Up and Down I Go

Today's post will be a little somber and I'm sorry about that, but several news items or TV shows has gotten me thinking...and both have had tragic endings.

I was horrified while reading about the woman who fell out of the rollercoaster.  Personally I love those rides, but my heart starts pumping and the adrenalin gets going even before I get on the ride.  Sometimes I talk myself out of it and turn around and leave.  Other times I continue on.

Last night we were watching a show on ESPN about a woman free diver.  She and her husband were hoping she would beat the world record for no-limits free diving.  Unfortunately she did not break the record and lost her life in the process.

Both of these women died.  Both felt uneasy before they did them.  I do believe we possess a sixth sense but we fear we will never attempt anything if we always act on that sixth sense.  I also believe we can be pushed into things that we do not want to do.  In the case of the diver, many warning lights went off.  It was a fast trip put together on a shoestring.  Shortcuts were taken all along the way.  One thing after another went wrong.  I think the most horrific was the fact that the "doctor" on board the boat was a dentist!!!  I truly believe her better judgment said "do not do this" but she got caught up in another's excitement.  Hubby said her whole demeanor and facial expressions showed she would have rather not gone down that day.  So sad.

In the case of the roller coaster woman, she wanted to ride the ride: her first time to do it.  She heard all the other bars click shut 3 times.  Her bar clicked only once.  She knew something wasn't right but the underpaid employee was on a time clock.  Lock 'em in and get them out.  I wonder if she debated with herself "should I get off or not?"  Bless her soul, that first ride would be her last.  I have to wonder if her weight had anything to do with the bar not locking the usual 3 times.  We all carry our weight differently so it is possible that the area she carries her weight was the exact place that the bar needed to lock her in.  Realizing I haven't read anything recently about it, I just looked it up and found that some experts are speculating her size might have something to do with it although a witness said the victim was not any bigger than she was and her bar locked 3 times.  According to safety experts, those seats are designed for adults weighing 180 pounds.  Think about that before you ride at an amusement park.

I recall reading about another such example.  A husband was a parachutist.  He always wanted his wife to share in his love for jumping out of planes and free floating down.  She always refused.  I don't know why she finally agreed, but reluctantly she went up that day and did not survive.
 

Not as tragic but still dramatic, I, too, agree to do things that I would prefer not to do.  I sign up to help out here and help out there.  I have over-committed myself and slowly I am hurting my health.  I do not have time to eat correctly.  Fast meals and pop in the microwave dinners are becoming the norm again.  I try to go against my grain but I can't help it;  taking the easy way is my mantra!  I don't want to do that!  Moana is always moaning to take the easy way-- run through the drive-thru fast food place.  Sit and watch TV instead of cleaning up.  Volunteer for another project.  Teach another class.  Take an over-load semester and drive yourself and everyone around you crazy.  You get the picture, right?

So today my "no" will be NO.  The world will keep on revolving even if I don't volunteer for that project or that committee.  It's not like I'm not already volunteering for things.  I just have to prioritize and realize that when I over-commit to too many things, I am not be helpful to any of them or me.

Prayer

I am preaching on Sunday.  I don't do it too often so I really stress out about it.  I hear that is how preachers should be anyway; after all you are preaching the Word of God to the People of God.  It is an awesome privilege.  So I'm stressed about preaching and I'm stressed about the topic: prayer.

Are we really a praying community?  Most Americans state that prayer is extremely important yet when asked about the amount of time spent in prayer, the average person spends about 7 minutes in prayer! (facts according to Philip Yancey in his book "Prayer.")

So there is another awesome privilege: prayer.

Will you pray for me?

Buzzzz

"Misery loves company."
"No good deed goes unpunished."
"Nag...nag...nag."

There are so many negative vibes going on so a friend and I decided to start a Happy Club.  Only uplifting thoughts and ideas and pictures allowed.  No negative talk.  And oh, no drugs needed for OUR Happy Club!!!  Yes, we can vent and then it's positive time.

(okay, one vent allowed on my blog)  

The mosquitoes are out!  I've been feeding the birds seeds, bread, and day old popcorn faithfully.  You'd think they would be appreciative and eat those pesky mosquitoes!  But NO.  Their bellies are so full of seeds, bread, and popcorn.  I think I'll starve them and then they'll have to eat those mosquitoes, right?  Time to pull out the bug spray and spray myself with poison before I go outside.  Or maybe I'll try one of those bracelets (can that be safe?).  I could hang bags of ziplocs filled with water.  I hear that works.  Or maybe that's just for flies.  Any ideas, Grainiacs?  Can you buy mosquito eaters on Amazon?  (It's called a Crane Fly and Amazon sells car decals.  I wonder if I bought one and stuck it on my car window and drove around; would they follow me home?)

Are you a crane fly?  Please follow me home!

How about starting your own Happy Club?  We are surrounded by negativity; wouldn't it be nice to be a positive in someone's day?  And if you have any spare crane flies, please send them my way!  Help a sister out!

Here we go again!

I'm off super early in the morning, Grainiacs, so I'm posting Sunday night (tonight).   Just wanted to keep you all in the loop.  I have a couple of projects I want to complete this summer.

One of them involves the great outdoors.  A lot of what I want to do involves money.  One thing I want to do is virtually free-- money-wise, but time-wise will not be free!!!  LOL  I plan to plant liriope around the patio.  My in-laws have liriope all up and down their walkway.  The family went to their house to help Dad-in-law thin out the liriope along the front walkway.  You should have seen the back of our truck.  I wish I took a picture of it before the boys unloaded all the greenery!  Once I get home I'll take photos of before and after and in between!  I really want to decorate and organize using everything I already own with a little tweaking here and there.

Have a wonderful Monday and see you on the home front!

Home Again Home Again

And not so Jiggly Jin!  Rather make that Jiggly Strawberry!!

Great news:  at fat camp I lost 4.5 inches and 6 solid pounds.  I'm toner but not quite toned.  I started a new challenge on my weight watcher's "ActiveLink."  Unfortunately I have not found an aqua aerobic class in my area, but I haven't given up.  Next weekend I'll be traveling again and there will be a pool involved.  I'm bringing my bathing suit; as Barney says on How I Met Your Mother: "Suit Up!"

Yesterday when I arrived home I went outside to check on plants and I noticed the birds were on the patio...near the bird seeds.  As dumb as birds are, they found the bird seed and pecked a hole in it AND scattered seed shells and seeds and poop all over the covered patio!  What a mess; welcome home, Strawberry!!!!  As you know, I'm not much of a housekeeper and I can live with dust bunnies up to a point, but even that, disgusted me.

This morning's exercise was moving plants and poop-covered patio furniture out from under the patio and I swept and hosed and scrubbed outside.  As Scarlett says: tomorrow is another day for the inside!  Really sad when your patio floor is cleaner than your kitchen floor.  Tomorrow....tomorrow!!!  As for today, I still have the refrigerator to tackle.  I'm on a roll (but not eating a roll!).  Hope you are having a great Grainiac Day.

A little behind

Nope, I'm not talking about my butt!  At least not yet.  I'm talking about my posts.  Today is my last day of fat camp in the hills but I wrote this a couple of days ago.  So here goes.....

Well I’m more than halfway through my fat camp/ rest and relaxation. And what have I learned?  For starters I can do without diet coke and ice cream—I have detoxed off those two things.  Whoo Hoo!!  I also learned that I love water aerobics.  In Rural USA I attended water aerobics (until I unconsciously tried to scratch my skin off each night while sleeping) and then I quit; but this water aerobics is A-E-R-O-B-I-C-S!!  My heart gets to pumping and I feel energized AND I have a goofy smile on my face.  Of course some might think my smile resembles a person having a b.m. but that is MY smile of working out—hard! Okay yeah, like a b.m.!  On Friday I attended a class called H2O water aerobics.  This is NOT your wade in the pool type of activity!  We stretched and ran and jumped in the pool.  My left knee started to feel “the burn” so thankfully I had the weekend to recuperate.  I could hardly get out of bed on Saturday.  I went to the wellness center but pretty much sat in the warm water pool and Jacuzzi.  Did you know that there is such a thing as “aqua zumba?”  On Monday I attended that class; actually I couldn’t tell the difference from the H2O water aerobics.  And again I had that goofy smile on my face!  These leaders are so motivational and funny and are really great instructors.  I told Hubby to start saving those nickels, dimes, and quarters so we can retire here!  Yes, I want to retire to a place simply for its wellness center.  I bet they’d put me in one of their commercials if I didn’t have such a b.m.-looking smile while working out.

On Thursday or Friday I bought a magazine just because the cover caught my attention.  Have you ever done that?  The July22 edition of First magazine announced: The Water Cure.  I was thinking it had to do with water exercising—but it didn’t.  It was about drinking more water or women and water or something like that-- not at all what I wanted to read.  Well on page 43 was an article on Aqua Zumba!  If you don’t have a pool this article gives ideas on what to do in any pool of water.  Unfortunately my baby pool doesn’t cut it.

Are you exercising this summer, Grainiacs?  Have you declared part of your summer Fat Camp?  Let me hear about it.

Hill Billying 2

The great thing about the hills is the wildlife. 

Deer, birds, hummingbirds, turkeys, vultures (ewww), dogs, cats, horses.  You name it and it’s in the hills. 

Think you’re going to be tricky and say what about llamas, peacocks, zebras?  Ha ha…it’s here.  These hills have an exotic animal farm!  (Sorry, I didn’t get a picture of them before this post!)

Did I mention a schedule in a previous post?  I sat down and wrote out what a normal day looked like (I’m so embarrassed I will not share it here).  Granted I was studying and reading and writing for seminary classes and yes it did stress me this past semester but my schedule was mostly sitting in front of the TV with the remote control watching BIO murder mysteries.  Every time a commercial came on the TV was muted.  Sorry, sorry, sad, sad schedule!  At fat camp I have a better schedule.  Each morning I get up and have breakfast (something I had stopped doing before fc).  Then it’s off to exercise.  Yes, you heard right!  I’m getting my bones moving—for real!  I might run some errands or I might just let my creative juices flow.  Whatever I call it, it is really R & R.  I did not realize what a whirlwind I was caught up into until I landed.  Resting is a good thing even if you are at fat camp.  Each camp has a schedule otherwise there would be complete and total chaos.  At my fat camp the schedule is a little lax.  When I return home, the schedule will be more rigid.  I plan to keep eating at certain times and exercising at certain times and I plan to de-clutter.  I know, I know…I keep saying this, but this 11 days at fat camp has given me the resolve to get ‘er done and not keep putting things off.  My health, my life, my family, and my home are important and I will not keep putting those things off!

What’s in store for Strawberry tomorrow?  Hmmm?

Headin' to the Hills!

Happy 4^th of July (yesterday), Grainiacs!!  I thought I’d tell you what I’ve been up to for the past couple of days.  You may recall I mentioned I’m sending myself to fat camp—or at least my version of it.  I had been on such a bumpy rollercoaster this past semester and towards the end of it traveled from VA to OK to North Texas.  So much was happening.  My health and diet suffered.  I declared a week and a half of ME time (affectionately called fat camp!).  My goal was to organize my day in such a way that I would be eating healthy AND exercising AND taking time out for me.  But I didn’t want the ME time to be sitting in front of a TV or wasting my time on the computer or phone.  I wanted that time to be full of creativity (with a little bit of TV/computer/phone thrown in!).  I had gotten back into my daily and/or nightly ice cream raids.  I was abusing diet coke again.  I was feeling totally out of control and I had to do something!

I knew I couldn’t stay at home and take charge; I NEEDED to get away.  There is just something about trying out something different at home where one can fall back into old unhealthy routines.  I didn’t want that to happen to me.  I called up a friend and we decided to head to the hills and just get away.   I loaded up my hillbilly mobile and away I went!!!

(actually this is a parade truck!)

Thankfully the hills offer a wonderful….amazing….magnificent wellness center (tied to the local hospital).  This wellness center is something of a health club/ spa/ country club.  I can’t tell you how amazing it is.  The staff is wonderful and helpful and genuinely seems to love their job.  How many people do you know who can say that….a handful, right?

So, stay tuned for more fat camp stories, Grainiacs.  I’ll have lots more to share.  For now, here is a photo of my morning coffee mug; it says it all.

Straighten Up!

Time to straighten up, Strawberry.  You are going on your one year anniversary of de-cluttering your body and your house.  Body-wise:  I've lost 10 pounds and kept it off for a year.  I know what to do; I have to keep doing it.  So I've declared the rest of the summer FAT CAMP.  I'm going to kick start my camp with a friend and we are going to detox ourselves into action.  Here's my list:

• no diet coke (again! why is this such a problem for me!!!)
• no wheat (hello, what's the name of this blog???)
• no sugar (this will be hard and I'll probably be mean....sorry!)
• no meat (yes, you heard me right...this carnivore is going meatless)

Well this just sounds depressing.  No, no, no, and no.  How about some yeses?

• yes...to exercise
• yes...to healthy living
• yes...to no more excuses (it's not really a "no" since I put a "yes" in front of it, right?!)
• yes...to crafting
• yes...to organizing lots of other things

  
I watched a movie on Saturday called I Do (But I Don't) and laughed at the OCD character (don't judge; the writers expected us to laugh at her!).  In this one frame she was organizing someone's files; she had laid out colored post-it notes, colored pens, colored file folders.  I was in love; I took notes!  You see I'm a closet office supply lover.  I just love pretty things...especially when they match and they have sticky stuff to their backs and beautiful colored juices flowing from their bodies.  What creative genius decided that plain ole manila folders were out and colorful decorated folders were the things to create?  I want to be that persons best friend!  So in addition to working on my outsides, I'm declaring my fat farm to have a "creative" edge.  Watch out Staples and Hobby Lobby and Pinterest...  I'm steppin' out and straightenin' up!

I could live in this photo!

Now honestly, wouldn't you prefer to store your stuff in these folders rather than plain manila folders?

I love rainbows...even the post it note kind!