I Was Just Thinking . . .

Book Review: Organized Simplicity by Tsh Oxenreider

2012-01-30T09:26:00.000-06:00

Most people I know, even those who have little in the way of financial resources, live lives of "too much." Too much stuff, too many activities, too much stress. Our homes are cluttered with accumulated possessions that we don't have time to enjoy because our days are cluttered with so many appointments and activities, including all the time it takes to clean, maintain, or pay for all those possessions. We're distracted and worn out by all this clutter. We have more than any previous generation and enjoy it all less.

Tsh Oxenreider has written Organized Simplicity (about $12 on Amazon.com) to address this issue. This is not an ivy tower treatise on organization and time management that advocates a spartan lifestyle or carefully scheduled days. Organized Simplicity is written from the perspective of a mom who has to live in the real world. She starts by asking "What does it look like for a modern-day family to live simply while still participating in afterschool sports, errand running, and getting enough sleep to not go insane?" That is the $64,000 question, isn't it?

Subtitled "The Clutter-Free Approach to Intentional Living," the book starts with an explanation of her purpose: "I want to help you find that peaceful place, where your pocketbook, your home, and your weekly routine reflect your family's convictions and values." She offers some background on the why of simple living and some thoughts about typical modern family stress, talking about the growth in average American home size in the last fifty or sixty years (and how we continue to fill that extra space with more stuff) and the overworked and overbooked nature of most Americans' lives, and makes a case for the benefits of simplifying life:

"Your living space needs to reflect how you want to live your life: at peace, with enough time and money for the things that matter and without things that just don't matter."

Before digging into the activity part of the book, Oxenreider asks the reader -- most likely a female "home manager" (whether or not employed outside the home, most women are responsible for managing their homes) -- to think deeply about her family's values and purpose, to work with her family to create a family purpose statement that will serve as a touchstone during the process undertaken in the rest of the book: to declutter, reorganize, and simplify the reader's home and thereby her life.

After laying that foundation, Oxenreider uses the rest of the book to take the reader methodically through the family's finances, schedule, and home (room by room), with a simple, practical process of evaluating belongings and weeding them out so that the decluttered home actually reflects the interests, personality, and priorities of the family that lives there.

"A peaceful home requires a change of attitude, a habit of regular maintenance, and a lifelong commitment to place higher priority on relationships and events than on things."

Organized Simplicity includes a nice mix of philosophical underpinnings and practical, down-to-earth, time-and-money-saving tips to help get your home in the shape you can actually relax and enjoy. Suggestions for tools and supplies (including recipes to make your own environmentally friendly cleaning solutions, in case you're so inclined) and helpful checklists are scattered throughout the book.

The last chapter is a Q&A in which Oxenreider offers some pros and cons on questions such as "Should I take time to clip coupons?" or "Should we have a landline phone in addition to cell phones, or cell phones only?" Rather than telling you how you should live, she offers information and ideas for you to consider in reaching your own conclusions.

At the end of the book, Oxenreider includes a fairly comprehensive list of resources -- books, magazines, and websites -- for the reader who wants to learn more about the various topics she touches on in the book, including financial health, green living, food and cooking, etc.

Organized Simplicity is a nicely written resource for the woman who's looking for some guidance in how to create a more peaceful, enjoyable life for her family. Oxenreider is not a professional organizer, but an obviously intelligent woman who writes from her own experience as a wife, mother, and homemaker. The book struck a chord with me at a time when I've already been pondering what can or should be done about my own family's tidy collection of too much stuff. One of my goals this year is to simplify our home and our life so that we can enjoy both more. The suggestions in this book will help. I recommend it.

Read more of Tsh Oxenreider's writings on intentional living on her blog; learn more about her at her website and at SimpleLivingMedia.com.*

*I bought my copy of Organized Simplicity online at Amazon. I do not know Tsh Oxenreider personally, have never communicated with her as of the date of this posting, and am not affiliated with Simple Living Media. I just liked this book and thought it was worth sharing.

Why I Hate Running, and Why I Do It Anyway

2012-01-27T11:00:00.000-06:00

Here are just some of the reasons I don't like to run (in no particular order):

I don't like to sweat.
I don't like to huff and puff.
It's hard for me. I was born with malformed hip sockets, leading to two separate hip replacement surgeries in the last few years (I'm now fully bionic!). Calcification in one of the artificial joints limits my range of motion, and many years of pain-induced inactivity gave me atrophied muscles, so it's just very hard work for me to make my legs run.
I look funny when I run, so I feel self-conscious. The aforementioned birth defect and surgeries left me with legs of unequal length (in addition to those weak muscles), so I have very goofy looking gait when I run. (I'm also very, very slow.)
It takes time. I have a demanding job, a long commute, and family and household responsibilities that are important to me. There are other ways I'd rather use my limited free time instead of sweating and huffing/puffing and working hard.
I'm just basically a lazy person who'd rather lie on the couch and read a book than exert myself.

And here are some of the reasons why I do it anyway (also in no particular order):

I used to be quite overweight, and I did not like how I felt. I don't want to get fat again.
I'm in my early 50s, and as I get older, things don't work as well as they used to. I don't mind getting older, but I don't want to be old and decrepit. Running (and strength training, which I also do a little bit of) is something I can do to make myself stronger and enable myself to stay healthy and active longer.
I prefer the kinds of clothes I can wear when I'm thinner.
Although it seems counter-intuitive, I have more energy when I work out than when I don't.
I spend most of my time indoors, working at a desk. Running gives me an opportunity to get outside.
I can eat more if I exercise (and I do like to eat).
I want to be healthy - running strengthens my heart and lungs as well as my muscles.

Everybody has to decide for herself whether the benefits of exercise outweigh the costs. I haven't yet felt that "runner's high" that I read about in the magazines. The act of running is not fun for me, and there are other things I'd rather be doing, but feeling healthier and fitter ultimately motivates me to put on my running clothes and head out the door. My workout mantra?

I don't have to like it. I just have to do it.

What about you?

Give Yourself Credit for the Effort

2012-01-24T10:00:00.000-06:00

Are you as hard on yourself as I am? Do you find it easier to criticize yourself for the areas where you fall short, rather than patting yourself on the back for making an effort?

One of my primary goals for 2012 is to finish a novel manuscript, something I've wanted to do since I was in my teens. One item on my action plan for that goal is to start developing the habit of writing daily, by writing at least 750 words, at least six days each week. Week one went great (not in terms of starting the novel, but in terms of keeping my commitment to daily writing). But a vacation in week two put me off track. I did some writing most (but not all) days, but still none of it was on the novel. So a couple of days ago I realized that we're already three weeks into 2012 and I've got no work done on the novel. As is typical of me, I spent some time beating up on myself for setting a goal and then not working the plan I'd prepared to realize that goal: "What's the matter with you? How can you be so disciplined at work and so undisciplined about doing the writing you've dreamed of since you were a kid? How can somebody who drags her butt out to run regularly not be able to sit that butt in a chair and get words on paper?"

I was feeling pretty crummy and just a bit hopeless about ever achieving this particular lifelong dream. Part of the issue is that I feel the years flying by, and at 51 years old I feel like I have less and less time left to do the things I've dreamed of for years. And I'm particularly sensitive to it, I guess, because since I've "failed" at accomplishing certain goals so many times, I'm afraid of doing it again. The voice in my head told me, "You'll never be a writer. Just give up and stop kidding yourself."

Looking at the calendar, though, I realized that maybe it was just a little too early in the year to give up hope. Yes, I'm three weeks into the year and haven't yet put words on paper specifically for that one project. On the other hand, it's only three weeks out of 52, and I have made some progress on several of the business and professional goals that I set for myself for this year. I've even done a pretty good job of writing the 750 words I promised myself most days, and even if they weren't for my novel, it's still practice toward developing a good habit of daily writing.

So I need to cut myself a break, right? I need to just keep reminding myself that even if I don't reach my target destination, by taking ANY steps in the direction I'm aiming I've at least gotten closer to where I want to be. Which really is progress.

I'm not young. I do have fewer years ahead of me than I have behind me. But still, I have many years left to do the things I want to do. One step at a time is still progress. Slower than I want, but progress nonetheless. So I need to lighten up, right?

From conversations I've had with friends and acquaintances, I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only one who struggles with this. Many of us find ourselves focusing on how far we have yet to go, rather than celebrating the steps we've actually taken in the right direction.

I am trying to start a practice of keeping track of the little steps I take toward each of my goals. I'm keeping separate lists for professional and personal goals, and tracking what things I've done that advance the ball on the various goals I've set. Mostly I focus on my 90-day objectives, which, of course, are subsets of my year and long-term goals. So I keep track of the little actions I've taken toward each of the targets I've set for this quarter. I have a list started in my little Moleskine notebook, and I'll try to add to it each week, even if it's just an item or two.

Last week was rough, with traveling and then getting back to the office and trying to get caught up, but I got a few things done, and I have a list of a few specific things I'm planning to work on next week. So . . . one week at a time, one day at a time, one task at a time. Trying to be a little kinder to myself and give myself credit for trying, even if I don't get as far down the road as I had hoped.

What about you? Do you need to remember to give yourself credit for the effort, even if you don't accomplish all you hoped for? I'd like to hear about the steps you're taking toward your dreams!

iPhone & iPad Fun - 3 of My Favorite Apps

2012-01-05T10:30:00.000-06:00

Those who know me personally have already heard this, but I'll say it again anyway: I love my iPad. And my iPhone. They're fun, they're useful, and they work! One of the best things about these devices (besides the great Apple customer service) is access to the thousands of apps available through the App Store. I've tried tons of them, both free and paid. Some have been hits; others, not so much. From time to time I'll share my thoughts on some of them. Here are three that I particularly like (all available via Apple's App Store):

Noteshelf. As the name hints, this inexpensive app is used for taking notes on your iPad. It accepts both typed and handwritten input, the latter using either your finger or, more easily, a stylus - basically a rubber-tipped pen (available anywhere iPad accessories are sold - mine cost $15). You can set up "notebooks" for whatever topics or categories you want. Once you've entered your "stuff," it's saved on the iPad. You can email the pages (or the whole notebook), print them wirelessly using AirPrint, etc. I've found it really valuable at meetings for work.
Lose It!. For both the iPhone and the iPad. This free app syncs with the loseit.com online program and across your devices and lets you keep track of both the food you eat and your activity, as an aid to weight management. The app has a huge database of foods (and exercises) that you can search and select to track your calorie intake. There's even a cool UPC code scanner that can read the codes on your foods and enter the nutritional info in seconds. You can enter information into your profile, including current weight, age, gender, and goal weight. The app calculates what your daily net calorie intake should be, and as you enter foods and exercise, it keeps track of how close you are to your daily target. Experts say that one step toward weight loss/management is writing down everything you eat, to become more aware of how much you're taking in. This app makes it easy to do that on the go. If one of your new year's resolutions is to lose weight, check out this app!
Wunderlist: Another free app, available for both the iPhone and the iPad, as well as for Mac and PC computers. This is a fun and easy-to-use task management (i.e., list-making) app. Set up an account at Wunderlist.com, and link the apps on each device to that account. They sync via the cloud, so adding (or checking off) an item on one device automatically syncs to the others. In addition to "to-do" lists, I use Wunderlist to keep running lists for certain stores I visit regularly or periodically, adding items when I think of them, so when I'm at the store, I don't have to struggle to recall what I needed to look for there. I have lists for Walmart, Lowe's, Staples, the Container Store, and the mall. You can also share lists, so I have a "Honey-Do" list that syncs to my husband's iPad. When I think of a project that needs his attention at our farm, I can enter it on my iPhone or iPad, and it automatically shows up in Wunderlist on his iPad.

Today's technology -- and the ingenuity of app developers -- make iPhones and iPads handy devices that can make your life easier and more convenient. What apps do you like best?

The Bible and Occupy Wall Street - To Do, or to Demand?

2012-01-02T08:34:00.001-06:00

Last week a story on NPR talked about the religious community's response to Occupy Wall Street and the plight of the poor. Among others, the story interviewed a pastor (in California, I think) who had recently preached on the topic of social injustice and expounded on a passage in Isaiah to support his validation of the Occupy movement's demands for government action to force social change.

Here's the passage that this pastor preached from (Is. 58:6-11):

"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter--when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame."

In the NPR story, this pastor's sermon was an example of religious support for the demands that the wealthy should be required to contribute more, that the government should take more action to provide for the poor and needy. This passage was quoted to support protest gatherings like those sponsored by the Occupy movement, asserting that, because the Bible tells us to feed the poor, it's therefore right and valid to gather to demand action by the government and the wealthy to "fix" wealth inequality.

The Bible clearly tells us, both here and elsewhere, that we should feed the poor and care for the needy. Nevertheless, I disagree with the theme of this pastor's message, of the NPR story, and of the Occupy movement (on this point, at least). I believe that it's a misuse of the Bible, to take a passage like this and use it as a justification for public complaints that the government and the rich--the others--aren't doing enough to fix the problems of the poor and general injustice.

I don't believe that these words are meant to be used that way. This passage, like the whole Bible, is not meant to be used as a club to force others to change. It is meant as a message to me, to each of us, personally, as an individual. I am to read it as God's Word to ME, telling ME what I should be doing. I'm not supposed to be digging through it looking for words to use as proof that somebody else is wrong, to scold somebody else and demand that they change their behavior.

Should we feed the poor and care for the helpless? Yes. But it's not my job to use God's Word to make somebody else do what it says. It's my job to DO WHAT I READ THERE. If I do that, if each one of us does that, then the poor will be cared for, the oppressed will be set free, and the hungry will be fed. It's just that simple.

None of us can fix the problem alone, but each one of us can do something. We can help the people we see, those who come across our path. We can teach our own children to live that way--watching for opportunities to help those less fortunate than we are. We can join together voluntarily with other like-minded individuals to undertake collective efforts--the soup kitchen, the food pantry, the church ministries. Each of us can lead by example instead of by harsh and unkind rhetoric.

But gathering in a park to talk about what somebody else is not doing? All that does is alienate, separate, frustrate. Nobody gets fed, no one is set free. It's talk masquerading as action. It's criticism and jealousy replacing personal responsibility. It's the "pointing finger and malicious talk" that Isaiah condemns in the passage quoted above.

I, too, want to see the hungry fed and the downtrodden lifted up. But I don't like to see the Bible used as a weapon. I truly don't believe that's why it was given to us. It's not my job to MAKE somebody else do what the Bible says. It's my job to do it myself. Until I do, I lack the moral authority to persuade anybody else to change her ways. Each of us needs to stop looking around to see what somebody else is doing or not doing, and start looking in the mirror and changing our own behavior to align it with what the Bible asks of us.

What do you think?

Whose Fault Is My Failure?

2011-09-25T10:46:00.000-05:00

Life-changing lessons can be learned even from the most painful of situations. I know we all know this, but it can be hard to remember when you're struggling to make sense of a situation that brings you to your knees with pain and grief.

This year saw the gradual deterioration and sudden, painful end of a friendship that was important to me. My former friend turned out to be . . . not the person I thought he was. (In fairness, I'm sure he probably feels the same about me.) He deceived me (intentionally or not, doesn't matter), but that isn't what makes me saddest. Lately I have been pondering the many ways we deceive ourselves, and this friend is a prime object lesson for me. From my perspective it appears that he sees himself one way, while the people who know him well realize he is something else altogether -- not a fundamentally bad person, but not nearly as enlightened or honest or generous or open-minded as he truly and sincerely believes himself to be. As a friend, it has been excruciatingly difficult to watch him sabotage his future by his own actions, while he blames other people for his misfortunes and his inability to accomplish his dreams.

But this post isn't about him or my opinion of him. It's about what I am learning by observing my friend's self-deception and its destructive consequences. Because rather than dwelling on and analyzing my friend's weaknesses, I have tried hard to turn my analysis on myself, asking this question: How am I deceiving myself? What do I truly and sincerely believe about myself that simply is not true?

This is, of course, a far harder task. Each of us can easily see the flaws in other people's reasoning and beliefs, but we often are blind to the flaws in our own. Our choices and actions generally make perfect sense to us, while we can identify with crystal clarity the irrationality or error in the choices others make. What we do is wholly justified (in our minds); what others do is inexcusable. That's why we can blithely demand justice for others, but beg mercy for ourselves.

I cannot help my friend, but I am trying to learn from what I've seen my friend do to himself. I'm trying to ferret out the assumptions about myself that underlie my own choices and behavior, and analyze those assumptions carefully and with as clear an eye as it's possible to turn on myself. Daily I try to honestly evaluate my actions. This choice that I've made -- is it really based on what's best for my family, or is it about my own selfish wants? This thing I've said to a friend -- is it really coming from a heart that loves and wants to help, or am I trying to bolster my own fragile self-worth by finding a weakness in another?

I know the kind of person I want to be, and I become more aware all the time how far I am from being that person. I still tend to make excuses for my failings -- looking outward for the reasons why I can't do the things I dream of or be the person I should be. As I've watched my friend do exactly that over and over, I have become vividly aware of how often I do it too. So I am working hard to catch myself mid-excuse and remind myself that, no, it's not somebody else's fault that I behave the way I do. It's not my circumstances that prevent me from fulfilling my dreams. I choose.

I choose.

Every moment of every day, I choose how to think, what to say, how to act. No matter how other people or my circumstances might seem to conspire against my dreams, the truth is that I can choose, moment by moment, one step at a time, to keep pressing forward toward becoming the person, and living the life, that I want.

It's painful to admit that my failures are solely my responsibility. Human nature wants to find another explanation -- "I want to, but. . . ." But when we stop looking for excuses, when we look deeply and honestly at ourselves and take full responsibility for who and what and where we are, then an amazing thing happens: we realize that we can control those outcomes, because we can change our choices. If I am merely the victim of circumstances and other people, then I am trapped where I am, helpless to ever live the life I dream of. But if it's my own choices that have brought me to a place I don't like, then it's entirely within my power to make different choices and start moving toward the place I want to be.

It is so much easier to judge others than to judge ourselves. But we can't "fix" anybody else, can we? We can love and pray and hope that they'll see the light, but we cannot change another person, so it's a waste of time and energy to focus our attention on what someone else is doing "wrong." Instead, we each need to learn to see ourselves clearly and then act on what we see. That, my friends, is a full-time task!

Lessons to Learn from 9/11

2011-09-11T15:37:00.000-05:00

I hesitated to write a blog post about this tenth anniversary of the 9/11 events, because it almost seems cliche to do so. I know so may others are writing magazine articles and editorials and blog posts about it, and I have nothing to add. But I just spent a little time watching some clips from the ten-year anniversary coverage. My heart still breaks, watching the speeches and the singing of the national anthem and the moments of silence, and I sat here at my computer, crying while I watched.

Even now, ten years later, it's hard to comprehend the hatred that propelled those planes into those buildings. Some (even some Americans) blame America for the attacks. Some believe that we caused the hatred and invited retribution by our arrogance toward the world's other nations. I reject that argument. Just as I reject absolutely the suggestion that a rape victim invited her attack by her choice of clothing.

There's no doubt that we as a nation do and have done many things wrong. We are human, and like all humans, we make the wrong choices and do things for the wrong reasons. But still, nothing this country has done merited the violence that was done to us that day. Not because we're America, but because we are human, and no human deserves such violence.

Last week I read an article about the ceremonies that were being planned in remembrance of the 9/11 tragedy. Several commentators objected to the often-repeated phrase: "We will never forget." One writer suggested that we should forget, noting that she never was sure what it was that we're supposed to remember, and that maybe it's time to just move on.

I disagree. This country changed irrevocably that day. And I think we should remember it always, not only out of respect for those who died, but for the lessons we can take away from the events and the aftermath of that horrible day.

The 9/11 attacks taught us in the most vivid of terms that hatred is real. For whatever reasons -- our country's political choices or their own religious beliefs -- there were in 2001 and are now people who hate America. They hate what we've done, and they hate what we stand for. As individuals, we might disclaim any responsibility for the actions that drew the attention of these haters, but they do not distinguish between the decision-makers in political leadership and the "innocent" citizens just going about their daily lives. The people who planned and carried out the 9/11 attacks knew full well that they were targeting innocent civilians who as individuals had done nothing to harm them or their families. They didn't care.

The truth is, we are all responsible. America is a democratic republic, and those who lead us carry out the policies we allow them to pursue. If we believe that our nation's leaders are making the wrong decisions, then we have the right, the power, and the duty to change the country's direction either by persuading the current political leaders or by replacing them.

We learned a hard lesson ten years ago about the hideous effects of hatred and divisiveness. We also learned that we are not as invulnerable as we once thought. The world changed that day. We cannot unsee the sights we saw or unfeel the fear and grief. We likely never will return to the days when we could greet our visiting loved ones at the airport gate.

I hope that we don't forget that day. But I hope that we all choose to think deeply about what happened, and why, and what can and should be done to make sure it never happens again . . . and how to do that without losing our soul as a nation.

Women of Faith - Dallas

2011-09-03T16:26:00.000-05:00

It's been a week since I came home from the Women of Faith conference in Dallas. I originally intended to blog about it during and then right after the event. But I decided to wait -- to give myself some time to absorb the experience and think about what I'd seen and heard there.

I'm not a fan of big crowds, and this type of event usually involves too much hype for me, and not enough "meat." So after signing up to attend, I had second thoughts, and might have bailed if not for the fact that my oldest daughter also registered to go. Once I got there, though, I found myself enjoying it, and I'm glad I went. I came away with some inspiration and motivation to take some steps in my own life that I'd been thinking about for awhile.

The Women of Faith conference took place at the American Airlines Center, the big arena where the champion Dallas Mavericks play, and where I've attended concerts by big acts like Celine Dion, Rascal Flatts, Rihanna, and Keith Urban. I appreciated how well orchestrated the event was. The big crowd of women attending moved quickly through security. Every session began precisely on time, and ended when scheduled, without feeling rushed. Even the delivery of the box lunches went smoothly and quickly -- with some 25,000 (? blind guess) women to feed, I expected long waits in line to get my sandwich and apple, but they moved everyone through the lunch line posthaste. These may seem like minor details, but to me, the timeliness and precision with which the event was run evidenced a respect for the attendees' time, and I appreciated it.

I wish that this respect for others had been shared by all of the attendees, but unfortunately that was not the case. I was unpleasantly surprised by how rude the women were -- walking down the aisles or around the back of the room while the speakers' were talking, carrying on full-voice conversations, completely oblivious to (or uncaring about) the fact that their voices were disturbing and distracting the other participants who were trying to hear the speakers. Similarly, a woman sitting next to me took a phone call during one of Andy Andrews' segments and proceeded to carry on a phone conversation right there in her seat, without so much as an "I'm sorry" to me and without an effort to lower her voice. Unbelievable. If this had happened once or twice I could have understood it in a room that size, but this was a pattern throughout the event. Apparently Christians are not immune to the rampant bad manners infecting our society. It's shocking to me how perfectly willing people are to interrupt others and/or disrupt events like this as if theirs are the only purposes or rights that matter.

Despite those distractions, the Women of Faith "Over the Top" conference was well worth attending. Each session began with a brief time of "praise & worship" music led by the Women of Faith worship team -- four attractive women with beautiful voices and gorgeous harmonies that caught the crowd's attention and got them focused and ready for the speakers. The music was well done -- God-centered lyrics well sung. The program was engaging and nicely paced. Patsy Clairmont and Andy Andrews in particular were great speakers -- both are very funny but also managed to convey profound messages through their humor. Their multiple presentations were supplemented by inspirational talks by the other guests, including Lisa Welchel, Brenda Warner, and Sandy Patty, and musical performances by Mandisa, Sandy Patty, and Amy Grant.

I took notes throughout the event so that I would remember, and could later ponder, some of the speakers' comments that most caught my attention. The thoughts that lingered for me? Patsy Clairmont insisting that "Your will is stronger than your emotions." So often we (especially we women) feel that we're at the mercy of our emotions, but Patsy told us that that's not true -- we can choose to control our emotions. She encouraged us to put boundaries on our emotions, reminding us that the Bible tells us that "a fool vents all her feelings." The starting point, she said, is to harness our thoughts. Some thoughts are not worth our time, so we should refuse them ("casting down imaginations"), replace them with better thoughts ("think on things that are true, good, lovely . . . "), and repeat that process as many times as it takes until we have our minds and emotions under control.

Andy Andrews addressed a similar theme from different angles. He is hilariously funny, but shares a profound message through his humor. I have a lot of notes from his various talks, but one of his statements that struck me the most deeply was that in this society that is so obsessed with "feelings," the cold, hard truth is that nobody really cares how you feel; they only care how you act. He went on to point out that nothing ever happens to you because of how you feel, only because of how you act / what you do.

As a woman who has often struggled with how and when to act on my feelings, I'll be meditating on those statements' truth for a long time.

This was a well planned, well executed event. The speakers all were engaging and inspiring. Although I was to some extent reluctant to go, I'm now very glad I went. Perhaps the best thing that happened to me at the event was something Andy said near the end of his first session. I should preface this by saying that one of the reasons I first considered going to this event was a bit of restlessness I've felt during recent months, a feeling of sadness that, as a woman in her early fifties, all the great experiences of my life are behind me, and a wondering about what's left for me in the years I have left. Andy made a statement that went straight to my heart. Basically, it's this (and of course I'm paraphrasing):

If you're still alive, then your purpose for being on the planet hasn't yet been fulfilled. That means that your best days are still ahead of you, because the fulfillment of your life's purpose is still in your future.

That's what I needed to hear -- a "word in due season" that brought encouragement at just the right time. And that's why, when the Women of Faith conference comes back to Dallas in 2012, I plan to be in the room.

Women of Faith - Dallas

2011-08-26T05:27:00.000-05:00

This morning I'll head over to the first day of the Women of Faith conference here in Dallas at the American Airlines Center. I live more than 50 miles from downtown Dallas. Although I commute in daily for work, I decided to splurge on a hotel room for the conference, so I'm staying at the W Hotel, across the street from the AAC.

I'm not sure what to expect from the conference. I've not attended something like this before. I'm not a big fan of crowds. But I'm keeping an open mind and plan to enjoy the experience. I'll share my thoughts here in this blog as the event unfolds. If anybody's reading this who happens to also be at the conference, drop me a note to say hi - maybe we can meet up at the event.

Book Review: What’s the Least I Can Believe and Still Be a Christian? by Martin Thielen

2011-08-21T18:42:00.000-05:00

I recently was given the opportunity to read a galley version of this book, provided to me at no cost by the publisher. Subtitled “A Guide to What Matters Most,” Thielen’s purpose in this book seems to be to winnow out the essential tenets of the Christian faith from among the many doctrinal tangents that churches divide over and Christians argue about. For that purpose, it’s well worth reading. I have long felt that too many (all?) churches spend too much time focused on nonessential matters. Thielen addresses that issue, starting with a list of ten things that Christians don’t have to believe. He starts that list with the idea that “God causes cancer, car wrecks, and other catastrophes.” For each idea that he discards on this list, he offers a brief explanation for why it’s not necessary to believe it to be a Christian.

The second half of the book is Thielen’s list of (and justification for) the bare minimum concepts that a person must believe in order to be considered truly a Christian. That list starts with the obvious—Jesus’ identity—and continues with discussions of Jesus’ priorities, his work, his example, his resurrection, his legacy, his promise, and his vision. He ends with a discussion of what it means to be “saved.”

What’s the Least I Can Believe is well written and well reasoned. In concept I agree with much of what Thielen included on his lists. I disagree with some of his reasoning, in particular where he seems to rely on the idea that “God wouldn’t do (or support) this because it wouldn’t make sense.” My problem with Theilen’s reasoning in some of these areas is that he assumes that we, as humans with finite minds, are capable of fully comprehending the ways of an infinite God. Just because something seems unfair or unjust to us (e.g., sending some people to hell) doesn’t mean that God wouldn’t do it. While I agree that being a Christian to believe, for example, that Jews who don’t accept Jesus will go to hell, I hesitate whenever anyone imposes human standards of “fairness” or even “rationality” on God. As God reminds us in the book of Isaiah, His ways are not our ways, his thoughts are not our thoughts. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9).

For a long time I have thought that Christians spend way too much time focusing on, and fighting about, nonessentials, and that denominations in general have been built upon doctrines built upon a tortured interpretation of a few verses, rather than looking at the core concepts that Jesus himself focused on. I appreciated Thielen’s attention to Jesus’ teaching regarding the Great Commandment (“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all of thy heart, soul, and mind”) and the second that he said is like the first (“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself). It seems to me that believers in Christ could both unite around those two principles and spend the rest of their lives trying to live by them, and we could discard a whole lot of arguing and law-giving.

Although I disagreed with some of Thielen’s reasoning, I generally agreed with his lists and found this book well worth the reading. It provokes thought, which always is a good thing. I recommend it to any of my thinking friends, Christian or otherwise.

What’s the Least I Can Believe is published by Westminster John Knox Press. Martin Thielen is Senior Pastor of Brentwood United Methodist Church in Brentwood, Tennessee.

Crazy Days

2011-08-13T15:05:00.000-05:00

I haven't forgotten about the second half of the "my approach to fitness" post. Between vacation and visitors and work demands, I just haven't had a chance to get it written. But it's coming! In the meantime, I hope everybody's enjoying the last weeks of summer.

Book Review: The Lady’s Maid, by Susan Page Davis

2011-08-07T12:09:00.000-05:00

When Lady Anne Stone is orphaned at age 20, she learns that she will lose her home and her luxurious lifestyle as a member of British nobility unless she can locate her beloved uncle David, heir to her father’s title and estate. Unfortunately, David disappeared years before after traveling to America. When it becomes clear that the estate’s lawyers and trustees are not willing to continue the search, Lady Anne decides to undertake the unthinkable – she will travel to America with her trusted maid, Elise Finster, and search for David herself. What follows is a difficult sea passage that leads eventually to the two women joining a wagon train west, following David’s trail with no certainty that he will be found alive.

The novel’s premise and story questions are intriguing – can a pampered British noblewoman and her maid, both of whom have lived their entire lives in the sheltered luxury of an English estate, survive the perilous journey from England to Oregon? Will they learn in time that the man they’ve hired to help them is actually in the employ of men who have a vested interest in seeing that David Stone is never found, and who will use any means to make sure the ladies fail in their quest? And will one or both of them find love in this most unlikely scenario?

Susan Page Davis does a fine job of establishing the story’s premise and laying the background for the importance of the ladies’ mission. She explains Elise’s commitment to Lady Anne’s mission by showing her loyalty to the family and her secret infatuation with Lady Anne’s Uncle David. I enjoyed the early chapters’ depiction of British society at this point in history, including the references to the entailment system and its potential impact on Lady Anne’s future if David is not found. Unfortunately, the novel’s weaknesses overshadowed what could have been a really absorbing read, and I had to force myself to finish this book.

Here’s what I didn’t like about The Lady’s Maid:

Lack of focus – notwithstanding the book’s title, it was hard for me to tell whose story this was supposed to be. Although Elise took action to solve problems, she really was just along for the ride – this was Lady Anne’s quest, her story, and Elise really had very little at stake. Furthermore, there were too many point-of-view changes. Most of the story was told from Elise’s point of view, but frequently the story switched into the POV of Thomas Costigan, the sneaky man in whom they put their trust, or Eb Bentley, the taciturn wagon train scout who becomes Elise’s love interest. The frequent POV changes were distracting and seemed aimed only at disclosing information that the author thought was necessary but she couldn’t figure out a way to reveal through Elise’s POV. The story would have been stronger if Davis had found other ways to disclose the information that came in through Costigan’s POV, especially.
Slow pacing – the story dragged in many places. For example, there were multiple scenes whose purpose it seemed was solely to demonstrate that Anne and Elise were tenderfeet and ill-equipped for the trail’s hardships. This was an important element of the story, of course, but it could have been demonstrated in one or two scenes rather than repeatedly, and the story would have moved along more quickly. Similarly, there were numerous scenes whose purpose seemed to be to share the “interesting” facts that the author had uncovered in her research, such as how to bake cornbread or how to hitch up the mules. A little bit of that information is interesting; too much slows the story down. I felt like this author didn’t weave the historical research in as gracefully as she could have.
Unsympathetic lead character – specifically, Lady Anne comes across as a weak, helpless woman whose role is simply to give Elise a chance to show how strong and resourceful she is. This made it harder for me to get behind Anne’s mission and to really believe that Elise would continue to stick by Anne. Furthermore, Davis’s characterization of Anne seemed inconsistent. Anne was brave enough to make the decision – by the end of Chapter 1 – to embark on the difficult journey to America, but from that point forward she seems to turn into a weepy, helpless, indecisive, incompetent girl who’s totally dependent on Elise to make things happen and keep her motivated. She has her moments of strength during the wagon-train crossing, but for the most part she seems to lack to courage and strength to have made the decision to do this in the first place. As a result, I found myself thinking more than once that she should just quit her whining and go back home to England – I just stopped caring whether or not she succeeds in her mission. If, as seems to be the case (see below), there will be a sequel that focuses on Anne’s continued journey without Elise, I’m less than enthusiastic about reading it.
Distracting error – as a long-time resident of middle America (ten years in Nebraska and nearing that in north Texas), I was seriously distracted by the scene later in the book in which the wagon train is caught in a summer hailstorm. Davis does a fine job of depicting the sudden violence of such storms in this part of the country, but in her effort to add drama to the story she gets some elements very, very wrong. Specifically, in her scene, the hailstorm causes the temperature to drop to freezing, and the animals (cows, mules, horses) are both “traumatized” and chilled by the storm. The experienced scout informs Anne and Elise that there’s a real risk that some of the animals could die of shock from the trauma of the storm, and instructs them of the importance of warming the animals up quickly so they don’t die from cold. This is simply not credible. I’ve lived through many such storms in both Nebraska and Texas. Summer hailstorms can produce large hailstones capable of damaging property and injuring humans and livestock. But while the temperature might drop somewhat during and after a severe hailstorm, I’ve never seen one in which the temperatures drop to freezing. In fact, I believe that most summer hailstorms occur because the temperatures near the ground are warm, but there is a layer of colder air aloft, and it is that higher cold air that produces the hail. Furthermore, while an animal that’s hit by large hailstones will most certainly be distressed by it, I haven’t seen animals panic and become “traumatized” by even a severe storm. To the contrary, rather than stampeding, the animals typically gather together, put their rear ends toward the storm, drop their heads, and wait it out. Once the storm is over, they go back to grazing, enjoying the (usually only slightly) lower temperatures in the storm’s wake. Perhaps Davis has had a different experience than mine, but to me this scene demonstrated a lack of understanding of how weather occurs in this part of the country and how it affects the animals.
Unsatisfying ending – after a very, very long lead-in and build-up to the ending, with so much discussion about the importance of the search for David and the necessity of finding him, the novel ends abruptly, with the heretofore doggedly loyal and self-sacrificing Elise making a decision that seems uncharacteristically self-interested, and with David still nowhere in sight. The ending was abrupt and unsatisfying, giving no resolution whatsoever to the main story question, and seemed simply to be a set-up for a sequel.

Susan Page Davis has a good story to tell in The Lady’s Maid and does a good job of creating the premise that should drive an absorbing tale. For the reasons noted above, though, the story fails to deliver. I am hopeful that the sequel will do a better job of delivering on the promise of the story premise.

Women of Faith Conference - Dallas

2011-07-19T07:50:00.000-05:00

I have never attended one of these conferences. I'm not quite sure what prompted me to apply for a blogger "pass" to attend the upcoming event in Dallas, but honestly, I didn't expect to be selected, because I don't have a huge blog following and at the time I applied, I had just started posting again after months away from blogging. But to my great surprise, I received an email this morning telling me I'd been selected to attend. So I'll be blogging from (or at least during) the event at Dallas's American Airlines Center on August 26-27. I'll let you know what I think! In the meantime, I'd sure like to know if anyone else is planning to attend.

One Approach to Getting Thinner and Fitter

2011-07-16T15:25:00.000-05:00

Before reading this post, you might want to go back to my previous post on this topic (from Sunday, July 2), in which I explained why I'm blogging on this topic, and gave the short list of my top tips for getting thinner and fitter. In this post and one to follow, I'll provide a little explanation on the tips I shared in that first post. So . . . items one through four:

1. Write down everything you eat.

Most of us eat more than we think we do. The first step toward getting control of your weight is to get an honest look at what you're eating. So for at least a week, write down everything you put in your mouth. You can do this in a little notebook that you keep with you, or in one of the many websites that are set up for keeping food journals. You need to write down what you ate and how much of it you ate. During the initial phase of your food journal, you should actually measure your food -- don't eyeball it and estimate, but get out your measuring cups. This is sure to be an eye-opening exercise, because a serving size of most foods (nutritionally speaking) is far, far smaller than most people think -- and certainly far smaller than, for example, the portions served at most restaurants. You also should write down the amount of calories for each food that you eat, and total it at the end of the day. (More about why later.) For most prepackaged foods, you will find portion and calorie information on the federally mandated nutritional label. You can also buy an inexpensive paperback calorie-counter book at most bookstores. Alternatively, sign up for a free online food diary like www.fitday.com or www.my-calorie-counter.com, or check out the Lose It! app for iPhone or iPad. For maximum benefit, write down the time and location each time you eat as well. You might begin to notice some patterns of, for example, boredom eating or stress eating.

Again, the purpose of this exercise is to gain a realistic understanding of how many calories you take in each day. Why? Because the only way to lose weight is to burn more calories than you consume.

2. Eat mindfully.

This is a corollary to the first item on the list. Part of eating mindfully is paying attention to what and how much you eat. But eating mindfully goes beyond just that. It also means thinking about why you're eating. Each time you reach for food, pause and ask yourself a few important questions.

Am I hungry?
What am I hungry for? (Is it this thing I have in my hand, or am I just about to eat it because it's here, when what I really want to eat is . . . )?
If I'm not hungry, why do I want to eat? Am I under stress? Am I tired? Am I bored? What else could I do to satisfy whatever urge prompted me to pick up this food?

Whole shelves full of books have been written about the way we use food as a substitute for other things -- companionship, emotions, activity. Think before you eat. If what you're thinking of eating isn't the best choice, wait. Go for a walk if you can. Drink a glass of water. Wait fifteen minutes. If you still want it, then go ahead. But write it down in your food journal!

3. Cheat responsibly.

Although I know that a lot of diet and fitness gurus take a very strict approach to eating, I'm a big believer in doing all things in moderation. I know that if I tell myself I'll never eat another bit of junk food, my self is going to rebel and eat the rest of that half-gallon of chocolate ice cream (or whatever). So while most of the time I try to eat the right things in the right amounts, when I have one of those days where I really, really, really want a slice of pizza or a candy bar or some other junky treat, I give myself permission to do so. But I try to be responsible about it. Instead of a king-sized candy bar, have a miniature (or two). If dessert is too tempting to pass, share it with someone else. If you're dying for chips and dip, how about baked chips and a lowfat dip (and put a reasonable portion on your plate instead of taking the bag to the couch with you)? If you need a slice of pizza, try the thin crust version, piled with veggies. If you must have a McFlurry (yum!), get the snack size!

4. Eat breakfast.

I thought about doing some research and quoting some studies here, but surely you already know that there's all kinds of evidence that eating breakfast is important not only for your health in general, but for your weight-control efforts. At least for now I'll let it suffice to say that you should eat breakfast every day. And not Cocoa Puffs -- a healthier cereal with skim milk and fruit, or perhaps a veggie omelet with a piece of wheat toast. Oatmeal, if you like it. Get something in your stomach in the morning to carry you through the morning hours.

In a subsequent post I'll elaborate a bit more on the other four "pillars" of my own weight-control program, and share some resources that I've found helpful. In the meantime, I look forward to hearing from others about what does, or doesn't, work for them.

How Much Stuff is Enough?

2011-07-12T16:32:00.003-05:00

I was checking out Monica Ricci's Your Life: Organized blog and found a post with this great quote:

"Anything you cannot relinquish when it has outlived its usefulness possesses you, and in this materialistic age a great many of us are possessed by our possessions." Peace Pilgrim

Interesting timing, finding this today, because I've been thinking lately about how much stuff I own, and how much time and energy it takes to maintain it and keep track of it and even to feel vaguely guilty for never using a lot of it. Further confirmation that there's great value in paring down the material possessions that clutter our lives and our space. There's a peacefulness that comes with being surrounded by open, uncluttered space in our homes, offices, etc. That gets lost in our modern culture of acquisition.

Have a look at -- and maybe follow -- Monica's blog for her tips and thoughts on organization and productivity.

Book Review: The Quotable Rogue - The Ideals of Sarah Palin in Her Own Words

2011-07-09T22:07:00.000-05:00

I've been intrigued by Sarah Palin since she appeared at John McCain's side as his running mate in the 2008 presidential election. After I got past my initial surprise and pleasure at his naming a woman, I was struck by her beauty, of course, by her enthusiasm, and by her straightforward, pull-no-punches style of speaking. As the mother of five, I was delighted to see a woman rise to political prominence with a family front and center, clearly visible as a priority in her life.

Sarah has been a lightning rod for criticism from the beginning. Liberals seem to despise her -- odd, given the liberal support of women's rights. Conservatives seem divideed in their opinions of her. Some dismiss her as an intellectual lightweight, while others laud her as the future of the Republican party and a modern-day Ronald Reagan. In the interest of full disclosure, I'll say that I land somewhere in the middle.

When this book appeared on the list of books available for me to review, I jumped at the chance to read it. I liked the idea of a compilation of Sarah's own statements -- her own words on topics she'd spoken about since entering the national stage. There's no shortage of reporting on her speeches and behavior, but I always would prefer to see a person's actual words, rather than judging her based on what other people say she's said.

The Quotable Rogue is a quick and easy read. Organized into topical chapters such as "On Abortion," "On the Real America," "On the Environment," and many others, the book simply sets forth statements Sarah has made in various venues -- TV, magazine, and newspaper interviews, mostly -- without commentary or correction. Matt Lewis, a political writer, blogger, and commentator, has assembled Palin quotes from a wide variety of sources. His only commentary comes in a brief foreword and introduction, in which Lewis notes his reasons for putting this book together and gives a very short overview of her political history.

I don't think that anything in this book will change anyone's mind about Sarah Palin. Her fans will find plenty to cheer about in her unabashedly conservative perspective; her critics will note her sometimes awkward and inelegant phrasing. In reading her unedited words you don't necessarily get the sense that she's an erudite intellectual, but you certainly get a good feel for where she stands on the issues of the day.

Since Sarah Palin still seems to be an influential political figure, whether she runs for president or not, it's still worthwhile to read this book and hear what she's had to say.

Do Working Mothers Have to Pay a "Mommy Penalty"?

2011-07-06T16:07:00.000-05:00

My experience as a working mother/attorney is different from many other women, because (a) I went to law school and started practicing law in my late 30s, after I'd already given birth to my five children and (b) I have a husband who was willing and able to change his career path to work at/from home while our children were younger and to take over a whole lot of the tasks that traditionally fall to the wife/mother (and that I handled when I was home fulltime before going to law school). I try to factor that in when I read articles talking about the disparity in income, etc., for working women -- because I haven't experienced that disparity personally. This short article gives food for thought, and some worthwhile advice for young women navigating the work life/home life maze. I'd love to hear thoughts from other working moms in response to this piece: Working Mother: Minimizing the Mommy Penalty workingmother.com

Talking About Getting Thinner & Fitter

2011-07-02T17:59:00.001-05:00

I hope for this post to be the launch of a discussion about weight loss and fitness, aimed mostly at women like me. The current plan is to have regular posts on those topics, either on Mondays or Wednesdays. But if interesting things come up on other days, then I'll post as they come up.

First, because I'm a lawyer by training, I have to include a disclaimer: I'm a lawyer, not a doctor. Not a nutritionist. Not a certified personal trainer. I decided to post on the subject of weight loss and fitness only because so many people have asked me how I lost 40+ pounds. What follows, then, is not a scientific expert opinion. It's . . . how I did it.

Before I start, some context: I'm a 51-year-old woman, mother of five, grandmother of five. I work more-than-fulltime hours as a partner at a large law firm in Dallas. I have no more free time than anybody else, and a lot less than many people have. My long work days are made longer by the fact that I live 54 miles away from my office, so most business days I spend at least two, and often as much as five, hours driving. I was born with congenital hip dysplasia, with resultant joint deterioration that left me in excruciating pain for years and eventually led to hip replacement surgery (one in May 2003 and the other in January 2011). All of this is important, because I don't want anyone to think that it's any easier for me to do these things than anyone else.

July 2006

I graduated from law school at 38, and started my law career with a husband and five children (and two dogs) in tow. When I graduated from Cornell Law School in 1998, I wore a size 4 dress. Within a few years of starting my law practice, the long, sedentary days, stress, lousy diet, and the pain of my bad hips took their toll. By the time my oldest daughter got married (in 2006), my weight had ballooned and I wore a size 14 mother-of-the-bride dress. I looked at least ten years older than my husband (he's five months younger than me). Size 14 is not huge, but I am less than 5'4" tall and fairly small-boned, and size 14 meant I weighed almost 170 pounds. That's way too much for my height & bone structure. I looked awful and felt worse. I was 46 years old.

I finally got the incentive I needed to do something about my weight. In late 2007, I bought a small Arabian mare, and as she started her training I decided I wanted to be able to ride her without (a) looking ridiculous and (b) breaking her back. So at the end of December 2007, I made the decision to get healthier and lose the extra weight that I'd been carrying for all those years. Fairplay was the catalyst for the decision, but the bottom line for me was this: I couldn't stop getting older. But if I was going to be old, I didn't want to be old and decrepit. If I was going to be old, I didn't want to be sick and tired and unable to enjoy life. So I decided to stop making excuses and start making some changes.

First step was to stop eating so much. I simply cut all sugar and junk food out of my diet and started paying attention to what went into my mouth. A few days later, I started exercising -- got on the stationary bike that had been serving as a clothes rack and started pedaling. All I could manage was about ten minutes, after which I thought I was going to die, but I made that ten minutes, and then ten minutes the next day, and so on, adding a minute or so to my time every few days, and then graduating to walking on a treadmill and then outside.

Over the course of many months I lost about forty pounds and worked my way up to jogging as much as five miles several times a week. I'm now 51 years old and wearing size 6 dresses. I feel younger now than I did at my daughter's wedding. If I could find a photo of what I look like now, I'd insert it here ---->. But I don't seem to have one on any of our computers, so I'll have to track one down and add it later.

I mention all of this to give some background to what I'm going to say next. As I lost the weight, I was asked many, many times how I'd done it. I think many of the askers hoped I had some "secret" key to weight loss, because they looked awfully disappointed at my answer: I quit eating so much and started exercising regularly. That's it. That's the secret. You lose weight by burning more calories than you consume.

I could describe the process, but I'm afraid readers would just fall asleep, so instead let me just share my top tips for getting thinner and fitter:

Write down everything you eat.
Eat mindfully.
Cheat responsibly.
Eat breakfast.
Keep healthy snacks handy.
Start small, and increase gradually.
Get help when you need it.
Take one day at a time.

That's the list. In future posts, I'll explain each a little bit and share some of what I did to lose weight and what I'm doing to keep it off. I'll also pass along some of the resources that have helped me with both. I'm hoping that sharing what I know will help others, and that others will join in the conversation and share both their struggles and their insights.

Although as of the date of this post I don't think anyone ever actually reads this blog but me, I'm hoping eventually others will find their way here and join the discussion. I look forward to that.

5 Tips for Living In the Space Between Dreams & Reality

2011-06-22T19:10:00.000-05:00

Great words of encouragement found here: 5 Tips for Living In the Space Between Dreams & Reality & Why You Should by Sheri McConnell

The 10 Commandments of Dieting, Debunked

2011-06-22T13:17:00.000-05:00

Ran across this article today and thought it had some good . . . ahem . . . food for thought. Click on the link to read: The 10 Commandments of Dieting, Debunked.

Frustration. . . .

2011-06-22T09:37:00.002-05:00

Why is it that the only time my brain shuts off is when I sit down to write? All day my mind is humming in the background with thoughts and musings and ideas and . . . and the moment I open up the window for a new blog post . . . nothing. Nada. Zilch. Brain dead. Same when I sit down to work on my fiction writing project.

Aargh. How do you get past this?!?

Musing About the Day

2011-06-11T21:36:00.003-05:00

Beautiful, but HOT day in north Texas. Enjoyed a fun visit from some friends we don't get to see often, then putzed around the house. I am so grateful to have such a beautiful property to retreat to on the weekends. Of course, I get to come home to it every night, but it's only on the weekends that I really get the chance to enjoy it -- either admiring the view out the window of my home office, or -- even better -- experiencing it during my morning "run." I love it here, and I'm thankful more and more that I get to call this place home.

Pondering today a bit the strange ways life works out -- friends lost, friends found. You just never know where the next surprise will come from, do you?

Long Absence

2011-05-25T16:41:00.003-05:00

I haven't posted here for a LONG time. Did I run out of things to say? My husband would say that's impossible. Maybe just figured nobody was listening. Everybody likes to be heard, right?

Who's listening to you? Or who do you wish was listening to you? If you had his/her undivided attention for five minutes, what would you say?

Random Stuff

2010-07-17T14:29:00.002-05:00

Middle of July, summer half over. Mike's gone on his summer adventure to Alaska, so it's just Ashley, Sam, the animals, and me here on the farm. It's been a stressful summer so far. Lots to do at the office, trying to do my stuff and Mike's here at home. You'd think I'd have time to think about everything that's been happening this year, but I can't seem to gather my thoughts.

I wonder if it's just me feeling overwhelmed these days, or if there are others.

2009 in Review

2009-12-31T16:22:00.003-06:00

I meant to write this post a week or so ago, but things got busy at work, and there was ice cream to eat, and . . . life just got in the way. Since at this writing it's 4:23 pm on December 31 and I stilll haven't done my daily run and we're supposed to leave for a NYE party in about three hours, this post will be neither lengthy nor profound.

What are the highlights of 2009 for me?

In January, I got to see Celine Dion in concert - though I don't love every song she does, unquestionably the best live vocal performance I've ever heard in my life.
In February, I began working out with Guido, the trainer who tortures.
In March, celebrated thirty years of marriage to a man who still makes me laugh. The kids surprised us with a party attended by, among others, all five of our children and all four of our grandchildren, along with my mother and one of my younger sisters. This probably was the highlight of the year.
In June, Ashley (child number four of five) graduated from high school.
In July, Frances (our former exchange student) and her mother came for a visit. At the end of their visit, Ashley and I traveled with them to NYC for a long weekend of fun in the Big Apple.
In September I was the show manager for an Arabian horse show in McKinney. I also took two trips to Arizona for business stuff, during one of which I took my first-ever tennis lesson.

Then there's been the year-end stuff--holidays and so on.

It's been a tough year for the economy, which has affected my legal practice, but other than that, it's been a pretty good year. I'm looking forward to achieving some new things in 2010. Maybe I'll blog about them next week. For now, it's time to go run and get ready for that party.

If you're reading this and have been pondering the year just past, share what memories (good or bad) stand out in your mind from 2009.

What I Did On My Christmas Break

2009-12-27T16:52:00.003-06:00

It is Sunday evening, almost 5 pm, and tomorrow I have to go back to the office after a four-day break. When I have a break like this from the office, I seldom find myself heading back to the office refreshed and reinvigorated, ready to take on the world. Instead I find myself wishing I had more time off. What this says about the wisdom of my career choice is a topic for another day. Today I instead want to think for a moment about what I did right--and wrong--during my four-day hiatus.

What I did right: spent time with Mike and the kids who live here, as well as Rachel and Gary and the granddaughters, who spent Christmas Eve and most of Christmas day with us on the farm. Cooked a meal for Christmas day and enjoyed it with the family. Took some time to look out the window and enjoy the serenity of the view it affords: our lake and and the trees, mostly bare of leaves, the blue sky, the chickens wandering around the yard looking for bugs, the cats stalking the chickens. Took several naps. Got the laundry done. Made homemade fudge and shared the pan and spoon with the vultures who appeared just in time. Made homemade potato salad because Gary asked for it--and he never asks us for anything. Shared a little bit of Christmas day with Matthew and Kahi and the boys via Google video chat. Cleaned out my closet and boxed up a big stack of outgrown clothes for charity. Read parts of a novel and a book on fiction writing and several horse magazines. Puttered a bit at working on the outlines of a novel I want to write. Pondered some goals for 2010. Ran on the treadmill yesterday and today.

What I did wrong: Ate way, way, WAY too much. Ate a lot of that fudge. Ate various types of Christmas candy. Ate a big bowl of buttered popcorn. Ate two big pieces of pan-crust veggie pizza (sans the onions) from Chicago Style Pizza (thanks, Mike, for driving in to pick it up). Just ate. Watched too much TV. Skipped going to a church Christmas Eve service because I was too tired/lazy to get dressed. Skipped running two out of the four days.

Nobody's perfect, but I think I did more right than wrong with these four days I had at home. I've got some work to do at the gym to undo all that fudge (I really ate a lot), but after all . . . tomorruh is anothuh day.

December Insanity

2009-12-22T08:35:00.003-06:00

It has been a VERY slow year for most real estate lawyers, including me. For that reason, I guess I thought this would not be a "normal" December at the office. I was wrong.

In a typical year, December is the busiest month for lawyers who specialize in commercial real estate transactions. Our clients typically insist that their deals -- loans, acquisitions/sales, whatever -- MUST close before year-end. They want these deals on their books by December 31 for various reasons, often tied to the calculation of their year-end bonuses.

Whatever the reason, this has always translated into hectic, high-stress days for me in December. Since I got out of law school, I haven't had any time to do any Christmas shopping until Christmas Eve.

I thought this year would be different.

It's not.

Fortunately, we took care of shopping for Benjamin last month, so he has already received his package of gifts, which he says are stowed in his locker on the Nimitz (somewhere in the Arabian Sea). I simply was not going to allow him to spend Christmas out on the ocean, thousands of miles from home and family, with no gifts. So that one got done.

And we took care of Matthew and Kahi and the boys. Since they're so far away (in Hawaii, where Matthew's submarine is stationed), we couldn't wait too long to get their gifts bought and shipped. So they have their package. Except for the one item we bought for Mikey but forgot to put in the package.

But I'm still going to have to go out on Thursday, brave the crowds, and find some gifts for those who live here in Texas.

Next year I'm going to start early. Really.

In the meantime, I probably won't be posting to this blog again until AFTER the December insanity has passed.

What Are You Waiting For?

2009-12-15T16:11:00.006-06:00

Rachelle Gardner (a literary agent) posted this moving reminder that life is short, and we need to do the things we've been dreaming about rather than wait for the "perfect" time to get started on them. At a time of year when I am distracted all the time with thoughts of the year to come and what will happen, I needed to read this today. I am determined to make 2010 a year in which, if I don't actually see my dreams come true, at least I'll have taken some concrete steps in that direction.

How about you? What are you dreaming of, and what are you going to do in 2010 to make it at least more likely that your dreams will become realities?

(If you can, take a moment to read Rachelle's post and perhaps send a message of encouragement to Chief Edwards.)

How Time Flies

2009-12-10T13:05:00.004-06:00

I knew it had been awhile since I last posted here, but I didn't realize that it had been two months! I've thought about blogging. I wanted to blog. I've read a lot of blogs. But I just didn't get back here to do anything about it.

2009 is winding down, and my thoughts have been turning frequently to the coming year. 2010 is a landmark year for me: I will turn 50 in May. Although I haven't yet found the time to sit somewhere quiet and think deeply about what that means, and what I want to do about it (or as a result of it), I do think I want something remarkable to happen in 2010. I want to be able to point back to that year as not just the year I turned 50, but the year I [fill in the blank]. Something. Finished a book? Traveled to Europe?

Don't know. But I want to come up with some goals and dreams for the coming year so that the trauma of turning 50 (where did the years go?) will be overshadowed by the joyous events of 2010.

Don't really know if anyone reads this blog, but if you're out there, have you given any thought to what you want your life to look like in 2010? Do tell.

Book Review: A Slow Burn, by Mary DeMuth

2009-10-09T10:41:00.002-05:00

Last night I finished reading A Slow Burn , a recently released novel by Texas resident Mary E. DeMuth. This is the second novel in her Defiance Texas Trilogy, a series that tells the story of a tragic event in a small east Texas town and its impact on the people who live there. I read A Slow Burn right after finishing Daisy Chain, the first book in the trilogy. Unfortunately I can't tell you about A Slow Burn without including a spoiler for Daisy Chain, so if you haven't read the first book, maybe you should just stop now, take my word for it, go buy that book, and read it before you read the rest of my review. I am very glad I read these well written books and wait eagerly for the release of the third and final novel in the trilogy.

I am struggling to find words to describe A Slow Burn and how it made me feel, so let me start by saying I strongly recommend both books. The stories have a suspenseful throughline -- in Daisy Chain, a 13-year-old girl goes missing and ultimately is found murdered. At the end of A Slow Burn we still don't know who killed young Daisy Chance, and throughout the story the town of Defiance, Texas, is on edge because the killer is still at large. Each of the books is told from a different point of view. Daisy Chain is told mostly in the voice of 14-year-old Jed Pepper, Daisy's best friend, while A Slow Burn is told mostly from the perspective of Daisy's mother, Emory, a single mom with a wounded, sordid past. Both characters are struggling with grief. Each of them at times seems to be losing the battle with overwhelming guilt over their respective roles (real or perceived) in Daisy's disappearance and death.

Mary DeMuth writes with a lyrical grace that borders on poetic, deftly creating a world you experience with all of your senses and characters who live and breathe. These books don't sugar-coat the world they portray, though. Jed and Emory and the other people living in the wake of Daisy's death are all the more compelling for the real-world anguish they endure -- various key players suffer the effects of drug addiction, anger, infidelity, domestic abuse. DeMuth pulls no punches in showing the awful consequences of these things, with heartwrenching impact on the reader at times.

But -- and this is a critical "but" that makes these books must-reads -- the entire, often heartbreaking, tale is suffused with a subtly and artfully conveyed message of hope: grace and mercy are available and abundant, and healing is possible for even the deepest of soul-wounds. The last few chapters of A Slow Burn included events that surprised me and left me . . . almost unable to breathe as I experienced the depths to which a broken soul can take a person -- and the unimaginable lengths to which grace will go to rescue that broken soul. In the context of an engrossing story about a child's death and a mystery killer, A Slow Burn asks the question (among others): can a person's sin take her to a place so dark, so far, that grace can't reach her there?

The book's back-cover copy says it well: "[T]his suspenseful novel is about courageous love, the burden of regret, and bonds that never break. It is about the beauty and the pain of telling the truth. Most of all, it is about the poiwer of forgiveness and what remains when shame no longer holds us captive."

I don't feel like I've done this book justice -- I want to say I recommend these books to anyone who enjoys fiction, but they run deeper than that. Unlike some "Christian fiction" that reads like a thinly veiled (and badly written) sermon, Daisy Chain and A Slow Burn simply tell a riveting story and, while doing so, show a vivid picture of how God's grace can reach into the darkest situation and bring light.

Review: Shadowlight by Lynn Viehl

2009-09-04T08:07:00.003-05:00

A young heiress to an historic Savannah mansion arrives for her first day at a new job. Before the day ends, she'll be in the hospital, in critical condition after being shot by the deranged former employee who killed her new boss and her boyfriend. Minerva disappears from the hospital three days later and assumes a new identity to hide from those who want to find out why she healed so quickly and why she has the ability to see the deepest, darkest secrets of any person she touches. When those people, who seek to profit from her abilities, find and begin pursuing her, she must rely on a mysterious stranger who kidnaps her -- for her own protection, he says -- who's keeping his own secrets.

Shadowlight is set to release in October, the first (I believe) novel in a planned series of novels about the "Kyndred" -- orphans with mysterious backgrounds who've developed unusual gifts that they hide from those around them. It carries forward some of the characters from Viehl's popular Darkyn novels (stories about vampires and those who hunt them) and their storylines, and is written in much the same style as those books. Like her previous books, Shadowlight includes vivid characterization, a suspenseful plotline, eternal love, and . . . a warning for my conservative Christian friends . . . graphic sex scenes. For me, the book would be better without the latter, but Viehl fans probably expect this component.

With that warning, I recommend this well written, engaging book to readers who enjoy paranormal romantic suspense. It's the sort of story that will keep you up turning pages long after you should have gone to bed.

Book Review: Let Go, by Sheila Walsh

2009-08-23T12:03:00.004-05:00

The publisher's website says, in part, the following about this book:

"In Let Go, the bestselling author and speaker [Sheila Walsh] walks readers through the journey to freedom in Christ. Along the way, she tackles some of the toughest struggles that weigh women down, answering them with overwhelming truth, promise, and hope.

You can lay down your burdens. You can rest. You can find peace. You can live free.

Start here. Let Go. And see what God can do."

I received my review copy of this book at a time when I was pondering some issues in my life, feeling weighed down with burdens I'm trying to carry for myself and others. I sat down to read this book Saturday morning; the tears started in the first chapter and continued through to the end on Sunday.

Using a mixture of scripture, quotes from heroes of the faith, parables, and intensely personal stories from her own life, Sheila Walsh has written a loving letter to each woman who reads this book, full of encouragement and hope. Every woman -- every person -- who struggles with burdens from a troubled past, a difficult present, or an uncertain future will find help in this book.

I still am trying to wrap my mind around the point Walsh makes at the end of a discussion of the story of Hagar, the slave girl who bore Abraham's first child and was sent into the desert to die with her young son. Instead of death, Hagar met an angel who introduced her to God, whom she called El Roi: the God who sees. Speaking of Hagar, Walsh points out that "She was left by this world to die -- but she was not forgotten by heaven. The God who sees never took his eyes off Hagar.

"And he never takes his eyes off you."

The God who sees never takes his eyes off me. That thought alone is worth the price of this well written book. I highly recommend it.

Trying to Stay on Top of It All

2009-08-19T16:13:00.001-05:00

Busy at work, but trying to make myself continue to work out, eat well, and keep writing, even if it's just a little bit each day. So far I've been doing . . . okay, but not great. It's just a day at a time, isn't it?

Checking in is Better Than . . . Not

2009-08-16T14:47:00.002-05:00

I haven't posted anything to this blog in weeks, because (a) I suddenly got busy at work and (b) I couldn't come up with anything profound to say. Mostly it's (b). If I can't say something profound, I don't want to say anything at all. Which is why I have never finished a novel, even though I've wanted to write one since I was a kid.

I'm too hard on myself. I know that. When it comes to writing, part of my problem is that I've read so much over the years, I've been exposed to the good and the bad and the ugly in published material, and I just really, really don't want to put the bad or the ugly out there. But I'm not sure I can measure up to the standard I've set in my own head.

But I have to have something in my life other than my job. Yes, of course, I have my family and the farm, and those things are the best part of my life. But I'm talking about something in my life to do for myself other than work.

So just for the sake of saying I've done it, I'm going to try to check in here several times a week, even if I have nothing profound or witty to say. Today all I have to say is that I wrote 1500 words on my novel-in-progress this morning. Not good words; not brilliant writing. But I got words into the computer file and moved the story a little farther down the road.

Today that will be enough for me.

Feeling Like Giving Up

2009-07-05T13:56:00.004-05:00

Surprisingly (to me, anyway), shortly after I decided to take some action to fill my downtime (from a slow business cycle in my law practice) by blogging both personally and professionally, things suddenly got very busy at the office. I'm not complaining, believe me. It's a relief to have plenty of work again. I hope it stays that way.

But it is frustrating to watch myself, year after year, do everything except the things that I dream about. I am diligent at work, fairly disciplined in my workouts. But I don't write, and I don't ride. And those are the two things I dream about building my life around. Starting this blog was a nod to the first of those, an outlet in which I could write in little segments. But I haven't been able to get myself here with anything that even remotely resembles regularity.

Why is it so hard to make myself do the things that matter so much to me? Why can I maintain a reputation as a lawyer who always gets the job done, no matter the cost, but I can't carve out the time and energy to write? And I've got this great farm with an arena that my husband built for me, but I don't get out there to ride my horses. Aargh.

Am I the only one who struggles with this? No. I know I'm not. But it's making me crazy. I turned 49 this year. I'm running out of time to see my dreams realized. At least the dreams related to writing and riding.

What will it take to get me off the dime?

I guess I should give myself credit for the fact that today I pulled up a novel I started a couple of months ago and added several pages to it. But I sure do need to be more consistent.

Vindicated!!!

2009-06-17T13:59:00.004-05:00

Awhile ago I blogged about my perceptions of Texas drivers. I laughed out loud this morning when the local Fox affiliate ran a news story about a new survey that was done recently and named the DFW area as having the second-rudest drivers in the country. Only New York drivers were worse. I told you! See link below to read the story.

DFW Drivers Among Rudest in Nation

Shared via AddThis

You're Gonna Miss This

2009-05-19T17:14:00.005-05:00

This past weekend at the Greenville High School "Floorshow" (a 74-year-old GHS tradition), the graduating seniors took the floor with their respective parents of the opposite sex to participate in the traditional senior-parent dance. Ashley came and found Mike, and they joined the others in dancing to Trace Atkins' country song, "You're Gonna Miss This." As I watched them, I cried.

"You're gonna miss this;
You're gonna want this back.
You're gonna wish these days
Hadn't gone by so fast.
These are some good times
So take a good look around.
You may not know it now,
But you're gone miss this."

What a profoundly true song.

I turned 49 this month. (I still don't know how that happened, but that's a topic for another day.) I have given birth to five children in the thirty years Mike and I have been married. Only two are left at home, and one of them (Ashley) will graduate from high school in about three weeks. Our "baby" turned fifteen just last Friday. The other three are out on their own, two of them married and with children of their own.

All of this is unfathomable to me, even though I've been here, watching it happen. It is beyond surreal, into the realm of the unreal, to see by babies growing up, going away, having babies of their own.

If I close my eyes, I still can remember with a vividness that borders on time travel holding my newborn first child in my arms. The fear I could taste when we drove home from the hospital with her in the back seat. "I can't believe they're letting us leave with her," we marveled to each other. "Don't they realize how clueless and utterly unprepared we are?" We were twenty.

I remember the exhaustion of sleepless nights with teething infants. The tears our first night home with our first son, because I knew I'd have to change his diaper and I was terrified of hurting his circumcision. The endless diaper changes after that, and the constant face-washing and hand-washing and piles of laundry and mountains of dirty dishes. The terror in the emergency room with a badly cut finger on one child. The laughter when our second daughter arrived ten years after the first, with two boys in between -- Rachel and I looked forward to dressing up our new little doll and Mike cringed at the shopping trips he foresaw as we indulged our delight in little pink frilly things. The pride as we watched dance recitals and piano recitals and soccer games. The constant worry that I was making the wrong choices and ruining my children's lives. The crushing sense of responsibility that sometimes overwhelmed me with five small children at home.

I remember running short on money and patience and answers as the kids grew through infancy and toddlerhood and childhood. I remember lots of laughter, and lots of tears, and more shouting than I care to admit. I remember that when I was in the middle of it all, with five young children at home and never enough time or money, it seemed sometimes like we'd never survive it.

And then those days suddenly were past. Older moms had warned me how quickly and unexpectedly it would come, but I didn't believe them. But one day, our oldest graduated from high school and went off to college. Then our second graduated and went to college for a year, and then suddenly was off to serve his country in the Navy. Our third graduated, and promptly joined his brother in the Navy. Our oldest married and gave birth to our first grandchild. Our second married and the next year presented us with our second grandchild.

And now our fourth child is about to graduate from high school, and our fifth will follow her in just three short years. Impossible as it still seems to me, we're only three years away from an empty nest.

And I watch it and think, "How can this be?" How can time have gone by so fast? How can my babies have turned into these . . . adults?

And what I've been thinking ever since I watched that poignant father-daughter dance is, how much did I miss, during all those years past, because I was so absorbed by the hard work of raising a family that I wasn't experiencing the joy of the experience?

I wish I could go back to my younger self and say, "Don't worry so much. It'll be okay. Experience this moment, no matter how crazy or exhausting, as a thing of joy. Because sooner than you can imagine, these days will be gone. And, unbelievable as it may seem when you're in the midst of it all, you're gonna miss this."

And I do.

Southern Manners

2009-04-30T12:33:00.004-05:00

I am a transplant to Texas. I was born and raised in Washington state, but Texas is home, and has been for awhile. One of the things I like about Texas is the prevalence of what I would term "southern" manners. As a rule (there are, of course, exceptions to every rule), Texans in person are friendly, helpful, courteous . . . all the things we northern-born Americans expect of those from the south.

But, Lord help us, when Texans get behind the wheel of a car . . . they forget everything their mamas ever taught them.

Now, I've lived in several other parts of the country: Washington, of course, but also Nebraska for ten years, New York for three, Oklahoma for one, etc. I have to say, though, that Texans are about the rudest drivers I've ever had the misfortune to share the road with. And I share the road with them a lot, because I live 50+ highway miles away from the office I commute to every day. So that's at least two hours (on a good day) of highway time for me each working day.

What do I mean by "rude" driving? First of all, Texans don't signal. During the first year I lived in Texas, someone told me that if you see a car with Texas plates with its turn signal on . . . it was that way when they got it. And I believe it. For the most part, Texans turn without signaling and they change lanes without signaling. They apparently think either that you can read their minds or that you simply don't need any advance notice of what they're about to do. It's your job to adjust.

This is especially exciting when their lane change is at 80 mph (Texans drive fast) on the interstate, and right in front of you -- as in, you need to at least tap, and possibly slam on, your brakes to keep from hitting them as they move their car into the lane space currently occupied by some part of your car. This happens regularly. Daily. Multiple times each day. My very favorite is when this is done by a big rig. (In fairness to the truck drivers, they actually usually do signal -- after they've already started to move over into your lane, which is after you're already beside them.)

Texas drivers tailgate. It's a real treat to have a big F-350 or Suburban riding the tailpipe of my little Mazda Miata. This often occurs because the driver of the big gas guzzler wants me to move out of the way because I'm only driving 70 mph (in a 60 mph zone) and they want to exceed the speed limit by more than I'm exceeding it. I especially love it when, after barreling up to my rear end and riding there for five seconds they flash their lights at me to "get out the way" and, if I don't get over quickly enough for them, they (a) whip out into the adjacent lane (without signaling), (b) fly by me, and (c) whip back into my lane right in front of me (without signaling), nearly taking the license plate off my front bumper.

I love it. Love it.

Then there are those Texas drivers who, on a dark and stormy day when visibility is low, don't see the need to use their headlights because, after all, it's daytime and they can see just fine. They apparently don't realize that they are invisible in my rear view mirror -- right up to the moment that they come barreling up to my rear end and. . . . This happened three times on one morning this week while I was driving to work in a thunderstorm.

I don't get it. Texas drivers bear zero resemblance to the Texans I know in person. How is it possible that Texans who, in general, would give you the shirt off their backs when you meet them in person, turn into the Tasmanian Devil when they get behind the wheel of a car?

I like Texas, and I like Texans. But I really, really don't like the way Texans drive.

Review of The Noticer, by Andy Andrews

2009-04-24T13:41:00.004-05:00

The Noticer (published by Thomas Nelson, Inc.) is subtitled “Sometimes, all a person needs is a little perspective.” This statement pithily summarizes the philosophy of the title character, a mysterious old man named Jones (“Not Mr. Jones; just Jones”). Jones, who says he has a gift of “noticing things that others miss,” appears from time to time over the course of many years to comfort, counsel, and aid hurting people in Orange Beach, Alabama, by helping them gain the perspective that helps them find a way out of their troubles, or at least makes them better people in the end.

I’m ambivalent about this book. I enjoyed reading it. It’s well written and engaging. It made me think about the importance of perspective in how we perceive (and therefore how we endure) the struggles we face in life. Still – and I admit that it’s probably my own inherent cynicism – I simply had a hard time buying into the book’s premise, even though it apparently is based on a true story. For me, it felt too . . . staged; it tried a little too hard to inspire. The characters into whose life Jones came, starting with the narrator, seemed too obviously chosen to illustrate various struggles that people face. And the perspective that Jones helped them find seemed to lead too inevitably to a heart-warming resolution.

I’m guessing that other readers, especially (but probably not only) Christian readers, will like this book very much and find it very inspiring. It certainly is hope-filled and uplifting. In his conversations with his various new friends, Jones offers thoughts and advice clearly illustrative of Biblical principals; I found no fault with its underlying theology. Perhaps it’s only my own failings that prevented me from reaping the book’s full intended benefit. Notwithstanding that fact, I wholeheartedly recommend this quick read to Christians looking for some encouragement and inspiration.

Doing the Impossible (With a Little Outside Encouragement)

2009-04-21T09:17:00.006-05:00

I really intended to write a profound post about why I don't go to church anymore, and I will write that one (although I can't promise it really will be profound), but what's on my mind this morning is exercise. This makes sense, because this morning I had a session with "Guido," my trainer at the gym. (His name isn't really Guido. He does have an Italian name, thought, and my husband nicknamed him Guido one day when I was whining about how hard he was making me work. I hope the nickname isn't offensive; it's meant as an humorous analogy to him being as tough as a mob enforcer.)

Anyway . . . I've been meeting with Guido twice a week since early February, when I joined a gym about a mile from my office. This is phase 2 in an effort that started just before New Years Day 2008. I am 5'4" tall and had reached somewhere in the vicinity of 170-175 pounds. Not a pretty sight. I was fat and feeling old and worn out and uncomfortable. I can't even remember what triggered the decision (I think it might have something to do with my purchase of a new horse who was on the small side; I didn't want to break her back), but sometime between Christmas 2007 and New Years 2008, I decided it was time to do something about the weight. So I started watching what I ate, and dragged the stationary bike out of the closet. First time on it I could barely do ten minutes. Each day I added a minute more until I'd worked my way up to thirty minutes a day. I was getting bored sitting on that thing, so I dragged the treadmill in front of the TV and started walking every morning. First fifteen minutes, then twenty, then up to thirty. Then raised the incline and increased the speed. Eventually I got to where I'd do my walking outside when the weather cooperated, and I worked my way up to jogging part of the time and walking fast the other.

Following that routine and continuing to watch my diet, by October 2008 I'd lost close to thirty pounds, weighing in at 145 point something according to my endocrinologist's scale (I don't have a working scale at home). And I got stuck there. I tried walking/jogging longer, and doing more jogging. I tried adding some basic weight training at home, but I really didn't know how to do anything and just couldn't make myself do anything too difficult. So late in January 2009, still at 145 pounds, I decided to try some outside help. I joined the gym and signed up for personal training, and that's how I met Guido.

Two mornings a week I get up at 4 a.m. and drive in to the gym to suffer the torments of the damned. We do weight training and some cardio; it varies from one session to the next. I sweat and whine and fuss, but I just realized, sitting here today, that I love it. (Okay, I don't love it while I'm sweating and straining, but I actually look forward to going. Is that sick?)

The best part of it all is finding out that I'm able to do more, work harder, than I thought I was capable of. I've lost track of the number of times I've started a set on one of the weight machines and looked at him in disbelief when I feel the weight he's put on it. "Twelve reps," he'll say, and on the third rep I am sure I've got no more than one or two left in me at that weight.

But I hate to disappoint anybody. And so I try, with everything I can find in me, to give him the reps he asks for. And so far, every time, I've been able to do it. Much to my surprise. (A week or so ago he gave me the biggest compliment I've received lately -- I don't think he even realizes how much it meant to me -- when he said something to the effect that he was impressed by the fact that I hadn't given up and that "so far, you've never refused to do anything I've asked you to do.")

I had the same experience with my horse trainer/riding instructor. Often he'd ask me to do something during our lessons that I was certain I couldn't do (or maybe that I was just terrified to do). Afraid or not, though, I just couldn't bear to let him down, and I would surprise myself by being able to do the "impossible."

That happens regularly at the gym with Guido. I have come to realize that left to my own devices I give up easily when something gets hard. But I will kill myself to avoid disappointing someone. So Guido gets out of me things I didn't think were in me, and I'm seeing results. After months stuck at 145 (despite regular exercise), I broke the barrier a week or so ago, and this morning the gym's electronic scale read 142.6!! Finally sliding down again. And even better, I'm finding muscles I didn't know I had -- abs and arm muscles. (The other day while I was sweating away working my arms on one of the nasty weight machines, Guido commented, "Somebody's starting to get some definition in her arms." And, wow, he's right!! Still too much body fat covering it, but little by little it's coming off, and my form-fitting exercise shirts are starting to look better on me!)

So the point of all this rambling? Sometimes we need a little outside motivation to find out what we're really capable of. And I'm glad I found Guido to provide that motivation for me.

Routines

2009-04-07T16:29:00.012-05:00

I saw this "survey" on someone else's blog and thought it looked like fun.

What's your morning routine?

Mon-Wed-Fri I wake up @ 5:30am, stumble to the bathroom, take my thyroid meds, put on workout clothes, and stumble to the treadmill. 30-40 minutes on the infernal machine while watching morning news or reading something on my Kindle. Shower, breakfast, try to be out the door by 7:30 but more often closer to 8. Tue-Thur I slap at the alarm at 4am, whimpering a little, get up, wash my face, put in my contacts, put on workout clothes, and leave the house by 4:30 to drive in to Dallas to meet my trainer at the gym for torture session (I mean workout). Weekends, sleep until I wake up (unfortunately usually before 6am), wander around the house trying to wake up, wander out to the barn to feed the horses and check on the chickens, wander back to the house, force myself onto the treadmill for 30-40 minutes.

What's your bedtime routine?

Take out contacts, wash face, put on PJs, climb into bed and read until I can't keep my eyes open. M & W evenings I pack my gym bag before I go to bed so I don't forget something when I depart, bleary-eyed, at 4:30am for the gym.

What's missing from your daily routine?

Free time (during the week).

What is a habit you're working hard to develop?

Writing more.

What is a habit you're working hard to break?

Eating too much junk and wasting time on TV.

At your favorite restaurant, do you always order the same thing or do you try the special?

Pretty much always order the same thing, unless I'm feeling adventuresome. Then I try something new (and usually regret it).

What things do you buy at the grocery store every single time you go?

Post Selects Blueberry Morning cereal; Dannon Activia yogurt; fruit; salad stuff; raw almonds; cheddar cheese sticks; grape juice.

What would someone close to you say is your most annoying habit?

Pointing out all the ways something can go wrong or someone can get hurt. (In my defense, though, I can't help it. I'm a lawyer. I spend my workdays thinking up all the things that can go wrong with a deal and then finding ways to protect against them.)

Which outside forces have the biggest impact on your routines?

My job and my 50-mile commute.

Describe the person you know who is most driven by habit.

I'd have to say me. I like predictability. Unexpected change of any kind throws me off. My unfortunate motto is "We fear change."

It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This

2009-04-07T13:38:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I finally got around to transfering a bunch of photos from our digital camera to my laptop. Many of them were taken last month when our children surprised Mike and me with a party for our thirtieth wedding anniversary. Part of the surprise was that both of our sailor sons (one stationed in Hawaii, the other in San Diego) showed up. We'd been told that both were at sea (and, in fact, they were), so although we suspected that the kids were up to something vis a vis our anniversary, we never dreamed the boys would be there. For the first time ever we had all five of our children, both kids-in-law, and all four of our grandchildren (along with my mother and one of my sisters, whose visit also was a surprise) here in Texas with us at the same time. I was in heaven.

Anyway . . . we took LOTS of photos. And yesterday, in response to a Navy son's request that I email some of those photos to him, I spent some time transfering the photos. This was on a day when I was sitting at my desk worrying about . . . a lot of things. Mostly, though, about the economy and its impact on my law practice. I do not cope well with uncertainty, so I was feeling pretty discouraged, pretty down, pretty . . . stressed out about the future.

But then I saw this photo. I was overwhelmed. I can't even describe the emotions I felt, looking at the two of us with these babies -- the future of our extended family. When I recovered from being all choked up, I got to thinking . . . these may be anxious times, but so what? Prices are rising, business is bad, our retirement fund has taken a beating. Like everyone else these days, our family is struggling because of the economy. Okay. Still, though, in general, life is pretty good. We are generally healthy and basically happy and we all love each other. Mike and I have had thirty years together, we have these great kids and these beautiful, funny, amazing grandchildren. And even in an uncertain world, those things are for sure. Though it doesn't happen often enough, we occasionally have these opportunities to gather the family and eat and laugh together and just generally enjoy each other. It doesn't get any better than that.