Urban Panther's Lair

Learning to slow down and repeat

Okay, I've completed Week Two of the 100 Push Up Challenge. And I should be able to move onto Week Three, but I had to pass a test first. I had to be able to do a minimum of sixteen push ups.

Twelve.

Yep, I got as far as twelve.

This is where I normally quit. My usual approach is ...

Week One, Week Two, Week Three, Week Four, Week Five, Weeks Six ... I WIN!!!!!

I DO NOT repeat things. As a matter of fact, I am used to skipping steps.

Heck, I skipped the whole of Grade 8.

Follow a race training schedule to the letter? Puh-leeze!

I took piano lessons as an adult until it got hard, then I quit.

You see, normally I am focused on getting to the end, as quickly as possible. And if it is going to take time and effort, forgetta-bout-it.

But, I am changing my ways. Oh yes! Now I am taking the time to figure out what I am really getting out of an undertaking.

In this case, I am developing a strong and shapely upper body.

The milestone for this challenge happens to be one hundred consecutive push ups. And the training schedule is divided into six routines.

It does NOT mean I have to complete the six routines in six weeks. It simply means I need to work my way through the routines until I get to one hundred push ups. Which may mean, heck does mean, repeating some of the routines to continue building strength.

And progress is evident. I started only being able to complete three push ups. I am now up to fourteen.

I am going to do this!

100 Push Up Challenge Stats

Day 1 - 3    Day 5 - 11
Day 2 - 5    Day 6 - 11
Day 3 - 6    Day 7 - 14
Day 4 - 9

I love me inside and out

Recently I wrote a post on discovering the existence of menstrual cups, and the subsequent purchase of the DivaCup. I jokingly wrote a warning to the gentlemen, in case they wanted to run away and not read any further.

It never it my wildest dreams occured to me that the females in the audience would be horrified with the topic! But, judging from some comments, some women were.

Was it the idea of having to empty a cup full of bodily fluids?

I am not into bodily fluids myself. I refuse to watch any movie where most of the gag jokes involve snot, vomit, and, well, other stuff. Sorry, I just don't find that funny. And I am very far removed from the baby stage of parenting, so runny noses on toddlers tend to make me squeamish.

However, when it comes to my own health, and natural body processes, I am not the least bit concerned. As a matter of fact, I make it a point to be tuned into my body, including the health of my bodily excretions.

Is my urine the right colour? Is there blood or mucus in my bowel movements? Do I clearly have a sinus infection?

And in the case of my menstrual flow, is it heavy? Light? Full of clots?

All these bodily fluids are natural. They are all normal. They are all NECESSARY.

Or, was it the idea of actually having to insert something inside of yourself, and stick your fingers up there?

I love my body. ALL of my body. I know exactly what every part of me feels like and looks like, inside and out. And yes, if I can't see it directly, I have grabbed a mirror and checked it out.

Again, it's a matter of health awareness. If I don't know what it's supposed to look and feel like, how would I know if something is wrong?

But, it's also a part of honouring being female. My soft skin. My curves. My folds. My freckles. My wrinkles. And yes, I am going to say it, my moist areas.

No part of me is shameful, gross, or off limits.

Every bit of me, inside and out, makes me the woman I am.

Babies have no trouble checking out their own bodies. At some point this changes. When? And why?

My children are very strange

My children are very strange. And I am including children-in-law in that statement.

To recap who my children are, they are:
Daughter One (D1) - age 24
Daughter Two (D2) - age almost 23
Only Son (OS) - age 21
Little Lion (LL) - age almost 11; biologically not mine, but still one of my cubs.

So, anyway, Saturday night I'm sitting in the kitchen with the Lion, D1, and her boyfriend J-Rock. J-Rock keeps looking across the house and out the front windows with a puzzled expression on his face. FINALLY he says

"It's not snowing, so it's strange that there are flashing lights outside the house. And really odd because snow plows don't normally have red lights."

This, of course, peaked the Lion's curiosity, who went to check it out.

"Come quick," the Lion yelled, "one of the Yahoos' vans is on fire!"

Okay, J-Rock had been staring out the window puzzled for quite awhile, but didn't say anything.

Strange young man.

Now, before I go any further, I realize that fires are not normally something to take lightly. They are destructive and devastating. However, in this case, the van was very old, nobody was injured AND the Yahoos are the local hoodlums, and not exactly considerate neighbours.

Needless to say, we all rushed to check out the action. Three police cruisers, three fire trucks, an emergency response vehicle, all the neighbours on our front lawn, and flames and sparks shooting everywhere!

That's when D1 burst out

"This is the best Valentine's Day EVER!"

Not because of flowers, or chocolates, or romance. Nope! A van fire.

Strange young woman.

When it all started to die down, a firetruck pulled in front of the house blocking our view. Eventually, it slowly moved forward, unblocking our view, causing the Little Lion to exclaim

"Oh mon dieu, my house is so beautiful. Waaaaaaaa"

He was reenacting a scene out of Extreme Home Makeover, when they move the big truck and reveal the newly renovated house.

Strange little boy.

Then D1 gets on chat, to be chewed out by D2.

"Where are you? I've been trying to get a hold of you!"

"I'm stuck at Mummers'. The police and firemen won't let us leave."

After determining that all was well, D2 says

"I expect a full interpretative dance of the events tomorrow when I see you."

Not, I want to hear all about it. Not, you will have to give me all the details. Nope. I expect a full interpretative dance of the events.

Strange young woman.

D2 was serious, and D1 knew it, so she started working on her dance recital right there and then. Rapid movements for flames and sparks flying. Slow gliding motions for the firemen slipping on the ice. Gyrations for the propane tank that was trapped inside the van and causing it to rock furiously before the tank went shooting out the front windshield.

And trust me, if OS had been here, we would have gotten a complete and hysterically funny Man On The Street blow by blow commentary as the events unfolded.

Yes, my children are very strange.

I have NO IDEA where they get their odd approach to life.

Do you?

 

Maid, Mother, Crone family tree

The Maid, Mother, Crone family tree is fleshing out. So, before I dig more into the lives of Moira, Charlotte and Margaret, I will recap the stories to date, with a hierarchy of whose who.

Moira

Broken star
A state of awareness
Dancing

is mother to Charlotte

The struggle
Wildflowers
The hospital visit

who is mother to Margaret

Faerie glasses
Birch bark

Margaret is married to Michael

The pond test
Snow angels

While, Charlotte lives with 'him'

Toast crumbs

Michael's father is George

The train platform

who is also father to Dorothy

The agenda

Enjoy! The saga continues next week.

Six degrees to my childhood idol

Then Thursdays have been a bit heavy duty lately, so let's lighten it up.  With ... say ... Elton John.

Grade Seven and boy oh boy, did I have a crush on Elton John. I mean talk about an exotic creature with those platform boots, wild costumes, and funky glasses.

And his music! Seriously, I got to legitimately say the word bitch at the top of my lungs. After all, how else could I do justice to The Bitch is Back?

I knew everything about him. Of course, those were the days before the Internet and google. I had to rely on teen magazines to get all my facts and images.

(Yes, that's right young'uns. There was a day before the Internet and google.)

Reginald Kenneth Dwight. Lord, I'd switch my name to Elton John too. I mean, no offense to any other Reginald Kenneth Dwights out there, but it doesn't exactly scream rock star.

Adopted the name John, from Long John Baldry. How cool is that? He took his name from a pirate!

Oh ya, I belonged to his fan club and fired off letters of admiration. This was the day before emails.

(Yes, that's right young'uns. There was a day before emails.)

I had all his albums. LONG PLAY albums. VINYL.

(Yes, that's right young'uns. There was a day before compact discs and mp3s.)

And I had a legal sized notepad, in which I wrote an ongoing story of my life with Elton John. Wrote with a pen on paper.

(Yes, that's right young'uns. There was a day before keyboards and Word.)

Now, before your mind drifts off to places it shouldn't, I was never his girlfriend in my stories. I was his sister. Come on! The man is sixteen years older than me. That would have made him in his late twenties! Frig, that was OLD. Ew gross!

Nope, I so wasn't dating the man. Note even in my imagination. Never mind the fact that there was that whole bisexual thing going on. Whatever that meant, but I knew it had something to do with whom he preferred to date.

(Yes, that's right young'uns. There was a day when twelve year olds didn't actually know a lot about sexual preferences.)

But, I desperately wanted to be a part of his life, so I became his sister in my fantasies.

And it was all good. Until my stinky little brothers found my stories, read them, and mocked me.

Thus ended my life with Elton.

Sigh.

And now I live vicariously through Alex, whose good friend's parents belong to the same country club as Elton's spouse, David. Which makes me within the six degrees of separation to Elton.

I can live with that.

Who did you idolize as a kid?

A health epiphany

For today's Weigh-In Wednesday, I promised I would discuss the fitness tasks I assigned myself. And I will, briefly, at the bottom of this post. However, I have had a health epiphany which I feel is extremely important to share.

I do not get enough sleep.

Yep, it's as simple and as complex as that.

I started experimenting with getting more sleep during the weekday, and OH.MY.GOODNESS. does it ever make a world of difference!  It's like night and day (sorry, couldn't resist).

Allow me to walk you through the some of the known symptoms of lack of sleep and how they affect me.

Weight gain

In the year that I have been following the get up insanely early schedule I have gone from 128 pounds to 138 pounds. That is TEN POUNDS, people!

Immune system impairment

In this last year, I have had colds, flu symptoms, and a general sense of malaise. In the past, I so rarely got sick, you might as well say I never got sick.

Lack of motivation/sleepiness

By the afternoon each day, I might as well not be at work. All I can do is stare at the computer screen.

Depression/anxiety

Okay, this is the big one. Most mornings I get up, and start my day with a lump in my throat. My brain goes all foggy, and all I want to do is shut down, and crawl back into bed. By the time I get to work, I am pretty much toast.

And here's where I really figured out I need more sleep.

A couple of times in the past week, I have slept an extra hour. And each time, I bounced out of bed completely energized and ready to take on the day.

And get this! I head off to work chipper, eager, and downright happy about the EXACT SAME JOB I have been dreading for the past year.

I go to bed between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m., so I realistically cannot go to bed any earlier. Not if I want to actually get anything done in the evening. Which means, I have to get up later in the morning.

This is going to take some changes to the Lion's and my routine, which we will have to discuss.

We currently carpool, and are tied to daycare requirements. I am hoping we can work something out where we can still carpool. However, if we can't then we can't.

My health must come first.

As for my fitness tasks, my first one is following the 100 Push Up Challenge. While I work through this challenge, I will post my push up progress. That will be my focus of my stats, so I will only be posting my weight/measurement stats at 25/50/75/100 push up achievements.

100 Push Up Challenge Stats

Full plank push ups - I can only do 1. I am going to keep attempting more, but the challenge can also be undertaken using the 'from the knees' push ups.

So, from the knee push ups, here are my maximums:
Day 1 - 3
Day 2 - 5
Day 3 - 6
Day 4 - 9

Fell down went BOOM

Ya, okay, so I didn't go cross-country skiing on Sunday like I said I would. So, once again, the whole skiing thing shows up as a Terrible Tuesday instead of a Marvelous Monday.

Why?

Because I fell down went BOOM. That's right, BEFORE I went skiing.

There I was, up bright and early, pleased to see a nice sunny day. Perfect for skiing.

The Lion and I like to start our weekend mornings sipping espresso in our hot tub. So, we got up all energized, and get ready for tubbing.

The Lion went outside first to uncover the tub, while I brewed up some freshly roasted espresso. Then out I went.

And that's when it happened.

Apparently, it rained the night before, then froze. I placed my first foot on the step. Then I placed my second foot on the step, somehow causing my first foot to come out from underneath me.

It was all very graceful.

Down I went, BOOM BOOM, and I was sprawled on my back in my robe and slippers on the ice.

It was also very silent.

The whole time I was going for my slip sliding adventure, the Lion was uncovering the tub, completely oblivious to my plight.

He turned around to find me spread eagle on the ground, scrambling to right myself.

"You slipped?", he asked.

"No, no. Just thought I'd have a little lie down before getting into the tub."

Okay, I didn't actually say that, but it sort of popped into my head.

The bad news is, one of my slippers had come off as my feet were coming out from under me, and I badly bruised the bottom of my foot on the edge of the icy step.

The good news is, I saved my grandmother's porcelain demi-tasse AND most of the coffee.

The other other good news is, I was not naked. Sometimes I am naked going out to the tub. That just would have been too much. A naked me spread out on the ice like a filleted fish.  Not pretty.

So, we did not go skiing.

But the skis still look very decorative on their rack in the front hall.

So, that was my Sunday. How was yours?

Creating a new story

This is the story of a little girl who had adults mistake her for a little boy.

This is the story of a twelve year old girl, told by a twelve year old boy that she was too butch to consider going out with.

This is the story of a teenage girl who never got asked to a single dance or out on a single date.

This is the story of young woman, who when she dressed up nicely was chided for dressing like a bitch in heat.

This is the story of a woman in her early forties who was told after sixteen years with a man, that he was madly in love with another woman, and had been for ten years.

This is the story of a female who never heard a man tell her that she was beautiful, sexy, and desirable.

Until this woman met an incredible man.

But by then, serious damage had been done.

In fact,

This is the story of me.

And I thought I had it all under control.

That I knew how beautiful, sexy, and desirable I am. Except Friday night, during a philosophical discussion with two very dear friends, I had a complete panic attack. I had to cut the evening short and go home, because I was physically sick to my stomach, and thought I was going to faint.

Why?

Because the conversation forced me to face my fears.

Fears that it's all a sham, and the Lion is going to figure out I'm not really beautiful, sexy and desirable.

I honestly thought I had it all under control.

But I controlled my fear by building a fantasy world. One in which there are no other women in the Lion's life. No ex-wife. No ex-girlfriends. No female friends of any way, shape, or form.

Works fine except when the ex-wife phones. Or the Lion mentions a restaurant he had been to with a former girlfriend. Or says something about a much younger female friend. And then fear rises up in me like bile. And I have to force it back down.

Well, I've had enough!

When evenings have to be cut short, because of stimulating conversations with wonderful friends, it's time to look the fear right in the eyes, and tell it to go Hades.

It's time to stop giving power to all those silly young boys, teenage males, and insecure men.

It's time to stop missing out on the now, because of the then.

So ...

This is the story of a woman who is leaving the past in the past.

This is the story of a woman who really trusts the incredible man she is blessed with.

This is the story of a woman who is beautiful, sexy and desirable.

In fact,

This is the story of me.

What new story would you like to write?

The hospital visit

Charlotte's best friend, the one who had stuck with her through thick and thin, was in the hospital. Apparently, her friend was now on the mend from the pneumonia, but Charlotte desperately wanted to see for herself.

The problem was, Charlotte was struggling to get out the door and off to the hospital. The last time she was there was for her mother.

Charlotte grasped her mug of tea, feeling the warmth of the pottery, and trying to sooth herself with the smell of ginger.

Her mind drifted back to that day, and it unfolded as if she were watching a movie reel ...

Charlotte stood outside the intensive care unit willing herself to pick up the phone. She needed to check with ICU reception to see if she could visit her mother now. But what she really wanted to do was run.

Run down the cold antiseptic halls.

Run past the gift shop filled with helium balloons, stuffed animals, and cards offering false hope.

Run past the wane and pinched faces of those waiting in the emergency ward.

Run out the door, across the parking lot, and into her car.

What kind of daughter didn't want to visit her dying mother in the hospital? For Moira was dying. Her ancient body was saying no more. It was tired. And it was time to shut down.

The type of daughter who had left too many things unsaid.

The type of daughter who hadn't told her mother she loved her in over forty years.

The type of daughter who was afraid she still wouldn't be able to say it, even now.

"Who are you here to see, dear?"

Charlotte whirled around with a start. A plump, pretty nurse was smiling at her.

"Oh, um Moira Adair."

"Along you come, then. You can see her now."

This left Charlotte no choice. She couldn't very well tell the nurse she had changed her mind. The horror of having to admit to someone that she didn't want to visit her dying mother was unthinkable. All she could do was meekly follow the nurse through the doors.

She stood at the foot of her mother's bed. Was Moira always that small? She had such an effusive personality, that she normally appeared larger than she actually was.

But lying there, sedated, and surrounded by an overwhelming array of monitors, and machines, she simply looked tiny.

"Oh dear," tsked the nurse, "her hair isn't combed. We can't have that now, can we? Would you like to do it?"

The nurse thrust the comb in Charlotte's direction, and she took an involuntary step backwards.

"Oh, um, no, that's okay," she mumbled.

Combing her mother's hair just seemed so tender ...

... and intimate ...

Ginger ... the smell of the tea brought Charlotte back to the here and now. She put down her mug, and wiped the tears from her eyes.

Then she grabbed the car keys off the table, and swept out of the house with determination.

She had left the hospital that day, without telling her mother that she loved her.

Her friend was on the mend, but Charlotte was damned if she was going to let someone else she cared about lie in a hospital bed without knowing how much she was loved.

When did I change? Or did I?

Davina, over at Shades of Crimson, did an interesting exercise. She took a photograph of herself as a child, then did comparisons of herself then and now.

This exercise jumped out at me, because just the other day I was sorting through old photographs. I found a series of public school shots. Now, I have ALWAYS thought of myself as a geeky, awkward, unattractive child. But as I was looking at the pictures of myself, I was shocked to see a cute, fun little girl smiling back!

When did I stop thinking of myself as geeky, awkward and unattractive and start thinking of myself as pretty and fun?

Well, I am going to try Davina's exercise and see if I can answer that question.

1. The sun always shone in my world

You would think that this would be a good thing, living in a sunny world. And it was. Until I actually had to interact with people. Some people, it seems, are not very nice. Some even downright cruel. And I had no coping skills whatsoever as a child. I would become overwhelmed and withdraw. I would mourn the loss of the sun.

Now the sun still shines in my world, but I recognize that there are complete solar eclipses, and rain clouds, and fog, and yes, even icky smog, in the form of nasty people and events that can block out the sun. But now I know that the sun will reappear, bright and beautiful as ever. And while I'm waiting for its return, I have tools for dealing with those sun blockers.

2. I had an unusual fashion sense

I did not dress like the other kids. Sure, I had the same articles of clothing as they did, but I put them together differently, and with different accessories. And while they were good quality, and quite often lovingly made by my mother, they certainly weren't trendy. This equated to not being like the others. Never a good thing as a child, where being homogenous is the goal.

Now I am thrilled to live in Quebec. The fashion is far more European. There is a flair and raw sexiness to it, that you don't find in English Canada. I have finally come into my own fashion-wise, and I have the self-confidence to pull it off. And I love my unique style.

3. I wasn't up on the latest music

I had no idea who Donny Osmond was, and the first time I heard him, I thought he was a girl. The Jackson Who? I was listening to Burl Ives and the songs of Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne. They were ballads. They told stories. But they also meant I couldn't participate in pop culture conversations, or giggle over the latest heart throb. Seriously, Burl Ives might be an excellent balladeer, but he is not the least bit attractive!

Now I still don't know who's who, and rarely listen to the radio. I do sing celtic and American folk, and I sing them with depth because they tell songs, and I am a story teller. And the Lion is introducing me to Quebec folk. Okay, some of it is rather odd (I'm a frog, feed me peanuts?), but a lot of it also tells beautiful stories that I am starting to understand.

I could go on and on with comparisions but I'll end there, because I have discovered in this process that I am the same being now as I was as that little girl.

And I understand, that while I was struggling to find my place in this world, I could only see that little girl as geeky, awkward and unattractive. But now, I embrace who I am with loving arms. And I have surrounded myself with people who also embrace who I am with loving arms.

Which means I can look back at that little girl and see her for what she really was. A cute, fun little girl just waiting for her time to come.

Take a look at your photograph of yourself as a child. Do just one comparison of yourself then and yourself now. What did you discover?