Redeeming the Coffee Card

This day started out okay, then it got hairy, then turned into a kind of a bummer, then it picked up and then it got REALLY really good when my hubby agreed to go to coffee with me at my favorite coffee shop which should be everyone's favorite coffee shop AND I realized on the way there that my punch card was full and I was due for a FREE coffee so it would be like a two-fer and this was the card that I found... FOUND on the ground near my church so someone else I don't even know but who has excellent taste in coffee shops has a part in my enjoying that FREE decaf mocha frap tonight. You heard me... I said decaf... and despite the lack of caffeine look at the run-on sentence and all the ALL CAPS and the ellipses!

Thank you, irresponsible stranger, for dropping your card! I tried to think of you with gratitude when I ordered my drink this evening. And can we all agree that I may not have it all together -- my house is dirty and my dog has an ear problem and my children aren't in advanced math and my weight needs some attention --- but gol darnit if my thumbnail isn't clean, trim, and smooth.

More in the Mirror

In college, I found out information on my birth parents that I'd never known before. It arrived in the mail and I opened the envelope while I was sitting on my bedroom rug a few feet from floor-to-ceiling mirrored closet doors. I lifted my eyes from the piece of paper to my reflection and I swear to you there was more there than I'd ever seen before. Unless you can access a deep understanding of what composes our identity, or unless you are also adopted - you might wonder what I'm talking about. But I swear it's true, I saw more of myself that afternoon - things I'd never seen - that added to who I am.

A little over a month ago, I walked myself into a tattoo shop. I had an idea that was both decades old and younger than that one Saturday. I wanted a tattoo and I got one. I formed a bond with the artist who carved my ankle the way women form bonds with the midwives or doctors who help deliver their babies. I didn't want to leave the place when I was done, and I also knew I'd be back. Since that day, I have analyzed the hell out of the experience, especially curious why I liked it so much.

Tonight I had a thought that hadn't come up previously in all my moments (hours) of analyzing... I remembered the experience of finding out my ethnicity and some of my birth parents' background all those years ago and the feeling of "discovering" more of myself. I compared that with the tattoo experience and the two events remind me of each other. Having that tattoo is "me." Since I got it, I have gained a little more of my identity. I'm a girl who wants an expression of art right on my skin and I didn't know that before for sure. I was scared by the opinions of others, particularly one family member who said that "tattoos are for gas station attendants." Well... I bet there are more than a few gas station attendants out there who I could be good friends with.

The big question now is: what else have I not yet discovered about myself? I'm looking forward to finding out.

Why I'm Gonna Run This Race

Late last April I challenged myself and some friends to run a "Hundred-Mile May" to give my running some pizazz. It worked. It went so well that I kept it up through June and July. August, too, but August just about killed my running partner and me. When you set off on a run at 9:00 at night in order to take advantage of the "cooler" 112-degree temps, you know you're crazy. Or bad-ass. Or something.

September and October got wimpy, so in November I kicked off a "Holiday Streak," inspired by Runner's World magazine, where participants commit to exercise of any sort (running for me) EVERY DAY from Thanksgiving to New Year's. As you can see, I'm a gimmick-y kind of a girl. In December, right in the middle of the "Holiday Streak" gimmick, my friend asked if I'd want to run a half-marathon in April. "SURE!" I said. Another goal to keep me going! But then in January, I got sick - for weeks. And when I finally got better, I remained slothful and many more weeks went by without exercise. I'm happy to say I've been off the couch for a couple weeks now - diligently "pushing play" on my P90X3 DVDs every morning. There's cardio. There's core-strengthening. But I haven't actually run very much, unless you count that downhill less-than-a-mile I did the other night with my running partner. As of that night, I still thought the half-marathon I'd signed up for was in the distant future -- like, maybe 2016. I went home after our mostly-walk and looked up the date for the half. WAY sooner than 2016. In fact, at that point it was less than two weeks away. I promptly decided not to run the race.

The next couple days, I had a near-constant battle going on between two of my personalities. Let's name them to illustrate this. We will call the bad-ass runner girl Electra. And the slovenly lazy-bones is Bertha. Electra and Bertha don't have much good to say to each other. They have nothing in common - more than that - they have a lot of disdain for the other's lifestyle. You should have heard them pick at each other! "Gimme a break!" Bertha would say. "It wasn't that much money to register. You'll never even know you let yourself down. Stay home and have a mocha latte. Who do you think you are, anyway? An athlete? What?"

Then Electra would flex her glutes in her shiny running pants and spit in the corner (told you she was bad-ass) and say, "What's thirteen miles? I've done it before. I can do it again. I laugh at pain, barfing, and fainting!"

I don't know who you side with, but Electra won the argument. Bertha keeps reminding her she could find herself face-down on the asphalt at mile nine, but Electra persists. Here's what she has going for her mentally:

1) She HAS done this before. A few times. And no, the finish was never pretty. Shakiness one time, barfing another. Sore knees. Furious quads. But there's a precedent of survival and accomplishment, even when accompanied by vomit.

2) This woman has given birth four times... at home!...no drugs...to babies weighing more than should be legal. No stitches. No crying. Well, some crying. And more vomiting. Even bleeding! PLUS... the childbirth thing takes WAY longer for Electra than running a half-marathon.

3) There was a momentous mountain experience in Wyoming a couple years back. Electra tackled a hike with about 3,700 feet of elevation gain, miles of steep trail, river crossings, snow fields, and wounded feet. It was... I gotta say it again... bad-ass. And when discussing the hike with her sister-in-law beforehand, Electra remembers hearing her say "I know it will be hard. But I'm not afraid of hard." She made it to the top of Table Mountain and back in 13 hours. This race can't take more than four, tops.

You can bet that I (Electra) - (you can see how having multiple personalities gets blurry) will be nervous standing at the starting line. But I won't be afraid. I guess, when I reflect, I've never been very afraid of difficult things. I may not always like them, or excel at them, and I actually prefer to shine - but there's something to be said for tackling the things we aren't super-duper at. This will be one of those. Let's just hope for no barfing this time.

Maybe This is my Lent

I haven't been doing too well. I'm depressed, for sure. I'm eating too much. I want to cry all the time. I'm certain that I'm failing everything.

It's Lent. This is the first year in many that I haven't committed to a sacrifice or penance of some sort. I had a plan, but I haven't kept it.

Somehow yesterday I made it to the church with the kids to pray before the Blessed Sacrament. I looked at Jesus on the cross for a few moments and I acknowledged that although it isn't voluntary, I'm suffering. My emotions, my marriage, homeschooling, my relationship with my kids, some of my friendships, my feelings toward my parents and my in-laws - all have been in the dumps.

I don't have a way out. When I get like this I sit as though at the bottom of a crater and hope and pray for someone to come along and lift me out. No matter what my resolve in a positive moment, I can't ever seem to change these bouts. I just have to wait them out - wait for something to change. And once I'm on the other side, I always get a little foggy about what was wrong in the first place. I'm convinced that if my depression could be studied, it would be revealed that I do it wrong.

I had a chance to tackle the topic today. It was time to renew my prescription for my anti-depressants and all I had to do was tell my doctor that maybe I need something stronger. But this terrifies me. Let's keep in mind it took two and a half decades to finally work up the courage to try medication - now when it seems it may need some adjusting, I don't dare. I'm scared of messing something up and getting worse. So I kept my mouth shut. I said I was doing fine and I smiled convincingly and I got a few more months of this stuff that really doesn't seem to be helping enough.





And now time has passed and I am out of the crater. I exercise and I am new again. Able to deal for another day. I'm glad I wrote this on March 19th so that I don't forget what it was like. But now it's April 3rd and I'm better.




If Kevin goes into politics, his career won't go far with me blogging like this.

This Week With April Fool's Day In It

This week I have a friend in trouble and a friend out of work and a friend feeling trapped and wanting a change and a friend who should get some anxiety meds and a friend who speaks of art and makes me think and a friend I can't listen to because the judging is so loud, and a concert to think about and a dream of a home with trees and twenty-five dollars on my Starbucks card and a baby prayed for and a robin on my lawn every morning and flashbacks to fifth grade and the weird nanny and my tattoo is healing and I want to visit the artist again, even in the barren backyard where I don't fit in and yet I do.


There, I blogged.

So Not Breezy

Were you a "Friends" fan? I was, to the extent that even today, almost ten years since the show ended, things come up in daily life that remind me of an episode.

Today was one such day. I embarrassed the crap out of myself. Then I tried to make it better but only made it worse. I behaved like Monica, in "The One When No One's Ready." Remember?---"I'm breezy!"

Here, it's less than two minutes long. You should watch it.

In my case, there are no ex-boyfriends involved, thankfully. The story is that Bethanie missed her third-grade class photo today (one of four things I looked forward to her experiencing at public school) due to a doctor appointment and a lack of communication with her teacher. I was irrationally upset. I should have waited to calm down, but I didn't and I wrote a totally ridiculous email to her teacher requesting a make-up photo. Thank God I was nice - no anger leaked into the email, only craziness. The day went on and every time I thought about the email, I cringed. So I did what any totally stupid person would do -- I wrote ANOTHER email. I even referred to myself as "whacko" in that one. And as I tried to sort of apologize for the first email, I was thinking of Monica. I could've closed the apology with "I'm breezy!" But, as you know if you watched the video, "you can't SAY you're breezy... that totally negates the breezy."




I’m writing seven posts in seven days this week (or trying to, anyway). To check out other bloggers who are doing the same, see the list here.

Everyone Seems to be Doing These List Posts...

...and I cave to peer pressure from time to time. But, to keep it unique, all my list items begin with the letter

What I've Been Doing Today:

Planning Meals

Pinteresting together a "Frozen" birthday party

Putting a LOT of effort into learning about social media and building a website

Pondering whether it's really called "building" a website - probably not

Prancercise

Praying for several friends and their various requests (medical, emotional, spiritual, marital)

Perusing a book about writing and the various ways to make money with it

Poetry! Composing 57 Haiku. Why 57? Because I set strange goals.

Putting off finishing the 771-page novel I've been reading - kinda don't want to be done with it

Pasteurizing milk

Prepping a talk on spending time with God for Rebel Christian Fellowship at UNLV

Plumping up - I've been overeating due to increased stress brought on by all this computer learning

Parking

Popping allergy meds like everyone else in Vegas right now

Parenting. With pleasure, pomp, and a whole ton of perplexity.




*Some of these are fictitious to make my life sound more glamorous
**The haiku one is totally true, though - I wish you'd ask me to read some of them to you
***Please don't leave this post without clicking on the Prancercise link and beholding it for yourself
****I’m writing seven posts in seven days this week. To check out other bloggers who are doing the same, see the list here.