Incredible shrinking arms

My arms and legs are too short. The biggest obstacle I have at Curves, well, besides working out, is getting on and off the machines. It's like my arms and legs have shrunk since my body has gotten bigger. What is up with that?!? I'm either going to hurt myself really badly or break one of the machines trying to get on and off of them.

I went to Curves three days last week. Hey, that's good for me considering I haven't exercised in years. I have been a little sore, but not too bad. I thought I would be a lot more sore than I have been. The exercise machines aren't the problem. I really don't have any problem with them or walking in place in between machines. What I have a problem with is the cool down stretch after the workout!

Picture this .... I finish my work out and am sweating like a pig. The 5,000 gallons of oil spilling into the Gulf right now is nothing compared to the sweat gushing out of my body. I don't think there is a spot that is not sweating. And my eyes! Oh, my eyes! The sweat runs into my eyes and I think I am going blind. I'm lightheaded from the workout, there is sweat in my eyes and I'm starting to see a few stars. I feel like I am flailing around like a kid that just got off the merry-go-round at the park and I feel a touch of nausea coming on. Agony ..... pure agony .....

I think I can sneak out without the cool down. What is the point anyway? I've worked my tail off for 30 minutes to get my heart rate to fat-burning level and now they want me to cool off and get my heart rate down. Don't think so. I worked hard for this heart rate and I am not cooling it down!

Oh, no! "Amy don't forget to stretch and cool down," a voice says. Crap, they know me already. But they are so kind. They have a poster on the wall reminding the people like me that are so exhausted that we can't focus or recall anything they have been told in the last 48 hours.

The first few stretches are easy enough. Then I have to stretch my arm over my head and grab my elbow in my other hand and pull it toward my head. This is when I really realize that my arms have shrunk. I couldn't reach my elbow to save the free world at this point. Then I have to get on the floor and get into these contortionist position that can only be good for training for the world championship Twister competition!

But it's almost over for today. I can see the door. It's not the exit, but if I can crawl or drag my body to it, I can use the doorknob to pull myself to a standing position. Then, maybe, just maybe I can recall how to walk to the front door.

Curves IS NOT for wussies

I took a major step today as I started yet another weight loss attempt. I would be telling a big, fat lie if I said that over the last six year, since Lani was born, that I had really tried to lose weight. My idea of a diet pretty much consisted of only eating chocolate on any day that ended in "y." I love to eat and I do not love to exercise ... that is a bad combination any way that you add it up.

Over the last six years, it has just gotten worse and worse. I've thought about all the surgeries that are out there for weight loss, but I didn't want to do that because if you have the surgery and still don't lose weight then that would really make you a loser and not the good kind ... plus, our insurance doesn't cover it so it is totally out of the question!

Oh, I forgot to tell you what my big step was .... I joined Curves. I can hear the applause now. Joining Curves was a big deal for me. Number One, it mean that I was paying money to exercise so I had to do it and, Number Two, I had to get past all the "girly gym" thoughts that kept going through my head. I used to work out a lot and believe it or not I was in really good shape. But that was many years ago. I would go to the gym to pump iron and get all buff and stuff.

Now my biggest challenge in the gym is getting on and off the equipment. I think my arms and legs are getting shorter as my body is getting rounder. Before today when I would tell someone I was thinking about joining Curves, I would almost whisper it, because I thought it was a "girly gym." Let me tell you in the best way I know how .... Curves IS NOT for wussies!

My new good friend and drill sergeant Judy got me signed up at Curves. Now, Judy is probably not old enough to be my grandmother, but she is a good bit older than I am. I figured she would go easy on me my first day as she explained all the equipment to me and how to use it. Boy, was I ever wrong. Judy took me through the circuit twice, like I will do every day when I work out and I thought I was going to die. You would have thought I had never been on exercise equipment in my life. She kept pushing me harder and showing me the right way to do things ... and the right was is not the easiest way .... believe me!

There was one machine she put me on and she told me that it would work my abs. At this point, I don't have abs .... it's more like flabs. She showed me how to do it and put me on the machine. "Can't you bend over any more than that?" she asked me. "Well, no! I can't get past my gut!" I already know that I hate that machine.

We finally finished our workout and it was time to stretch and cool down. What a joke! I could hardly move at this point and I was sweating like a pig! I was light-headed and I think I saw a few stars too (and I'm not talking about George Clooney and Brad Pitt). I really tried to stretch, but I ran into that short arm and short leg thing again ... man, that is a pain. Finally, I think Judy felt sorry for me and just told me to roll around on the floor until I felt something stretch. Thanks for your mercy, Judy!

I'm going to get through this though. Tomorrow morning I've told Ric, my husband, to have Ensminger crane service on speed dial just in case I can't get out of the bed.

Today, I blog

I don't know why I even have a blog. I am the most inconsistent blogger ever. Half the time I forget I even have a blog and when I do remember, it takes forever for me to conjure up the password. I finally got it. 

I thought maybe now was a good time to blog. Being that I have nothing else to do. I'm on week three of being unemployed ... my choice. But really ... what was I thinking? That I could find a job in this economy? I wasn't really thinking, I guess, but I wasn't happy where I was and I was the only one who could change it. So I did. Now, I'm looking and leaning on God to point me in the right direction. He has a plan for me ... in His time.

So far being unemployed hasn't been bad. I've spent time at my daughter's school volunteering, I've caught up on some things I had been neglecting and I've spent a lot of time thinking about stuff (oh yeah, and a lot of time on facebook). The time spent with my daughter has been the most rewarding. We can do things together and I am not distracted by things I need to do at work. I will treasure these days. I hope she will too.

During my thinking time I have realized something .... I am fortunate and grateful.

The Roads Traveled

It sure is nice driving down Summerville Road in Lee County. Since the paving job is complete, when I leave Publix I sincerely enjoy the drive home on Summerville.
Speaking of roads, I think it is a great idea to change the names of the roads inside the city limits of Smiths Station to the original names. Let Mullins Road be Mullins Road, and let's forget all the Lee Road stuff. A lot of folks think Lee Road is one continuous road with no beginning and no end. The Smiths Station City Council gets two thumbs up from me on that one!
After all the changes and re-starts, Broad Street in Phenix City is really looking good. It looks a lot better than I thought it would. I hope the rest of the project in downtown PC pan out and without the obstacles that the Broad Street project has had.

Back to the blog

I'm going to try blogging again. This time I really mean it. I'm not just going to post my column, which to have become few and far between these day... I'm actually going to blog about stuff. I didn't realize the power of a blog until I, along with a friend and former co-worker, became the victim of the Blog of Columbus. The "Blog" didn't attack us but one of his readers did, in an email. It ruffled my feathers a little, okay, a lot. My friend addressed it in a blog of his own and an email to the dimwitted attacker, but I am just going to let it go --- for now. I may exact my revenge later in another forum.

Athletics is not for me

I’m not an athletic person. I tried to be every once in a while, but it took way too much energy. As a matter of fact, it sometimes makes me tired just watching athletic people.
I didn’t play sports in college except an attempt at co-ed softball and an occasional flag football game with a group of friends. I exerted much more energy on trying to find ways to win without exerting energy than I did actually playing. You didn’t have to athletically inclined for that. The one and only touchdown I ever made was a fluke. Everyone knew I had knee surgery about six months before and as I neared the endzone and the other team was closing in on me, I just hollered, “oh my knee! Oh my knee!” They stopped running and I scored my one and only touchdown.
I didn’t play sports in high school either. I was a junior varsity cheerleader for one year. One summer of Jane Fonda Workouts every single day was more than enough for me.
I didn’t play girls softball and things, like Upward sports, didn’t exist when I was growing up. I don’t remember many girls’ sports when I was growing up, and maybe that’s why I never developed a love for athletics.
Now, there are tons of girls’ sports. From about age five until geriatrics, girls or women have the opportunity to play. I think it is great and I think it goes a long way in teaching young women to be strong, confident and independent.
A news story caught my attention last week. It was about Jamie Nared, a 12-year-old girl, who is a phenomenal basketball player. So good, in fact, that she played with the boys’ team in a Beaverton, Oregon private league just so she would have more competition. The boys on her team had no problems with having a girl on the team. Why would they? She helped the win a lot of games.
It was at one of those games that she helped them win that had caused a ruckus and had the parents of the other team in an uproar. Nared has scored 30 points in several games and helps lead her team to victory pretty consistently. In this case, the parents of the other team said she was only able to score so many points and her team only won because the boys on the opposing team just couldn’t play as hard and aggressive against a girl as they would a team full of boys.
I would be really proud of my daughter if she was so good at something that she had to cross gender lines just to find decent competition, but I can’t say I’d want my daughter playing against a bunch of sweaty boys. Maybe if it were on a 5- or 6- year-old team, but once the kids started reaching puberty and their hormones started raging it would have to end.
Nared, who seemed really unconcerned about the whole situation when she was interviewed on the news, already has a college scholarship before even reaching her teens. She’s not playing on the boys team anymore and she is ok with that.
Jamie’s been playing with the boys since the second grade and I’m sure that she thinks the whole thing stinks. She’s taken the ordeal in stride and is still playing the game she loves.
Her parents really have something to be proud of.

My Jesus

Last night I had the strangest dream. I dream a lot and tend to remember most of my dreams in living, vivid colors and details. Many of my dreams are downright insane and my husband swears I am crazy. But last night was the strangest dream of all. So strange that I can't talk about it because somehow I don't think I can give the dream the credit it deserves verbally. I am going to try to write it. If I have no success writing it, then it was only meant for me.
Last night, sometime between midnight at 2 a.m., I met Jesus in my dreams. To begin with I didn't know it was Jesus. He was just a person I kept seeing sort of in the background. I was always drawn to this person even though this person's image changed to fit the situation, or for lack of a better word environment.
In the beginning of the dream, I was on a football team and Jesus was one of my teammates. He didn't look like the Jesus we see pictures of in the Bible and in church, he look like a normal football player, just like the rest of us. As a woman on a football team, I stood out much more than he did. Somehow, even though at this time I didn't know the man was Jesus, I did know there was something special about him.
Throughout the dream, there would be periods of time that I would feel a specific closeness to Jesus. During these times, Jesus was there and we would walk together and talk together, like we were really good friends. I leaned on him, confided in him and he held and comforted me. I could see him just like I could see anyone else. He was real to me.
In another scene in the dream, I was in a restaurant. Not a fancy one, but something like Picadilly or maybe Shoneys or something. I was eating with a group of people and there was something special about one of the waiters. He wasn't our waiter, just one of many in the restaurant. Somehow there was a connection between me and the waiter, just like the one between me and the football player on my team. Still, I couldn't put my finger on what was so special about this person.
In the last scene I can remember in the dream, I lived in an apartment complex much like the one I lived in when I was in college. The layout of the apartments was very similar, all but the location of the mailboxes and the lighting. The lighting at the complex was dim and actually dark in some places. The mailboxes were across the street in a shadowed area.
I had stopped by the grocery store to pick up a few items. All of the items were in one on two bags so I got them out of the car and carried them with me as I went to the mailbox. While I was getting my mail, a man walked up to the mailboxes. He mumbled something to me that I thought was a hello, and I responded. The man was acting sort of strange and opened one of the boxes and closed it without really looking in it. I felt like this could be the beginning of a bad situation, so I immediately walked away across the street to the apartment complex.
To get to my apartment I would have normally had to walk through a dark area for 50 or so yards, but I noticed the man had followed me across the street and was still walking in the same direction that I was. Instead of my usual route, I walked through a well lit area sticking close to the apartments. The building is the complex had eight apartments, four on top and four on bottom. The area around the stairs was open where you could walk through them. I chose to walk through them and stay in the light. As I was walking through I met another man, who instantly put me at ease. I got the same comforting feeling from him that I got from the football player and the waiter. We greeted each other and for some reason he walked with me to my apartment. I didn't know this man but for some reason, I trusted him completely.
I didn't tell my new friend about the man following me and hoped that the guy would just go away. As my friend and I neared my apartment door. Several police cars with lights and sirens blaring came flying into the parking lot. Before I knew it there were cops everywhere and police dogs sniffing around. Outside an apartment a little further up the complex a woman surrounded by a group of friends was filing a report with the police. My friend and I walked up to the apartment to see what was going on and she was telling the police officer that someone had attempted to rape her when she was walking through the complex. The description I heard her give was the one of the man I had encountered at the mailboxes just a few minutes earlier. As I listened, I got a little sick to my stomach realizing that the same thing could have just happened to me. I didn't say anything to my friend.
My friend walked me back to my apartment to where my husband and little girl waited for me. I opened the door and before I stepped in the apartment I turned to thank my new friend for his kindness, but he was gone. Standing on the sidewalk in front of my apartment was another man. This one was unmistakable -- it was Jesus. I stared in total disbelief and as I looked at him I saw the football player on my team, the waiter in the restaurant and my friend who walked my home and away from a possible rapist.
"I am always with you," he said as he turned and walked away. As I stood there basking in the glory of what had just happened, I saw my Jesus walk back up the sidewalk and embrace the woman who had almost been raped. It wasn't as if he hadn't been with her before, because he had, but she needed him even more at that moment. For some reason I knew I needed to see him go to her, but as strange as this may sound, as he walked away and I saw him walk away, I never felt his presence leave me.
It was at that moment that everything I had been trying to figure out for the last few months was crystal clear. God is with me all the time. He can see me, he knows what I do, what I think, what I feel, but I don't necessarily see him as who he is. I often see him as someone else in different situations, but when I need Him and turn to him for comfort or forgiveness I see Him in all of His glory and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my Jesus is with me all the time and is with all of his children all the time.
In my sleep I am still processing all that has happened even though my dream is pretty much over. I am awakened by my daughter who is crying and scared and wants me to come get in the bed with her. When I stand up to follow her to her room, my heart is beating 90 miles and hour and I'm having a hard time catching my breath, I guess from her startling me and from the dream. Every part of my dream comes rushing back as I wrap my child in my arms just as He does me.