Yesterday I walked 1.25 miles outside. I know that’s really not a lot, and I realize it’s kind of slow since I did it in 26 minutes, but I’m still proud. It was just a couple weeks ago that I could only walk about half a block before needing to hit my asthma inhaler and turn around to come home! Part of that was the high pollen count at the time, too, but it doesn’t make me any less proud of how far I’ve come.
Today I managed about 2.1 miles on the beautiful bike path out back. I kept wanting to walk farther, but decided it might be best to not push it too much just yet. How bad would it suck to injure myself again because I was too impatient to work back up to where I was?
So – I am thankful for walking, for the lovely neighborhood (with sidewalks!) and the bike path, and even for all the rainy, cloudy weather because that has kept the temperature down and nicer to walk in. How about you?
My first week on Weight Watchers is done. (Okay, so it’s the first week of my umpteenth return. It still counts!) All week I tracked. I tracked everything. Even when I drank bottles of water. I tracked the ice cream and the fried chicken and the pasta I ate. I didn’t really exercise because I was being pretty lazy.
Last night, I did it. I walked back into Weight Watchers for a meeting. I’d already signed back up online that morning – though the site still won’t give me my membership card – and I reconnected my ActiveLink right after. Part of me kept trying to convince the rest of me that I didn’t need to stay for the meeting. I can just go in, redo the paperwork, and weigh in. Period. Just walk right back out after that. Which yes, I could do… but I forced myself to turn around and walk into the meeting room. I even took my old seat in the very front, though I was tempted to slink in one of the back rows. (The one thing that kept me from doing that was I didn’t know if those were “claimed seats”, where someone always sat. You know how that happens in group settings!)
On the white board at the front of the room, the Leader (I just can’t bring myself to call them Coaches – makes me thing of the football and basketball coaches in their coach shorts in high school) had written this bit of inspiration:
Gratitude:
It’s not happiness that brings us gratitude
It’s gratitude that brings us happiness.
And the front of the weekly newsletter has this emblazoned on it:
I just had to laugh – what a perfect time for me to return, when Weight Watchers is sounding like The Secret!
I left there last night telling myself this is it – this time I am making it work. My birthday is five weeks away; I hope to maybe lose ten pounds by then. Renaissance Faire here in Ohio begins in September and goes through til October 25 – I want to have shed fifteen or maybe twenty pounds by the time we go (assuming we go this year). I’ve also taken my measurements, not just the few they have for the WW app, but in an Excel spreadsheet I found online. When there’s a time that the scale isn’t showing me what I need to see, I hope the measurements will.
Rain, rain, rain. All morning and through to afternoon it’s been raining. There’s just something about the rain that makes me just want to do nothing at all.
The mail brought something for me this morning, however – my first book from Bethany House to review! So instead of feeling totally meh and just not wanting to do anything, I not only had some blog stuff to catch up on, but a new book to read – and just in time, too, as I finished my other book last night.
Give me a few weeks, and you’ll see my review for Irish Meadows, the first novel by Susan Anne Mason. So far it’s pretty good!
When I moved out of Southern California to Oklahoma, two things I missed (other than the beach and the weather!): Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods. While I lived in Oklahoma City, they were getting ready to open a Whole Foods, but it was still being built when I moved away in July, 2011. No sign of a Trader Joe’s, though.
I found myself in Ohio in the wee hours of August 1. Did I go straight to my new home? Nope. Hims had been driving for 14 hours, but he knew… oh, the man knew… Instead of finding a nice patch of floor to flop down on to sleep, he drove me to the local Trader Joe’s. I danced in the parking lot, shrieking for joy. (I really did!) Then we went to the apartment to sleep a bit before unloading the van.
My kitchen has been “stapled” with Trader Joe’s items ever since then. We shop at the wonderful local store Dorothy Lane, and we go to the farmers’ markets for eggs and produce, but we are mainly a Trader Joe’s household. You have to admit – their packaging is fun and their food is great, and the prices are pretty damn good, too.
When Whole Foods finally opened its doors last week after being under construction for months, we had to go. Not because we are going to switch groceries, but because Whole Foods is that other little bit of California rememberings. The first thing to greet us when we walked in:
Have a seat in a shopping basket while enjoying your Shiraz!
I had to laugh – it looked more like a cocktail party than a grocery store. It was Friday evening, and probably 4/5 of the people in there were dressed quite nicely and had a wine glass in hand. That’s great! They had little wine stations throughout the store, with samples of different foods for people to try. There was a jazz band playing, and people were sitting down and having dinner.
Just recently another healthier-alternatives grocery store opened up in the area. Fresh Thyme. Pretty much the same people showed up for their grand opening, too, though after the new wore off, they seemed to gravitate back to where they were originally shopping for the most part. I wonder if the same thing will happen to Whole Foods? (I sort of doubt it, at least not as much.)
At any rate, I’m really happy Whole Foods has joined Trader Joe’s (and Dorothy Lane and Dots) in the neighborhood. Always good stuff to be had there, and the more competition, the better for prices, right?
As much as I love history, as much as I would be thrilled to be able to travel through time (still looking for a Time Lord or a Voyager out there, yanno), as much as I would totally geek out on being able to experience different points in the past, there’s one thing I’d hate to not have: air conditioning.
Okay, so there are a few more things like Advil and non-dairy flavored creamer and Trader Joe’s. And proper toothbrush and toothpaste.
Today we are muggy with the temperture looking into the 90s, and there is an air pollution alert on. This is when I love my air conditioner the most! Believe me, I’ve lived through a summer of record breaking heat in Oklahoma City a few years back, and I longed for a good air conditioner then.
This may sound just silly, but you know what I’m thankful for this morning? Birds. Seriously! I love waking up to fresh, early morning air filled with the twitter and warble of birds.
Remember a few months ago, when I was bemoaning the frigid temperatures and wishing for spring? Birdsong reminds me as I wake up that I’m not waking to a bleak, gray day where the temperature might get above 40° if I’m lucky. Today will get into the low 70s with abundant sunshine – a perfect day for a long walk.
I know I’ve mentioned the neighborhood bike path before. At this time of year it’s filled with flowers, with bright green canopies of leaves, and all sorts of birds singing to each other and chittering away at squirrels who try to get too close to nests. The sounds and scents of the area tend to encourage me as I walk, making me want to go just a little farther, see if I can find out which bird is making that pretty song, or where that squirrel hid, or just to enjoy the spring day. Nearly all the people I pass on my walks are friendly. They smile, say hello, and sometimes we even have a small conversation. No one is in a big rush to get somewhere else, and only a few people look with a scowl and anyone else around them. (I feel sorry for those individuals, because everything’s so much nicer when people greet each other and smile. Do I sound naive? I’m not, which makes these greetings all the nicer.)
If you have a chance today, stop, close your eyes, and just listen to the birds. It’s worth a few moments of time.
April 15 last year – poor sparrow was NOT happy with the late snow, and neither was I!
I also just found that I can place a degree symbol in my post, so I no longer have to use the asterisk in its stead! See? A bonus thankful thing.
For two months I didn’t write in this blog. I didn’t because there was a post that would need to be written first, and I couldn’t bring myself to write it.
Near the end of February, my Daddy passed away after coming down with pneumonia about five days before. He was only 77. Just a week before he’d told me on the phone that he’d be here for my wedding – he planned on living ’til he was at least 90.
I know this isn’t Thursday, but you’ll ignore that little faux pas, right? 🙂 Because I have always been thankful my Daddy is my Daddy, and that I’m his first-born daughter.
He played with chemistry sets with me, even while Mom gritted her teeth, wondering if we’d blow up the house or create noxious fumes that would make everyone sick. He helped me build my first model – the Lunar lander, and my second model – the B-29 Superfortress. (I loved that thing!) He had his big microscope and would set up my small microscope (a real one, not a kid’s toy) next to it and show me cells and things between the glass plates. He would set up the telescope in the backyard and show my little sister and me the moon and the planets in the Oklahoma skies, and repeatedly adjust the focus because the Earth never stands still.
One early, early morning in 1986, Daddy woke me up and got me into the car, curlers in my hair and all, and drove us out past Piedmont and into the country. I remember him getting out of the car and looking up, pointing into the sky and trying to get me out of the car. I stayed in my seat because it was cold and I was half-asleep, but I did see what he was pointing at – Halley’s Comet was overhead. We shared a love of space things, from the lunar landing in December, 1968 (I upstaged the astronauts by “discovering” my hands as a baby right then), to the Voyager launches, and the first Space Shuttle launch, as well as all sorts of science fiction shows. When I would babble on about extra-terrestrials as a kid, he would listen and tell me “I don’t see why not”.
I remember being around three years old in Minnesota, and standing in his basement darkroom. Plastic trays filled with developer chemicals and water were on the counter, exposed film and drying photographs hung neatly from a line overhead. Dad was focusing another photo on some paper with the machine that always looked to me like part of an elephant’s trunk. The chemicals made the room smell metallic in a way, but I loved it. When we moved to Oklahoma, he would set up his darkroom equipment in the kitchen at night, and pull a dining chair over so I could stand on the seat and help him swish the developing photos in the solutions with the huge rubber-tipped tongs. By this time I had already outgrown the small Kodak Instamatic camera I’d been given when I was five, and had my own Kodak to match my parents’ Konica cameras. It was heavy, but I loved it! He had his own camera shop for awhile – I can even point out where it was to this day, and then he had his own photography school for a couple years.
My Daddy was the only one who really understood why I wanted to live in Los Angeles, and why I had no qualms about moving to Ohio. He understood that I don’t just want to take little trips every now and then, but I want to live different places, experience different things. He lived all over the world in the 50s as part of the US Air Force Photography Corps. He jumped out of planes that were going down (and nearly got killed when his parachute didn’t want to open in Japan!) and saw all sorts of things. When he worked in Houston for a television station, he met The Beatles and filmed some of the last footage of President Kennedy, the day before he was killed.
So many things I never got to know about him, but so many things I did know, and that he understood about me. I was supposed to be born on his birthday, even, but decided to come exactly a week early – maybe that’s why we understood each other.
Daddy at about 3 years old with Babe Ruth in Hot Springs (or Little Rock), Arkansas. About 1941.
In the USAF, either 1955 or 1956. My Daddy was a flyboy! 🙂
1954 in Little Rock, Arkansas. We both have the habit of carrying cameras with us!
At my maternal grandmother’s house in Oklahoma City on my 5th birthday (August 10, 1973), bringing me my cake. And yeah – I look a lot like him. 🙂
There has always been this irrational fear I’ve had concerning my home and landlords. I’m terrified they will evict me immediately if they come inside the home and see that I am not the neatest person in the world – which I’m not. Usually any termite or heater or plumbing inspections are preceded by a 24 to 48 hour notice, which gives me a panicked day or so to try and make everything look perfect. (It rarely winds up that way.) Then I hold my breath and hope a cat doesn’t make a smelly deposit right before the landlord or managers show up.
I’ve been known to call in sick just to give myself extra time to clean. Or panic. They seem interchangeable at these times.
It’s rare that I will even answer the door unless it’s FedEx or UPS if I’m not expecting someone. And yes, it’s the same fear that causes that.
For years, I have known this was probably pretty ridiculous. There is no reason I would be evicted, but that is still a shadow in my mind. I just thought it was thanks to my wildly running imagination, and nothing I could control. I just had to suck it up and deal with it every time I heard a knock on the door or got that 24-hour notice.
Then a couple days ago, someone on Facebook commented about her fear of the landlord doing a routine bug inspection and evicting her because her place (with small children!) wasn’t spic and span. Then others commented about having the same fears… and one even admitted to nearly freaking out when the doorbell would ring unexpectedly. It’s still irrational, I’m sure, but here are intelligent, rational people dealing with the same thing I’ve thought was unique to my brand of terrors!
What a Thankful this was, to find out I’m not alone in this at all!
The past week got away from me – sorry! Because of that, I am doubling up on Thursday Thankfuls and Friday Photography. It’s not like I don’t have enough to be thankful about (or that there’s a dearth of photos in my stash, either)!
When I was little, Mom used to press home the importance of hand-written correspondence. Now, this was well before everyone had five email addresses and IMs and phones to text with at a moment’s notice. She made it clear that thank you notes were to be sent for gifts at Christmas and on birthdays and whenever else you might receive something. Even if you were going to see Grandma this weekend, you still wrote a small thank you to her for the sweater she gave you for Valentine’s Day. I hate to admit it, but my thank yous and just regular correspondence like that have fallen by the wayside as an adult, when a quick email or phone call “does the trick”. And that’s a shame.
My Mom has been in a rehabilitation hospital for about two months now, recovering from a stroke she had the day after Thanksgiving. The first couple days I was unsure if she would make it, but I’m grateful she did. Unfortunately, the phone in her room doesn’t seem to ring when someone calls, so I’ve only been able to speak with her a few times since she’s been there. I do, however, have the address of the hospital!
Yes, the many, many mini-lectures I received growing up are still in my head, and thankfully so – I write little letters to Mom each week, and just sent my parents a card for Valentine’s Day. To brighten up her room, I ordered some non-Valentine’s-Day flowers for her yesterday, and they should be delivered sometime today. Dad told me a few weeks ago that Mom loves getting my little letters, and I’m happy to know that. It’s another thing she instilled in me that I’m very thankful for.
The things you realize when you’re an adult, huh?
(And yes, I have been in contact with the hospital and trying to get the phone situation fixed, though that won’t keep me from sending her letters. Yesterday I was promised that maintenance will go and look at it. Hims wonders if they have long distance calls blocked from coming in by mistake, which is another thing I will ask them to check if this isn’t resolved soon.)
Me, Take Three 