In the interest of being integrative (which is how I originally wished to be), I’ve decided to move the content of this blog to my main one:
Hope you’ll find me there.
I have to warn that it’s somewhat under construction since the formatting is messed up, but there it is.
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Or has 3 Fat Chicks gone down almost from the moment that I began gushing about them?
If anyone has reached this blog through that, would you mind letting me know what happened? I haven’t been able to access them for days.
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Christ. Baha’u’llah. Rumi. Blake. Gerard Manly Hopkins. Buddha. Marianne Robinson. Maynard, for God’s sake.
Today was the day. I had meant to practice what I was going to say, but with everything (and I do mean everything) going on, I kept thinking I’d get around to it. So this morning I get to church only to realize I have no idea what I’m going to say. The purpose of the speech is to highlight how Unity lessons have impacted my life. It was held in conjunction with their “Membership Sunday” in which new members of the church are officially inducted.
And, yes, it was noticed that the first speaker of the first Good News Sunday of the first Membership Sunday did not join the church, but I jump ahead of myself.
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I really can’t express how much I am digging on 3FatChicks. There is so much information there that it blows my mind. They have exercise challenges where everyone inputs the amount of minutes they’ve exercised for the day for a running total for the group of participants, and weekly weigh-ins, and things like that, and I am just stunned at the amount of support there. There are recipes and exercise tips, links and encouragement.
While I had been exercising most days (say, 6 out of 7), I started tracking it and making concrete exercise goals because of it. Because I didn’t start writing it down until 03/14, I made a goal of 360 minutes for the month (20 minutes a day average for every day left of the month). Writing it down rather than making a mental note (Yep! Made 20 minutes today!) makes a big difference, I’ve found. I’m consciously striving for an average of 140 a week, and, so far, am exceeding it as an average. If I miss a day, I make sure to exercise extra to make up for it.
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O Son of Spirit! Noble have I created thee, yet thou hast abased thyself. Rise then unto that for which thou was created.
~ Baha’u'llah, The Hidden Words
The Fast officially ended at sunset this evening, and boy oh boy was it a learning process. Far more than last year, and I was far less successful with it this year compared with last year.
I am incredibly foolish at times. Embarrassingly, frighteningly, and utterly foolish. I had this strange month, March, one where absolutely nothing seemed to go right.
Once you get things “all figured out,” it’s supposed to be smooth sailing, right?
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I’m sort of a mess today.
Scratch that, I’m definitely a mess today.
Spring Break is here, and I slept in again. I woke up, ate breakfast, and went back to bed, content that I’d observe the Fast again.
Right.
Last year it was “neat” and “nifty” and “challenging.” This year it is is “hard” and “grrr” and “bringing garbage to the surface.”
Which is not to say that it is still not beautiful. I can tell some major stuff is going on, which makes it absolutely necessary.
It just doesn’t make the Fast as fun as it was last year.
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I didn’t walk either Saturday or Sunday morning, something that definitely has messed with my continuity. Because I work over night on Friday and Saturday nights, unless I walk at work during my so-called “lunch break” (after 7 am when my relief comes in), I don’t have the energy to walk at all.
This morning is the first of Spring Break. I woke up early, before sunrise and ate since I’m still Fasting, and decided, with as cold and grey as it was outside, to go back to bed.
It was marvelous. I still have a to-do list a billion miles long. I still haven’t walked this morning. I still haven’t done anything on my to-do list, but I went back to bed.
And, despite all the conditions surrounding it, I did it guilt-free.
I love guilt-free stuff.
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It’s amazing how many excuses I can find when I don’t want to do something.
Not enough time, not enough energy. Can’t find the right words. Can’t find…whatever.
So soon, eh, and I’m fighting the bullshit. I should have known better.
Right now my excuse is that I don’t know how to flip pictures. Yes, it’s true. When I bought a new laptop late last year, I just haven’t bothered to figure out how to use it too well.
And, for the record, whatever program it uses for pictures doesn’t have a simple “flip” button like my other one did.
These were taken 03-01 at a friend’s party. I was hoping to get some just hanging-out-shots, but when time came that I had to go to work, and I had no pictures taken (which were going to specifically be for the blog), I got desperate.
I love Eileen, but I have to question her photography skills. But, without further disclaimer, I’ll go ahead and post them.
This is the first time I’ve allowed, much less strong-armed friends into taking them, full length body shots of myself since my wedding in 1998.
Unflipped, unedited, unable to be given better lighting, here they are.
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When ink joins a with a pen, then the blank paper
can say something. Rushes and reeds must be woven
to be useful as a mat. If they weren’t interlaced,
the wind would blow them away.
Like that, God paired up
Creatures and gave them friendship.
Rumi, Essential Rumi, trsltd by Coleman Barks
I read over the Part I part, and I realized I went no where near where I meant to with it.
So I’ll try again.
Apparently it takes a really long time for something to slip down between the folds of my psyche. I’m slow like that at times.
One of the big sayings at the Unity church which I attend is “Know that you know that you know.” Which, on an intellectual level, I got. There is a difference, obviously, between intellectually understanding and really, really getting something.
I don’t know the particular moment that I got that I got that I got it, just that I didn’t at one point, and then I did.
There was a particular moment when I realized something absolutely wonderful, though. There was a shining, singular moment when something spectacular and fabulous and utterly wonderful occurred to me. There was a shining, singular moment when I realized something so profoundly simple.
That I didn’t have to be fat anymore.
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We have commanded you to pray and fast from the beginning of maturity; this is ordained by God, your Lord and the Lord of your forefathers. He hath exempted from this those who are weak from illness or age, as a bounty from His Presence, and He is the Forgiving, the Generous.
Baha’u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas
It’s that time of the month again! This time, I’ve discovered 7.6 lbs gone this month, bringing my total gone to 10.2 lbs.
Thank God. Literally.
And something I just said two days ago: “And my second day into this particular commitment is way too early to go and break it.”
It wasn’t about the Fast, but it could have been.
Monday, I had a horrible day. My energy crashed about 3 pm, and I couldn’t get it back. I napped. I broke the Fast for coffee (very much trying to stay away from food for it), and I finally ended up eating, but nothing helped.
The next morning, I’m bright and shiny and happy, happy, happy to be eating breakfast before sunrise.
But something happened, and I broke it again. And again, and, if I recall correctly, once more again.
Oh, God and His mysterious ways again.
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