Morning Exercise, Victoria Harbour an... Amanda Hall

For the last several months (since last fall) I have been getting very out of shape.

Not suprisingly, I've found that it takes far less effort to get out of shape than it does to get into shape.

I had been climbing out of that nasty hole called "obesity" with quite a bit of effort, hard work, self-denial, pain, and sweat. Losing weight wasn't this hard when I was younger, I can tell you that much (back then I just had to stop eating ice cream for a few weeks, and I magically became my ideal weight. I miss that!). I had achevied my first goal of no longer being called clinically obese, though if I weighed what their charts say I should weigh, you'd be able to count my ribs. Then, I stopped working on it...partly after injuring my shoulder again post surgery (note to self: don't use a weed whacker too soon after a shoulder replacement), partly after having pneumonia, and partly watching my in-laws deteriorate with Alzheimers.

The last one took away all of my motivation. I found myself asking, "What would be the point in wanting to live a long life if that means losing my mind or watching my husband lose his mind, and become like that?" After you've watching people deteriorate with Alzheimers, growing old becomes something you fear. Every person in my husband's family over the age of 65 has Alzheimers. That's a scary, horrible thought. Alzheimers is an evil disease that completely destroys who the person is, but leaves the body intact (if they were in good health before). Someone suggested I was suffering from depression. Cynicism is more like it.

Then, after the cynicism or depression (or both) wears off, you are left with your very overweight body that hasn't exercised in months, and lungs -- due to pneumonia and lack of exercise -- don't have the same capacity that they had when I was working out every day, and you have to try to retrain your brain to crave apple slices, carrot sticks, and grapes instead of chocolate-covered espresso beans. I had fallen back into the previous habit of skipping breakfast and many times lunch, feasting only on coffee all day long until dinner, and not drinking nearly enough water. I'll never understand how skipping meals makes me gain weight, but it does.

I realized I needed to make myself start exercising when all of my fat clothes became too tight. I had given away most of my old clothes that were really huge, but I kept some of the larger-sized clothes that I wore in transition. Good thing.

For the last two weeks, I've made a valiant and somewhat pathetic effort at exercising every morning. I say pathetic only because my body does not have the same flexibility it had this time last year, several years into regular pilates. I'm back to using my 1 1/2 lb weights instead of the 8 pound weights, and I had to take some of the weight out of my adjustable ankle weights too. I try to walk a mile every day, but most days I am beet red and struggling for breath after a half a mile. How does 8 months make everything go back to the way it used to be? I'm not sure.

This morning, I not only worked out and drank water all day long, but I also ate breakfast (apples and grapes, not bacon), and spent over an hour weeding in the garden before I had to come in to catch my breath from the heat.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with just one step...

Funeral March

A few weeks ago, I learned of three losses of people in my life, all of whom I admire in the Lord, and who have at one time or another been an encouragement and blessing to me in some small or large way. This was part of what threw me off my balance for a season.

I always feel awkward about dealing with loss. I don't do well with funerals. I am not sure why. For me, funerals feel like salt in an open wound. I went to my mother in law's funeral only because I  had no other options. I've not been to any funeral in years, until my mother in law's. Her funeral was very simple and no one was invited as we didn't want to upset my father in law further, as he has Alzheimer's and doesn't do well when there are lots of people around him that he doesn't remember, but who remember him. Her funeral was very plain; it was just a casket and a hole, and a few people standing around watching them bury the casket, no meaningless words, no false hope, no endless stream of people shaking our hands telling us how sorry they were while I wonder who on earth half of these people are. My husband said a few words. We had dinner at National Coney Island afterwards, and my husband said it doubled as our anniversary meal, as my mother in law died on our anniversary, so we didn't really get to celebrate it.

I confessed one day to a pastor that I hate funerals. "Well, I don't think anyone likes funerals" he said, "Put yourself in the shoes of the grieving, and do what you'd want them to do for you."

I was five with my grandma died and 22 when my grandfather died, and I still remember screaming inside of my head for everyone to just go away (both times, at both ages) because I was sick with condolences. But "go away" is hardly the socially acceptable response is it?

"That's the problem ," I answered, "When I was grieving I wanted the world to just go away, leave me alone, end the cliches and condolences already, and the last place on the planet I wanted to be in a room for hours with the dead body of someone I cared about with people I barely knew giving me flowers and saying how sorry they were, or at a funeral listening to eulogies, sermons, the awkward small talk, and culminating in blocking traffic on our way to the grave to bury the casket. Sometimes, when I go to funerals and wonder if we are just annoying the family more by being there."

Apparently from his answer, this isn't common, and most people find closure in this activity. I'm not sure why I don't.

How do I grieve, he asked? I look through pictures alone in a room, listen to music, have a good cry, and I'm good. I usually finish up by watching a funny movie, usually something that we shared together or something that reminds me of the deceased. In the case of one of my recently departed friends, I re-read a book she gave me (A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle), because it always reminds me of her, and I cooked something special in memory of another recently departed friend who helped me learn to cook. Having people around me seems to interrupt that process.

I've spent a few weeks remembering some special friends, re-reading letters and emails from them, listening to songs that made me think of them, celebrating their influence in my life, and grieving in my own unique way.

Time to Shop Karen DuprC)

Once again, I have to start off by saying how truly humbled I am by the sweet notes and comments. It has made my day!

During my blogging vacation (I'm easing back now), I spent quite a bit of time out and about with my two little ones, especially during last week, as the big kids were off at teen camp at the Bill Rice Ranch in Tennessee. We found all sorts of free or cheap things to do to make the week special for them.

On one particular day, we made a trip to the Saginaw Art Museum, which has some hands on stuff for the kids, and which is free for all persons under the age of 16. A friend told me they had some nice exhibits (including some Japanese woodcut prints, which were really quite beautiful. Japanese art is so lovely isn't it?), and a pretty garden that they were fixing up, and it was in the same area . I figured the girls would enjoy it. Afterwards, we were to meet my dear husband as he works in the area, and we were going to have a picnic.

We finished up at the art museum far sooner than I would have imagined we would, and the lady master-gardener who was working at the museum started to talk to us because she heard the girls identifying plants in the garden. She told me about some other free gardens in the area, and a free water park they just put in the area, which was really like a playground with very nice sprinklers for the kids to just get a bit wet to cool off on this 98 degree F day.The idea behind the park was to keep people from opening up fire hydrants on hot days I think.

We had just gotten wet, when I realized that something was splashing on me, and then I noticed thunder and lightening. That ended that idea. We were ushered out of the splash park.

Looking for something free to do while we were in the area waiting for daddy we decided to hop into the local mall. Wow. Culture Shock.

We were walking around doing some window shopping when I spotted my favorite kind of clothing: long batik skirts and dresses. We quickly poked into this shop to have a closer look, and after we were in there a bit, my daughter picked up a batik t-shirt and said, "look at this one with the leaf! I like it!"

Gulp. That wasn't a maple leaf, if you catch my drift. There used to be a time when, although that sort of thing was around, it wasn't openly for sale.

I looked up and realized that we were in a store that was selling all sorts of things along those lines. I know from years of being a momma that sometimes if you  make too hasty an exit that raises more questions with the young ones so I started to lead us to the door calmly, before children started asking what this or that was.

The guy working there offered me a free body piercing before I left. Apparently they were training the new girl and needed a guinea pig. Wow. Even if I were so inclined to get a piercing (I'm not...I did all of my rebelling 20 some odd years ago), I don't think I'd have the new girl learn to do it on my body.

The guy then noticed the fact that my girls had on Christian T-shirts, and asked, "Wow. Did ya get lost?"

Okay, maybe this is a divine appointment. "Yes, but now I'm found. How about you? If you were to die today do you know where you'd go?"

He was unsure, but seemed interested, just uncomfortable talking about this with his boss apparently a few feet away. I handed him a tract and told him that this would help him to know how he could know for sure. Thank God for tract wallets.

The trip to the mall reminded me that clearly I don't get out much -- and that's not a bad thing.

We spent the rest of the time in a gigantic shoe store, since I figured we couldn't get into too much trouble in there or be offered any more free body piercings before meeting up for our post-thunderstorm picnic with daddy.

I very rarely am someone to really heavily push to sell my stuff...but today I will.You're still free to not buy of course.

We have a difficult situation facing us. We owe the IRS some money, and we have a payment due but due to circumstances relating to how much we drive to see his terminally ill dad (who has Alzheimer's) and a few other things, money is short anyway. The IRS basically looked over our taxes more closely and they believe we underreported (and we disagree about that, because we know we didn't ....long story, and the IRS is always right...).

Anyway, you win in this case: I have everything in my bookstore marked 50% off. I want to sell as much as I can in order to raise enough cash to not only pay off this debt (or a hefty portion of it...the fees are outrageous the longer it takes...) and I also need to buy the rest of my homeschooling curriculum for the coming year. This will be a huge blessing to me if you can help me by buying something, or telling others.

Please let as many people know about this as you can!