It's the Freakin' Weekend

The last weekend in October was mostly focused on my brother's 40th birthday.

On Friday evening, I headed toward the Plaza to meet up with my Rep volunteering buddies for our pre-volunteering dinner. This time, we chose Spin! Pizza. After dinner, we drove over to the theater for the KC Rep's production of The Foreigner. I got assigned the cushy job of will call and then settled in to enjoy the show. It was pretty funny and I may have spit on myself due to an unexpected laugh. It was late for me by the time I got home and a pretty much fell into bed.

I had planed to get up and go for my long run early Saturday morning before we hit the road, but I was very tired and couldn't drag myself out of bed. Ditching my plans was just as bad, though, because I kind of had a meltdown. I pulled it together enough for us to hit the road and even remembered to pack all of the important stuff. Thank goodness Tim was there to make sure everything else was taken care of.

As we headed out of town, we saw a terrible accident on westbound 70. All of the traffic was being diverted from the interstate. I quickly reloaded Facebook onto my iPhone so I could alert a friend who I knew was going to be traveling through the area. After that, it was pretty smooth sailing. Lily worked on her homework--a creative essay on what 10 animals she would bring if she were Noah and there were going to be floods--and debated with us the merits of, say, elephants v. camels and cows v. goats. I grabbed a bunch of back issues of Better Homes and Gardens and flipped through them, tearing out the stuff that was most interesting. Is it just me or does anyone else have a difficult time of letting go of magazines?? Ripping stuff out is the only way I can bear to send them to recycling nirvana.

We made it to Mom & Dad's and unpacked everything. We presented my brother with his birthday gift.

I finished this project in less than a week. That's super-speed for me!

He didn't realize that I made the blanket until my mom told him. (Made, as in, put the border on it.) That was kind of a nice compliment.

I decided I might as well get my long run in. I got on my gear and plotted a course through the gravel roads of my parents' rural subdivision that was basically six miles long and hit the road. It was a beautiful sunny and warm day. My parent's roads are up on a ridge so it's always fairly windy up there. I got to run past there house several times so I threw a water bottle in their yard to grab every time I ran past. Very convenient!!

I showered and got dressed and we all loaded up in the car and drove across the interstate to go to the sorghum maze. Except for Lily, none of us had been to a corn maze before. It was a lot of fun and we all decided that sorghum was a better medium for mazes than corn. (These are the kind of discussions that are had by a farm/agribusiness family!) Dad bought Lily a "princess" pumpkin and we drove down the road a little ways to try to spot Clydesdales.

Sorghum blew into Tim's mouth just as Mom took this picture.

After we got home, Mom, Lily, Tim & I all pitched in to make this cake happen. Mom baked three cakes in advance so we could stack them up. They were so moist! It was difficult to pile them together, but we managed in the end. I decided we should go with paper windows and signs because there just wasn't time to go whole hog with the icing decorations. I'm not supremely skilled when it comes to cake decorating and covering the cake with different colored star-tipped splotches to make the T.A.R.D.I.S. design was NOT in the cards. I also insisted that we present the cake before dinner just in case if fell over. Thanks to some strategically placed dowel rods, it was still standing when we finished dinner.

Just to make sure we did all the autumn things in one day, my dad planned a wienie roast that evening. We gathered around the fire eating chili and hot dogs and rotisserie-ing our  bodies to try to even out the warmth. We skipped the s'mores in favor of birthday cake!

On Sunday, we went to church and had a big fried chicken birthday lunch with all the fixin's. I so went overboard on the calories, but that is something that you have to do when it comes to Mom's chicken dinner. After lunch, we loaded up into the van and took off to the country to take family pictures.

While we took pictures, we also explored the old barn. Tim had never been in a hayloft before. What a city slicker!

We were all reluctant to leave but after dinner, we packed up the car and hit the road. It was a great weekend and we didn't want it to end.

Crafties

Last night I made a belated anniversary gift for my favorite couple, the Happy Hobsons. Check out their Amazing Race audition video.




This couple got married one year ago on a very cold October 6. Did I mention the wedding was outside and the bridesmaids dresses were strapless?

Copyright 2012 Design and Capture Studio www.designandcapture.com 913-530-5510

I was very lucky to be matron of honor and Liz and I spent the months prior to the wedding crafting button bouquets and boutonnières.
Copyright 2012 Design and Capture Studio www.designandcapture.com 913-530-5510

So, for their first anniversary, I knew I wanted to make something--in honor of all our crafty bonding time, and that I wanted to follow the traditional gifts--paper for the first anniversary. 

Ultimately, I'm glad I procrastinated so long before deciding what to make. (Hello, day before gift giving.) Admittedly, I was a little distracted on the actual date of their anniversary. The Hobsons got married on the same day as Lily's birthday so I was busy planning for this frivolity instead of thinking about a crafty paper gift.

If I had made a gift in early October instead of early November, I would never have thought to make a Christmas ornament. Happily, this is a gift that can turn into a tradition, varying the material with each new traditional gift. 

I stopped by the craft store looking for the following: base for the ornament in the shape of an H (I found a chipboard one to stick with the paper theme), festive scrapbook paper, and Mod Podge. I'd never decoupaged anything before, unless you count the boxes I made in junior high and high school by rubber cementing pictures cut out of magazines to old shoe or jewelry boxes and then "sealing" them with packing tape. I wonder if those are still around somewhere or if I threw them away? 

Besides the H motif in the ornament and the use of the traditional material, I also wanted to incorporate memorable events from their first year together so I combed through Liz's Facebook to make sure I hit some of the high points. I typed them I to a Word document and printed them out to incorporate into the decoupage. 

Here is what I ended up with

I'm kind of excited to start planning for next year's ornament!

Junk in My Trunk

On Tuesday evening, Tim asked if I could show him where my clothes go so when he does laundry and I'm not home, he could put them away rather than leaving piles on the bed for me to deal with. As nice as this request was, it made me feel...frustrated? angry? lazy? selfish? I'm not really sure what particular emotion the request brought up exactly, but it was bad.

Identify the Problem

I have listened to Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project on my iPod so many times while commuting or mowing the yard that her commandment "Identify the problem" floated through my sub-conscious. Since high school, I've never lived anywhere for more than three years. In all of those places, I never settled on a good storage solution for my clothes because it didn't seem to be worth the time or money to come up with a solution that might not work in my next home. To further clutter the issue (and the closet), when I moved into Tim's house a little over four years ago, I willingly jettisoned my estate sale chest of drawers at a garage sale because it wouldn't fit anywhere. No matter how many Rubbermaid boxes I bought or how many items of clothing I decluttered, I couldn't answer the question of where my clothes belonged because I never took the time to create a permanent storage system that worked. 

Finding a Solution

Unlike Rubin, my solution for closet clutter clearing was not simply trash bags. My first step probably should have been to take inventory and pare down, but I've done this so many times that it is becoming difficult to figure out what to let go of. 

I did think about my storage needs for a hot second. Emotionally, however, I needed to take action. I logged onto target.com and opened in a new page any item that struck me as a plausible solution. Once I had opened 173 new pages, I began to narrow down my choices. 

Criteria

1. Size matters. Obviously, if the item wouldn't fit in my closet under my hanging clothes, it had to go. Even if it was capable of folding and putting away the clothes itself, I wouldn't be able to make it work.

2. Caviar taste on a hot dog budget. I have fifty dollars from my side gig burning a hole in my pocket and I decided that my storage solution had to be something I could purchase with that amount. Goodbye beautiful and probably not very functional bathroom cabinets. That cut out about half my open pages.

3. Form follows function.

3A. Fitting into my sloppy clothes-putting-away style. I know from experience that I'm most successful at staying organized with hangers and drawers. I already have the hangers covered but I said "sayonara" to my drawers about four years ago and my clothing storage has suffered ever since. I also knew I wanted several drawers, one for each category of clothing.

3B. No snags allowed. As I was browsing, I started to consider function over form. Although some of the wicker-type drawers were attractive, I thought about the increased potential for my tights getting snagged and nixed all the pretty but prickly options.

I was left with three pages open in my browser. Of those three, price became my main motivator. The option I chose was on clearance, so I got two three-drawer storage bins for less than the cost of one of the other options. And free shipping and a 5% discount by using my Target card--what's better than that? Unfortunately, when I checked today to grab a link and screen shot to the drawers I ordered, I couldn't find them again, so I guess they are all sold out.

The only bad thing about this experience so far--except for the bad feelings at the beginning of the story--is that I didn't have the instant gratification of carrying my new storage solution out of the store when we went last night for our regular shopping trip. So now my thoughts are consumed with daydreams of an organized closet every time I open the closet door or lean over to get my underwear out of the under-the-bed Rubbermaid. (An everyday occurrence--maybe now you can sympathize with my frustration.) The good news is that my order has shipped so I should be able to dig into my mess and tell my husband where my clothes go soon!

It's Called Managing Expectations

The day was going so well, right up until 10:30, the time my boss usually shows up for work. 

One of the first things he did was give me a lecture about "dreaming big." Here's what happened. I told him I was nominating a project for an award. He asked if we had a chance. I said maybe we could get an honorable mention but probably not the big prize and began to describe the type of institution that usually wins. He cut me off (per usual) and told me I needed to dream bigger. At which point I punched him in the face* and pointed out that he's the one who asked about our chances and that I was--after all--doing the work of nominating. Then he asked me if we were going to apply for an award from *this* organization. He had to rifle through a stack of papers to show me which organization he was talking about because he doesn't actually know the name of it. I said that their awards don't happen until Fall, but, of course it was on my radar. Then I escaped with only one name having been dropped.**

Later this day, (yes, all of this before noon) he gave me a compli-plaint (a compliment coupled with a sneaky criticism or complaint; different than a back-handed compliment) and then he reminded me with annoying meddling why I don't tell him about the things I'm working on.

*Punching did not actually occur.

** I think my new way of marking the length of our conversations will be counting the number of names he drops.

Running Recap: Overdue

It's been way too long since my last running recap. Here are some boring details:

Miles run: 15.25
Runs skipped: 4 -- 10.5 miles total
Reasons for skipping: back pain, travel, being mad
Fastest run: 2 mile loop in 19:29
Travel workouts: 2 bouts of 4.25 miles on the hotel treadmill
Longest run: 3 miles
New milestone song: "Who wouldn't wanna be me" by Keith Urban
Bouts of intestinal distress:  1 -- but I ran through the threat
Most memorable runs:

While traveling for my work conference, I really pushed my pace on the treadmill. I always feel so awkward when running on the treadmill. I also fiddle with the speed a lot. I kept cycling up and down from 5.5 mph to 6.5 mph, trying to stay under a 10 minute mile, which I did on both runs.

My first run back home after traveling, I also pushed the pace. This resulted in my fastest run but also it was difficult to catch my breath when I finished.

For my three-miler yesterday, I stupidly chose the hilly route. My legs felt heavy as soon as I started so I kept my pace slow, which might have affected my stride. My calves felt like they were going to cramp as I was struggling up the hills. It hurt. This is also my first run struggling with intestinal distress and mucous choking. This is the glamorous side of running, folks.

And speaking of glamorous running, here's what I've learned from the various and usual gross things that happen when I'm running:

Intestinal distress: I'm not running hard enough. Typically I feel like I'm going to poop my pants only when I'm running downhill or on a flat stretch after jugging up a hill. Picking up the pace or heading uphill makes the pressure go away. If it doesn't, I'll likely stop running and quickly walk to the nearest bathroom. I've never had a real pooping emergency while running and I don't intend to, either.

Side-stitches: Breathe, dummy. And pay attention to what I eat before I run.

Mucous Choking: This means I should have carried water or some fruit snacks with me. Those things usually help. If I don't have them, it's time to spit all the way home and hope I don't start heaving. That's the worst. I've also never thrown up while running. I remember two times where I've gotten close. One was from mucous choking while on my way to go vote (I ran to the polls) and the other was after my 5K PR. I held it together, but in retrospect it would have made that PR much more epic. How many people can say they've thrown up on the field of a major league baseball stadium?

Money Matters

These past few days have been really stressful finance-wise. While I was away at a conference, Tim discovered an area of mold in our drywall. A few days later he learned the source. A big rain revealed a leak in the roof and multiple leaks in the basement. As of that wasn't fun enough, when I got back to work, I learned my insurance premium was doubling. On top of that we have new braces payments starting for the girl, have to get health insurance for the husband, the girl's birthday, my brother's 40th birthday, a marked increase in the water/sewer bill (rates are insanely higher compared to just a year ago) and Christmas is coming. And while I'm piling it on, I might as well mention that the girl's gymnastics went up $3 a month and we're back in competition season, too.

It's a bit scary to be on this side of the checkbook, right now. 

There are a few good things, finance-wise, going for us, though. 

I have some part-time work thanks to my awesome friend. I remembered a couple of things I have that could go on eBay. Tim is making a concerted effort to get more stuff on eBay as well. The weather is cooling down so we can turn off the air conditioner. I've already purchased the components of my brother's birthday present; I just have to put it together. It's getting to be garage sale weather. I've also started thinking about some ideas for an Etsy store (two stores, really, Buttons Up and a as-yet-to-be-developed store).

I don't know if the credits and cut-backs will keep us ahead of the debits, but we're working on it. 

It always feels so gloomy to talk about the sad state of my finances. However, most of us are so much bigger than our money matters. When you talk to folks who lived through the depression as young adults ( or perhaps I should say "talked to folks;" sadly there aren't many of those people left) few of them point to the hardships or deprivations. It's not that they didn't feel the depression keenly, it's that people's lives are larger than their economic woes. Jokes, hugs, and personal triumphs can't be bought. We find these moments even when our wallets are at their thinnest. This is where life happens, not while checking our bank account balances online. 

And just to show you how schizophrenic our financial situation is, I wrote this post in the morning before I left for work and when I got back from a lunch meeting my boss told me that "funny story, your insurance isn't doubling after all...it's going down." Whoever is responsible for that c-f owes me a gallon of wine. 

Good Eats: Fall Banana Skillet

I can't remember where I first encountered this recipe (somewhere on the Internet) but it was probably around 4 years ago and I have to admit, I was skeptical. Besides banana bread, I'd never eaten hot bananas. (Since then, I've taken to putting 1/2 a banana and a scoop of peanut butter into my plain oatmeal. So good.) But, I had some leftover cooked sweet potatoes that needed to be eaten so I gave the recipe a try.

I told my great aunt Dorothy about this recipe and she, too, thought it sounded a little odd. So did my mom. I couldn't make believers out of them, seeing as how they must've shared some recessive anti-hot-banana gene, but I just cooked  this recipe for the second time for breakfast so at least I convinced myself. I didn't have the recipe in front if me but its such an easy concept even I could wing it. 

This dish is a quick, tasty, belly-warming breakfast when you have geriatric bananas on your counter and cooked orange fall vegetables. It's a good alternative for when I get tired of eating oatmeal every day. It might also be good stirred into oatmeal, other cooked grains, creamy polenta, or grits. I've used baked sweet potatoes and baked butternut squash leftovers, but pumpkin or another winter squash would probably work well, too.

Fall Banana Skillet

1. Make your pan non-sticky. Teflon, cooking spray, oil, butter--whatever you choose will work. I use a small skillet because I just make one serving. 

2. Heat up the pan to around medium while you peel your banana and slice it in half and lengthwise. 

3. Arrange banana and cooked sweet potato/orange squash in pan. I put the banana around the edges and fill the middle with sweet potato/squash. 

4. Let it cook, about two minutes per side. 

5. Season with anything from the pumpkin pie spice family, if you want. I don't think I used any spice last time but this time I used cinnamon and ginger because that's what's in my spice drawer. 

6. Eat. I like mine with some hot black tea, spiked with a scoop of Russian Tea mix. My mom makes us our Russian Tea mix, but it's basically instant lemon flavored sweet tea, Tang, sugar and some spices. 

Running Recap: Longer, Smarter, Faster

Total mileage this week: about six (Two miles on Sunday, Wednesday, Friday)

I feel pretty good about this week of running because I adapted. Sunday I was at the Lake with Tim's family but I ran anyway. Tuesday I felt worn down, achy, and generally off my game so I skipped my run. But instead of skipping it all together and the tempting thought of doing it a tomorrow that never comes, I ran Wednesday and Friday. I think my motivation has a lot to do with my COA goal of running 37 miles in September. I did skip a strength session, though. 

Longer: I didn't have a route mapped to go exactly 2 miles at the Lake on Sunday, so I just planned to go by time. I ran longer than I have since I started to try to make sure I got in a full 2 miles. 

Smarter: On my Wednesday afternoon run, I came up with an idea to support my community and promote the nonprofit that I work for. I love it when running sparks a creative solution to something. 

Faster: I ran my fastest two mile loop this morning without even trying. It was much cooler so that helped. I'm still slow but I'm getting quicker. 

Running Recap: Milestone Music

I started back running this week. My ultimate goal is to run a marathon in St. Louis in April 2014, but I'm going to take it slow and just try to hit little goals along the way.

Total mileage this week: 6 (2 miles on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday) It was really hot this week so I'm glad I didn't have a lot of miles to put in. I definitely started SLOW. Despite my turtle's pace, I still collapsed on the driveway for a bit when I got back from my run.

That first run back was super tough. My internal monologue alternated between a couple of "mantras" and an idea to motivate myself to keep running all the way home. One mantra that popped into my head while I was puffing up a long but not particularly steep incline was, "If my lungs can carry me, my legs can carry me." It can also work in the opposite, depending on which part of me is struggling. (It's usually my legs, though.) My other mantra is something I picked up from a Runner's World magazine. It's "You always have enough left to make it up the last hill." This helps mantra comes to me often when I'm struggling up the steep penultimate hill that is less than a half-mile from my house and finds its way into most any route I run from home.

While I was jogging my first two miles in a while and in between mantra-ing myself on a few more steps, I had an idea to mark each extra mile I pick up in my training. Milestone music. Every time I graduate to a mile longer run, (and actually run the whole way), I'll buy a favorite song from iTunes to add to my running playlist. (When I'm training, I like to set a playlist and keep it mostly the same all the way through. It's a comfortable routine for me. I'm not someone who likes to hit the "random" button and see what comes up.) I knew halfway through my first run, that if I made it home, I was going to buy Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me" live at Budokan. (And yes, it had to be the live at the Budokan version.) Now, everytime I'm crossing the two mile threshold, I'll know it...whether I'm finishing my run or have 10 more miles to go.

An added benefit to this idea is that I get to mark progress in my pace as well. I always wear a stopwatch when I run, but I usually don't look at it too much. So even though I know when I get home if I ran a route faster or slower than the time before, I will also be able to tell based on my milestone song. In fact, on my third run this week, I never made it to Cheap Trick. I ran my two miles a whole song faster than I did on my first run. I get to move my two-milestone song up in the playlist order. That's a milestone in itself.

Good Eats: Watermelon Salad and Mustard-Bacon Potato Salad

One of my summer aims is to not let the CSA produce overtake me. Sometimes this is a tall order because my parents foist corn, tomatoes, and zucchini on me whenever I see them in addition to the regular CSA. Here are a couple of recipes I've made lately to use up the bounty.

Watermelon Cucumber Salad

Cut up about the same amount of watermelon and cucumber into small, bite-sized pieces. Add onions (and green peppers if you want.) Cut them up smaller than the watermelon pieces. The proportion between watermelon/cucumbers and onion/green pepper should be somewhere between 4:1 or 8:1. I don't know because I didn't measure anything. It's not science. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Dress with a 1:1 mixture of white wine vinegar and olive oil. 

Mustard-Bacon Potato Salad

Cut up new red potatoes and boil in salted water. Drain when fork-tender. Fry some bacon, cut into bite sizes pieces. Drain on a paper towel lined plate. Sauté onion and green pepper in bacon grease. Drain that. If there is a lot of grease left in the pan, pour it out until a little bit remains. Deglaze the pan with a generous pour of vinegar. Keep the heat low so it won't stink up your house like you're dying Easter eggs. Add some fancy mustard: grainy, honey, Dijon.  Add salt, pepper, sugar, curry powder and maybe a splash of olive oil to taste. Mix everything together. If the sauce seems too thin, like it isn't coating the potatoes enough, add more mustard. Best if served warm. 

Six Impossible Things before Breakfast

There is a nursery rhyme that you may not know. It isn't as popular as, say, "Hey, Diddle Diddle" or "Hickory Dickery Dock." In fact, there are no nonsensical word in it at all, which is the mark of a poor nursery rhyme, if you ask me. It goes a little like this (maybe not exactly like this, I'm relying on memory, not the infallible Google):

There was a little girl

Who had a little curl

Right in the middle of her forehead.

And when she was good,

She was very, very good,

And when she was bad she was horrid.

As with all nursery rhymes, I'm not sure what the intended effect of this rhyme was supposed to be, but my 5-year-old self adopted it as a mantra. It seemed a perfectly sensible way to go about my business. I even tried--at least on one occasion--to fashion my hair after my imaginary life coach. I think this was after behaving horridly...why not go all in, right? My hair could mark me as someone not to be trifled with. 

All this backstory is to say that my weekday mornings seem to follow that little girl's pattern. I have plenty of mornings that are just "meh," but the high are very, very high and the lows are horrid. 

There is another story about a fictional girl that might provide a better model for my mornings. In Through the Looking Glass, the White Queen advises Alice to try to believe "six impossible things before breakfast." 

Here is my list so far:

1. I can make the day longer. I've been getting up at least a minute earlier every day for awhile now. I've added 37 minutes to my day so far. 

2. I can read and write during my commute. I've been composing bad commuter poetry to post to my Tumblr using the voice recorder function on my phone. Also I'm working my way through my library's collection of Agatha Christie audiobooks.

3. I can be stronger than I was yesterday.  I have some back and core exercises that my AR therapist gave me to help with a "bulging disc" in my lower back. I have a hard time remembering to do these, especially once the pain subsides. With all those extra minutes, I can squeeze my strengthening exercises in during the morning. 

4. I can run a marathon. Woof, I have a long way to go to get there. The aforementioned derailed my training program, but get there I will. My new training will start the morning of the 24th. 

5. I can survive without coffee. Double woof. Actually, I usually switch to tea (black, green, and eventually herbal) in the winter. I'm starting the switch tomorrow instead of November or December because I ran out of coffee grounds and don't want to buy more. 

I haven't decided what my sixth impossible thing to believe will be. Should it be something to inspire concrete action? Should it be something that will motivate me? Should it be something to generate positive self-talk? ShouldI start wearing my hair like the White Queen?

What about you? What impossible thing do you believe to have a very, very good morning?

Currently...

Thinking: Between a recent piece I heard on NPR about rebranding Hamburger Helper and my boss's (A) insistence that board members must give a set minimum amount of money to our 501c3, (B) inability to understand that $20 is a lot of money to some people, myself included, I've been thinking a lot about class-based prejudice. I think we're all victims and perpetrators. How do we overcome it? Should we overcome it?

Feeling: Late last week I was hit with a feeling of community. I picked up one of my board members to take her to the funeral of another board member and realized how "right" it felt. My parents do this type of thing all the time. It's the work of being a human, of being a member of a tribe. I always "got" why they do it, but now I feel like I "get" it on a whole different level. I have a better sense of how to do my human work and where my tribe is. 

Watching: House of Cards by myself. I'm a sucker for a good political drama. The Harry Potter movies and Blu-ray extras with Tim. The wizarding world is my ultimate escape from real life. 

Reading: Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. This is turning into one of my favorite Gaiman books that I've read. If you've ever scouted a place to live if you were homeless, I have a feeling you'd like this book. 

Excited: A ladybug just landed on my leg. That's a good omen, right?

Missing: Grandparents. I always miss them and in a sense, I've missed them my whole life. I've never known a full set of grandparents although I've had lots of great surrogates. 

Wondering: If my step-daughter ever got registered for school this year. Last year her mom didn't do the paperwork in time. I feel like it is her job because she is the one who insists Lily go to Catholic school. 

Working: I have a love/hate relationship with my work. I love helping our partners reach their goals. I hate the way my boss treats me. It's very bipolar. 

Stressed: Over work and finances. August and September are going to kill me at work. It's just that busy. We have a big hole in our savings to fill after getting Tim's transmission rebuilt. 

Proud: Of just about every creative thing my step-daughter does. 

Wanting: to extend this cool, peaceful morning for hours. Solo, drinking coffee, reading blogs, writing, sitting on my patio steps. 

Wishing: for winning Powerball numbers. 

Eating: trying to keep up with my CSA box. 

Drinking: Orange Crush. Tim and I got Crush when we left the City Museum and I rediscovered what heaven tasted like to my 8-year-old self. Did you know they have peach and pineapple flavors?

Loving: Feedly. Whoa, dude?! I never set up a Google Reader so I'm not sure what I was missing, but Feedly sure beats the heck out of faffing around with bookmarking things. 

We Are Never Ever Getting Back to Regular

As I settled into the standard-issue clinic waiting room chair, I noticed across from me a young blond woman was gazing into the middle distance. She was the first thing I noticed, on the cover of the top magazine on the table. The simpering smile told me instantly the blond was Taylor Swift. The second thing I noticed was the magazine’s title. It wasn’t a celebrity magazine like People or a women’s lifestyle magazine like InStyle. It was much more unexpected than that.

Maybe it’s just because I haven’t settled into a clinic waiting room chair and scanned the selection of magazines for quite some time, but Taylor Swift’s cover’s title caught me by surprise: Web M.D. Think about that for a second. WEB M. D. Many of the magazines of my youth that were piled high on the inherited-from-my-great-aunt half-circle end table that was wedged between the couch and my dad’s Laz-E-Boy are no more. Newsweek for example is no longer tangible, but virtual. Yet, here in my doctor’s office, Taylor Swift is smirking up from the magazine table on the printed cover of a concept that started in the virtual world and has—apparently—jumped into the tangible one. At the time, I didn’t think too much about Taylor Swift. But after I got home, I started wondering about healthcare and a print magazine whose title begins with the word “Web.”

The fact is, new clinics are springing up all over my Northland Kansas City suburbs. And once the postmodern, wastefully soaring-ceilinged, new buildings are open for business, Web M.D. magazine will probably grace their waiting room tables and racks as well. My husband blames the Affordable Care Act for the irritatingly inefficient buildings that are popping up to house groups of nurse practitioners and general practitioners. But I can’t help but wonder if Web M.D. isn’t partly to blame.

Here’s why: On Saturday, my abdomen started cramping after I ate dinner. It hurt enough to give me chills and send me to bed. It happened again on Sunday after lunch. And that’s when the Googling began. Have you ever done that before? Googled your symptoms? I remember my first time. I was living almost a thousand miles away from my parents for the first time in my life and I quickly became convinced I had ovarian cancer. Ultimately the doctors ruled that out but they couldn’t find a diagnosis or anything to make the pain go away for good. Then I went to the chiropractor because my back hurt. A crack and a pop and Surprise! my ovaries felt normal again. Web M.D. makes it very easy to fall down that rabbit hole. 

This time, thanks to the Internet, I feared that I had diverticulitis. It was the lower, left-side abdominal pain that tipped me off. The first runner-up in my self-diagnosis pageant was an ectopic pregnancy but diverticulitis won the tiara. Ultimately, the fear and worry caused by my Internet diagnosis drove me to make an appointment on Monday morning instead of going to work and seeing if it got any better.

And so goes my theory: Web M.D. sends more and more people to clinics. Clinics support Web M.D.’s print edition. People see the magazine in the waiting room, thereby reinforcing the impulse to turn to Web M.D. and increasing the need for more clinics. Once you Google your symptoms, the seed is planted that your stress headache is actually an embolism, just waiting to kill you. Your mind and your symptoms can’t be put to rest until you go see a doctor.

As for my abdominal pain, an x-ray confirmed what my grandfather probably would have been able to tell me, were he still alive and abdominal pain was the sort of thing we talked about in our family. And what he would have told me is this, “You need to poop more. Here take some castor oil.” Instead, I paid my $25 co-pay for cancer causing beams to be shot through my baby-maker and a person with more years of student loans than years of actual medical practice could tell me to go to the store and buy a laxative/stool softener.

So I went, and I bought, and I took, and I’m waiting. I just can’t help but think, though, that Taylor Swift owes me a song about poop.

Lent

I wasn’t raised in a church that practiced the Lenten sacrifice, but I was surrounded by lots of Catholics in my small town. If you didn’t want to eat school cafeteria fish on Fridays during Lent, you’d better bring your own lunch to school. As someone who went to church every Sunday growing up and paying attention to those kind of things, the church calendar is deeply engrained in me. No matter how little or much I was paying attention to faith, hardly an Ash Wednesday went by unnoticed by me. As I got older, I got more and more attached to the idea of giving something up for Lent. The way I think of the Lenten sacrifice is as a reminder that when I’m weak, God is strong; that Jesus withstood temptation for forty days (and the rest of his life); that God gave up his Son for me; that I’ve been blessed with so much in life and others aren’t as lucky; that whatever we do unto the least of these,we do unto God.

Also, I just realized this year that there are 46 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter and 40 days in Lent. Hence, Sundays don’t count. I’ve decided (with absolutely no theological background to support this) that Sundays are supposed to celebrations of Easter, year-round. That’s why Christians go to church or “keep holy” Sunday instead of the Sabbath-Saturday. And you can’t celebrate Easter when you’re keeping Lent.

As I mentioned in my last blog post, for Lent this year, I’m doing a Daniel Fast, vegan, no sugar/honey/syrup, whole grains only, no leavening, just water to drink. I’m having to consciously tell myself not to lick the spoon after stirring up the chocolate cake and strawberry cookies I baked for my parents-in-laws’ birthdays, and prepare two kinds of lasagna instead of one for the same birthday celebration. Thursday, I spit out butter I accidentally licked off my finger while making a grilled cheese sandwich for my step-daughter. Friday, I ordered the most virtuous wrap at Longboards only to remember five bites in that the rice is white and not brown. I'm craving chocolate and sweets because it is around me 24/7 (especially after being snowed in from work for 2 days in a row). I’m finding ways to live within the rules, though. I can’t wait to get my hands on all the ingredients for some black bean, no flour, sweetened with dried fruit brownies. I keep mixing up concoctions of bananas, peanut butter, prunes and unsweetened cocoa powder. My Pinterest page is filling up with pictures of these:

I’m also trying to remember to pray the offices every day. I’ve gotten out of the habit of regular prayer (since about the age of 11) and I would like to try to remember to actively engage in prayer more often. The thing that works best for me is setting the alarm on my phone to remind myself to pray. I still end up forgetting. So far, my 40 Days app tells me that I’ve forgotten six of the eleven days. Hopefully, the habit will become more ingrained as the Lenten season wears on.

And while we’re on the topic of habit change, I don’t have a resolution for this week, either. What are your resolutions or Lenten sacrifices for this year? I need some inspiration.

Happiness Project

I fail a lot. I just want to put that out there, right at the beginning of this post so that there is no misunderstanding. I have good intentions and often don’t live up to them. In spite of that, I started a happiness project of sorts in January. In the past month of working doing my happiness project, I’ve noticed that not keeping up with my happiness project correlates with feeling Blue. And I suspect that “feeling Blue” does not cause the “not keeping up” so much as the “not keeping up” contributes to the “feeling Blue.” It’s like Newton’s First Law and being a body in motion keeps me ahead of the Blues. This realization has probably been the biggest benefit of my happiness project so far.

Here is what I’ve been doing:

Journal: I’ve been keeping a written journal since about Christmas. It’s really totally boring. I haven’t ever in all the days I’ve written about, gone back and re-read it. For example, most of my entries end with some variation of, “And then we watched Dr. Who and went to bed.” However, there is something in the ritual of recording the day’s events that is comforting. Most of my journal entries start with a list of ten things I have to do that day. I usually only cross off two things from my list. (I told you I fail a lot.) After the list and before the day’s events, I write down the day’s Quote.

Quotes on a Theme: What is it about quotes that are so appealing? I don’t know, but I’ve always been a sucker for all quote delivery systems: page-a-day calendars, daily emails of quotes, Tumblr feeds, Pinterest boards. It’s sick, really. So I decided to add to the noise and be a collector of quotes. My theme for most of this year is from Galatians 5:22-23, or as I think of it, “The Fruit of the Spirit.” January was love. February is joy. March is peace, and so on. Along with writing the quotes in my diary, I put them in my Tumblr feed. I don’t think much about the quotes over the course of the day, but every now and then, when I’m particularly frustrated about something, I’ll open my Tumblr feed and read the day’s inspiration.

Chore Chart: I’m one of those terrible people who is blind to dust, dirt, and the gradual accumulation of filth. Left to my own devices, I would vacuum the floor only when my parents were coming to visit and take out the trash only when I could stuff not one more Q-tip in the bag or the smell became unbearable. That’s just me. (I got married to someone who vacuums three times a week so I don’t have to worry about rugs or trash. Consider this, single ladies, when you choose your mate.) I will, however, periodically (although not regularly enough if Pinterest if your life coach) decide to wash the curtains or deep clean the refrigerator. Given my limitations and inclinations, I decided to make a chore chart. It just works for me; it gives me a sense of accomplishment and keeps me moving. The times when I start to get lazy and not check things off my chore chart, coincide with the onset the Blues. After several months of nothing checked off my chore chart last year, this realization finally dawned on my during an early February lag in my New Year’s Resolve.

Resolutions: Right now, I’m adding a new resolution every week. Sometimes they coincide with my “quotes on a theme” but most often they do not. Sometimes they are well-thought out and sometimes they are not. Some of them are very successful, some of them are not. The good thing about it is that it holds me accountable. Will I get to the end of the year and actually have 52 resolutions? I hope not. There is only so much a girl can do in a day. Here are my resolutions thus far, week by week:

1.       Spend 1 hour on thesis.

2.       Workout.

3.       Reset every night.

4.       Read a chapter in the Bible every day.

5.       Eat differently. (This changes. The first two weeks, Tim and I were on a detox diet. Then with the start of Lent, I started a Daniel Fast. After Easter, it will probably be something that focuses on eating all my vegetables or something like that.)

6.       Find Joy. (This is a reminder to myself: Don’t be an asshole. There is something to be happy about everyday if I just look for it. And write it down so I remember.)

7.       Pray the Offices. 

8.       Spend at least 5 minutes during lunch working on a blog post.