Running Week 1

So far I’ve kept up with the running/yoga goal, and it feels very good. Running MWFSa, Yoga, TuThSu.

When I was just walking, I felt like I had trouble with pacing. I walked the same amount of time every day, but would walk drastically different distances each day. The first day of running, I felt like my running pace was awkward and elusive, but during the walking intervals, my pace was immediately comfortable and steady. Like falling into a groove.

The second day of running, I found a running groove too.

While I feel winded at the end of each running interval, I’m not reduced to excessive panting and gasping, and am able to recover a normal breath within a couple of minutes.

The first couple of days I had no soreness, but this weekend I find that all of my muscle ends are a little sore. Lower Leg, Lower Thigh, and a smidge in left ankle (which I twisted in a non-running accident). Ankle injury didn’t affect running ability, so long as I was careful of my footing. And the overall running soreness is really mild, not a deterrant at all.

The only troublesome consequence so far has been headaches. I run late afternoon or early evening, and on each run day, I get a migrainey headache around bedtime. Poking around on the net, it looks like it could be an exertion headache, perhaps helped by careful stretching of neck and shoulders. I’ve had migraines before, and it could be that the shift in circulation and pressure is bringing them on. The headaches could also be resulting from shifts in caffeine and sugar consumption following the Season of the Nutritional Abyss. I’ve returned to pre-holiday eating patterns, and my body may be adjusting to more sane levels of caffeine and sugar. If the headaches persist through this week, I’ll see the doc to check them out. And try not be lured by worrying about the worst-case scenario offered on the medical web sites. lol

It’s very empowering to discover that I’m capable of running like this. I have a lot more energy, and aside from the occasional flare-up of identity panic, I feel calm and positive about a lot of things in a different way than I can remember for a while.

Next time: Teacher Meme

Aspirations and Fear

I realized this week—to my surprise and confusion—that I still aspire. Not the breathing-in kind of aspiring. The hoping-to-achieve kind.

It’s been nearly eight (!) years since my first child was born, and five years (!!) since I left graduate school and payroll work. Only one of my three kids is in school right now. I have two-and-a-half years to get all three of them there. But that point is suddenly close enough that I can see the reality of it. Close enough that all of those things I said I might do when all three kids are in school are now barrelling toward me more quickly than I expected.

I thought I’d be ready for this. The decision to leave grad school and paid work was gut-wrenching for me. I knew, though, that my children would only be small for so long, and it was important to me to be their primary caregiver through their earliest years. And that one day they would go to school, and at that point I would figure out some other professional me to be.

As I see that point coming closer, I find myself unready. Unsteady. Terrified. And exhilerated with the possibilities.

Some of you might say it’s the anxiety about the babies growing up. And there is some of that of course. But I trust them, and while I will sigh nostalgically over their baby selves, I also know that their growing selves will be just as interesting and sigh-worthy.

No, the anxiety and excitement and confusion is about me. About my self-identity. The caring for my very small children is important to me. I would not have left grad school if I didn’t feel that the care of their early selves was the most important work I could do for them. Them going to school, though, provides me with the time to begin to rebuild my individual identity, the one that is separate from my children. It is very unlikely to be the same me that I was before I was a mama, though there are still big chunks of that fierce girl (a feminist intellectual, determined to fight The Man, and make new knowledge) left in me. It is very unlikely to be completely disentangled from the mama-me either. I AM someone’s mama now.

How will those bits of fierce girl and fierce mama fit together? And what other pieces will fit in there? Who will I be and what will I do?

For a full 24 hours this week I decided that I wanted to get an Accounting Degree and become a CPA. This seemed like a very reasonable thing to want to be. I would study for a few years, and be virtually assured a steady job with steady pay that would allow me to support my family in the event of catastrophe, or to allow my husband to take a turn away from the payroll as the before-and-after-school parent.

Ha.

I don’t really want to be an Accountant (though, seriously, all of the numbers and the puzzle of making them make sense does seriously appeal to that hyper-organized, A-personality, keener part of me). I want to be a writer. But boy oh boy is that scary.

Look, if I became an Accountant, I’d have to put in the work (and the money) to be a student for a few years, but at the end of it I have no reason to doubt that I’d get a reasonable job. To become a writer, I’ll likely have to put in some hard work for a few years, producing readable, publishable material, but there is no virtual guarantee at the end. The work might suck. Or the market might be resistant. From what I hear the publishing industry is hard. This lot-of-work-for-no-guaranteed-return is scary. Make-me-think-about-Accounting scary. Shake-in-my-boots-and-make-me-want-to-overhyphenate-everything scary.

Two trusted people poked me just the right way at just the right time. I remembered that scary isn’t always bad. If I wanted to avoid the unexpected and the difficult, I’d never have become a parent. If I wanted an opportunity to CREATE (which, as you might notice, I love to do) anything like new knowledge or understanding, I could do it with writing. If I wanted to try to pick up and rail against The Man, I could do it with writing. I can write in the space between packing the kids off to school and greeting them with a snack. I could write and find a balance point between the two.

While I’m not a big one for doing things to please other people, it did help, this week, to have two people point out to me in their own unique ways, that they do want to read what I write. That they do want me to give it my best shot. And that no decision has to be made RIGHT NOW. I still have a little time.

But I think I’ve already decided. And here it goes. One baby step at a time. I will try to add Professional Writer to my list of personal descriptors.

Deep Breath.

*****
P.S. Today R and C were involved in an incident that resulted in a spectacular head bonk for C. He has a goose egg on his forehead the size of Manhattan Island, otherwise he is ok. We’ll check on him a few times tonight. In the moment of the trauma, I acted exactly as I had to. Did all of the things I was supposed to do at the right times. Soothing, icing, hugging, checking pupils, and asking the right questions. I really am sure that he’ll be fine. But the aftermath leaves me wrung out, on the weepy side, and with muscles shivering with fatigue and emotion. Seriously, if I can convince an injured four-year-old to hold the ice pack to his swollen head in spite of the searing pain, surely writing won’t be so hard. ;)

SLC Post-script

Taking down the laundry this afternoon (all dry but a couple of towels!!), the kids were running around playing. I had tossed the slightly damp towels in the dryer while I took down the other clothes. The dryer vents right underneath the clothesline. When the boys noticed the air coming from the vent, indicating that the dryer was on, they disappeared around the back of the house, returning a moment later.

They had gone to check the electric meter, to see how fast the little wheel was spinning. Apparently, it wasn’t spinning too fast, giving them hope that they’d have enough energy for the magic light that fought against the “rising darkness” and the “attack of the alien lasers.”

Energy conservation as Imaginary Planetary Defense Support.

Supplemental Laundry Center

“Use it up. Wear it out. Make it Do. Or do without.”

I totally wish I could remember where I read this, but applause to the person who generated the phrase. At it’s heart, it’s a phrase about frugality, I think. For me, it satisfies twin drives: the desire to save my family money and the desire to save resources and be environmentally and socially responsible. Oh, I might add a third—the creativity and cleverness that is often involved in the “make it do” part.

We are a single-income family with three children under eight, so I face the challenge of this phrase every day. One step at a time, we’ve whittled down our practices to make the most of what we have. One car. One walking commuter (payroll spouse). One biking commuter (oldest kid). Nearly year-round garden. No cable or satellite television (remind me to post about this as a watershed change in our lives). Second-hand clothes that are reused and remodified until every last bit of lint is shaken out of them. Home cooking and food preservation. Compost pile. Jam-packed recycling bin. Green electric company. Just to name a few.

But I know there’s room for more changes.

We live coastal South Texas. The same climate that makes it possible to garden almost all year long, is the climate that makes August feel like sitting in a pot of boiling water. We need the heater (mainly for one chilly bedroom) here and there for a total of only a few weeks each year. There are a few weeks before and after the heat need where the house is comfortable with windows and doors open. The other six to eight months of the year, the temperature inside the house and outside challenges my body’s internal thermostat. This makes air conditioning our single biggest energy suck.

We set our thermostat high (82F usually), turn it off when we’re not at home. Employ strategic window curtaining to minimize sun-warming (an opposite strategy occurs in winter, with strategic curtain-opening to warm cool rooms). In other words, we’re trying.

With three small kids, I do one to three loads of laundry every day. I estimate that this makes laundry our second biggest energy suck. We had tried a clothesline when we first moved here three years ago. We strung a long line between two trees and hung up some stuff. We gave up after a few days because of things blowing away in the sea “breeze” (yes, I did use clothespins), a general lack of drying in the high humidity, and other life events sucking our time and energy.

I am committed now to trying again. I have a new clothesline, strung in a spot slightly more sheltered from the wind, in a cradle of fencing that will likely catch any clothes that decide to take flight. And I have a splinter-free table for the laundry basket. So, yes the SLC is just a table and a clothesline, but doesn’t it sound so fancy? ;)

I am on day five of daily hanging, and so far, I’d say my renewed committment and our slight modifications are working. The humidity does seem to prevent the clothing from drying completely most days. Seams and pockets are very resistant. One day this week, everything dried completely (I cheered and did a snoopy dance). The other days, I took things down at the end of the day and tossed them in the dryer to finish them off.

Overall I think it is going well. I’m using the dryer less than one-quarter of the time I was using it before. I look forward to the next electric bill to see what kind of an impact it will make.

Now, this is not easy. Hauling wet clothes in the basket out there is not for the faint-of-back. And the lifting and clipping is a good upper-body workout. I doubt I’ll be able to do it on sick days. And I’m curious what impact the high summer humidity will have. I wish my line were just a smidge longer. Right now, it’s a W, one line strung at angles between the house and fence. I wish I had just two more spans. One day this week, I did one load in the dryer because I ran out of room on the line.

Unintended perks: My preschoolers love to hang out under the wet laundry. It’s a fort. It’s a space ship. It’s a cool spot out of the sun. They also love to put the clothespines back in the bag. And the work of the laundry actually seems to go by faster in the morning, because I do the load and hang it up, or do one load of wash after another, without having to wait for the dryer.

And no. Not washing by hand. Not gonna do it.

Next post: Aspirations and Fear

Variety Update

After one week, I’m still on track with my fitness goal. I’ve walked every day this week—170 minutes, or about 9 or 10 miles. My first ten weeks is based on time moving rather than distance. Because I’m walking on sidewalks, my distances are estimated. Though I do know that the trip to the elementary school and back is a smidge over 1.2 miles.

Due to unexpected scheduling, I walked in the dark for the first time today. I live in a safe little town, but the idea of walking at night still made me rather nervous. Many of the streets—even main ones—are sporadically lit, so much of a nighttime walk occurs in real darkness. If I had planned ahead on this one, I’d have taken the giant flashlight with me—you know, the one that doubles as a blunt object? Because I was nervous, I walked too fast, and my lower legs and toe joints are sore for the first time tonight. I had planned to walk one more time tomorrow, then start running Wednesday, but I may have to give myself a day of recuperation to make up for the zoomy walk tonight.

Other issues:

The sleeping goal is mostly still on track. With the exercise, I’m finding that I get impossibly tired at around ten o’clock. The writing goal is turning out to be a bit more challenging…

The exercise and sleeping goals have the advantage of having quantitative markers (moving for 30 minutes; in bed by a certain time). The ‘write every day’ goal is more qualitative. I want this goal to be flexible enough to encompass a variety of different types of writing, but I think I need something more concrete to guide the goal. Perhaps like exercising, I should strive to write for 30 minutes per day. Or have a schedule of different types of writing for each day of the week (such as Blog on Monday, Catch up on Correspondence Tuesday, etc.). I’ll have to think on it.

Oh yeah, I’m still a knitter too! Knitting: scrap sock. Black cuff, then alternating one row of black with one row of whatever teeny ball of yarn I pull out of the bag (currently dark blue). I’m doing a solid black heel and will continue with the blue until it runs out, then grab another ball. The other sock will be slightly different. I’m saving a small ball of a slightly lighter shade of blue to start off the stripes on that one.

Next Post: The Supplemental Laundry Center