SISTER WISDOM» april

Day 29: Exercise Challenge

Annie — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:55:14 +0000

Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself. Rabbi Abraham Heschel ( source) Update (Tuesday): 35 minutes cardio (walking).I find myself continually missing the stretch/tone part of this exercise challenge. Let me rephrase. I continually choose to neglect the stretch/tone part of this exercise challenge.

See how easy it is to make yourself a victim?

Discipline. We have misconceptions about discipline. We perceive it negatively, as connoting deprivation, pain, denial. Things we do not like and never desire. Like a root canal.

You probably don’t like going to see the dentist. (Unless, perchance, you are married to a dentist.) So you brush your teeth, floss, use mouthwash, chew gum. This is discipline, the instructive side.

If you didn’t instruct yourself (teeth need to be cleaned, flossing is good, plaque is bad), equip yourself (toothbrush, toothpaste, mouthwash), and apply yourself, you might end up with a cavity. Maybe even a root canal. Lots of wasted time, discomfort, pain, and a nice chunk of money. That’s the corrective side of discipline.

To discipline means to train. To be a disciple is to be one who learns, one who is trained. The nature of teeth, of sugar, and of tooth decay trains me in the right way to care for my teeth so I don’t lose them. I can foresee the possible consequences of neglect and prevent them; or I can blithely ignore them and endure the results.

Wisdom is looking ahead, getting instruction, equipping yourself to follow the instruction, and applying it to avoid negative consequences before they occur. Wisdom is brushing your teeth.

It’s not all about avoiding bad stuff. To stretch our example to the limit: brushing my teeth gives me fresh, minty breath, and healthy gums, and strong, clean teeth, and the ability to masticate unhindered. Somehow, though, the avoidance of what is bad motivates us more than the existence of what is good. We take what we already have for granted. It often takes a consequence, a loss, pain, before we recognize value. We may be able to recover and regain what we’ve lost, and go on wiser. Sometimes we can’t.

The universe conspires to discipline us toward life. Examples in nature, plants, animals show us simple principles to apply. Corrective consequences show us what not to do. Don’t touch the hot stove; you’ll get burned. Don’t date the bad man; you’ll get burned.

Successful lives and relationships, peaceful countries, prosperous years: they are instructors. As are personal failures, wars, poverty. The demonstrated consequences of ignoring principles of life should be enough. They are, if we choose to listen. If not, we will experience our own failure and war and poverty.

It’s far better to take advantage of that instructive side of discipline. We can be proactive. We can stop many negative consequences from touching our lives. We can bring good things in by the choices we make in heeding and applying the instruction. We can be disciplined before we are disciplined.

Resources: Read some more quotations on discipline. Write a few down and post them on your bathroom mirror, your refrigerator, by your computer, in your car.

Read what the Bible has to say about discipline. A great practice is reading from the book of Proverbs daily. If a chapter is too much, try a verse. Or go here for a verse-by-verse explanation of the Proverbs or to search the proverbs topically.

Tip: When you read a quote or a proverb that specifically addresses something in your life that you know you need to change, take a few minutes and memorize the line. Review it daily. It doesn’t take long. You could always do that while you’re brushing your teeth…

Day 28: Exercise Challenge

Annie — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:55:12 +0000

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. Mark Twain

Update (Monday): 5 minutes stretching; 40 minutes cardio (walk through town with one kid in the stroller & one in the carrier).

On Writing:
It takes a certain amount of audacity to be a writer. You have to overcome the tendency toward self-degradation. Who I am that I have anything worthwhile to say? Why should people pay attention to me? Well, maybe they shouldn’t, but nobody else is writing what I’m thinking. Maybe they’re thinking it, too. Maybe I’m not original or wise or witty. But I’m the only one willing to put it on paper and judge what it’s worth. Once that’s done, once it is written, we can all disregard it as we please. But I can’t disregard it until it is written.

On Saying No: (from Alexandra Stoddard’s book Making Choices).

Nothing materializes without a program. …The essence of no is to have priorities and keep them in order.

No has a negative ring to many, but if we don’t look at it clearly and use it, we will lose the opportunity to discipline ourselves, to manage our own affairs.

No saves you from the dangerous myth that you’re indispensable.

No is not negative; it actively leads to the positive. My own struggle to accept certain restrictions on my time, energy, and money have helped me reach my goals.

Tip: Write something today. Say no to something you normally say yes to today.

Day 26: Exercise Challenge

Annie — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 11:43:08 +0000

What we hope ever to do with ease we may learn first to do with diligence. Samuel Johnson

Update (Saturday): 20 minutes cardio (running around, pushing Mara and my niece up and down a hill in a little car).

Just as I get to the “end in sight” on my somewhat sporadic exercise challenge month, I am thinking I will start it over again. (You may think some cliched phrase like “glutton for punishment” here, but I don’t want to actually put that in my writing. Cliches are so evil, after all. In fact, it’s really a cliche that they are evil…)

I picked up a book at the library sale the other day. It’s one of an apparent series: The 28 Day Plan by Christine Green. This one is called Get Fit for the Beach. I’m hoping that if I follow the 28-Day GET FIT FOR THE BEACH! plan, at the end of it I will be magically transported to said sparkling, pristine beach. (Did you catch the clichs in that paragraph? There were two.)

I’m a sucker for 28 day plans, or 30 day plans, or 21 day plans, or monthly challenges. The beach premise is also pretty thrilling. We’ll see. I shall review and report. Maybe I would do better with a book titled “Get Fit for the Midwest!” but I see why that wouldn’t be a great seller.

Resources: I couldn’t find anything online for the book except for the publisher’s website, which doesn’t itself have much information but you can watch a little scrolling slide show of all their adult reference titles.

Tip: I don’t think I can say it any better than Samuel Johnson:

Don’t think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire. I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark.

When a country is rebellious, it has many rulers, but a man of understanding and knowledge maintains order. Proverbs 28:2

Day 25: Exercise Challenge

Annie — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 11:43:53 +0000

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions. Albert Einstein Challenge Update (Friday): 30 minutes cardio (walking). I got in a little stretching and toning, too, random lunges and squats and Kegels and some Tupler ab squeezes. Resources: After my first pregnancy, I read the book Lose Your Mummy Tummy by Julie Tupler. It’s worth a read, or you can just check out the Tupler Technique online. I haven’t been very faithful in these (my tummy would be flatter if I had), so I won’t post pictures of my great six-pack abs produced by these exercises. I do recommend them, especially for post-partum exercise but also for anyone who wants to tone and flatten the belly. If you’re pregnant, this book on Maternal Fitness (also by Tupler) looks worthwhile.
I’m a big fan of the Bradley Method for actual delivery and coaching methods. Check out Husband-Coached Childbirth by Dr. Bradley himself, or Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way, an updated version with lots of specific coaching help.Tip: Kegels and Tupler moves are great for any woman, whether you’ve never had children or vaguely remember having children or are trying to breastfeed one right now while you read this and try to move the mouse without disturbing your baby! Both the Kegels and Tupler moves are easy, can be done anywhere, anytime, without anyone knowing, and will produce great results if you’re diligent with them. Try it for long enough to make it a habit… then you’ll keep doing them without even trying.Remove the dross from the silver, and out comes material for the silversmith. Proverbs 25:4

Week in Review: Exercise Challenge, Family Marriage Trends…

Annie — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:07:54 +0000

I think there is something, more important than believing: Action! The world is full of dreamers, there aren’t enough who will move ahead and begin to take concrete steps to actualize their vision. W. Clement Stone

(An aside: a great quotation above other than using the word “actualize.” I’m not a fan of it.)

After a week away from posting, I have returned with slightly sunburned arms and slightly stretched muscles. I got in some good walking – it’s the exercise that takes you anywhere! – but my abs are suffering from a failure to incorporate sexy-abs-situps into my vacation routine. Alas. I’ll get right on that.

A week away is good for one’s perspective on things, usually. This trip, however, I returned feeling a little muddled. I think it was just… well. I really don’t know what it was just. It just was, but I’m muddling through the muddle. This day, home is a clarifying place. (Ironic that I’m at the library as I write this, not at home.)

Challenge Update (review of the week 17 – 25):

Day 17 (Thursday): Ran around the house packing, cleaning, laundering, stressing, calling random people, checking the mail too often, paying bills, sitting down, standing up, playing with Mara, repacking, forgetting things, worrying about forgetting things, making a list, losing a list, finding a list, ad infinitum. Wearily she falls into bed…

Day 18 (Friday): Mile after mile of airport with a 18-pounder strapped to my chest. Robbie smiled and drooled and charmed everyone we met, several of whom offered their services as spit-up spotters. Them: “Um, cute, heh heh, he’s got a little something right there,” motioning to chin. Me: “Oh, thanks, yes, right, of course,” grabbing burp cloth, swiping at said chin, finding a 1/2 gallon of spit-up dribbling down his neck, onto shirt, onto formerly black Baby Bjorn carrier.

Day 19 (Saturday): I walked for approximately 3 minutes around the little green garden path of the Bed & Breakfast in Shreveport, LA, where we stayed for the night. We (me, Robbie, sister, Dad, and friends B & L) were in the smaller house with the kitchen and dining area. (And the coffee maker!)

Next to our house is the courtyard where the wedding ceremony took place at 12:00 noon. The weather was perfect: blue skies, sunny, and perfect temperature.

“The wedding?” you ask. Yes, ma’am, I am now a middle daughter (not a youngest, finally!) of a blended family of seven. Plus spouses. Dad got married to a lovely lady and they glowed their way through the lunch after and into the car, away, away! (We think they will return home sometime next week.)

Enough about weddings. Well, not quite enough. More to come.

Day 20 (Sunday): Back in Starkville, Robbie and I accompanied my sister and her fiance to their church. I loved it: great teaching, and it’s always nice to participate in worship corporately without being responsible for any of it. That afternoon, we went to Mom’s grave and planted a gorgeous hydrangea bush, a sweet olive, an azalea, some bulbs, and another bush with beautiful coral flowers. I don’t know what it is, but it looked like Mom.

Day 21 (Monday): My sister and her friend M and I took a long walk around campus with our young’uns. Most of them, anyway. My nephew is in school. He turns six this year! And I missed Mara excrutiatingly. Previous to this trip, I had been away from her overnight once during her entire 21-month-long life. And that was only for one night. A week? Aaaaaaarrrrgh. It’s amazing how attached you get to these little people.

After our walk, lots of running of errands, shopping, hauling Robbie around in his 2-ton carrier. Will someone please invent a car seat/carrier that does not involve 5-step buckles and that weighs less than I do? Another aaaaaaarrrgh.

Day 22 (Tuesday): We did more running around. We needed shoes. Shoes. Yes. Particular shoes to match a dress. Dress. Yes. Particular shoes to match a particular white dress to be worn by a particular person (my sister) to a particular place (courthouse) for a particular event (wedding). Two immediate family weddings in one week. I feel like that’s a record of some kind.

We found shoes, we ate, we talked, we had fun, we can’t believe she’s getting married, OMG, we can’t believe it, will tomorrow ever come, let’s paint our toenails, how should I do my hair?, hey it’s Dad calling from Hawaii, and before bed my niece (who is 2 1/2) says: “And tomorrow, tomowo, when we, when me and Addy and Mommy and me and Addy and Alex and me and Mommy and Byring and Keesha and me and all my toys get married, then we can clean up.”

She’s got it figured out, that kid.

Day 23 (Wednesday): I took all the kiddos that morning so Mil could have an hour’s quiet to get ready for her wedding. They got to play with friends while I got to talk with two of my wonderful friends. The time went by so fast, and then it was off to lunch with Mil and Addy and family, then quickly back to the house to get on our pretty clothes, then to the courthouse.

The Judge was great. He did an awesome ceremony, and it was special and sacred and then there they were!

I love adding to the family.

Day 24 (Thursday): Missing Joe and Mara intensely at this point. It’s not that I haven’t had a good time, it’s just that home is, well, where the heart is and the bacon’s brought, no place like it, where I hang my hat and keep my fires burning, be it ever so humble. And I was ready to get back to it.

Another hike through the airport, chat with the seatmate, wait on the runway, then tra-la-la! I skipped and hopped my way to the baggage claim and saw my loverly daughter and even loverlier husband and suddenly I was home.

Upcoming Topics: (Airports are good places for brainstorming).

-The New (and improved) 28-Day Fitness Plan

-How to Be Green Without Being a Liberal (or something along those lines)

-Projects on My Plate (And it’s a full plate, let me tell you.)

-Letters from my 102-year-old Mamaw

Tune in next time!

National Poetry Month: Edna St. Vincent Millay

Annie — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 21:45:22 +0000

Edna St. Vincent Millay, first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, produced poetry with a simplicity that eases you into its tangible emotions. Her life choices were not what I consider admirable, but her poetry is full of grace. You can read more about her here, in a brief biography.

God’s World

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
Thy mists that roll and rise!
Thy woods this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag
To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!

Long have I known a glory in it all,
But never knew I this;
Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart, — Lord, I do fear
Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year;
My soul is all but out of me, — let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

She is best known for her poem Renascence; her poem The Suicide is more approachable (don’t be deterred by the title).

Day 16: Exercise Challenge

Annie — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 21:35:23 +0000

We have a flow of ideas, sometimes a tremendous flow of ideas, at times in one direction, or at other times in another direction; or perhaps even ten directions at once. And we have to make a choice. We cannot do everything that comes into our minds, nor can we create everything that comes into our imaginations… There is choice involved in the very simplest form of creativity, because as any set of possibilities comes into our minds, we have to choose. Edith Schaeffer, The Hidden Art of Homemaking

Update (Wednesday): 30 minutes cardio (walking); 10 minutes toning (tai chi, sort of).

The kids and I went to the park again. I am taking advantage of every clear blue spring day that we have, before the temperature reaches those unbearable heights as it soon will. I am not a fan of summer. Ick.

But right now, April is fresh and green and warm without being sticky. And getting – just getting – to the park is a great work out. 17-pound Robbie is in the Baby Bjorn carrier, strapped to me; 30-pound Mara is in the umbrella stroller with the little wheels that must be half-pushed, half-carried across the large grassy field we cross to get to the park; 25-pound Bag’O'Necessities is on my right arm, and 150-pound Dakota’s leash is looped on my left wrist. By the time we cross that field and I drop the bag under the tree by the walking path, I feel like I’ve been on an two-week-long African safari. Whew.

After I recover a bit from the journey to the park, we walk the loop two or three times. It’s a half-mile walking path, so I get in a mile or so. And Mara likes the kiddie swings, and we definitely must get a drink from the water fountain, and we need to stop by the big puddle so Dakota can also have a drink… then I spread out the blanket and collapse onto it.

I love living next door to a park. I love living in our small town. I love piling the kids in the stroller and taking off, waving at people I know as they drive by, stopping to chat with our neighbors, going into the little library or grocery store, heading back home by way of the ice cream stand (only open summers).

I love that our neighbors don’t mind that we take a long time to finish house projects, that sometimes the weeds are bigger than the tomato plants in our garden, that our dog howls whenever he hears a siren, that sometimes I do tai chi in the front yard while waiting for Joe to get home. My version of tai chi, anyway… No one seems to notice, or mind if they do notice. Perhaps I could start a tai chi class; every Wednesday night we could gather on the front yard and become more fit and flexible while providing entertainment for the parents of the young softball players, heading to the fields at the end of our street.

Contact me if you’re interested… or if you know anything about tai chi.

Resources: Read about the history and practice of Tai Chi. Come on, you know you’re crazy curious now. Or learn more about L’Abri, the Christian community which Edith Schaeffer founded with her husband, Francis Schaeffer. Or read this article about creativity in the home that corresponds with the E. quotation above.

Tip: Pick one or two ideas from this list and do it. We all need more creativity.

I will be on “vacation” from the 17th through the 24th for two family weddings; if I’m able to update while I’m away, I will. If not, then life will continue on, the planets will turn as they always do, and somehow the internet will survive my brief absence.