Thursday, August 26, 2010

On Owning Some of What [and Who] I Am

Headless Mom recently shared a blog post of Jodifur's on facebook.

And I am so glad that she did, because it was one of those resonating gems of the blogosphere, a post in which you read and find yourself saying, "I am so totally there, too!"  Well, maybe without the 'so totally," anyway.  And maybe just for me, anyway... This is a hint to just click over and read it, lest you be reading my thoughts without full contextual insight.

I don't know Jodi, but I relate to the whole undermining of one's self - be it in the realm of my hobbies, abilities, appearance, etc., I have the tendency to speak in 'I'm really nots' and dismissive notes of how old something I'm wearing might be.

But no more.

Inspired by Jodi's closing statement that she IS a runner - I'm going to write up a list of things I am, and own them free and clear of the debts brought on by insecurity.  That sounds a heck of a lot better than I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and doggonit, people like me, doesn't it?

I'm a sinner.  Saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, from whom I draw my hope for the future, but still a sinner who still makes the same stupid mistakes everyday.  I wish that I knew God better - and love the song below so, so, SO much because Jennifer Knapp does such a great job at capturing my heart - but the beauty is that there is always room to grow.


I'm a wife and mother to some pretty terrific people.  Which makes me pretty blessed overall, even on the tough days.  Someone PLEASE remind me of this on Sunday/Monday as Seth is taking 3 days off from Casa del Meyer to go archery hunting and I may just be going a little crazy by then.

I, too, am a runner.  I have a running mix on my ipod, see the same fellow runners on my route every other day (because I have a route and a time that I stick to, like other runners do), read running articles, have run a 5k, 10k, and now am training for a half-marathon.  I mean, what's it take, a full marathon to make someone a runner?  Enough hem-hawing about it, Heather!  You're a runner!

I am a writer.  No longer will I hesitate to say this.  I am now writing professionally, even if it is not the Great American Novel and is just grants and technical writing for now, it is beyond a personal blog.  However, should I ever revert back to just writing a blog, I will still realize that I'm a writer, regardless of brand or label.  I create with my words and always will.

And because it is so important to me....I am a red-head!  The shade may be mellowing due to hormones or the seasonal light change or whatever inexplicable phenomenon you to which you wish to ascribe this occurrence, but I paid my dues as a red-headed child and I am still a red-head!  Don't make me get the bottle.....

I am pretty.  That one is so hard to write, because I struggle to see it.  Always have, even when I was younger though I now can clearly see the beauty I had then.  It also seems kind of an arrogant thing to say - which I'm not quite sure how it got construed that way, I mean we [women that is, I've met men who have no issue with this, even when, maybe they, uh, should have] have no problem identifying ourselves as smart, but pretty?  Maybe because smart is measurable and beauty is in the eye[s] of the beholder and therefore it requires a certain assumption on a woman's part to say that she is pretty?  Anyway...I'm starting to catch glimpses of my outer beauty again.  Long-term weight loss tends to blur the mirror in this regard.  As of today, I've lost 53 lbs since Christopher was born.  40 of those pounds were baby weight and fell off relatively quickly (I think in 7 mos?).  The last 13 have been a b#$!h to shed.  But they're gone.  I have about 13 more to lose to get to my 'realistic goal' weight - the weight I was and maintained for 2 years while Colton was a toddler.  My 'crazy weight loss' goal is 10 more past that weight, as my doctor told me that was where I should be ideally.  If it is life consuming to get to that weight and maintain it, it's a no-go and the doctor can suck it.  As it is, I bought an Ann Taylor dress at a thrift store in May, a 'motivation dress' if you will, with the goal of wearing it by Labor Day.  I fit into it today!  I'll probably need to wear a shaper with it, as it is a sheath style dress and hugs my tum a bit more than I'm comfortable with at this point, but there's no more arm chub at the gathers.

I'm coming into my own, gaining new confidences everyday.  The 30s are by far the greatest decade yet.


© 2006-present Ramblings of a Red-Headed Step-Child. All Rights Reserved

Friday, August 20, 2010

Out of Context

Every year the night before school is an open house/ice cream social where the kids and parents can meet the teachers, unload the backhoes of school supplies, and snarf down a little frozen dairy goodness before the chaos is unleashed.

It's fun to see the kids' excitement as they find their friends and catch up on who's in whose class, what they did over the summer and details such as how exactly they broke their arm.

Seth hardly ever gets to go since it coincides with his last hour of work, so Tuesday night he was trying to get the 411 from the kids at the dinner table (which ended up to be a very late supper that night).

"Didja get the teacher you wanted, Kels?"

"Not really...." she paused.  Then very emphatically, she said, "I just wish she had some balls!"

It made me snort a little, the look on Seth's face.

"Well, ok, then?  Is she that much of a pushover?"  He asked, clearly on a different page than the one Kelsey and I were on.

"What?!?" she asked in the rare, but occasional 'dumb-blonde' tone of but I don't get it.

He went on to explain what a pushover was and she was still blank.

"But, Dad-deeeee, I know what a pushover is - I just don't get why you'd say that because she doesn't have balls, though."

I could have intervened, but the humor of it all was cracking me up.

Suddenly, it dawned on my daughter that she and her dad had entirely different pictures in their minds, thus she said, exasperated, "Dad!!!!!  I meant exercise balls - you know, to sit on??  Instead of a chair?!!  The other 4th grade teachers have balls but mine doesn't and it's not really fair because that would help* me."

* it's a sensory thing.

And then all that humor tension climaxed into a fit of laughter at our table.

******
Completely unrelated, save for the out of context theme....

I've been curling my hair for a little something different lately - contemplating a body perm, but that just wigs me out (pun intended - me so cheesey) and makes me think of the aforementioned fashion crimes of the 80s.

The other day I was curling my hair before church and Christopher was walking around the bathroom.  He was babbling and messing with his hair when I realized that he too was 'curling' his hair.  With a wrapped (read: unused and perfectly sterile) tampon!

Oh dear, that one had me laughing for awhile too..
© 2006-present Ramblings of a Red-Headed Step-Child. All Rights Reserved

The One Where I Relate to AC/DC

You know...as in, one of two heavy metal bands proclaimed by the t-shirts of the two poorly animated, infamous-for-their-utter-lack-of-conventional-values characters of the 90's known as Beavis and Butt-head.

Yeah....the 80's have their fashion crimes of which to be ashamed.  The 90's?  We had Beavis and Butt-head and the dumbing down of humor to fart jokes for an entire generation.  *sigh*

Anyway....so, I do this thing where I associate moods, happenings, etc. with music, quotes, TV and all other things pop culture, right?

Today it was AC/DC's Back in Black playing in my little mental concert for one.  Because I am one Klassy Babe when it comes to my musical repertoire - thanks to one former step-father who never could break free of the hold of 80's metal bands, and Blondie as well come to think on it, had on him and that he saw to it that we, too, were appropriately indoctrinated uh, educated re: their cultural significance; usually such education occurred while he was drunk.  Fun times.


Why, you ask, did you have Back in Black playing in your head today, Heather?

Because quite simply,
...
I've been too long I'm glad to be back
Yes I'm, let loose
From the noose
That's kept me hanging about
...
 
I'm coming back.  In ways that have been dormant for a good long time, I'm seeing glimpses of who I am and who God's teaching me to be along the way.

Kelsey and Colton started back to school Wednesday, and Heaven smiled down on me.  Writing that makes me feel like a bad mother, a bit.  Because I chose to be a SAHM in order to be more present with my kids and yet come July each year, I can't wait to be away from them for 40 hours a week.  Ok, so maybe that last part is hyperbole, but not by a huge amount.  To be fair, the kids were equally happy to leave me behind every day :)  I have been able to be productive and get my house in respectable shape again, there is a return of that blissfully quiet period, 2x/day!, known as NAPTIME, and routine, how I love thee.  School is good.

Colton was totally stoked that the new gym teacher (whom I foresee to be the object of many young girls' affections due to his youth and looks) was wearing the same Marvel comics t-shirt as he was.  2nd and 4th grades this year.
New School Shoes
While not going to school, little Chris was part of the obligatory 1st day photos.
Bus!!

I re-start my MPA studies, from which I took hiatus in 2008 and 2009.  I will only be taking one class this semester, but I'm excited.  I do keep cracking jokes about the class, as it is Leadership and Professional Ethics - joke being that there's a difference between personal ethics and professional ones?  Syllabus looks good and challenging, but not overly so.  Feels do-able.

As of today, we are caught up on our mortgage and all of our household bills - which is a place we haven't been since last November.  Medical stuff is still hanging out, but we've cut some serious fat out of our budget, finally saying goodbye to Directv, and hello to Hulu, Netflix, and a digital antenna, slashing our grocery bill with sites like CouponMom.com and GroceryGame.com, riding our bikes more than driving the vehicles, etc.  And, now that things are calmer at home, I'm really doing the free-lancing thing!  I got my first client this week - a local NPO seeking funding and yet lacking a grant writer.  Then, tonight I received an e-mail from a legitimate business in Denver asking me for my resume and references as they had a client in need of a funding researcher/grant writer. So, between the cutting of expenses and addition of some income, those medical debts are going bye-bye - no doubt about it.

A newer friend from church remarked how I was going to be superwoman this fall with 3 kids, going back to school, running high mileage, and starting a business.  Certainly, I'm not super woman, but for those of you who've known me since this blog's inception (or before) y'all know I like the busy, like the real busy and not the busy work.  I once worked FT, was in grad school, regularly volunteered in both the older kids' classrooms, took Kelsey to weekly OT appointments, cooked from scratch, etc. and did it fairly well.  Some situational things popped up occasionally, namely marital during that time period, that got me down.  And then I needed a break, so I slowed down and tried to follow God a little more closely.

The past 2 years have been huge in the growth department.  The latter part of 2008 being a preparatory season, 2009 being a sort of demolition/rebuilding year, and thus far 2010 has been further rebuilding with an unveiling starting to take shape.

I feel as if, structurally speaking, I have the same foundation, as in, I'm still the same stubborn, feisty, big-word loving kind of gal I've always been.  True, some parts of me have gotten those sort of whimsical face lifting reminiscent of HGTV's lower budget programs, such as the coupon clipping, cloth diapering, home-growing features that are new but not foreign to me.  But other parts of me have been completely gutted, refashioned, and repurposed...My kids are bearing the brunt of my stubbornness being channeled into my parenting.

So, Angus sings it for me in my mind...."I'm back.  In black".  Though usually not all black clothing, I can generally be found wearing black flip-flops on any given day.  
© 2006-present Ramblings of a Red-Headed Step-Child. All Rights Reserved

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Brought to you with a large serving of "air quotes"

The following is what my goofy little mind came up with when my brain crossed reading a Facebook friend's status about having Christmas carols stuck in his head (in August, the blasphemy!) with the joys of parenting at summer's end.  It is my [poor] attempt at parody, and in Weird Al fashion, I have a mental music video that goes along with it - primarily frazzled moms air quoting each 'wonderful' in the song, in lieu of jazz hands.


It's the most wonderful time of the year 
With the kids always yelling
And every mom telling you "It’s that time of year" 
It's the most wonderful time of the year 
It's the hap-happiest season of all
With those back-to-school greetings and PTA meetings 
When Busy comes to call 
It's the hap- happiest season of all 

There are routines to re-enlist 
New bedtimes on which to insist 
And children hollering “NO!” 
There'll be harried mom stories 
And tales of the glories of 
Back-to-schools long, long ago 

It's the most wonderful time of the year 
There is much limit testing 
And siblings contesting 
Poor Mom yearns for beer 
It's the most wonderful time of the year 

There are routines to re-enlist 
New bedtimes on which to insist 
And children hollering “NO!” 
There'll be harried mom stories 
And tales of the glories of 
Back-to-schools long, long ago 

It's the most wonderful time of the year 
There is much limit testing 
And siblings contesting 
Poor Mom yearns for beer 
It's the most wonderful time 
It's the most wonderful time 
It's the most wonderful time 
When the School Bus draws near!!!!!


In all seriousness, summer's been fun, but I'm ready for a little daily distance to make my heart fonder of the two older ones.  The whining and the sibling rivalry-esque competitions are wearing me down!


© 2006-present Ramblings of a Red-Headed Step-Child. All Rights Reserved

Monday, August 2, 2010

Pushing My Limits

Today marks the end of my summer hiatus from blogging.

My break was much needed, July nearly sent me to the loony bin, and just reaffirmed what I already knew: I REALLY need my laptop back, erm, to write.  :-D Often.  And with purpose.  More on that later.

In the meantime, I began to acquire a case of runner's doldrums mid-July.  Oh, I still went, and regularly enough, but that carrot of a yet-to-be-accomplished goal was lacking ever since my feet crossed that strip in Folsom Field.  Without a concrete goal, and the very-vague-yet-unconstrained-by-culturally-dictated-shapes-or-sizes aim of being a 'fit mama,' while noble, is sort of like telling a toddler to 'be nice' when really they need to quit biting every damned person they feel like, I just didn't have enough to inspire the runs for which my legs began to yearn.

I mean, have you met me?  Girl likes a challenge, and by challenge I mean, 'those feats which redefine impossible.' Pretty much anyway.  Oh and btw a perfect theme song for this is Natasha Bedingfield's Unwritten, since we are being all literary and redefining and all that....or, it is just a great dose of positivity.  You're welcome!

Anyway....so I had some chats with God about this - as some of you may know my whole running journey began as a desire for me to reflect the healing and other works He has done/is doing in my life - and asked Him, "What's next?  Because this is great and all, but it's not as dramatic as what you've done for me.  How can I even begin to show them?  I mean, without going all divine being and walking on water like Jesus, ya know"

So on the fateful day of July 14th I found myself at the grocery checkout staring down the cover of the August Runner's World.  The chick on the cover had enviable tone, for sure, but my gaze locked in on the words just to the left of her middle:  BREAK 2 HOURS (or any time goal).  Ok, so my Boulder (10k/6.2mile) time was 1:16 and change, which broke down to a 12:17/mile average pace.  And a sub-2 hour marathon (21k/13.1miles) equates to roughly a 9:09/mile pace.

So there I was looking at the [im]possibility of doing more than double the distance in less than twice the allotted time?!?!  Sold!

I started my training on the 17th and have been sticking to it.  I'm not quite at the performance demanded by the training guidelines - i.e. I did week 1 twice since my first attempt at an 8 mile run was only slightly more than two-thirds successful, I have not quite made the 'easy,' 10:30 pace over distance my own yet (oh, but I will...I did a 10:31 pace last Tuesday, SOCLOSE!!!!), nor would I call it an 'easy' pace for me at this time.  But I am getting there.  So far I have pushed myself beyond what I thought I could with:

  • my first time ever experiencing exercise-induced vomiting (during which all I could do was envision Biggest Loser montages)
  • an 8:00 mile!!
  • completing 8 miles, period, let alone at an 11:56 pace!!!

I don't have a half-marathon picked out/registered for yet, but there is a local on in November that I'm starting to see myself doing.

Turns out, I need direction in order to channel my energy.  Put another way, I need to be told what to do.  Heh, who'da thunk on that one, eh?

And, side bennie of running like a beast - my legs are starting to shape up (finally - I mean you'd think they'd have gotten the memo that we've been working HARD for OVER A YEAR by now!) and this 'fit mama' is starting to look the part as well as feel it!
© 2006-present Ramblings of a Red-Headed Step-Child. All Rights Reserved