Have a little faith!

I have kind of "fallen into" the opportunity to work at a Shade Clothing kiosk here at the Costco for the ten days that it's up. I'm lucky to have gotten a shift of 4:30 to 8:00, Monday through Friday, two Saturdays of 9:15-2:00 and 2:00-6:00, and no Sundays. Working just until a week from tomorrow! This is the perfect way for me to make us a tiny bit of dough, without feeling stuck in a permanent job outside home (which I do not want). Phill will be home when I'm not, except for nights when he's coaching Little League Football (another thing he's got his hands in, coupled with his day-to-day job and his radio thing.....), and I won't be home so late that I can't read to the boys before they're asleep! I think it's going to be fun!

However, true to my worry-wart tendencies, I'm a teensy bit nervous. Mostly about the unknown. But I keep finding that it's mostly self-doubt that causes my nervousness. "What if someone asks me a question and I don't know the answer? What if I'm super shaky and tip over a mannequin and get dust on the bust of the shirt? What if I don't know how to help the customer?" And so on.....

Now, because Phill has a four-day weekend, this morning I was able to go run for a long time while the babies hung out at home in pajamas and crazy hair, eating sugary cereal with Phill while I whittled away my worries on the trail. Before I left, Phill asked how far I was going. (He always asks, and he always watches the clock when I'm gone, because where I'm concerned, he's a worry-wart too and calls me if I'm not back when I say I will be. Which I dearly love about him.) Anyway, I responded that it was 6 miles total, and then said, "But of course I won't be running six miles this morning." And went on my way. Well, while I drove to the start of the trail (hey, this is not laziness on my part. It starts a couple miles from home. Probably.), I was thinking why I was so sure I wouldn't run six miles. I realize that a lot of my goals give me room for a little bit of failure. Which is good to some extent, of course, because I don't want to bite off more than I can chew. But how much can I chew? :) When Phill asks me why I don't shoot for the sky sometimes (ex. "I will exercise 10 minutes at least two days a week" was my goal once upon a time), I usually say, "Oh, because I know myself." I know when I usually feel weak, I know what usually causes me to go a little off-track with my endeavors. But as I drove to the beginning of the trail, I wondered if it's really because I don't know myself.

What if I have no idea how strong I can really be? What if I'm not really afraid of failure, but afraid to find that I am in fact one hundred times more capable than I think I am, and therefore blazingly more responsible for my various failures? What if my not-so-sky-high goals are evidence of a secret belief that I am actually only capable of mediocrity?

I know I'm human. I know I'm subject to mess up, to stumble my way through some of the newer adventures, to find myself on my knees asking for help each step of the way. This is good. Humility is good. But I think I need to test myself just a bit more, see if I can do more than I think I can, and pray for the strength to do the "good things" I want to do. And I say "I know I'm human", but isn't part of being human learning to progress and grow? Isn't that our purpose here? Isn't that why we are here? To progress, to grow, to learn and then to enjoy the blessings of our efforts in this life and the next?

For the record, I did not run six miles today, but not because I didn't think I could. Because I didn't want to! (And the desire aspect of goal-setting is an entirely new post....) My stomach was growling the entire way, and I was worried about getting lost, being that I was on a new part of the trail and have been bestowed with a rather wandering navigational sense. I think I ran three miles. It was fun. It felt good. I feel good, and I'm filled with hope that I can keep challenging myself in little ways each day until past challenges are habit and future challenges are opportunities.

Well. I should go now, and see if today I can do a little more than I thought I could. (If I want to.....) My omelet turned into, shall we say, "egg crisp", while I was finishing the second paragraph. That pan is going to be a beast to clean, and Savanna is still in pajamas.

Start moving and KEEP moving/I think I can-I think I can-I think I can.....

I've had a hard time--actually, a terrible time--feeling motivated to exercise lately (lately being the last....two and a half months?). My lack of exercise has taken its toll, too--I'm a lot more grouchy, a lot more weepy, and a lot more prone to eat four or five pieces of chocolate cake in a day....less likely to deal well with everyday stress, less likely to handle my various tasks with ease and cheerfulness. In short, I wasn't all that pleasant to be around last week. So I started exercising again on Saturday, and then did again yesterday, and will (promise) again today. The change in my mood and general well-being is incredible. I realized that wanting to look better isn't near-enough motivation for me to get moving. And I don't think it should be the sole motivator, not ever. Because if you don't get the results you want when you want them, you quit. Or when you DO get the results you want, you quit because you're "there". See? It's not good either way! So, taking a page from my mom's book, I have made a list of reasons why I should exercise. Don't get me wrong. I love the superficial benefits of exercising. I like when I enjoy how I look. (Who doesn't?) But I need more reasons than that--more important reasons than that--if I want this to become a lasting habit.

This endeavor isn't all that noble, mind you. Phill has promised me a "prize" if I keep a consistent workout schedule for 3 months. (He offered the prize when I told him I needed something to work towards just to get me in the habit. It's a good prize.) I told him that I just needed to work out for about 6 weeks, and that if I could do that consistently, then I would be able to make it a habit and it would just become part of my schedule. Realistically, there will always be a day or a week when I'm not feeling up to it, no matter how long I've had the schedule going. But what I'm hoping is that my body will take over and my hands will of their own volition tie my shoelaces and I will find that my legs are walking me out the door. Or I'll find my hands turning on the DVD player and selecting the harder workout that I really don't want to do but really need to do.

So to make my commitment even stronger/daunting/set-in-stone, I'm announcing it here! Starting Saturday, August 23rd (because that's when I did start), I will exercise at least four days a week, for at least 25 minutes, and I will do this for 3 months. *gulp*

Here goes nothing.....

REASONS TO EXERCISE

You should.

It energizes you. (Then you get more done.)

It relieves stress.

It keeps your heart healthy and conditioned.

It makes your muscles and your immune system stronger.

Resistance exercises aid in maintaining (and building) bone density.

It’s fun. Sometimes.

You’ll feel SO good afterwards, and you’ll be proud of yourself.

It can help correct minor chemical imbalances that lead to depression.

It eases pre-menstrual symptoms and helps you stay on a more evenly-hormone’d track.

It helps regulate the appetite and encourages you to crave more nutritious foods. Sometimes.

Your kids will see you exercising and follow your good example, and you can claim some responsibility for the lasting health of your loved ones. And they’ll be proud of their strong mom.

And last, and mostly least:

It makes you look better.

Hindsight

This is not the cake I made for Jaxon's third birthday party tonight. It is the cake Photoshop graciously cleaned up and made pretty for me.
This is the cake I made for Jaxon's third birthday party.
COULDA....
Could have used the easy whipped cream + flavoring "frosting" I was considering. But powdered sugar/homemade frosting was way more cost-effective.
SHOULDA....
Should have made the frosting thicker. Should have stopped what I was doing as it ran down the sides of the cake and thickened up the stuff.
WOULDA!!!
Would have moved it from this ugly cookie sheet, away from its surrounding flotsam of frosting mess, if I thought it would survive the journey.

Shall we compare? My frosting wasn't even stiff enough to make the top fin correctly. Ah, me....I am in need of cake decorating supplies and a cake decorating class, it seems. I'm only a teensy bit comforted by the fact that Family Fun no doubt has not only great photographers and great photoshop'ers, but also professional cake makers/decorators!

Today's List of Quotables

On our way home from school, Reed said, "I think if a teenager went to preschool, he wouldn't like it. Maybe he would yell, 'I don't want to learn preschool stuff! I want to learn teenager stuff!'" (Teenager part said in a low voice. Reed is fascinated by teenagers.)

Then, when we got home, he was hugging/holding Savvy and said, "Mama, I missed Savvy when I was at school. I was thinking of her cuteness."

On the way to Kmart this morning, Reed and I were having a long discussion about domesticated/pet tigers. (It's pretty adorable to hear a 5-year-old say 'domesticated'.) [This discussion was followed by about twenty-three questions about volcanoes.] Reed asked if domesticated tigers still ate humans. I told him that if they were extremely mad and extremely hungry, they might try to eat a human. Jaxon said in a happy voice from his carseat, "I feed a tiger raisins, Mama."

A little wait.....

Please forgive the ever-changing layout of my blog.....I'm finicky and trying to find something that I'll like for a long time. I'm in flux right now. So pardon the blogmess.