  Tucker -- who in the car on the way over to Bizarre Foods was so jittery/headache/nauseous from his ADHD medicine messing with his sensitive system that he could hardly see straight.  Tucker -- who, although suffering, by the time we got to Bizarre Foods had pulled himself together.

When we entered the studios, Tucker shook hands and introduced himself to BF team.  Tucker served his apple crisp and poured them coffee.  He pitched his ideas for bringing Andrew's world to kids everywhere in America, no matter what community or socioeconomic background.  He traded shop talk and got the inside scoop on his favorite Bizarre Foods episode (when Andrew ate a raw beating frog heart with chop sticks.) And he discussed how eelpout found in Minnesota is similar to lung fish found only in Uganda.

I sat utter awe of Tucker.  To be at the table with decision makers in an industry you are passionate about and to be confident enough in your ideas to communicate them effectively, is a skill most people struggle with (even myself as a GenX Mom.)

This is Tucker, with his friend Mason, cooking a cow tongue. Definitely a story I would put in a Memoir of Me Book.  What about you? 

Memoir of Me won a Web Award from:

http://www.webaward.org/winner.asp?eid=13015

Very please that Memoir of Me site is easy to use and navigate.  Another way to ensure that we can continue to enhance relationships through stories.

Alyss and Tuck left the freezer open just a crack multiple times this summer. We didn't lose any of our food, but we did have some nice ice damns. Here's How I spend my time, instead of CEOing Memoir of Me.  What about you?

Since I’ve committed myself to stick to P words this week, I decided I’m not entirely done with the topic of pleasure.  First of all, #1 on my pleasure list needs an addendum because the skirt has to be a mini or there will be trouble with ballooning -- the skirt blowing way up over your head -- and that’s not safe when riding a bike without a helmet.

Taking Pleasure a step further, I do find pleasure in pairing things together.  Here is my list: 8 Pleasurable Pairings.

1.     Coffee and Jelly Toast (Or scones or lemon bars or poptarts.)

2.    Filet Mignon and Scotch (Which, I just recently paired for the first time.)

3.    Bubble Bath and Scented Candles (I like Glade Soy Scented Candles, Lotus Bamboo.)

4.    Little House on the Prairie and Alyssa’s body snuggled next to mine (Any book will do and, preferably, the child is afterbath and sweet smelling.)

5.    Me and Eric (You and your honey are another good pairing.)

6.    Tucker and Homework (A controversial pair -- pleasurable in a “pain is pleasure” way.)

7.    Wine and Everything (Wine and Raisin Bran, Wine and Vitamins, Wine and BFFs, Wine and Eric…you get the point.)

8.    Discipline and Success (Discipline + success = super pleasurable.)

This is how #3 and #4 pairings happen.