13 months later

Last year, I made something of a big deal about starting a running program and being serious about it.  I posted about my first 5k that I actually ran and subsequent events.  Exercise programs are always very exciting at the start.  The trick is figuring out how to stick with it.  

13 months later, here I am.  I would like to say that I so totally love running and it's a vital part of my every day and I'm in the best shape of my life and am ready for my next 10k.  But that would be a big ol' fib.  

After the excitement of the few races I did in the Spring, I struggled with keeping my regular, every other day schedule of running 3+ miles.  I live in Alabama.  It's freakishly hot and humid.  You cannot get up earlier than humidity.  That said, I still managed to run 2-3 times a week, most weeks--sometimes more walk than run but I got out there.  Sometimes I got out there with my daughters (who pretty much complained of the heat the whole time--even the kid in the stroller).  At the end of summer, the girls and I did a Color Run 5K together.  Pretty cool (literally--it rained the whole race).

Since then, my training has ebbed and flowed--some weeks I've managed to get in 3 or 4 runs and some only 1 or 2, some, even zero (let's don't talk about the weeks of Thanksgiving and Christmas).  But in the end, thirteen months later, I am still running.  Last weekend I made a fun return to racing with the Hot Chocolate 5K.  Not my best run time ever but race was gorgeous and fun (separate post to come about that) and even though my pace wasn't impressive, it was in the top 3 of my division and gender and in the top half over all.  So I am calling it a win.  

In the end, the truth is, I don't run because I love running.  I run for these primary reasons:

1-It's really good for me physically and mentally.

2-I love the way I feel about myself when I finish running, especially when my pace is good and the hills are plentiful.

3-I would rather my daughters see me running and hear me talk about running than for them to see me dieting or hear me talking about dieting.  

I'm register for more races already, including another run I'll run with E.  I'm excited.

Infiltrating the PTA or It's always "no" unless you ask

Some of my friends and family have heard me bemoan about the non-working parent friendly hours of my daughter’s school’s PTA.  The PTA meetings, at least since my daughter has attended her school, have always been held during the school day, often in the morning.  I learned this after signing up for the PTA last school year and I was pretty dang hot about it.  I might have ranted on Facebook a time or two.

This was not what my vision of how PTAs were supposed to work.  When I was in school, all PTA meetings took place in the evening and unless my father was out of town, both my parents attended and participated in the meetings.  My mother chaired committees, volunteered anywhere there was a need and both parents made things needed for whatever reason. 

Still, I refused to let myself be excluded from involvement in my daughter’s school.  I managed to participate, reasonably well, in the family related activities at La Petite.  I certainly wasn’t going to back off once E started elementary school.  My philosophy was to not let anyone keep me from being involved with the school, whether the PTA really wanted me to or not. 

By volunteering to help even if though I couldn’t attend the meetings, I was able to meet many of the parents (mostly mothers).  They did need the help and were grateful and friendly.  My husband and I tried to make sure at least one of us was there for all family welcome events.  I even came and had lunch with E, just because.  I baked, made, sewed, responded to emails and did whatever I could to support my daughter’s teachers, school and PTA. 

It has been time well spent.  E is still at the age when it’s exciting to see a parent at school, helping out.  This won’t last forever, so I’m working it for as long as I can. 

Still, in a year and a half, between travel, meetings and work that needed to be done, I had not been able to attend a PTA meeting, until today.  I did not have a call, meeting, prep, travel or anything else that absolutely required me to be at my desk this morning, so I made the choice to take an hour and attend the 8am meeting this morning. 

TOTALLY WORTH IT. 

At first, I was a little disappointed, if not surprised by the very low number in attendance (10 tops, including me and the principal).  Also, not surprisingly, it was all women.  But it was a useful meeting.  There were discussions of how money has been spent and plans related to support of other activities and tossing around of ideas. 

As a regular attender of all sorts of meetings, I found it a little odd there was not an introduction portion.  But half-way through the school year and with such a small group, I suppose they all already knew each other well.  Through prior volunteer activities I had meet all but one of the ladies, so even I wasn’t at a significant disadvantage. 

The size of the group and my familiarity with the folks there let me release my extrovert side and I didn’t hesitate to speak up and actively participate in the discussion.  In fact, I seized the opportunity to make a few suggestions. 

One brazen suggestion, but I HAD to ask, was that they consider, for the sake of working parents—including me, holding at least some of the meetings, maybe even just once a quarter, in the evenings.  I pointed to myself as evidence that busy, working parents were still very interested in participating.  I mentioned it was my sheer bullheadedness kept me from being deterred from volunteering, though I felt rather excluded by the during work day meeting times.  And I suggested, having heard as much from other parents in my situation, always having the meetings when working parents could not attend gave them the impression that their involvement was not welcome or needed.  I was prepared for push back.  I did not get it.  I got nods and got people thinking about when and logistics for security and basically got a commitment to try that out—maybe even for the very next meeting.

I don’t know if everyone else left the meeting thinking I was a snot-nosed interloper, but they surely did not make me feel that way when I was there, so this is going down as time well spent.  With a little luck, more parents will able and inclined to participate—taking on more planning roles to help keep the regular volunteers/participants from burning out. 

All this was penned to make three points. 

First, it’s easy to just complain about the status quo, but it will not change by complaining.  Only by getting involved and committing yourself can you affect the changes you wish to see.   Letting fear, pride or frustration get in the way of the positive impact you wish to make is silliness.   

Second, the answer is always “no” unless you ask.  So ask.   They could say “no.”  They could even look at you like you have three heads.  Or they could smile and say, “we can probably make that happen.”  Totally worth the risk. 

And third, probably most important, the PTA can use and does need your help.  There is always something you can do.  Even if you cannot get to the school during the day, ever, there are things you can do to help.  If you’ve got connections to suppliers (food, paper goods, art supplies, landscaping) with a generous side, those connections can be invaluable.  If you have technical skills, craftman or artistic skills, those can be put to use outside of school hours.  And hour a month, can pay dividends.  We are all busy.  But if you have something to offer and want to positively impact your child’s school, let the PTA know.   You can even tell them what it is you’d like to do—I told them I could help with keeping the website up to date, if they had content but didn’t have the time to get it posted.  It’s something I can do whether I’m home or traveling.  They were thrilled.  They hadn’t even thought to ask for that help but were SO glad to have it offered.  

Finally, I can love Tangled as much as I wanted to...whew.

Ever since I first saw Tangled, I've struggled with liking it as much as I've wanted to. The horse, Maximus, alone is enough reason to love the film. He's awesome. And I very much like that the relationship between heroine and hero grows instead of happens at first sight. But the "I love you most" and "mother knows best" exchanges left me feeling icky. How, as a mother, am I supposed to help my daughters differentiate between a mother who really is doing her best to do what's right to protect and care for her children and a creepy, horrible user who uses some of the same loving words?
Finally, while watching it again today, I figured out how to use the film to support an important lesson to protect my girls. I focused them on how the King and Queen never stopped loving, never stopped looking and never stopped hoping that they would find their baby girl--I told them that would be how their mommy and daddy would be. And I talked about how there were, sadly, some really terrible people out there who actually took children and while they weren't witches, they would tell terrible lies to the children--they could say things like "mommy and daddy are dead" or "mommy doesn't love you anymore." I explained how, if something happened to us, there were lots of people who the girls actually knew who love them and would come take care of them and that there would NEVER be a time we didn't love them, EVER. So anyone who told them that was lying and could not be trusted. 
It's a harsh reality that there are terrible people out there, and it's even harder trying to impart that to your children without making the world too scary. So, now, I can watch the movie with less stress and more enjoyment and have an important, yet gentle conversation starter. 
#whyIloveDisney

The Science of Beauty aka Unhelpful Areas of Research

While I am a huge fan of science and appreciate the benefits of scientific research and discovery, I find the line of research regarding what makes a person physically attractive to be unnecessary at best and seriously damaging at worst.  What set me to write this little rant are stories that, ironically, both came from HuffingtonPost.

The first article and others like it on the "science of beauty" are exactly the things that lead to people ending up feeling they are not pretty enough (touched on in the second link), a much more serious and destructive issue than, I think, some people realize.

Short video on the science of beauty (just one of far too many available on the subject)

Other HuffingtonPost 'article', this one on how "outrageous" it is that someone would tell another person they are not pretty enough

So how about this, big "thinkers" and researchers, instead of trying to track down and limit by strict definition how we process and define beauty, why don't you work on how to expand the horizons of people's definitions of beauty.  I'm really tired of reading about how this feature or measurement is ideal and this is not.  It's not a healthy barometer.  Let's do more research on what makes some people have a much broader spectrum of perceived beauty and how to help others expand theirs.  If you start now, by the time my daughters are old enough to read/listen to this type of research there will be things on the topic of beauty worth reading and hearing.

And in the meantime, I will work on teaching my daughters that human value and real beauty cannot actually be measured by a ruler or color chart.

Jen Tress's website. Read the shared stories and see how damaging these superficial measurements can be. And how strong people can be.

September 11, 2013

As I walked to airport security this morning, I couldn't help but notice the extra police presence. 

Oddly, I rather like flying in this solemn anniversary.  It's my little nonviolent response to the terrorists--you can't stop us from living our lives. We are stronger than you know. 

God bless the survivors and the families and friends of the lost. Let them know we have not forgotten. 

That was my Facebook status update this morning.  I still remember every detail of that day--the instant message conversation I had with my friend and coworker who, working from home in Toronto, had on CNN and started giving me the play by play.  I remember, at first, thinking it was a terrible accident with a small plane. And my heart still hurts recalling the moment when we realized it wasn't an accident.  I remember being sick with fear for my father who could've easily been at the Pentagon and for my stepmother who worked in DC.  I remember all the emails from family and friends asking me for assurance that I was not flying that day. I remember sending emails asking for the same thing from friends who lived and/or worked in New York. I remember the relief upon hearing none of our road warriors were on those flights, and the loosening of some of the knots in my stomach when I finally heard from my father, stepmother and friends who lived and worked in Arlington and New York (though it took a few days before I heard from all my NY friends).  And I remember my heart breaking again upon hearing about the passengers on flight 93, who took on the terrorists and saved lives while losing theirs. 

Living so close to Washington Dulles Airport, I found it surreal not to hear or see planes.  Watching the news and the brave first responders, I kept wanting to wake up and find it was all a terrible dream. And even with sadness and fear that filled me, I wanted to get on a plane. I, immediately, wanted to defy the terrorists.

With all those vivid memories that still bring tears to my eyes and tightness to my chest, I was so happy today to see all of my friends celebrating their children born on September 11th in the years following the saddest of days in 2001. Children are born, giving the world new hope with their potential and giving us a reason to smile and cheer, even on this sad anniversary.  We go on living our lives. We are stronger than we know. And if we live our lives with gratitude and love, the terrorists can never prevail. 

Glass ceilings replaced by Lucite heels

So, out of morbid curiosity, I watched the train wreck of the VMAs so many people are chatting about.  I was reminded why I don't ever watch the VMAs.

I was deeply saddened by the whole terrible performance.  Primarily, I am distressed that under the guise of sexual freedom and "grown woman" confidence, that child (yes, she is still a child, 20 is very young) and so many young women like her are enslaving themselves to a role of world wide sex toy.  It is not confidence that makes a girl/woman throw herself out there like that, it is a deep need for attention and validation that she will never ever find if she remains on that path.

In her effort to shed her "nice" girl, Hannah Montana image she has debased herself.  She has, however, accomplished her mission of never again being someone young people should look up to or idolize.  She has joined the ranks of Lindsey Lohan as the butt of jokes.  I am sad for her.

And I am sad for young girls everywhere being bombarded with the message, not just from Miley, that their sexuality is the only thing they have of value AND that they should give it away freely and indiscriminately.

I realize I sound like an old-fashioned biddy.  I may be, but this nonsense is not what the women who came before us worked and fought so hard to give us.

My step-mother didn't don the gray suit and sensible pumps and push the boundaries of what the BIG 6 accounting firms expected of a woman, especially from a single mother, so young women could aspire to be party girls.  She didn't break through the glass ceilings so girls could dance on glass stages in their underpants.  She and others like her forced a male dominated corporate world to recognized the value of smart, driven and talented women so that women like myself could walk into job interviews with confidence that our education, work experience and skill sets, not our gender and cleavage would be the measurements by which we are judged.

Now a society that claims to value women has actually set us back to the days of harem girls and concubines.  I suppose one could suggest the "advancement" of this age is that everyone, not just the rich and powerful, can "enjoy" these toys.  Very egalitarian.

I am very worried for my girls--the media of today--TV, print, internet, movies--are all conspiring to diminish them.  But I will do all that I can to provide additional messaging.  They will spend many years hating me for not letting them wear age inappropriate clothes, make up, shoes or jewelry.  They will be annoyed by my constantly reminding them how bright and competent and valuable they are.  And they will be bored by the regular refrain about true beauty comes from within.  And with a little luck and prayer, some of my messaging will sink in a provide a shield from or at least a good counter to this new era of inequality that paints women just objects of amusement.  

A Prayer for Our Nation

I don't write this as a political statement or an expression of personal opinion over the verdict that has our country in an uproar today.  My heart is sick over the state of our nation and I feel compelled to pray for us all.  I am sharing my prayer and inviting people to join me, as I believe the more people who pray, the stronger the prayer.  If prayer changes no one else but the person praying, it's a start.

I am praying for hearts to heal and minds to open. I am praying for people to stop holding Bill responsible for what Jim did simply because they share the same skin color or ethnic origins. I am praying for people to stop believing Mary thinks the same way as Barb because they share the same gender or faith. I am praying for people to stop believing Sam is motivated by the same things as Trevor because they have the same sexual orientation or political party. I'm praying for people to stop lumping others into groups based on superficial characteristics. I am praying that people stop perpetuating nonsense, stop returning violence with violence, hate with hate, willful ignorance with willful ignorance. Fear, suspicion, mistrust, prejudice, rage, violence and hatred have brought us to this painful place. I am praying that we will rise above our hurts, our fears and our biases and remember that forgiveness and love are the path to healing and redemption for us all. I am praying we have the strength to forgive and the courage to love.