Saturday, May 29, 2010

Boo whooo, sob, sob

I just need to whine {and perhaps wine a little later, too}

I've heard this saying many times 'God will never give you more than you can handle'
(When it was put in these terms "Only people who can handle crap are given crap"-I laughed a bit, especially when it was followed by this God know I can't handle anything that is why he gave me a charmed life)

I just want to say this: I pretty much think I've reached my limit! And I hope that whatever power is out there agrees. (and I'm talking all of them, God, Buddha, the Creator, all of them) Today someone frosted my crap cake. I wont bore you with the details of the other layers, but I'll give you tell you about today's saga...

In my own mind, I am very cool--and apparently, someone else agrees, because they have taken on my identity--okay not completely, however someone was using my check card to make purchase in Tennessee. The lady I talk to at the bank said that most of the time with this kind of stuff, things are charged on line--not so this time, somehow someone got my check card number, took the time to figure out how to make a card that would work and then said fake card was used to buy things. Thankfully RCU said "Wait a minute--Stacy never goes anywhere we should check to see if this is really her" They put a stop to the spending, including mine. I'm so glad it was caught.

I could go on and on about how wrong this is all that--but I'm over it. I just want to say this: I hope whoever had the balls to use this card can't sleep well--but I know that is just a dream and the sad truth is they will more than likely never know or care what their little spending spree took away from my family.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

My Visit "Home"

I was at my most favortiest place in the world today. Camp Nawakwa. When I was a Girl Scout, I attended camp--then when I was entering Adulthood, I went back and worked there for 3 short summers--hard to believe my first summer was 15 years ago (someday I would love to work there again...ah, what a beautiful dream that would be)

I've been back to camp a few times here and there after I had worked there, but it has always been a quick little visit. Today I got to go back and help with camp kapers (which is a campy way of saying cleaning up the place) It was a-mazing. I can not describe the feeling I get as I'm driving there--the closer I get to the entrance, I get a feeling in my stomach and my heart and well just in my entire person and I can hardly contain myself. There is so much of every emotion as I grow closer to my "home". I'm excited, happy beyond belief, nostalgic, a touch sad, but mostly I think I feel love. With every turn and bend in the road, the feeling grow stronger. It is truly wonderful.

I got to clean up the kitchen, walk about camp, visit my favorite places, say hello to Mary, I was able to find my name on the Tenderfoot board, I felt the earth of Nawakwa on my bare feet, I smelled the trees, took in the beauty of Picnic Lake, and clean around tents and trails. I left my car windows open a little so I could take a little Nawakwa air home with me and saved a little water in bottle to enjoy later. I have dirt under my finger nails, leaf particles up my nose, mosquito bites galore and I am sore, sore, sore. I can't wait to do it again next year.

I've seen many posts on facebook about the weather today, there was a little bit of everything, rain, thunder & lightning, coolness & sun. While others were confused, I felt blessed. There is nothing better than the sound of thunder rolling through the hills and the peace I feel while working through big fat raindrops. Life just feel good under the canopy of trees.

I wore my ped-o-meter today--just for kicks, I put in about 6 miles today. I can only imagine how many miles I must have put on the 3 summers I worked there. What an amazing workout and a beautiful gym. I vow to use it more often. Too much time has lapsed since I have been home.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Athletic Apparel

A while back, I read somewhere that when you are beginning a new workout regime, in order to boost your self-esteem, you should fore go the sloppy sweats and baggy t-shirt and go out and get yourself new workout attire. You will look forward to putting on the new clothing {feeling good about yourself}therefore causing you to want to work out even more. Sounds good to me, any reason to buy new clothing, right?

So a while back (but not as long ago as I had read the article-cuz I read the article first) I went out in search of a new workout costume. Some of you may have read my Adventures in Swimwear story. This story is kind of like that one (but not as funny, more frustrated). I'm an epidemic. I'm part of the crowd that keeps making the news. I'm FAT! I live in Wisconsin for goodness sake--land of cheese, and brats and BEER! I should be able to walk into a store and find workout clothing in big girl sizes. But they are not there. So please tell me Athletic Apparel companies what am I to do? I wear my sloppy t-shirts and baggy sweats and feel slumpy and not pretty and no good (I really don't feel these things, I'm just adding drama to the blog).

Do the Nike, Champion, Columbia and whoever elses out there think that people over a size large really do not workout? I know after a certain point, Lycra does not look good, but I'm just saying--you would think that at least Wal-Mart would support it's people and get some circus tents for the love of lard.

I'm sure that someone out there makes Just My Size workout clothing(Delta Burke do you make workout clothing?) Am I just to lazy to look? Or just to busy working out in my scrubs to do it. I don't know. This was just the thought I'd been thinking and I thunked, I'd share.

I just found this little bit of a morsel that I'd thought I would share:

“Clothes Make The Man,” says a common English saying. The meaning is simple: what you wear decides who you are. After all, you don’t see any millionaires wearing old t-shirts do you? (I bet you do.) Another saying encourages people to “dress for success.” That simply means: wear the costume–wear the clothes people expect you to wear–and they’ll treat you the way you want.

I think I'm going to going to start pretending that I have the most amazing running kit on when I'm out there--or I'm going to start running naked and see if the Athletic Apparel people cowboy up and make some workout clothes for me.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Confessions of a new runner

Sunday May 16. 7:40 pm
2nd training day
5 minutes of Brisk Walking; 1 minute of “running”; 1 minute of brisk walking
(Repeat run/walk cycle 9 more times)
5 minute walking cool down

It sucked. I’m being over dramatic. It didn’t suck—I more than likely should have opted for yoga or the wii fit or lazing on the davenport (I loved when my grandma called the couch the davenport, it made it seem almost like a magical transporting seat that could take you any---where was I going with this???) oh yes, or I should have just simply counted weed whacking, manually edging the walk ways, and cleaning house my workout for today. But nooooooooo! Not this over achiever, I had to go full force and push myself further.

It’s all good really. I knew going into it that I was going to take it easy(ier), I have a hitch in my giddy up that is sending up to the ceiling from time to time—anyhow, talk about ADD tonight, wow! Did you know that if you stand on your head wow looks like mom? But not when you type it.

Anyhow, ha, banana, banana (really I have not had any wine tonight, honest—is this what they call a runners high?) I did my 5 minutes of not really so brisk walking (taking it easier remember?) then my first 5ish cycles were pretty okay – not going for speed here folks—I stopped to stretch after the 5th group (and it was right on the path that leads right up to my road and I could have so easily given up and called it quiets for the night, but nope I got back onto that trail, and started to trot again (that’s really what I’m doing, kind of have walk/jog errr trotting, ambling, sauntering, creeping, sloth-ing my way along)

I was greeted on the trail by two lovely dogs (which some of you know freaks me out to no end when dogs come running up to me when I’m moseying along in the dusk—they were blond colored dogs, so I was a little better and the owner yelling they wont bite, they just want to walk with you {sadly, I think I was “running” at the time}). The dogs threw my timing off, and I have not looked at the official stats of my ped-O-meter today to see how long I was out there running and not sure how far I went—but I did it! And it only sucked a bit and I know that Tuesday will suck less and Thursday might be even less suck-y.

To be honest, the part that makes me say it sucks is because I want to be better NOW!!! I have really and truly love the feeling of challenging myself. I have never ever ever before been a runner (only if you count running onto a field/court to the count of 5, 6, 7, 8 with toes pointed in attempts to kick my ass {former PomPom girl here}) Yes I have had the forced runnings of gym teachers in my day (Muller, not so motivating—Rutter would have been oh, so very) [Again where am I going with my bambling?] But I am actually achy when I can’t get out an move my body, when I’m driving somewhere and I see someone on a trail, I wish it were me out there. I have grown to love the sound of my feet thahthunking along on the forest floor (it’s not a forest, it’s just a trail through a tiny gully of trees, but it’s vast to me) I guess what I might be trying to say is that I am enjoying myself with this challenge in ways I did not think I would have {I figured I would have ran once and gave up}

I will always be a walker, I will never give up that stat, I’ve been doing it for years {two beautiful women in my life inspired me to walk for exercises way back when the garbage cans at sportsman’s park were orange) Walking is rooted in me, it’s who I am and helped to shape who I am today. Many miles were logged with a great walking partner in those formative days as well as many many hours of talking. I can never pooh pooh something as grand as that. I only see it, as now I will have options.

(Man I think it took longer to write this that it did to actually do what I'm writing about)

Thursday, May 13, 2010

My Doctor Gave me HomeWork!

I went to the doc today to have my levels of various things tested. Here's the jist of it.

Blood Sugar: Good
Liver Funtion: Good
Thyroid stuff: Good
Blood Pressure: Good
Resting Pulse: Good
Weight--down almost 2 pounds since last year (at least it's down!)
cholestral results are mostly improved, but I still have my sticky wickets with it (as always) This is were the homework comes in.

I have to go back to get retested at the end of summer (Happy Birthday to me) just to make sure that I was able to make changes. We talked about why we thought my Tri's were higher this time and I came up with the answer of stress and stress eating sweets to help with it all (tip: the eating of sweets does not really help at all) I also told her that I did not expect to get in to see her so soon (I called yesterday to make the appointment) so I did not have time to "study" for my test and I didn't think that was very fair, so she told me that I had "homework" to do.

Here's my homework:
I'm going to get back to eating my beans
excersie more
cut back on refined sugars
and take Fish oil

Not too bad--if I fail, I think she will try to put me on meds (which she tried to talk to me about today, but I told her I prefered to prove to her that I could make improvements without them.

Once I got home, I thought about the fact that the night before we went for Chinse food--I'm sure that had something to do with it all. Although I will say that my 2 plates of food look much different than they did say 5 or 6 years ago (lots of space on the plate and not a bit of stacking) but I did have me a spring roll. Isn't it funny how we find a place to blame no matter what. Not, it's me--I've been stuffing all the wrong things in.

I DVR'd it, but wondering if anyone saw Oprah yesterday--the Women, Food, & God one? If so what did you think? I'm going to read the book before I say anything more.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Winning for losing

Today I got an e-mail letting me know that I won something, yet again. I'm so freaking excited. I'll back up and tell you more about the story.

I have become a free-bee couponing goddess (goddess come in all forms you know)I have found many sites that give tips on how to save money, get thing for less and get things for free. One of my very favorite is All You magazine. It is an actual magazine that you can buy at Wal-Mart (not sure if you can get it anywhere else) but it is full of tips and coupons (or Koopins as I like to say) There are many other lady type topics included as well. I found out that they are also on facebook (and who isn't these days?)Every day I check out their page to find out about free offers, give aways, and anything else they may be talking about.

Currently, All You is promoting getting healthy and losing weight (just like every magazine) one of the things they talk about is moving your body and checking your progress, you know the same old song and dance--they were giving away pedometers to 500 people, I wrote a short blurb about why I want to lose weight and my 50 or fewer words won me a prize.

So anyhow short story long, I now have two prizes that will be coming my way--a food scale and a pedometer. I think that must be a sign. I truly am a winner.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Check that off the bucket list

After 12-ish weeks of training, I can cross a half-marathon off my bucket list. Will I do it again? YES!!! I loved it. The weather was beautiful. The course was amazing. And the way I felt...hmmmm. I was just happy. There was never a point that I felt like throwing in the towel. If they would have told me that I had to walk another 2 miles to the actual finish line, I would have said "Okay" and then just kept walking. I guess that's a good thing. I did not cry when I crossed the finish line, nor did I have any real overwhelming feelings at all during the 3:45:10 I was out there. I guess I had the voices of all my peeps with me to get me through and to help me understand that it was all good. It was all good. Very good.