I think Jax felt inspired last week. He started a blog post for me and left me to it. However, I am finding the task a little harder than I thought it would be. But I find joy in the challenge and I feel that this will become and enjoyable hobby.
So what is this new devilry you ask?
Writing Book Reviews!!!
History
In a past life, I was a student. And man did I enjoy that time. I studied English/Literature at SUU and received my Bachelor’s Degree the December before I married Jax. I had begun looking at options for getting my Master’s Degree but motherhood was always my first goal and I have not regretted one minute of my decision to become a mom instead of a professor.
I have used my love of reading and writing a bit throughout the years, but nothing serious. My college professors turned me into a literary snob. It took me a number of years to read fun literature again. And truthfully, I still prefer a the classics 8 out of 10 times.
books, books, and more books
But as my children grew, I found I needed to read what they were reading so I could guide them towards the “better” books. I read all of the Narnia books with them, and spent years reading Magic Treehouse books. I tried Junie B. Jones and decided that she was not going to be allowed in my home; Ramona Quimby still holds my heart. We read Fablehaven as a family. And although I can’t stand Diary of A Wimpy Kid, I let the kids check them out and read them.
As you can imagine, my reading time is somewhat limited. Eight munchkins take time to raise. But I do manage to steal a few minutes a week to keep my mind agile. So when I finished my book last week, Jax asked me to write a review. “Sure! Sounds fun! How hard can it be?”
Very Hard
Did I mention I’m a literary snob? Well those same professors taught me to write essays, NOT reviews. Who cares how I feel? Back up all statements with quotes, facts, expert opinions. So after four or so drafts, Jax came to the rescue again. He gave me his version of a review based on my essay and I went from there.
So, that’s the plan. Read as much as I can and share my thoughts and feelings. Wish me luck!!!
It is time again for another doomed-to-fail weight loss attempt. Why Do I Do This To Myself?
It’s Glaringly Obvious!
Every time I look in a mirror, try to walk up a flight of stairs, or attempt to pick something up off of the ground, it is obvious why I need to lose weight. I’m a big, fat, slug of a man. The pain sucks. My back can’t handle the stress the weight causes. I’ve consistently gained 10lbs a year since getting injured. I don’t expect I could make it to my 50’s if don’t reverse course.
If I want to see my kids grow up or get married than I have to make weight loss a priority. If I would like to be able to remain mobile much longer than I must shed some pounds. I’d really love to be able to stop using my cane. If I continue to balloon then eventually my ankles, knees, or back will just give out and I’ll be in really bad shape. It should be glaringly obvious that if I want any quality of life that changes need to happen.
But I Also Have No Idea!
While it IS glaringly obvious that I need to lose weight, I simultaneously have no idea why I do this to myself. I have tried and failed so many time that I have no confidence that I can succeed. Does another attempt make any sense if I have anticipate failure? Yes, the results seem desirable and worth the effort; No, they don’t seem achievable.
But hey, would I really be “me” if I didn’t occasionally try insanely stupid things that seem doomed to failure from the beginning? Maybe it’s time for a “Here, hold my beer Sprite” type of moment.
Weight Loss Efforts
I will not be doing anything drastic. I will be trying to combine a small change in what I eat (my “diet”) with a small increase in exercise.
What I eat (diet)
I think the biggest effect could come from just a slight amount of self-control, namely, not eating or snacking after scriptures/bedtime for the kids. This usually happens around 9pm at our house, but I routinely consume a significant number of calories after this time. Eliminating this “after hours” eating could/should have the biggest impact on my weight loss.
I don’t usually have much of a breakfast, due mostly to morning back pain keeping me in bed until after normal breakfast hours. I know breakfast is “the most important meal of the day,” but this probably won’t change. My morning consumption however has already been changed from cereal or bacon/eggs into a fruit/veggie juice.
Julie and I bought a Champion Juicer that we love. We’ve had one for years (replaced after each fire). Julie has been making fresh juices for us most mornings as breakfast. The juicer tears apart the cells releasing the nutrients rich contents and eliminating the pulp/cell membrane.
A typical juice for two would include:
3 apples
1/10 of a pineapple
1/2 cup of mixed berries (blueberries, strawberry, raspberry, etc)
2 carrots
1/2 cucumber
1/2 stalk of celery
1 serving of some type of squash (zucchini, crook necked, etc)
small handful of spinach or kale (kale is bitter, use sparingly)
There are numerous books, websites, blogs, etc. that give you other recipes that are great. This one is kind of Julie’s go-to recipe. Just run it all through the juicer, stir, and enjoy. You can get a full days nutrients from just one glass of fresh juice. And it is easier than trying to eat that quantity of produce.
Exercise
This one has always been tough. The chronic pain makes everything hard. Combined with seeing how much ability I’ve lost, it becomes is very depressing. How do I overcome that?
I had always played a variety of sports that would have me running and jumping. But my weight and back problems don’t let me do either of those. AT ALL! Thankfully it is summer now, which provides an easy way to neutralize my massive weight: swimming.
Being in water relieves the stress that the weight puts on my body. It doesn’t hurt my leg joints nor my back. The plus side of having this much blubber is it’s buoyancy! The local Pleasant Grove pool is only open in summer, and so I am looking forward to taking advantage of our family pass.
The downside to swimming though is that in order to breath one must keep ones head out of the water. I’ve found that the arch in my back that this requires creates a more-than-acceptable level of pain. So in years past I haven’t swam either.
I’m ashamed to say it took me 9 years to solve the problem of breathing with my face underwater.
My magical breathe-under-water device. A snorkel and mask!
I don’t know why this “new technology” eluded me for so long, but I’m happy to say that I can now swim, pain free. Shoulder surgeries has left them weak which could be a problem with swimming too. Happily, I’ve found that also using fins give me plenty of propulsion to keep me at the surface without engaging my arms (the blubber helps too!).
So I can avoid back pain, rest my arms/shoulders when tired, and can get some exercise! I am thrilled and excited about this.
Optimism
I’m leery that something will go wrong. In the last few years something always seems to for me. But I am more cautiously optimistic. Not necessarily that I’ll lose weight, but that I can at least increase my activity level without a corresponding increase in pain.
If I can exercise, and if I can control what I eat, perhaps the weight loss will come. If weight loss can occur, perhaps the pain will decrease (or disappear?). And if I can be healthy and if the pain goes away, perhaps the depression/anxiety/PTSD will get better too. That is far too many if‘s for me to be hopeful, but maybe feeling doomed to failure isn’t realistic either.
So wish me luck. Words of encouragement are always welcome. Prayers are appreciated. Feel free to ask me how it is going. I need the accountability.
And please, stop running away and screaming when I take my shirt off at the pool. That could make a person feel bad you know 🙂
Not a moment too soon, school is out for the kids here in PG.
How It All Began!
I hope the kids don’t expect us to make each day as great as this one was. Their Aunt Jenni had a huge hand in making the day great. School ended at 10:30, and by 11:00 they were all soaking wet from water balloons, slip ‘n slide, kiddie pool, and eventually entire 5 gallon buckets of mayhem. It was awesome. The video didn’t do justice to that part of the day simply because my recording was so poor.
The pool was fun, but the wind made it a bit on the cool side. Only Caitlin and Joshua were there with their cousin. I got a LOT of video from that. Some of it good, much of it boring.
This summer will offer lots of time at the pool, and lots of time working. I’ll do what I can to give video whenever I have time or energy to do so.
It is the last week of school and we have been all over the place with activities.
Gymnastics
Last night we attended the gymnastics “showcase” for Kristie, Charlee, Nikki, and Andrew at Patterson’s Soft Landing Gymnastics. I have never been to an event like this and it was great fun for me to see what the kids have been working on and learning this year.
I thought they all did great! Of course I may be biased. They all progressed quite far throughout the year and I am really happy for them. Kristie was even offered a spot on one of their competition teams, but since we are moving she isn’t taking the spot.
The highlight for the night, at least for me, was watching Kristie easily climb their rope. It took about 20 seconds for her to get to the top of their 25 foot ceiling. I was impressed. Any time I have picked her up I’ve asked if they ever climb the rope and she has always said no. When asked afterward why she always told me no when she had obviously climbed it so well she said, “We haven’t practiced until just last week. We got to try and I climbed up it.” It was just that easy I guess.
Dance Event
One of today’s activities was the end of year Dance Festival at the elementary school. This has been a tradition there since Julie attended. Each grade practiced and preformed a dance routine for a large crowd of parents.
I know this event is popular and expected, but I’d rather have skipped it. The music was low and hard to hear. The choreography was repetitive (which is expected for a large group of little kids). And I don’t particularly like large crowds.
The kids were just one among a sea of others. Because my kids are so short they were often hard to see in the group. It was as good an event as I’ve ever seen it be, but still not a “must see” for me. Julie probably feels different about it.
Little Red Hen
Following the Dance Festival, Nikki was also involved in a class play of The Little Red Hen. I took Andrew home instead of attending. Julie went and said it was adorable. She needs to get some GoPro practice though because there was nothing in memory despite her claims she had the whole thing recorded.
Paying Tribute to the Porcelain King
And just to make this week a little bit more difficult, we have had illness going through the family. It started with Andrew and Steven on Sunday morning. Both vomited and earned a get-out-of-church-free pass. Sunday afternoon, after church, poor JR had his turn right in the middle of a family movie.
That passed just fine and we thought by Tuesday we were all in the clear. Then right in the middle of the gymnastics showcase Steven had two more episodes: once right in the middle of the seated crowd, and then again as Julie was carrying him outside. She got him outside and five minutes later he stated he wanted to go back in. Julie said, “you can’t. You’re sick.” “I’m not sick, I’m happy :)!”
That was yesterday. Last night it was Charlee’s turn. Caitlin woke us sometime after midnight to tell us that Charlee needed new bedding. Lovely.
Today was Lagoon day for the middle school and Caitlin was early anticipating going for her first time. She left the house all ready to go. About 20 minutes later she was on the phone telling us that she was ill to and fighting nausea. So she missed Lagoon. She didn’t vomit at all today, but Lagoon would have been a bad place to test the fortitude of your stomach.
Can Summer Begin Already?
I am more then ready for the school year, and this week, to be over. We have more than enough activities planned for us over the summer to keep us busy. Family reunions, remodeling a house, pool time, fishing, moving, and hopefully a trip to Martin’s Cove in WY to visit some friends on a mission there. We have activities galore planned, so let the fun begin!
Caitlin and Joshua are earning money beginning a summer campaign to raise some dough. If you haven’t heard about it, please check out the link!
Good for them!
The kids, with a bit of encouragement, have decided to start earning their own money for the summer. They are only 14 (Caitlin) and 12 (Joshua) but have a pretty good understanding of where things come from. They realize we can’t just go into a store and get things without offering up something of value in return (money). And because Julie and I have never operated on debt, the kids know that they need to have that money in advance.
They know that if they want go to movies, buy games, etc, that it takes money, and that that money must be earned in some way; either by themselves or somebody else on their behalf. They don’t think that money magically appears or that the world owes them anything.
Thankfully they are willing to get out, do some work, and provide services of value in order to earn the money they want to spend. I think they are admirable.
Kicking them out of the nest?
At some point in time every parent must decide when their kids must start earning money for themselves, instead of that parent continuing to earn money on the child’s behalf. We are not at that point yet. I know that my parents took care of me long past the ages of Caitlin and Joshua. Julie and I will keep doing the same for ours.
We are still providing for all of their necessities. We buy them school clothes, food, and other necessities. They haven’t been cut off financially. But due to our recent losses we aren’t in a position to provide many perks. They are at an age where those perks seem like necessities and they would like more than just enough to keep them alive. So they have chosen to earn more.
Now there are obviously things that they can’t afford in advance that we are willing help them with. For example, we signed up all of the kids for swimming lessons this summer. We also bought a full season pass for the pool. For a family of our size you might imagine those cost a fair amount of money.
Caitlin and Josh both agreed they wanted to do those things and they were willing to pay their share of the cost. Rather than make them miss some of the summer trying to earn the money first, we covered the cost, they will pay us back, and they will get to enjoy the full summer’s worth of activities.
Drawbacks
I hope that none manifest themselves, but I have some concerns about kids earning money.
I’d hate for the kids to view all of our/their acquaintances as potential customers. I want the kids to be kind and friendly with people because they are good people (which they are!), and not because they see them as somebody they can earn a few dollars from. Being good people needs to be first and foremost.
I don’t want them to “learn” that life is all about money. It isn’t! It never has been for Julie and I and I don’t want the kids to think so. Money is a useful tool for providing things in life, but it isn’t the goal of life. You don’t get a gold star for dying with the most money or having the most toys. I want them to do this as a means to an end, rather than seeing money as the end itself.
This was a popular bumper sticker and T-shirt in the 80’sBut this more accurately reflects the truth!
I don’t want friends/neighbors/relatives to have a bad experience. They are kids, and if they mess something up I don’t want to have any bad feelings develop amongst people we know. I don’t expect this to happen and that problem could be handled with some customer service skills.
I don’t want people to feel obligated to support them. I don’t want them to resent being asked. If you want bread, please order it. If not, please don’t do so because of guilt. They need to learn to accept rejection as well.
I don’t want them to think that Mom and I aren’t willing to take care of them. Sure, we are expecting some financial hardship, but I don’t want the kids to think that they are a burden on us, or are the cause of the issues.
I don’t want them to ruin their childhood. They only have a few short years of youth. I don’t want this to take up so much of their time that they don’t have time to play with friends, enjoy the pool, go to movies, etc. I am still willing to let them be kids.
Your experiences
What have you seen or experienced? I would love to hear some stories about when your children first started earning money. How did it go? Did it change them? For good or for ill? How could YOU have done better? How did you talk to them or teach them?
