Little steps

Slowly but surely, I'm finally starting to fulfill the promises I made to myself when I started this blog. Here's a recap of what I've been up to for the past couple weeks.

First and foremost, I started doing something I've been wanting to do FOREVER but never got around to until now: yoga! Tonight was only my second class with Andrea at Clarity Yoga and Wellness, but I already love it. My only regret is that I didn't start sooner. Clarity is just a block away from my office, so it's the perfect opportunity to drop in after work before heading home. I'll regularly be attending an intro class called Gentle Yoga on Mondays to get used to the poses and breathing, and hopefully work up to more classes in the future. In the meantime, I want to supplement with Youtube yoga other days of the week.

What I love so far is the noticeable difference I already feel in my body. After yoga today I don't have any lower back pain, which is something I've been struggling with for several months. My neck has bothered me with occasional pain since I was a kid, but all the tension is gone after class. My limbs feel looser, I walk a little lighter, and my posture is straighter. It's awesome. The instructor even came up to me before I left and gave me an incredibly kind compliment about my good form despite being a beginner. Before I even had a chance to assume she said that to everyone, she assured me that she doesn't say it to everyone, and tries to be sincere in her compliments to students so they know they're doing a good job. That was nice, and needed.

One thing I didn't count on was how difficult it can be. On TV and in pictures it just looks like sitting and standing with your arms held up at different angles. It's actually a bit more complicated than that because you have to align your body properly in each pose so the muscles stretch the right way without injury. It's tempting to want to get out of the pose early when I get tired. But since I want to improve my form, it's kind of fun to mentally challenge myself to hold the poses as long as I can and push past the discomfort I start to feel. This must be what other exercise is like. Huh. Who'da thunk.

Besides yoga, I've also started (gradually) getting more active in other ways. I FINALLY got a new pair of boxing gloves that don't hurt my hands, so I've been hitting the bag more often. On nights I don't feel like walking (all of them), Chris encourages me to take the dogs with him around the block, even if it's just a quarter mile. We've been working in the garden more too, which brings me to my next point ... healthy eating!

Okay, I'm the worst at sticking to a healthy diet. I'll be doing really well for a few days, and then bam! Pizza for every meal. (A.k.a. Saturday.) But having produce from my own garden and my mom's has kind of forced me to get more creative with vegetables since I don't want our hard-earned work to go bad. And then when I cook and eat healthy, it makes me want to shop healthy. On the flip side, when I get done doing healthy activities like yoga, I want to eat something afterward that's good for me. THEN, after I've gotten in some exercise and had a nutritious meal, it makes me want to be productive around the house instead of laze on the couch. It's all connected. I'm slowly getting it now.

To maintain my diet improvements, I've started keeping a food journal again. I'm not going to count calories because let's be real, it's a pain in the ass. But having a visual reminder of what I have eaten is a good way to push myself in a better direction. Writing out that I faltered a lot in one day kinda sucks (e.g. The Day of Pizza referenced earlier), but it motivates me to do better the next day. Or at least try.

My journey to self improvement isn't just physical. Ever since I graduated from college I've been frustrated by my lack of interest in reading. Chris is a library fiend and has new books every week, but even when I've tried checking out things that seem interesting, I barely crack them. However, I think I might have found the book that could change all that! And it's about a brutal, sadistic serial killer. Lovely.

But really though, "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson has been on my reading list for several years. It's a true story that juxtaposes the construction and execution of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair with the sinister activities of notorious killer H.H. Holmes. In college I either didn't have time for it or was too chicken to start it. Chris brought it home randomly last week and I decided to steal it from him. One of my best ideas all year. The story is captivating for sure, but it's also beautifully written. I still can't seem to sit down and read for long stretches of time like I used to, but I try to read at least a little bit every day. I can tell this will only improve the longer I do it.

And to round off this entry, a few more random happenings to jot down. Firstly, I had my five year high school reunion this past weekend. It was ... weird. In a pleasant kind of way. Seeing acquaintances I hadn't talked to since graduation actually was pretty fun, and it was nice to catch up with them. It also gave me an opportunity to hang out with close friends I don't get to see very often, which is always a pleasure.

Tomorrow morning I'm going on our news station's 7:00 morning show to talk about Josephine magazine. I'm not really looking forward to it. Tune in if you want. Or don't. Actually, I'd rather you didn't.

I have my endocrinology follow-up next week and hopefully that will provide me with some answers and solutions to my ongoing health issues. I'm not worried about a diagnosis. I'm more concerned with wanting to prove to my doctors that I'm finally taking my weight loss seriously. My primary doctor has high hopes for me, so I appreciate her support. My endocrinologist ... well, he's another story. Hopefully it's a quick in and out so I don't have to sit through him silently judging me for too long.

Lastly, I found out last night that one of my coworkers died suddenly over the weekend, possibly due to complications from a motorcycle crash he had in early July. It was a very unexpected loss and I'm struggling to understand it, as are most of the others in the newsroom. I always hate when something tragic happens so close to home. He was a smart, funny, good natured guy who was always willing to answer my questions and lend a hand when I needed help. I didn't know Paul well, but I did know that he loved cars, motorcycles, "The Big Lebowski" and The Cranberries. I secretly admired that he was married to a veterinarian because that was my childhood dream job, and it was fun to imagine that I was one degree of separation closer to that occupation. (Ugh, I get it, I'm a dork.) When I once wrote a brief magazine entry about my favorite way to cook eggs (Gordon Ramsay style, obviously), he came to my desk the day after he designed the page and told me they were the best eggs he ever had. I made some for breakfast this morning in his honor. He was a good man and he will be missed by the News-Press.

How accidentally punching a dude in the groin turned into true love, and other life lessons

Hello, readers! Miss me yet?!

I'm pretty sure the past five blog posts have started with me offering an apology for not writing as often as I should and promising to do better. I'm not going to do that in this one because clearly I don't keep promises very well. What I will do is offer a brief explanation, albeit a lame one.

The past month or so has been a bit of a personal emotional rollercoaster for me, which culminated in a three-month follow-up with my primary doctor a few days ago. (Details about that to follow at a later date.) I've been allowing myself to get too stressed out about my weight, my health, my finances, my messy house, and really any other minor thing that can start eating at a person after a while. This caused me to abandon blogging mainly because I couldn't be bothered to do it. Any time I would think about sitting down and writing something new, my brain would go, "Eeeehhhhh, better not. Let's watch Netflix instead."

But I've decided to snap out of it and refocus my goals for the rest of the year. Returning to this page to purge my brain of all these worries and cares probably will be a cleansing activity, and following through with writing new posts will help me stay motivated to complete other activities. (I just bought a new pair of boxing gloves, and I'm going to my first yoga class next Monday! Eek!)

While I could dedicate this post to my continuing weight loss journey, I'm not going to. I have another appointment or two to get through before I'll feel ready to share what diagnosis and future plans. (Don't worry, it's nothing major.) Instead, I want to write about something a little mushy but much more interesting. To me, anyway. It might not be interesting to you, but if that's the case you can stop reading. *blows raspberry*

Five-ish years ago, I started working in the kitchen at Hy-Vee. My sister got me the job and I was excited to be working with her. But she quickly ceased to be my favorite coworker when I was introduced to a goofy guy wearing a smiley-face tie who always seemed up to no good. His name was Chris.

At the time, let's just say he was 'unavailable.' Which wouldn't have mattered anyway, because back then my fail-proof method of dealing with crushes was to avoid them like the plague and forget how to talk when they were within speaking distance. Yeah ... I wasn't a good flirt. (I've now learned from multiple sources that I sometimes came across as bitchy and stuck up when I was younger. But really, I just never knew how to interact with handsome fellas like a normal person. I was shy! Is that a crime?!)

So, I was content to admire him from afar ... until one fateful day when everything changed.

I tend to swing my arms when I walk. One night at work I was passing by a doorway I thought was unoccupied, when all of a sudden someone comes bounding through. Before I could stop it, my fist made direct contact with his crotch. I'm assuming it was painful, given the amount of time it took for him to regain composure after doubling over. I wanted to look for somewhere to hide, but all I could manage was a rapid-fire "Oh my gosh, I am so so so sorry!"

Once he got over the initial pain, he could have decided to laugh it off and let the rest of the night commence without incident. If only. Instead, he taped a plastic to-go bowl to his crotch and loudly announced his presence anytime I got near him, complete with beeping truck noises and arm flailing. (I could be making up that last part, but I wouldn't put it past him.)

I was mortified. But also secretly pleased, because hey, this cute and funny guy is finally paying attention to me! Still, that day will go down in infamy as one of the moments I will never be able to live down.

That, and the time I tumbled down the concrete stairs at a Central football game when I was a freshman. My friends called me Roly Poly the rest of the year. Man, I was just the coolest.


Anyway. The months went by, he eventually became 'available,' yada yada yada, a handful of years later and here we are.

I'm writing all this mushiness because I'm SO thankful that that humorous night has led to where we are today. While I know my indecision and weight frustration and emotions are probably difficult for him to navigate, he does so with ease and grace. He always knows the right thing to say when I'm feeling down and he always makes me feel beautiful, important, and special.

You'll never know when or where you might meet the one person who is the exact person you need in your life. For me that's doubly true. Chris and I didn't start dating until almost a year after the "incident", and in that time any number of things could have happened to push us off course. But it didn't.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that there are some parts of my life that I don't like, but those will never take away the fact that I have so much to be thankful for -- starting with my husband. I also have a loving family, supportive friends, a steady job, a cute little house, a safe neighborhood, and a welcoming church I can finally call home. It's time to start focusing on the positives again!