GAPS update and other musings.

So, I've been weighing myself daily, and today, my weight was at 182.8 lbs.  That means, since the beginning of the year, and in spite of cheating a couple of times (popcorn and other things while at my Nephew's wedding, plus a couple of Breve Lattes and that one time I already wrote about), I have lost 10.8 lbs.

Here is my update picture:

My exercise clothes are fitting better. I'm not sure
the change is all that noticeable, though.

I'm getting to the place where I have no more excuses--I have to stick to this if I want healing! I'm working on being better with following the diet.  I also got behind on my fermentation, so I spent a couple of hours last night putting up some new ferments: beets, and carrots.  I plan to put up some sauerkraut later this week as well, since I'm down to half a jar. Getting a food processor for Christmas has to be the best gift EVER!

The ferments and most of my food processor. That one quart of carrots looks darker because I used sauerkraut juice to prime it for fermentation.

I finally started walking the dogs again today, as well--It was derailed because of sickness.  Being sick during the first week of school is never fun. When you accidentally drink left over tea in a travel mug you forgot at the office, you end up giving yourself several more days of coughing.  I was almost over the cough when I re-infected myself, too! I'm just glad that the fever didn't return as well.

So, I have been hacking and coughing up a storm, and if the cough doesn't go away soon, I will have to go back to the Dr. about it.  I'm really hoping it doesn't come to that.

This last weekend was the wedding of another of my nephews.  His bride seems really nice, although I didn't get to talk to her all that much.  I did, however, get to spend time with my siblings, which was a wonderful, wonderful thing.  I wish that all of them could have come, but I understand having family and kiddo obligations.

Sister Selfie--It was a joint effort. I couldn't figure out how to push the button, so my sister did that while I held the phone.

My outfit for the wedding.  I'm so glad for fashion advice!

Watching my sister dance with her son at the reception, I realized that this is an experience I will probably never have.  It is part of the cross of following Church teachings on sexuality, and I embrace that.  It is just a tiny bit bitter-sweet, even as I rejoice in my nephew's joy and my sister's transition to a new stage of life as well.  Every yes has a no embedded in it, and my lack of children means that I'm free for other things.  I look forward to seeing where the Lord will lead because of my obedience.

In the mean time, I color!  (This is a page from the coloring calendar I got for Christmas!)

Procrastination at its finest!

My First attempt at a Sonnet

The Bard's great sonnets have intrigued me since I was introduced to them in my high school English class, but I was never brave enough to attempt one...until now.  That being said, I'm not sure what to title this, and I'm sure it could use some work.  If you have any suggestions for a title or better word choice, I'm all ears.

Love lost, like Winter's bitter waxing fruit
Chills the heart, breathing frost to all corners.
Its rind shatters, a pernicious sharp brute
With edges pricking quick-fingered mourners.

Ev'ry waxing must wane in tired coats
Of fallen leaves and musty mothball bins.
The detritus swept within handheld totes
And carted out with empty Christmas tins.

What compost may transform such toxic shards:
Brittle Bastions to healthy fertile soil?
Which words of wisdom grip sleeping bards and
Mend long fallow tracts with frivolous toil?

Like all perennials, the fronds of hope
Unfurl to absorb, revamp, heal and cope.

Some of the beautiful flowers to be seen on campus

My Day In Pictures

A friend of mine has been posting a picture daily of ordinary things in her life that bring her joy, and has tagged them #100OrdinaryDays on her Facebook page.  I really like the idea of doing something like this, but often forget to take a picture a day after about the 15th or 20th day.  I have also been talking online with someone I met through CatholicMatch.com  for the last 2 weeks.  Since he has an M.A. in philosophy, I will call him the Philosopher for any future posts that include him.  Anyway, because I was trying to think about ways to get a better idea of his day to day life (he lives near Dallas), I asked him to chronicle a day of his life in pictures, then promised to do the same for him.  It seems like a more doable option than the picture a day my friend is doing on her Facebook feed, anyway.

Beyond this, I'm going to try to keep my captioning to a minimum and let my pictures speak for themselves...

Morning, Sleepy Head!

Now that you're awake...Breakfast?

Did you say "WALK???"

You did! You did say  Walk!!!

Pretty as a picture

Prayer while Commuting

The paths around the construction

Beautiful Summer Morning

My Building Straight ahead!

Finally to work!

Breakfast and my current favorite tea.

Back to my Car via the parking Garage

Now to look at the other foot...

Waiting for the Doctor

View from the bridge between my parking lot and the parking garage.

Lunch!

My view of the Lab I work in.

Keeping from burning myself on the steering wheel.

You can see Juarez from here!

Looks like Monsoon season is starting early!

A lazy dinner

Typical Rush Hour Traffic a few hours late

Hi, Aunt Ruth. Take my picture!

Do I have to get my picture taken???

Who's There?

Welcome HOME!!!!

Chores before Bedtime!

Icing the site of injection.

Lighting the Candle on the Family Altar...and Lucy. Time to go to Bed!  'Night all!

The Run is Dead. Long Live the Run.

Me on the last day that I (semi)successfully ran.  I've made attempts since then, but none got past about a mile

I love running.  I love the euphoria from working my muscles hard, the sweat as it cools from a self-made breeze, and the way I can eat because I've burned over 500 calories that day.  I love the way it clears out the cobwebs in my cranium, and how it helps me to untie the knots in my thinking and feelings.  I love the ability to call myself a runner...something that I never thought I could say about myself!

And, because I'm just a little too stubborn and a little too competitive, I have not been able to run since the beginning of March (I pushed myself too hard at the half-marathon in Feb. because I wanted to beat my time from my half-maration in January--which re-injured my tendons).  After resting for close to 8 weeks, I finally realized that I wasn't getting better.  So, I went to the Orthopedic Surgeon, and then scheduled an MRI.  The diagnosis: partial thickness tears in the Peroneal tendons of both feet.

What I have...

It means that I will not be running any time soon, and I will probably need surgery to fix it.  My appointment with the foot specialist is on June 10th, and we will see what happens from there.  I'm really missing running, and am having a hard time finding exercises that don't use these particular tendons, but I'm also willing to do whatever it takes to work up to being able to run again.  At the same time, I realize that I will likely never be able to run a full marathon, and I'm actually ok with that.  I'd rather be able to be a middle distance runner than not a runner at all.

If I can't run, at least I can spend time with friends at Chihuahuas baseball games!

In the process, God is teaching me patience and, while I don't like the lesson, I'm pretty sure that I need it.  I've always known that I am not the most patient of people, and I even prayed for patience for most of my high school years.  Then I realized that "tribulation worketh patience" and stopped at the first real lesson God gave me....not because I suddenly became a paragon of patience, but because the lesson was just too painful.  Either someone is praying that I acquire a little more of this virtue, or God has decided to answer the prayers I prayed way back in high school.  Either way, learning to wait and to dial back my exercise has required that I develop a measure of grace for myself, whether I want to or not.  Now that my body has gotten accustomed to moving on a regular basis, this enforced inactivity makes me feel antsy and out of sorts.  I've found that bicycling doesn't hurt as long as I rest a sufficient number of days between exercise, but it isn't the same thing.  All I have to say is that, the Lord willing, I will be back pounding the pavement someday.  I'm willing to put in the work if it means that I can run another half marathon.  Until then, I wait and I pray.  And that is a blessing all its own.

4:30 PM on Friday

Tick, tock, tick, tock
The time passes in
Grains of sand and
Emails: "you have won!"
"Can you help me?"
"20% off!"
All of them beckon
Me to read, to ponder
To attend.

My mind is elsewhere,
Dreaming of long walks
With my dog, a good book
And homemade popcorn.
No alarm clocks, No
Deadlines, No urgency
For two languorous days.

I love what I do,
But this day has reached
That pivot point:
Too much time to do nothing
Not enough time to begin
Something new.
I'll get to it
After the weekend.


(After giving up poetry for various reasons during my marriage, I am finally finding my voice again.  Expect to see poems here from time to time. If you like them, feel free to share, as long as you attribute them to me.)

Finding My Poetry

I found her in the back corner:
Hidden behind the leftover
Rolls of Christmas paper
The extra curtain rods
And my long quilting ruler

I'd begun packing--
Sorting through the detritus
That naturally grows
Pile after careless pile
With every orbit of the sun.

This is why I love Lent:
An excuse to sift and discard
To slough off the mountains
That creep into my heart and my home
From thoughtless placement through disuse.

So, each year, I give, I store,
And I find anew:
Gems hidden with casual malice
In the corners, under piles
And forgotten

What is that box?
The dust billows in
Silent testimony to her
Years of sentry duty
Never moving, never moved

Never relieved of the
Weighty duty
To which she
Joyously volunteered.
She measured time grain

By tortuous grain
Beside tomes of heartfelt musings
Old movie stubs and
Flowers pressed between
Webster's words.

I dust her off
In gentle reverence
And catch up on changes,
Events, and the unending
Rhythm of daily life.

She smiles in amusement:
The slow trickle of time
Has not escaped her.
Though rusticated, she remains
My muse.

The Economics of Toilet Paper

One of the staples of life...

There are some days when you think of the craziest things.  Remember those dispensers from High School?  You know, the ones with the single sheets that had the consistency of tissue paper and you needed a hundred sheets to keep your hands from getting wet? Weeeelll, one day as I was using the restroom here at work, and I started thinking about toilet paper, and how, when you buy the cheaper stuff, you end up using more of it.  There has to be some sort of balance between being frugal about toilet paper and getting a soft, cushy experience when doing your paperwork.  While I will grant you that the experience is of some importance--I don't want to be using crepe paper--it is also important not to be spending more for my toilet paper than I need to.

This is similar to the toilet paper that I used while I was in Mongolia, although that really DID look like mauve crepe paper!

So, I have seriously been thinking about doing the great toilet paper experiment...Buying one roll of all of the options of toilet paper from the store and seeing which lasts the longest for the lowest amount of money, and which makes doing my paperwork bearable, if not a joy.  I'm not sure I will actually do it, but it is interesting to contemplate in those moments when there is nothing else to occupy my mind.  ;-)

remember these?

Beauty

Sunrise Sunday Morning in Sedona.

Back in High School, I spent a lot of time reading and writing poems--some of that is due to the fact that I was the poster child for teenage angst, and some of it due to my AP English classes.  Amazingly, the only snippet I remember of all that poetry is these lines from Keat's poem, Ode on a Grecian Urn:

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all             

    Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

 Even in High School, I had a hard time thinking that the truth of homelessness, world hunger or poverty was beautiful.  The seedy, shady, and stark truths of living here on earth just don't seem very beautiful, but Keats seems to believe this is true if we take his lines at face value.  At the same time, there is something intuitive about the beautiful that points us to something beyond ourselves.

Some trees along the race course in Sedona

It is why certain vistas in nature take our breath away, and why most of us look at great buildings, pieces of art, and listen to certain songs in awe-filled contemplation.   It is why we love to look at Gothic Churches and their stained glass windows, regardless of how you feel about the Midieval politics behind the building of them.  The majesty of good art turns us away from navel gazing to the transcendent, the Divine.

Another Sunrise picture from Sedona

And that is what I have the hardest time with when it comes to our society's construction of beauty.  By those standards, I am probably a 6 or a 7 on a scale of 1-10 because I am overweight and on the downward side of 35.  I'm not a nubile young thing anymore, and because of that, I have crow's feet, grey hair, and less tolerance of suffering for the sake of fashion.  By those standards, I will never be as beautiful/pretty as I was when I was in my 20s unless I choose to wear make-up, wear revealing clothing, and possibly go under some plastic surgeon's knife.  On top of that, I burn easily and don't always remember to wear sunscreen on my hikes and runs--because of my sunglasses, I have an almost perpetual raccoon tan on my face!  It doesn't really bother me, but I know that it adds nothing to my ability to be photogenic.  It also means that I will likely never be successful at online dating--it is entirely geared toward visual beauty/attractiveness.  (I'm not talking about taking care of yourself, or trying to look your best--that is a matter of respecting yourself, not about beauty.  I'm not advocating wearing sweats to work or failing to brush your teeth--I am just saying that there are some major flaws in our society's construction of what is and isn't beatiful.)

Unlike this Lorikeet at the Ostrich farm, most of us aren't born with such pretty plumage!

I'd rather have the kind of beauty that comes from within--the kind that shines through because of who you are, not what you look like or what you wear.  I had a roommate in college like that.  She positively glowed because of her relationship with God and the beauty of her spirit.  And, as long as I continue to strive in that direction, where I am right now is the ugliest I will ever be. With this kind of beauty, all of us have the potential to be a solid 10! This kind of beauty is much harder to achieve, though, as it requires being painfully honest with ourselves about our flaws--our personal pettiness and habitual sins--and opening ourselves up to letting God help us build the kind of virtues that overcome those flaws.

Some sort of flower on one of the trails around Sedona.  

This kind of inward beauty also means that I become like a beautiful work of art or a gorgeous vista in nature--I become someone who points to the transcendent, the Divine.  I don't know about you, but that is a goal worth striving toward.  May we all reflect the Truth (John 14:6) with our beauty.

On Running

Sunrise from my Porch on Jan 31st.

There are very few things that will get me out of bed early enough to see the sunrise from my front porch, and the prospect of running a race is one of them.  It is funny, because I've always had a love/hate relationship with exercise: In college, I knew that I had to trick myself into exercising, or it wouldn't happen. Since that time, as long as it isn't more than 3 flights of stairs, I refuse to take the elevator; I try to park so that I can get more walking in; And I am constantly trying to figure out other ways to add exercise to my life. I needed something that is a better motivator than, "I need to be in better shape and I'd like to lose X pounds."

A picture from the road trip to Sedona.  It is much more fun when you can laugh and talk the miles away!

That's the thing--since I have begun running, I have gained 15 lbs, not lost any.  Mostly, I suspect that it is because I tend to give myself permission to eat more calories than I have burned.  As an inveterate snacker, this is one of my (many) Achilles heels, and I have begun working on fixing this by monitoring my calories again.  I hate calorie counting, but it is the only reliable way that I know of to keep track of how much I'm eating.  I'm thinking that banning between meal snacks will be a good Lenten discipline for me this year.  I'm also working on cutting out how many times I go to Starbucks, but that is ongoing.

All of us before the race.  I don't know who of us crossed the finish line first, but I was the last to finish.

I don't know that I've ever had a runner's high, either.  At the same time, running is its own motivation for me in ways that other exercise isn't--it clears my mind and I just feel incredibly refreshed after a 3-6 mile run.  It is like the little bit of speed that I can muster blows away the mental cobwebs and I begin to think more clearly about those things that I have been gnawing on.  It must be all of those glorious endorphins that one secretes while running.  My scientific friends would say that this happens with all exercise, but it sure doesn't feel like it!

Just past the half-way point.  Still feeling pretty good at this point!

All of us after the race. My chip time was 3:20:37. I'm hoping to shave at least 10 minutes off of that for the El Paso half.

So, after my adventure in Sedona, I am 1 half-marathon down for the year with at least 5 more scheduled for the year.  I likely won't see another sunrise again until I get up for another race, but that's ok.  I get to sleep a little bit later, and then spend evenings with family and friends.  As a night owl, the fact that  I live close to a trail that I can run safely in the dark is one of the best things about where I currently live.  Having friends who run with me, even if I am the turtle of the group is just cake.  It still blows my mind that it is no longer a chore to run more than 3 miles at a time, but that longer runs feel normal.

My friend Karin on our early morning hike the next morning before we started for home.  Another glorious sunrise!

Maybe someday, other forms of exercise will feel as wonderful as going for a run does.  If not, then at least I have learned to like one exercise enough to embrace the sport and make it a part of my lifestyle.  It only takes one, right?