Fall is in the air...

I have been thinking about writing a post about fall for a while now. I started thinking about it when the air in the evenings started to get crisper, and visions of hot apple cider started haunting me.
The heat came on this morning, almost an entire month earlier than it did last year. I find this disturbing because it means that I will be having to pay those high heating bills for an extra month this year. I am hoping this isn't foreshadowing for a really cold winter.
Fall is one of my favorite seasons. I love the colors, I love the air, I love the cocoa. Nothing says Fall like a nice fluffy sweatshirt and a polar fleece vest.
Unfortunately my favorite parts of fall are short lived here. The leaves are great, but the rain has started and soggy leaves don't crunch, they squish. This is the beginning of wet shoe season. Our boys walk to school, and this means slogging through grass and mud, and usually their shoes don't dry overnight. Even when I drive them to school they manage to get their shoes wet somehow in between the back door and the driveway, or at recess. Eventually I will give up and make them all wear boots to school, but for now its too early for that.
Fall is like the entrance to a magical time of year. Its colorful, it brings people closer together, if only to stay warm, and it just makes me feel like baking. Once the weather is cooler baking can serve a dual purpose because residual heat from the oven takes some of the edge off of the chill. This week things like stew, cheeseburger soup and clam chowder have made their way onto the dinner menu. My mind is already turning beyond Halloween and thinking thoughts of Thanksgiving Turkeys and of family visiting. Fall is the beginning of the pathway to the Holidays.
There are times that I think I hate Fall. I would much rather it stay light outside. The darkness Fall brings has always been something I struggle with. Once it gets cold enough to leave a constant edge of chill in the house, I start to yearn towards Springtime. But in between Fall and the new birth of Spring, there are so many things to look forward to. The stress of the Holidays is there, but always there is the magic with it. After missing two Holiday seasons in a row when I was a working Mom, I cherish the opportunities to just think about my little family during this time of the year.
What are your favorite things about Fall?

Fiction Friday #6

Jess tried to calm her breathing as she drove, glancing in the rear view mirror frequently for signs of pursuit. Kaitlyn continued to sob in the passenger seat; dry, wracking sobs.
More than anything Jess wanted to ask the girl what in the world was going on, but she could tell that Kaitlyn was letting out emotions that she had kept pent up for a long time, and would not be coherent enough to focus on any questions.
Quietly, Jess reached over and turned the radio on. It was the oldies station. A song was just starting to play.
'Hey there Little Red Riding Hood
You sure are lookin' good
You're everything that a big bad wolf could want...'

Jess changed the station, searching for something calming, and stopped on the jazz station. Kaitlyn's sobs were subsiding into hiccoughs. Jess had to give the girl some credit, she was certainly calming down quickly. She glanced towards the passenger seat and saw that Kaitlyn was staring down at her hands folded in her lap, but as if she could feel the weight of Jess's gaze, she looked up. The girl's face was streaked with tears but she looked resolved.
"You can just drop me off anywhere that is convenient."
Jess waited a moment before answering.
"Well, since town is the other way, my house is the most convenient. You can at least get something to eat there, clean up a bit, and use the phone if you would like to." She paused before continuing. "To be honest my first choice would have been to drive you straight to the police station, but we were facing the wrong way, and I was afraid he might get in the way if I tried to turn around. Would he have?"
Kaitlyn sighed and shook her head slightly. "No. He wants you to help me. It makes the game more fun for him if there are more...players involved."
Jess chewed her lip thoughtfully. "So this is just some kind of a game?" She glanced in the rear view mirror again as they came off a straight and started around the next curve. No one was behind them.
Again the girl shook her head. "Not really," her voice was sad, "Its my life."
Jess felt the muscles in her abdomen contract and unconsciously put a hand to the bulge of her pregnant stomach. When she glanced over at Kaitlyn the girl's eyes were wide. She looked so nervous that Jess started to laugh.
"Don't worry, I'm not in labor." she smiled, "Its just a Braxton Hicks...a practice contraction. Its uncomfortable sometimes, but it doesn't really hurt."
Kaitlyn smiled a little then, almost shyly and Jess couldn't help but think that she looked like she almost didn't know how to smile. It seemed to freeze for a moment on her face before relaxing back into something more melancholy.
"Our place is coming up soon." Jess tried to say it conversationally to cover up the awkward moment. Kaitlyn just nodded.
A few minutes later Jess was turning off the road and onto a long gravel drive. It was really a private road, but since their house was the only place on it, they always thought of it as a driveway.
They were almost to the house when Jess glanced in the rear view once more and thought she saw a flash of silver on the main road. She hoped she had just imagined it.

Wordless Wednesday

Fountain

One Bathroom Woes

We only have one bathroom. In fact, thinking back we have only had one bathroom in each place we have lived since we got married. You would think I would be used to it by now.
In the beginning it wasn't so bad. Just me and D, sharing everything including our one bathroom. Then along came #1. He was four before he was potty trained, so it still wasn't too bad. By the time D and I had been married for seven years and a couple of months, we had five children. As they have each gotten potty trained, our little bathroom has seemed to get smaller and smaller.
Now we have seven bathroom using people at our house, and still only one toilet to go around. Oh how I dream of having a master bedroom suite with a bathroom of its own. Then it would be back to D and me, sharing one bathroom, and the boys could fight it out over the other one.
Some of the woes associated with sharing my bathroom with 6 males...
1. Drippage aka over spray: D either has pretty good aim, or knows how to clean up after himself. The other boys, however, have a tendency to overshoot, ricochet, or just drip and the end result is pee on the toilet seat (even though they put the seat up to pee). One nice note is that they always put the seat down. The only time I have to worry about the seat being left up is when males from the extended family visit.
A wet toilet seat is the bane of my bathroom activities. Sometimes...you just really have to go, and having to pause to make sure the seat is dry is always a hassle. Thank goodness for disinfecting wipes!
2. Toothpaste trauma: There is a tendency by the boys to either get too much toothpaste on their toothbrush, or to just be unable to resist the urge to squirt toothpaste on the counter. I am not sure which, but I am very tired of cleaning up the globs of toothpaste all over the sink, and the toothpaste spray on the mirror.
3. Hang it up already!: Unfortunately the boys are too short to reach the towel rack. We really need to get another one. Our shower curtain rod has a towel rod attached to it. It works fine for me and for D to hang our towels on, but there is not a towel rod for the boys. Their wet towels end up on the floor after they shower. I think we need to remedy this problem, but even so, there is not going to be room in our bathroom for five towels worth of rods.
4. A basketball team, we are not: We frequently get comments from people that with our five boys we have enough to make our own basketball team. While that is true, none of our boys has really mastered the art of making it into the basket. The laundry basket. There is a laundry basket right there in the bathroom, yet they still can't seem to get their dirty clothes into it. I regularly find their little underwear and other clothes strewn about the place. This is one that just takes the proper training...so I will work on them.
5. strangled soap: I like my shower, and I like it to look nice. D already knows to extract any chest hairs from the soap before exiting the shower. I like the soap to look nice even if I am the only one that will see it. Today I went to take my shower and the soap looked like it had been chewed up by a dog. I already knew that at least a couple of the big boys had taken showers that morning. They can't help but squeeze the soap, or poke holes in it...its funner than playdoh! If I had my own bathroom...I could have nice pristine soap in it. Such a nice dream to have.
6. Get in line: Of course there is the usual problem of seven people using one bathroom. People often hear nature calling at the same time. I could normally get over this quickly, but one of my boys is notorious for taking an extra long time because he wants to make sure his bum is extra clean. I suppose I shouldn't complain. Cleanliness is next to...oh...you know what I mean. Then there is #5 who has recently become pretty serious about his potty training. He gets nervous that he will have an accident though, so he will sit in the bathroom waiting to go for 45 minutes at a time...sometimes even longer. While I am thrilled that he hasn't had any accidents for a long time...45 minutes of waiting is putting a damper on my day.
7. Interruptions: This goes along with #6. The thing is, I can't even take a shower without someone needing to use the bathroom. The shower curtain is my friend, but there its not much fun to be taking a shower and find the sudden urge to get out early because the bouquet of the room has suddenly changed. Sometimes the hot water will also run out before the interrupter is done doing their business, and I end up shivering in the shower, with a towel wrapped around me, waiting for them to get out so I can come out of the shower.

All in all, even though I am complaining...I am very grateful for the bathroom I have. I can always take comfort in the memory of those weeks and months when we were remodeling the bathroom, and had to use a portable toilet off and on, and had to use a hose in the laundry room sink for bathing. My bathroom seems like heaven in comparison.

Fiction Friday #5

Putting the car in gear Jess started to back it out of the oncoming lane. Headlights signalled the rapid approach of another car and in her haste to get out of the way she let out the clutch too quickly and the engine died again. At least she was mostly in her own lane. The approaching car slowed suddenly and stopped next to her. It was a silver sedan. The driver rolled down the window and leaned his head out.
"Everything okay here?" He was blond, so much so that his hair was nearly white and he looked to be in his late 20s.
Jess rolled her own window down and answered, "We're fine." She had the uncomfortable feeling that he wasn't talking to her. He was looking across her, at the girl in the passenger seat. Jess glanced over her shoulder and saw that Kaitlyn was pressed up against the passenger side door, eyes wide, staring back at the driver of the other car. One hand was pressed against the dashboard as if the girl could push herself even farther away and her face had drained of what little color it had. Jess turned back as a chill raced down her spine. She half expected his eyes to be on her now, but his gaze was still locked on the girl next to her.
"We're fine here...Thank you for your concern."
He smiled a little then, and his teeth were even and perfect in his tan face. His eyes were pale, but she couldn't tell what color they were. He leaned a little further out of his window.
"You know the rules Kaitlyn."
Jess felt her shoulders tighten when she heard him say the girl's name. What had she gotten herself into? He continued talking, his voice low and edged with steel.
"If you ask someone for help, that means I can recruit some help of my own. All this time it has been just the two of us in this game. Are you sure you want to go in this direction?"
Kaitlyn remained silent but Jess could hear her breathing get louder. She seemed frozen in a panic.
"Kaitlyn!" He was almost yelling now, and quieted his voice with effort, "Get out of the car and I will forget about this just this once."
Jess saw Kaitlyn's hand leave the dashboard and start towards the door handle. Then the girl froze again. She looked into Jess's face and her eyes were pleading. Jess had never seen someone look so scared. She made the decision herself then and turned the key in the ignition. The engine roared to life and for the first time the driver of the other car looked at her. His eyes were cold, and angry and she felt as if he were memorizing her face. His eyes travelled downward and she followed their pathway to her name tag. He looked back at her face and smiled coldly. Jess threw the car in gear and pulled away with a squeal of tires, narrowly missing the back quarter panel of his car.
Beside her Kaitlyn burst into sobs.

Wordless Wednesday

My brother in law took this picture. I thought it was appropriate with the loom of Autumn ahead.

That time of the year again...

I love Christmas music. Most people who know me well also know that I am prone to pulling out the Christmas music at a time some people might call insanely early in the year. Typically that would be in August. We have over 20 Christmas Albums...most on CD, but quite a few on cassette as well. I didn't want to take the time to count every single Album, but I would say we have close to 30 of them, and I am always in the market for more.
This year, I waited until September 15th to listen to some Christmas music...that means I am a whole month behind in my listening! No wonder I have been feeling so crabby...
I am not saying I am ready for stores to be displaying their Christmas wares. I was pleasantly surprised that Costco only just started putting out their decorative items for sale. They are behind schedule too! Last year they had Holiday merchandise out in August.
So, now that I am in the Christmas spirit (at least musically) I am wondering, what is your favorite Christmas album? Song? Version of a song? When do you start listening to Christmas music? I would love to hear about it, even if it seems early in the year for it. (My take on that is that Christmas music is good for all year round, its about the Savior's birth! Why should I only think about that once a year?) You can keep your Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree to yourself...as well as your Jingle Bell Rock. I don't mind most of the secular Holiday music, but those two in particular drive me CRAZY!

Fiction Friday...#4

The brakes squealed loudly as Jess slammed her foot down on the brake pedal and jerked the wheel hard to the left. Her heart was pounding as the car skidded to a stop at an angle across the road and the engine died. She spent a few moments breathing deeply before forcing her hands to relax their grip on the steering wheel and opening the door of the car.

"What were you thinking!" Jess tried to keep from yelling but there was a definite edge to her voice. "You could have gotten yourself killed!"

The girl was still standing in the road, hands half raised, but rather than paying attention to the car or to Jess she was looking back over her shoulder towards the forest. After a moment she turned towards Jess and lowered her arms. She looked poised to run. Jess took another breath and tried to smooth the scowl from her face. Finally the girl spoke. Her voice was soft and cracked a little, almost as if she hadn't spoken for a long time.

"I-I'm sorry." Jess heard a slight tremor in her voice. "I wanted to be sure you would see me." She shrugged a little and half turned her head in the direction of the trees again.

Jess took a quick assessment of the girl as she was turned away. She looked young, almost teen aged, but she lacked something of the sparkle most teen aged girls seemed to have. Although her face was young, Jess could almost swear that the girl was much older than she looked. There was a tired quality about her that was more than physical exhaustion but Jess couldn't put her finger on exactly what it was. Sandy hair framed the girl's round, pale face and it looked as if it could use a good brushing. There was a smudge of dirt on one cheek and a small twig caught in her hair. The way she just stood there frozen in place reminded Jess of that deer in the headlights look. Jess was normally pretty cautious about strangers, but this girl seemed so vulnerable that she just felt like she wanted to help her.
"Have you had some kind of trouble? Car trouble" She amended her question quickly when the girl flinched at the word trouble. "My name is Jess."
The girl was looking over her shoulder again. Jess cleared her throat a little and said, "I really shouldn't leave my car in the middle of the road. Its a small town, but we do get a few cars through here, even this early in the morning. Can I give you a ride somewhere? Do you need to call someone?"
The girl looked from the woods to Jess and back again, hesitating. Then she nodded and said, "I could use a ride...to a phone."
"Okay then. I should warn you though that I don't give rides to strangers." She said it with a smile but the girl only looked slightly startled and glanced back at the trees. Jess extended a hand to her. "I mean, what is your name?"
The girl hesitated again and seemed almost ready to run back into the woods. Then she slowly reached for Jess's hand and said, "Kaitlyn." Her hands were like ice.
Jess suppressed a shiver and gestured to the car. "Well, Kaitlyn, its nice to meet you! Your chariot awaits."
Once the girl was in the car, Jess slid into the driver's seat and started the engine. She wondered what Rob would say when she showed up at home with another stray, only it wasn't a cat or a dog this time. It was a very frightened girl.

Old Friends

Me and Sydney 9/10/2007

Have you stayed in touch with many of your friends from your teen years? I will admit that I have not been very good about staying in touch with friends. There are a select few from high school that I am still in contact with, but even then it is only a couple of times a year that we talk and even rarer that we actually get together for a visit. It seems like life just has a way of sweeping people along, and often those old connections get neglected.

Blogging in its own way brought me back some of those connections. I was relatively new to blogging, and had not acquired as large of a list of favorite blogs as I have now. I was much more open to exploring new blogs, following comment links in other blogs I read and etc. Haven't we all done that? Followed a link, to another link and so on until we can't remember exactly how we got where we ended up? I ended up on a blog (and I can't remember even which one it was...I think that one time was the only time I really read that blog) and as I scrolled through recent posts the blog owner had posted a picture asking people to guess who was in the picture with her. The mystery person in the picture caught my eye...it was Sydney! Syd and I had been friends through church during our teen and young adult years, and I had lost track of her. I found a link to Syd's blog through that blog, and we reconnected after more than ten years of not being in contact. Through that I was also able to reconnect with another old friend, Michelle from A Happy Heart. Michelle and I had also known each other from our teens and had been in a garage band together (Michelle also recently posted about the evolution of her hair, which included a picture from 1989 with Michelle, Sydney and Me sporting our 80's hair along with some other girls.) So blogging got me back in contact with two good friends, and it has been great to stay in touch through blogging as well.

This week Sydney has been visiting Vancouver (our hometown) with her kids. She made her way to the coast on Monday and we drove down to Seaside and spent the evening with her, her children, sisters and her niece and nephews. It was wonderful to reconnect in person. The kids enjoyed a ride on the Carousel, we had dinner, and then we went down to the beach to enjoy the sunset (which is also where we took the shots I put on my last Wordless Wednesday). It was a fun evening, and so good to just be able to talk in person. Have you found anyone unexpected through blogging? I would love to hear about it!

Wordless Wednesday

Swing into the Sunset

A moment of childhood captured

9/11 remembered...

I wrote this "poem" if you will (its not a rhyming poem, so I sometimes wonder if I should call it that) a year after 9/11. I thought I would post it here today in remembrance of that time.

Revisited version II
In Memory of 9-11-2001

I try not to think about it-At least not in depth

Waking up that morning like it was a normal day

Browsing through my email news... And there it was...

I was in shock-And so I sat all day watching

As my children played on the floor around me-oblivious.

I watched the explosion as the second plane hit

I watched the bodies of the people who jumped-Falling... falling...

I watched the people fleeing as the first tower collapsed

And I sat and watched that collapse-a silent witness to untold deaths

My mind tried to grasp what it meant and would mean

Tried to understand what people who were there must have felt

And then I stopped thinking about it... put it away

It was always there of course-every day

And now a year has passed. I have not watched TV today

Afraid I will see the replay of all of the deaths that still haunt me

And I realize that I did lose something that day

I lost brothers and sisters I had never even met

Potential friends who might have enriched my life

And the feeling that I could keep my family safe in this world

A world on the brink of explosion

Wrap it up...recipes

Crab Puffs
8 oz package of Cream Cheese (softened)

Crab meat or imitation crab meat enough to make about 1/4 cup of chopped up crab)

1/2 cup of finely chopped onion

Garlic to your own tastes (I use a teaspoon or two of minced garlic)

1 tsp of parsley

Egg roll or won ton wrappers

Oil for frying (I use canola)

Start heating the oil. Mix the first five ingredients until well blended. If you are using egg roll wrappers you will need to cut the wrappers into quarters. Place a small amount of the filling in the center of a wrapper. Wet your finger with water and moisten two sides of the wrapper. Fold your wrapper over to make a triangle and press the edges together (the water you used will help to seal the edges). Fry the puffs in hot oil (350 to 375 degrees). If you get the oil too hot they will puff up and sometimes the wrapper will split and you will lose the filling into the oil (which is not only a tragic waste, but causes a lot of splattering of oil and makes a mess). If you find that your puffs are puffing up too much, reduce the heat a bit. I prefer to do this in a cast iron skillet because it retains the heat more evenly. Fry your crab puffs two or three at a time, turning them over when they float to the top. They cook quickly and they will continue to brown after you have removed them from the oil, so once you see them turning golden they are ready to come out. Place the fried crab puffs on a paper towel to cool and continue cooking.

When I have shared this recipe with people I almost always hear that they never knew what to do with those egg roll wrappers other than egg rolls. We have done some experiments with them at our house and they have become a staple food. I use the large egg roll wrappers to make cannelloni (think olive garden cannelloni al forno) and I have seen recipes to use the wanton wrappers for making ravioli.

We have also used the same technique as with the crab puffs but filled them with pizza sauce and toppings to make our own pizza pockets. Of course we make egg rolls with them as well.

This weekend my sister Myra and her husband and children came for an overnight visit. We had made crab puffs a couple of weeks ago when they came for a day trip, and my brother in law was inspired by that adventure. They bought some won ton wrappers, and some pie filling and we spent the afternoon making wonderful little turnovers using apple pie filling for some, and raspberry pie filling for the others. Once they came out of the oil we sprinkled them with some powdered sugar and they made for a great dessert. My brother in law also did his own experiments involving liverwurst and cream cheese filling which he was pretty proud of, but we will stick to the ones that sound appetizing here. The pie filling turnovers were a huge hit, and I am sure we will be having them at many future family gatherings. Our next thought is to try using a filling of taco meat and refritos (refried beans) and eating them with salsa, sour cream and guacamole dip. I also think they might work well with omelette ingredients. I can hardly wait to try some new recipe ideas...the possibilities...

Fiction Friday will be back next week.

I have too much going on right now to think straight about the storyline, so I am skipping Fiction Friday this week.

A Favor for a friend...

A friend of mine is doing a study as part of his schooling to get his Doctorate. He has asked me to put a link to a survey on this blog. The survey is for people 18 or older who work outside of the home.

You can find the survey here. Thanks!

The New Blog Is Up!

I would love to know what you think. I have tentatively named it Postcards From Home, but if you have a more creative name that I love I may be persuaded to change it. I have decided to follow NCS's vote for people posting the postcards to their own blogs. If you are interested in participating let me know your goal destination so that I can put it up with a link to your blog in the sidebar of the Postcards Blog. If anyone has ideas pertaining to the new blog and the postcard idea in general I would love to hear them. This discussion can be continued here.

Wordless Wednesday

Goodbye Summer

The Post Card Blog...

It seems like the postcard idea has a few people interested. Give me a week or so to set up the blog. Things are just busy right now with school starting up and etc. Anyone who is interested can email and let me know, and when I get it set up I will send an invite to people that want to be contributors, and a link to those who just want to observe.
I have decided to make my destination my sister Myra's house in Vancouver WA for now. It is 100 miles from my door to hers. I will pick another destination once I reach that one. She is going to walk the 247 miles from her house to Victoria B.C. (although she thinks she should be able to ride the Ferry across (virtually speaking of course) in which case it will only be 221 miles to Port Angeles where she can catch the Ferry). Our oldest sister Ardyth is going to just walk around the Portland Area and send postcards when she feels like it.
For those of you who are planning on participating you can start keeping track of your miles now. A miles equals a mile, and 20 minutes of exercise equals a mile also. I will try to have the blog set up by next week sometime. As for how the postcards will work, if you are interested in participating let me know. I will need to be able to email you an invite to be on the blog team. Postcards will be posted as photos on the blog rather than mailed (of course I don't mind getting post cards in the mail either). Post cards don't have to be bought. They can be homemade, digitally made, etc. The postcard blog will be a clean environment, and I reserve the right to clean house if things get dirty. You will also need to choose a destination and you can write posts about your destinations and your journey getting there. Postcards can be sent from anywhere along your chosen route as long as you have walked enough miles to get to that point on the route. This is a kind of experiment on my part, so I have no idea how it will turn out, but I am interested in trying. If anyone has ideas for rules and guidelines...please let me know.
I thought about the idea of having everyone post their postcards on their regular blogs originally rather than having a special blog for it. Sort of the way a lot of people participate in Wordless Wednesday and etc. If people think that is a better idea please let me know.

My Great Idea...

In yesterday's post I talked about exercise and the struggle I have had with it. I mentioned that I had an idea of how to keep track of my miles. Of course it would be easy to keep track of it by just writing down how far I walked, or just walking the same amount of miles each day. However, I like to have some fun with things.
I have four sisters. I need to come up with nicknames for them so I can refer to them on my blog without just saying "my sister" which turns them into a collective and super cool sibling. Of course all of my sisters are very cool, but I think a little differentiation never hurts. For clarification I have decided to let my sisters pick names for themselves for me to use on this blog. No these aren't even close to their real names, but for my purposes they will work fine. I will go in order of birth...
Sister #1 will be called Ardyth
Sister #2 will be called Myra (remember SHE picked it)
Sister #3 is Ezre (aka Cornflake Girl)
and Sister #4 is Pink Avenger (what can I say...she is SUPER!)
Now that I went and made sure they all had suitable handles for writing on my blog, I guess I should blog about them more often!
On to my idea. I have been walking on my treadmill, and my sister Myra also has a treadmill. I came up with the idea that we should each choose a destination we would like to walk to (virtually of course) and keep track of our miles as we head towards our goal. The fun part is that we are going to send each other postcards of various points of interest along the way, just like we are on a real trip. The post cards don't have to be purchased, they can be drawn, cut out of a magazine, made out of a photo, or printed off of the Internet. When there are no points of interest but we feel we have reached a milestone in mileage we can come up with a recipe or some trivia that is known in that area or state and send it along. I thought this would be a good way to feel like we were walking together even though we can't actually do that very often. We can praise each other's progress, and motivate each other to continue in our quest for better fitness. My oldest sister Ardyth is going to join us in this. She doesn't have a treadmill but she does walk and can count the miles she goes in that. We also decided that 20 minutes of exercise will be equal to a mile of walking. I have some 20 minute workout videos that start out pretty tame, get pretty intense and then cool it down, so we thought that would be a good average for a mile of walking (plus at the rate I am trying for right now it takes me 20 minutes to do a mile. I have plans to up the pace as I get in better shape, but we will be keeping the 20 minutes of exercise as counting for a mile.) I have been toying with the idea of starting a group blog about walking/exercising and sharing postcards via the blog as well. My two older sisters are not bloggers, so we will be doing our postcards via the mail, but I thought that if there was enough interest we could start a group up to share our progress with each other. I am not sure how much interest there will be within my four readers, but if you are interested, just let me know. You don't have to have a treadmill, just a way to keep track of exercise time. Its not meant to be a competition or a race, but a way to motivate. So what do you think?

Is exercise the bane of your existence?

I was fairly athletic as a youth. Not a star athlete, but in shape. I enjoyed participating in Softball, Volleyball, Basketball and track over the years and I also enjoyed outdoor activities such as hiking. I went running after school on a regular basis, and enjoyed pushing myself to do better.
Then I grew up, and got married. Up until marriage I still played sports occasionally. I even played in a basketball game for my singles ward at church...during my honeymoon (our honeymoon was spent in our hometown area because we were moving away from family and friends the next week. It was more of a saying goodbye to friends and family although we did go on some day trips by ourselves that week. I still regret not going away for our honeymoon. Someday when all the kids are older I will make up for it and D and I will take off on our own someplace.) I loved basketball, but I think that was the last game I ever played.
Shortly after getting married, I got pregnant with our first child. 9 months after he was born, I got pregnant with our second child, and so on until I had five. By this time I was rarely exercising, and the pounds piled on. I kept saying I was going to get into shape after each baby, and I fully intended to, but life has a way of overwhelming people sometimes, and exercise took a backseat to everything else that was going on.
D being the sensitive man that he is gained weight right along with me. I think he blames my good cooking for that, but I like to think he didn't want me to get fat alone.
So for the last several years I have been thinking about exercising. Thinking and doing are two very different things. I won't tell you how many pounds I have gained since marriage, but I will tell you that I have a long way to go to be even close to getting in shape.
I recently got a treadmill. This treadmill isn't my first piece of exercise equipment. At one time we had an exercise bike we had bought at a garage sale, but the seat post was bent, and it could not be adjusted and it was VERY uncomfortable. We also had a mini trampoline that the kids got more use out of than I ever did. I have been wanting a treadmill for a while, because my youngest kids are too big for a stroller, and too small to keep up with me walking, and I wanted to start walking. We could not afford a treadmill so I picked one up at a second hand store. (It might have worked better if it came out of a dumpster.) Then my big opportunity came. A friend asked me to do a slide show for her son's Eagle court of honor and she wanted to pay me for my time. I asked her if I could borrow her treadmill (one with an actual motor!) for a couple of months, and instead, she gave it to me because she didn't like it.
We got it set up, and I tried it. I thought I was going to DIE. I was seriously out of shape (still am as a matter of fact). I barely made it for ten minutes. I tried one other time and then the treadmill sat for a few weeks.
I have recently been reading a blogger's story of her own weight loss here. Reading Calamity Jane's blog got me to thinking about my own weight loss struggles. I have also noticed that I am not that fun of a Mom right now, because I can't keep up with my children. So Wednesday of this week I put on the sneakers I had gotten for walking in...I got on the treadmill...and I walked. I put on my headphones, pressed play on the MP3 player and walked. The second song that came on had these lyrics...(Its by the Wilkinsons)

I've been lyin' in the shadows

In the corner of my room

Turned off the lights Gave up the fight

There was nothing I could do

Then I just woke up one morning

And I put on my walkin' shoes,

and I'm back on my feet again

Had all the heartache one woman can stand

Got through the night Took back my life

I'm back on my feet again

I wasn't sure if I could make it

Had to crawl across the floor

Through the broken glass Of my shattered past

Pushed myself on through the door

I took a step out of the darkness

I don't need it anymore,

no I just woke up one morning

And I put on my walkin' shoes,

now I'm back on my feet again
Had all the heartache one woman can stand
Got through the night Took back my life
I'm back on my feet again

Of course this is a country song and I doubt it was meant to be about my struggle with getting in shape, but it made me smile. In fact, it made me feel great, and I walked right along. A couple songs later Josh Groban came along to tell me...

Don't give up

It's just the weight of the world

When your heart's heavy

I...I will lift it for you

Did you know that Josh Groban cares that I am trying to get in shape and lose weight? (At least the Josh Groban in my MP3 player does) and he also told me that I am loved! It felt great, so great in fact that after I walked my mile and a half (I know its not much, but better than I thought I could do) on Wednesday, I decided to walk another mile and a half on Thursday, and Friday I did two miles...plus a walk to the school to play with the boys.

Tomorrow I will tell you about my great idea to keep track of my miles.