Diary

I’ve been depressed.  Not in a ‘woe is me- I want to die!’ Kind of way…  More like I’m just waiting for disappointment.  Waiting for failure.  I’ve been feeling small and unimportant.  I feel like I’ve been trying to fit myself into the lives of people around me rather than living my own life and it’s left me feeling empty.  Yesterday I looked at my week and felt nothing but satisfaction and happiness.  I realized it’s been several days since I’ve felt funky and realized that the difference is exercise.  Straight up, organic, non-GMO, free, healthy exercise.  I started running on Tuesday, forced myself into it on Wednesday and by Thursday I was hooked.  Today was a breeze and I’m thinking that a streak is not out of the question now that I’ve got it rolling!  I feel happy!  It’s simply amazing how a little bit of blood flow makes me feel like a whole person again.

I talked with Bradley about how, while working out, and the aftermath of showering et all, takes time from my family, it also fills me up in a way that only I’m capable of doing through a solid workout.  Without reliable movement, I’m crabby, cynical and depressed- not who I like to be at all.  We both agreed that I need to continue this exercise streak.  It’s the best interest to all involved!

We ran at Greenlake, again, today.  I had a medal for my kids to earn…  Yes, the Warbird 5k is a Trekkie thing, but my son just likes spaceships and if he’ll run a 5k with the reward of a spaceship medal then it’s on!  He continues to amaze me that he has such great endurance, while she flew like a hummingbird around the whole lake!  Sheesh!  Zooming through life…  I folded heaps of laundry, we BBQ’d hobo dinners (foil wrapped veggies + protein – green beans, garlic, potatoes, mushrooms, broccoli, zucchini, peppers, onions, butter, salt, a lil cheddar and tofu for us) and when the corn actually started to flame we decided that our dinner might be done!  As a first, Guinevere serenaded us during dinner.  It was a real grown-up moment and lovely day.  Cheers for this trend continuing!🎉

I’m not even through with my day and already I can tell you what a difference journaling my food makes!  I decided to just eat normally, like what I’ve been eating lately and found that by the time I’m done with breakfast I’m also halfway done with my calories for the day!  Oops!  And, if I’m perfectly honest, I think of the morning as the ‘light’ portion of my day, as far as eating goes.  I was about to settle into a lovely afternoon of reading romance novels when I entered my data into MyPlate and found:

Oops!  I have some work to do, regarding shifting habits and realized a need to get a workout in!  I hurried into my bathing suit and was about to get into the pool to do some calorie incinerating pool jogging when the doorbell rang.  MY NEW GARMIN CAME!!!!  My old Garmin broke (the display stopped working) on May 17th and I’ve been without it ever since.  The fault lies with me as Garmin’s customer service was top notch and all I had to do was pay shipping to return the device and they upgraded me to the newer model as a replacement.  While I still enjoyed exercising without the Garmin, there’s nothing quite as motivating as wearing a step counter, I tell you what.  At first it was a relief to take it off and have a break from the constant reminder, but, truth be told, I’ve really been missing it and the accountability it gives me, so I wasted no time in getting it on to charge, connected with the app and on my arm in record time!  I was back downstairs  the pool within half an hour, running laps around the perimeter and burning calories.  

The rest of my family was similarly engaged with reading, playing with Star Wars, playing guitar, scrapbooking and doing any other lazy thing we feel like.  I read, write, smash booked and played with my pupper.  A nice Thursday!  And I even get to eat dinner becasue I worked out- thank goodness!  🙂

I was pretty excited to hit the ground dancing this morning…  Until I rolled over and my back felt that gross-squish feeling it gets when things just aren’t right…  Not exactly painful, not like a tickle but somewhere in between.  Just.  So.  Wrong!  So I called Zumba off for the day and decided to run one of my 5ks that I planned for the week instead.  Zumba has me shaking my hips, bending this way and that, jumping, hopping, twisting…  It can agitate my back.  Running just has running.  I can keep a nice, solid core for several miles to support my back before I start to have problems.  Today I was able to make it just a little past mile three before I started feeling ‘it’, which was perfect because the lake I ran around, Greenlake in Seattle, is almost exactly three miles!  The extra mileage on there was me walking a bit more as I tried to out walk the ‘injury’ but that didn’t happen.  That was ok, though, because my son, who loves Pokemon but doesn’t so much love moving, was introduced to the world of Pokemon Go!

If you haven’t heard about Pokemon Go, it’s basically a game that uses your camera to view the world, and in it, you find Pokemon hiding!  You see the Pokemon, go toward him and swipe your touchscreen, thereby releasing a poke all and, hopefully, capturing your Pokemon who you can train to battle for you!  The negatives people are pointing out are that its one more opportunity for people to have their noses stuck in phones, that it’s not driven by creative play, people aren’t paying attention to where they are going and are getting hurt or hurting others and, lastly, crime and murder can happen!  So many things.  Mostly it translates to people wanting to practice cynicism with a small amount of concern thrown in for good measure.  Can you get hurt?  Yes, but I can also get hurt in a myriad of other ways if I don’t pay attention to my surroundings.  Does it have people in their phones?  Yes, but they are also talking to one another, helping one another, sharing clues, secrets and locations for Pokemon.  Communication is happening in public spaces among strangers on a scale I haven’t seen in ages!  Furthermore my kid wants to go outside to run all over the neighborhood!  My kid, who prefers watching tv or reading books- that kid.  He’s outside with a Pokemon hat, Pokemon shirt, a man purse filed with Pokemon cards, Pokemon and poke balls running around, immersed in a world of reality and imagination, finding Pokemon, running everywhere and is having the time of his life!  And you know something even better?  Once the Pokemon trainers catch their Pokemon and want to evolve or train them, to do so they have to complete distance challenges.  One Pokemon requires a 10k before it evolves.  Seriously!   I love Pokemon Go! (In context and used in appropriate spaces appropriately and without disturbing the rest of the population any more than the guy on the bus who listens to a boom box instead of headphones.)

Freddie Sparkles got her first Schnauzer hairdo today.  Bradley ran the clippers while I pinned her down.  Sounds lovely, eh?  After a moment of squirming, she settled down into my lap and went to sleep, making it pretty easy to get her done.  She only truly objected when we were trimming the insides of her ear and we caught the flap.  She jumped a tiny bit and bled a lot, but I think the bulk of the trauma lies with us, Bradley and me!  She went back to sleep while we just felt terrible for ladling on such abuse!  At the end of it all, we ended up with a tiny little schnauzer who reminds us of those Victorian children who were always trussed up in adult clothing- oddly adorable!  Love that pup.  ❤️

I went to the doctor’s today and got a clean bill of health, some blood taken from my arm and got the yearly scoot to the edge of the table out of the way.  The doctor seemed unconcerned about both cancer and premature menopause which made me feel good!  The bleeding stopped so there’s no more worry there.  The other interesting thing that happened though was that they questioned me at length about my asthma.  I had to take a special survey about asthma that was primarily directed at looking at how frequently I have to control it with my inhaler.  I had to explain, over and over, that I only need to use my inhaler before I go for a run.  They were kind of bewildered and I finally launched into the whole big news about how I’ve lost 150 pounds through diet and exercise and, for the first time, one of my doctors actually listened to what I was saying and seemed to hear the scope of my project.  She asked if I’d had gastric bypass surgery elsewhere since it wasn’t in her records.  Her eyes widened in surprise when I told her it was all a diet and exercise shift!  Finally, after all these years of begging for an atta girl from my medical professionals by weighing less each time and asking about exercise plans, my doctor smiled and complimented my progress, and even went as far to say that she was impressed.   Then she asked how often I exercise and if I diversify what I do.  She agreed that integrating weightlifting for strength and balance as I age is a great plan.  She also encouraged me to continue running long distances and saw no problems with me pursuing half marathons!  When I mentioned 170 as a goal, she agreed that it was an ideal place for me to shoot for and encouraged me to continue my pursuit of health. It was like all of those things I’ve been fearing got washed aside and I was sort of cleansed with that trip to the doctors office.  Usually I don’t leave feeling like I’m on the right track to that degree!  
You know, I just love sharing the results of my intimate doctor visits with the world.  LOL!  The thirteen year old in myself is simultaneously horrified and in awe that I can speak of such things publicly without dying of embarrassment.  I remember mentally shopping the grocery store aisles in an attempt to come up with the most embarrassing collection of items to purchase when I was a teenager.  I think that, by my grown up standards today, I could come up with a way worse basket.  Life just keeps getting weirder and more embarrassing and we just have to roll with the punches, so thanks for listening!  🙂

Since we were in Lynnwood, home to my Dr.’s, Costco, Trader Joe’s and the Grocery Outlet (bargain market…  I know you sang it) all within a few blocks of one another, we decided to do a big, summer buy.  Our focus was loading up on lots of fresh fruits and vegetables.  Our theory is that a family sized bag of Cheetos costs as much and gets consumed at the same rate as a pound of cherries for the same cost, so we really focused and loaded up on healthy snack options like that.  I know we used to look at grapes like they were spendy but chips like they were cheap and plentiful and it kind of seemed like we might have been swinging back in that direction over the past month.  

We did notice, however, that Trader Joe’s is now carrying vegan marshmallows!!!  To those of you in the mainstream marshmallow world this isn’t a big deal, but to those of us in the vegetarian world it’s HUGE!  Marshmallows are made of vanilla, sugar, gelatin and corn syrup; gelatin is made from animal bones so it’s a common no-no for vegetarians.  When Bradley and I were on our honeymoon in 1999 we stopped the Seventh-day Adventist* church in Oregon on the way down the coast to get some marshmallows for our fireside romantic nights. It was there that we learned that the vegetarian marshmallow factory had blown up and burnt down and there were no more vegetarian marshmallows available anywhere. We were so sad!  Four years later, a new factory was up and running but we could only get the marshmallows through a vegan company through the mail so we would rally our fellow vegetarian friends, split the shipping costs and order a summer’s supply!  Then that company went out of business and we could only get them with coconut on the outside at Whole Foods, refrigerated, in a box of about ten.  For $8.00.  Who pays almost a dollar a marshmaoolw?  I am not that girl, I tell you.  We were stingy with our s’mores.  Last year the vegetarian marshmallows turned up at Target, of all places, and this year, TRADER JOES!  So you can see that marshmallows, while growing in size, color and quantity for most of you- an American institution, if you will, similar to apple pie- was an out of the loop thing for us, and finding them for less than six bucks at the local Trader Joes is cause for celebration!  

* Many followers of the Seventh-day Adventist faith practice vegetarianism, therefore the church usually supports a store that provides vegetarian alternatives to animal protein.

I went to halfmarathons.net to find this accessible and solid training schedule for Gigi and I so we can kick the Beat the Blerch half marathon’s bootay.  We are going to start running three miles this Wednesday.  While I’m going to try to stick closely to this schedule, I’m not going to be insane about it.  I want to hit at least two shorter runs with one longer run per week.  I plan on attending Zumba on Tuesdays or Thursday’s to mix things up, and I also want to incorporate some weight training back into my workout.  I’m not too worried about doing all of the running on the schedule because I believe that the Zumba and hiking have to factor into this somewhere, too, and I don’t want to become so focus driven that I forget to have fun, get all uptight, get crabby, obsess over mileage and schedules…  This is bonding and fun, not boot camp!  Mostly I’m excited that I get to DO IT again!!!

Freddie-pedi

I saw this poem by Nikki Giovanni the other day.  In reference to things happening all over the world and it just keeps sticking.  I keep coming back, rereading it like a song lyric, meditating and thinking and rethinking about it…  

At first I was a vegetarian when I read it.

Then I was an American, a citizen of the world, a teacher, a mother, a wife…  

I did the most amazing thing today- I rode my bike down the Hiawatha Trail in Idaho and Montana!  If I’m totally truthful, I have to give all the credit to my mama and my Aunt Ree for the idea.  My auntie has ridden the trail a number of times and planted the seed in my mom’s head that this was a ‘Must Do Event’ when in the Idaho panhandle area.  I was like, “Ok.  That sounds fine.”  I was willing to go but I wasn’t turning cartwheels or anything.  I was so absent-minded about it, in combo with the school year ending, that I didn’t even remember to bring our helmets or headlamps, but my dear mom was undeterred!  She rented bikes, helmets, lamps, transportation and pretty much anything else we needed!  It was like Christmas in July, let me tell you, because it was breathtaking!!!   (I know it’s June, picky picky😋)

{The picture of Jude and me cracked me up. He was telling me to just drive! Don’t take the picture!!! His little face says it all. The other kids are my niece and nephew, and of course, my Gigi. :)}

The trail starts out just five miles past the Idaho/Montana border on I-90 east.  After winding through some dusty, gravely roads, you reach the trailhead and park.  Prior to this, hopefully you stopped at the pass, like we did, to pay for the trail pass and shuttle, because what you get to do is ride your bike on an old railroad down a mountainside for 15 miles!  The entire trail was downhill and a shuttle picks you up at the bottom to take you and your gear back up to the trailhead.  You can ride your bike back up the mountain, but in the 95 degree weather, to me, that sounds unsavory.  

We stood around getting our gear ready until we were nice and sweaty, then took off and were immediately plunged into a freezing cold, underground tunnel that was 1.68 miles long! We were prepared with headlamps, but sadly, I was not prepared with batteries and they forgot to give Jude, on the tag along, a headlamp. No light, in combination with the rapid shift from blazing sun and pitch dark, made for an unnerving transition. Well, unnerving is putting it lightly. We were freaked out. I had a wobbly eight year old and no light. Water was dripping. The walls were creepy. People were heading towards us in the opposite direction, blinding us… It was intense. I was glad to reach the end of that and so happy to emerge into the beautiful sunshine and sweeping views. There were several more tunnels after that one but they were all short and didn’t require as much reliance on the headlamps. I marveled, the whole time, at what I was able to partake in. The bridges were high, historical and incredible, riding alongside the sheer cliffs was terrifying in a deeply satisfying way and chatting and singing along with my boy as we rode was magical. Our shuttle driver entertained us on the way back up with historical stories along the way of the railroad, the great fire of 1910 that, incidentally, burned through a Rhode Island swath of forest in 48 hours, and learned about the local wildlife.

 I seriously had the best time, and I was extra proud because I was the adult in charge who lead the expedition with confidence.  It was great.  I can’t wait to take Bradley next year and strongly suggest it to anyone who happens to be crossing through the panhandle.  It took us a total of about three hours of riding and being shuttled back up to the top, total.  Thanks Mom.  Today we created something that will last a lifetime and it was way better than anything I could ever find under a Christmas tree during any month of the year.

I give five stars to the trail- beautiful & well maintained!

2 stars to the customer service because they were snarky, forgot to give us the headlamps we paid for, were rude and allowed a family with the same sized party to cut us in front of us on the shuttle despite my loud protests, and we ended up having to wait 90 minutes for the next shuttle.  But hey- at least we didn’t have to ride back up the hill!

4 stars to the shuttle driver who distracted us from the sheer cliffs with potential moose sightings and yelled over the top of ye olde school bus engine to teach us the local history.  🙂

If you go, bring a water bottle to refill at the water stations along the way, sunscreen, a sweatshirt for the freezing-cold tunnels, a headlamp/flashlight, a small snack for the bottom of the hill, sunglasses, some riding gloves and your camera.  Your back will get a rooster tail of mud but you won’t care, your butt will fall asleep from the vibration of the gravel under your tires and your hands may get sore for the same reason, but you won’t care.  It’s an awesome experience!