Monthly Archives: June 2013

• 4 Comments

•

Beginning a Journey to Fitness and Health

Kristi: I'm hurting.  My shoulders, my glutes (can't be how you spell it) and my legs are begging me to take a stationary vacation in our big brown chair.  Jason had the brilliant idea of checking out Exygon last night.  We're at the point where we can no longer ignore the fluffy factor.

photo

Jason: I remembered yesterday that I am allergic to physical activity.  I got on a stationary bike , and immediately I began to perspire.  This cannot be natural.  After a vigorous 5 or 6 minute stint my legs were aching and my pulse was elevated.  The part about my legs aching can be invalidated on the basis that pain is subjective, but the heart rate was being measured. The screen on the bike actually gave me a warning that my heart rate was too high.  I agreed.

I walked into the gym with lots of resolve and enthusiasm about getting healthy, and looking good, and living longer, but as I laboriously burned the calories on the bike I started to wonder why I had come into this tortuous place.

K: And the mirrors.  Would somebody explain to me how the wall to wall twelve foot mirrors are supposed to be a draw?  There's only one thing worse than staring at an underperforming, dripping wet with perspiration- while wearing ill-fitting work-out clothes, version of myself.   -That would be that same image displayed in every cardinal direction.

J: I think that's just the problem.  We've been looking at our selves too long and saying, "We have to do something about this!"  It's easy to say, but hard to do.

I think there has been a motivation deficit.  I find myself on a motivational high in the evenings.  I've always been an evening person when it comes to creative thoughts, making plans and resolving to do great things. The problem is, I can't find the same resolve when my alarm clock goes off in the morning.

The activity I'm best at early in the morning is hitting the snooze button on the alarm without opening my eyes.  I don't think there is an Olympic event for that yet, but when there is, I'll represent our country with pride.

So here's what I'm working on:  How do you transfer the resolve and enthusiasm for the good you want to do, into the time that you have for doing it?

K: ..............Four minutes have passed.........six minutes...........I'm not sure where to go with this. My bigger question is what do you do when your enthusiasm lies in a good book or in a cone with Dutch chocolate ice cream on top; NOT in exercise? Do I want to exercise, or are my pants telling me I need to?

Mornings are my productive time.  I get more done from 7:00 -10:00 AM than I do the rest of the day combined, but saying I do it enthusiastically would be a lie.  I robotically pick up the strewn couch pillows from the floor as do I make my way to the garage to let Griffin out.  I return to the kitchen at approximately the same time every morning to clear the counter of any remnants from last night's kitchen visitors. I unload the dishwasher and take out the trash.  These things are more completed by habit than by passion or energy.  Are my automated steps determined by a deep desire to clean the kitchen or to see it clean? Do I like picking up pillows (for the umpteenth time by Tuesday morning) or do I like walking through a room with things in their place? In my house cleaning, I've got habit and a desired outcome, and it works.

The greatest success, I'm thinking, comes from having at least two of three of the following

*Passion/Enthusiasm

*Repeated effort/try-try again/habit

*A goal or desired outcome in mind, or a point of reference to move away from (like love-handles)

I've got one of three ingredients for physical transformation. I'm thinking I found a goal yesterday.  I'd like to look a little better in at least one of the mirrors at Exygon.

photo (3)J: I think I'm on board with that.  We'll see where this takes us.  Two are better than one.  Maybe I can stick with a good routine for more than 2 weeks if I have someone in the routine with me.  Maybe, I too, will like what I see in the mirror better.  A shared passion and a common goal might be just the key I've been looking for to get into those good habits we've been talking about.

An Exercise Prayer:

Hear {our} prayer for mercy as {we} call to you for help, as {we} lift up our hands toward your Most Holy Place. Psalm 28:2

 

• 4 Comments

•

I had no intention of writing today, but I can hardly help myself.

This is Hayden's second week of working for his grandpa.  His first week consisted of a country boy's welcome; I'm talking chigger-eaten ankles, rattlesnakes (plural) and a one-hundred plus degree sun.  I was starting to feel sorry for him.  Just last night I'd sent him a text asking him for some ideas of things to send him in a care package.

The graph pictured below is the text I get back.  Some thanks. Of course he meant it in jest.... I think.

graph

But It's true.  Moms are scary, and not just when they're angry.

We don't mean to be.  We have a God-given responsibility; and one of the most precious privileges. We take Momhood seriously; so serious, it's scary.

A Guide to Understanding Mom's Scariness:

We're scary because we're tired. With yesterday's smudgy makeup, and our hair every-which way, we may still be wearing the same pink athletic shorts we were wearing the day before-We're zombies on our toes. "Got. to. keep. going."  And that's just our scary outside.

Some of us are not physically over thirty-two hours of labor, the hundreds-maybe thousands of diapers we changed, or carrying you when you weighed forty some-odd pounds because we knew you were a little tornado destroying anything in your path (like the row of flowering plants at HEB).

We don't cry over spilled milk.  But we may shed crazy tears when someone spills milk all over the counter, down the cabinet and on the floor leaving it to dry and crust....AND no one knows who spilled it.

We may snap at you after we've folded the one-hundred and forty-ninth piece of laundry- when you throw your dirty socks in the floor ( or if you come bounding down the stairs in your fourth shirt of the day). Fatigue makes it difficult to find our "sweet voice".

children

We scare you because we're unpredictable. Just when you think you have us figured out, you'll find that you don't.   That same ill-fitting shirt with the tiny bleach stain you've worn repeatedly suddenly becomes unacceptable to us. We'll seem out-of-control over something small like an unflushed toilet or your light being left on.

We'll act shocked at the amount of junk under your bed though we knew good and well the stuff was there for months.

We'll let you do something you didn't expect, like stomp a mud puddle.  We may suggest you scream collectively in the car.

We may refuse to bring the homework you left on the table to school even though we've brought it six times before.

We'll hug you when you deserve to be grounded for life.

Note: In our undying attempt to mother you properly, hormones make us even more "Jeckyl and Hyde".  Sometimes they're to blame for our for our happy to hostile, in zero seconds.

We're scary because we're scared. We're afraid that the things we say won't stick so we sound off over and over like Rain Man; we rattle off lists of "do's and don'ts" making sure you won't forget.

Things like toothpicks, anything with wheels that you're steering and grapes the size of your windpipe present themselves as potential dangers- as do members of the opposite sex your age.  So we intervene, sometimes prematurely, sometimes violently, in order to keep you safe.

We're complex creatures with a simple heart; a heart that cherishes you. Some things we're figuring out slowly.  Some things we won't figure out.  In the scary mystery of mother, there's one thing that tops the list of things we hope you know. Behind the gripes and beyond the advice we hope you know that we love you madly.  Right underneath the tirade and long talkings to- remains a heart of mush for you.

A note about the graph: The graph pictured above is gracious.  It lists the scariest things in the world as being monsters, crazy people, natural disasters and my mom when she's angry.  I represent all in the list with the exception of natural disasters.

 

 

 

 

 

•

marshmallow moment noun (I think)

1. a light, sweet, non-productive moment of forgetting that time exists

2. the cushion between our crumbly-cracker time

marsh mom

-I called Rylie a "marshmallow brain" yesterday morning.

It was all I could do to draw the attention off of myself.  I'd told her around 7:30 AM I was going to the store but there I was at 10:00, and 10:30 telling her I was "fixing to go".  Rather than have a graceful understanding that I was "doing something", and that I would go when the time was right, Rylie called me on it.  She reminded me that I have a bad habit of always saying I'm going, but I'm really not.

That's why I had to tell her that I wasn't going to be influenced by someone who had done nothing more than watch morning cartoons for over two hours, "a marshmallow brain" ( I occasionally resort to light name-calling).

Fast forward to 2:30.

It's time to pick Rylie up from a Splash party at church. I tell Hallie that I'll be home "in like fifteen minutes".  She says, "It won't be fifteen minutes, will it?". It strikes me at this moment that my children have busted me on my issues with time precision/perception, or maybe both.

Call it ADHD or a coping mechanism that overtakes me when I've been too busy, but there are times when I go to a place where there's no tick-tock; a mindless place where nothing HAS to be done. Right now I'm calling it "Summer".

Don't get me wrong.  I'm almost always on-time for scheduled events like church, appointments, meetings and school. I can do rigid.  There's just something in me, I suspect in us all, that cries out for flexibility.  I yearn for time where the hands on the clock do a little- two steps forward, one step back dance.  I like days where it seems, if just for a bit, like the hands on the clock stop.

It's summer.  The days are longer.  Perhaps they're not longer so that we can do more.

I have the library calendar stuck to my fridge.  The events that Rylie wants to attend are circled with sloppy purple marker.  The church calendar is pinned to my bulletin board.  I have white notecards with dentist and other appointments scribbled down.  Still, there's this white space. White space with possibility and white space where there's nothing more to be done than watch a show, or two.

I can write on my blog.

A sweet friend dropped a book that I've been wanting to read by the house.  I'm going to read it.

I can text an old friend...... for an hour, or have a thumb war with one of the kids.

I can allow myself moments of being a marshmallow brain; abandoning productivity.  I can relax in the sweet and flexible white-space that will be soon be sucked into the black-hole of real time.

 

And on that note, I must go.  My dryer is about to buzz.

Thankful for marshmallow moments.

For those of you still stuck in real-time, are there any marshmallow moments you long for this summer?

 

•

I looked to what seemed a handbreadth away, at smoke billowing in the Colorado mountains, tens of thousands of feet in the air.   I snapped picture after picture with racing thoughts of packing our things and getting out.

Amongst the uncertainties, I knew I would have to write about this experience though I didn't yet know what I would say.fire 1

My brother, my sisters and their families along with my parents stood on the little road that connected our cabins.  We went back and forth as to whether it was time to leave. We hated our time being cut short. And being the hard-headed family that we are, no one wanted to be the sacrificial coward who left first (followed by the rest of us).

Evacuating is the pits.  Being forced to leave in the face of danger brings about feelings of panic and fear of the unknown.... or the known.  -Not so much for us, but for those who are forced to leave their homes and belongings, abandoning their physical sense of security.

If being forcibly removed from fire (or any nature threat like a hurricane) brings about those feelings, what is it like when life places you in the middle of a raging fire and says

"Stay right there"?

Though my personal inescapable life fires have been small, I hope that my reaction changes to one mimicking a man whose words shaped good thoughts about the fires we find ourselves in.

The Durango Herald spoke with the Wolf Creek Lodge Ski Resort owner, Dave Pitcher last week.  This is a man whose dreams and livelihood were literally in danger of "going up in smoke".

Pitcher seemed almost at peace with the situation. He described wildfire as a natural process – the light at the end of the tunnel of what has been a slow death of millions of spruce trees that blanket both sides of Wolf Creek Pass.

“While it's a little disconcerting to see big fires, in the long run, it's probably good for the forest's health,” he said.

Referring to the burning of thousands and thousands of acres, knowing there remained the possibility of his ski lodge being decimated, Pitcher said-

“It might be somewhat different to look at, but it's still a beautiful place,” he said.

Might I be so faithful, so hopeful when faced with destruction or my own personal loss.picstitch

My fires, though small, I face kicking and screaming.  I think that's a most normal reaction.

But there are some fires we can't escape.  And much like the West Fork Complex Fire that is ravaging over one-hundred square miles of Southern Colorado, some fires can't be controlled.

While fires urge us to be resolved, fighting with all means necessary, some fires require us to, at the same time, resign.

Hundreds of men, a number of fire trucks, helicopters and airplanes are stationed around the Colorado fire ready to be employed.  Yet they know they hold no power over a fire with one-hundred foot flames powered by 50 mph winds.   In their season of resignation they wait.  And hopefully they trust, knowing that though the fire is bigger than them, there is One bigger than the fire.

Because wild fires aren't extinguished by men alone or things man-made.  They're fought by the one who rules nature.

They're fought by One who determines to bring beauty from ashes.

I find it no coincidence that I spoke with a dear friend one day before this fire exploded out of control.  My friend is facing her own raging fire, one she has little ability to fight on her own.  I pray she experiences God like never before in her wait.  I pray she knows she has friends, fighting in prayer.  I pray he fills her with a hope that extinguishes all fear. And I trust that he will bring beauty to her life unimagined.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

•

If I ask you who Scrat is, chances are you'd know.  -Especially if you've seen any of the Ice Age movies.  You'll remember him though he only shows up for about two minutes of the movie.  He's seen scurrying on a single mission; seizing that acorn.  He sees nothing else.  He does nothing else. He repeatedly has it in his grip, but it always slips through his paws.

Scrat Ice Age

Here's how Wiki describes him:

Scrat, a crossover of a squirrel and a rat (hence the name Sc-rat), is small and has brownish fur. Scrat is always seen chasing his acorn. Once succeeded, he usually hugs it, buries it or pretends to eat it. This doesn't last for long as he always loses it. Scrat is usually a glutton for punishment, having to risk his life to get his nut back. He was struck by lightning, chased by avalanches, got into fights with piranhas and Sid (In the first film after the dodo bird fight). Scrat is also nutty when it comes to his acorn.

So that brings up the question........... what is your acorn?

What do you chase after?

What is your heart's desire; food for your soul?

For Scrat it's that acorn.  He doesn't get distracted.....except for that one time She-Scrat shows up in the third Ice Age.  Scrat is an acorn devotee.

Watch Scrat here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbsGWNXZ51I

Don't you identify with his struggle?  He sees the acorn and he sees the pretty she-squirrel-rat.  We have our Bible and Facebook or our favorite show at our fingertips. What will we turn to? We can choose church or our pillow on Sunday morning.  When our brother is on our nerves, we can retaliate or take the higher road and treat him with kindness anyway. When mom is in the kitchen, you can go ahead and do what you're doing or you can offer to help her.

The world has a whole stockpile of acorns it offers to us.  Happiness. Power.  Popularity.  THINGS.  Money. Pride in being right.  Pride in being first place. The easy road (for example a lie to get us out of trouble).

In Christ, there's one acorn for which we're to run after.  Our single mission is to bring glory to God.  If bringing glory to God means that we don't make that snide remark to our family member, then we shouldn't.  The road to being popular or right sometimes isn't the road that brings glory to God.  And so many times, things like our phone and television distract us from God.

Summer is practically here.  There are close to a hundred days to do (somewhat) as you please.  What will you do?  More than likely you'll swim and visit family, you'll have a sno-cone and sleep in.  Maybe you'll travel.

I present to you a mission within these missions.

Live like Scrat.

In all you do, in all you say, where ever you go, seek the acorn.  Seek the treasure that comes in bringing glory to God.  It won't be easy, and you'll mess up. Scrat is still chasing that acorn....

You know what's good, chase after it.

15-17 ... None of this going off and doing your own thing...... cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way. Colossians 3:15-17 (The Message)

1. How should we live like Scrat?

2. What does it mean when it says in verse 15 "None of this going off and doing your own thing"?

3. What do you think it means when it says "Let the word of Christ-the Message- have run of the house"?

4. How could you bring glory to God as you're having a Sno-cone?

5.......................................................... while you're on a trip with your family?

6.What are some of  the events that occur that cause Scrat to lose his acorn?

What are some things that keep us from our "acorn" (chasing after God's glory)?

Is a life lived chasing the acorn, always an easy one?

Happy Summer.....Get after that acorn!