100 Push Ups

Well, you know, Maria thinks I’m crazy. And maybe I am. But my brother and Partner are joining in, in which case we’d all have to be crazy. 

A friend suggested this website over on Facebook: 

One Hundred Push Ups

It’s a training site that helps you build up to being able to do 100 push ups.  The regimen is spread out over six weeks, but users are encouraged to go at their own pace, and repeat each workout week until they are comfortable.  I’m going to do it. 

The first step is a push up test to help determine where to begin in the training program. Do as many push ups as I can without hurting myself. That’s easier said than done. I discovered that I can’t do a single regular push up. I can do 10 knee push ups though, so my plan is to do modified push ups for a while and hope that I get strong enough to switch over to regular push ups at some point.  

I also hurt myself. My arms were really sore after I did my ten push ups. Then that night, I worked a ring toss booth at the elementary school family fun night. I bent down and picked up those little rings at least five million times. I felt like I had done one thousand lunges and squats the next day. I still ache when I walk up stairs. 

Needless to say, I gave myself a few days to recover before I started the week one push up workout. My brother, bless his overachieving heart, did enough push ups in his test that he’s supposed to start with week three of the workout schedule. I’m sure he’s already halfway to his 100 push up goal by now. Just for fun he’s also doing the 200 sit ups and 200 squats workouts. Like I said, OVERACHIEVER. Gotta love him. He’s sending me encouraging messages like this one:  “every journey has a beginning, however it may be measured. It is once the distance traveled is tallied and weighed against what is gained where the true worth is found.” I’d throw things at him if he weren’t a thousand miles away. 

In other news, it’s been THREE WEEKS since I’ve been running and I’m feeling a little crazy about it. I have an itching to get running, and do the push ups, and maybe after a few weeks add in the sit up workout. You know, rotate through all three. Yeah, my brother and I might share a gene or two. Don’t throw things at me, grasshopper. 

BELL NECKLACE

When Sonar X10 was in kindergarten, I was a first time Room Parent. As we organized the class party, I searched around for some little gift the Sonar could share with his classmates. Something that wasn’t cheap plastic. Something very inexpensive and/or easy to make. I found a jar of jingle bells at the craft store and decided to make each kid a necklace. I just threaded a bell on a length of yarn (something I have in abundance around here) and tied a knot. Took me ten or fifteen minutes to make them. 

The Sonar thought they were great. He happily wore his bell to school and jingled around all day.  All of the kids have had a similar reaction as they pulled the bells out of their goody bags. Smiles as they put them on and jingled around the classroom. (Side note: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, all elementary school teachers who survive children’s Christmas parties deserve a fifth of bourbon.)

This is my sixth year making bell necklaces for school party favors. I’ve made them for each kid, each year. I’ve switched to a smaller, quieter bell for the sake of the teachers. But these little gifts still hold up to the cheap and easy requirements, and the kids really love them. Sonar X10 has several squirreled away in his treasure boxes.

The very best reaction, though, came from a kid in that first class, who was so excited, so thrilled with his BELL NECKLACE. “A BELL NECKLACE! I have ALWAYS wanted one of these!” he said to me and his mom and anyone else who would listen. 

His mom and I have laughed about that story more than once since then. I saw that awesomely enthusiastic guy this morning while I was volunteering at the library, and I’m happy to say that he is just as earnest and enthusiastic at eleven as he was at six. 

Jingle Jingle.

Home for Christmas

I am thirty-seven years old. I live in Texas now, but I grew up in New Mexico. For the first time since I was eighteen, I will be home for Christmas this year. 

I have been home many times, but usually in the summer, around the Fourth of July, never at the winter holidays.  ‘Home’ for my folks now is not the same home in which we had Christmas together the last time. The house is different, and the people have changed and grown (and we’ve added some Sonars), but we will all be there together. 

A lot of ugly things have happened in my family since then. Gradually, though, (stubbornly slowly, you might say), I recognized my stupidity and selfishness and did that thing where I untangled my priorities and realized what was most important in my life and who were the most important people.  I hear that song “Boots” by The Killers and that’s exactly how I feel about Christmas this year. I have been remembering the magic of my childhood Christmases and hoping for a tiny little bit of that, and for many years I’ve been working to knock the mud off my boots. This year I’ll finally have the chance to step back into home.

I am unbelievably geeked about going home for Christmas. I thought I would be nervous, worried about an upswelling of stupid emotional baggage, and while those thoughts jangle around in the back of my head a bit, they don’t upset me. They aren’t taking away my joy. 

My joy, though, is nothing compared to the excitement I see in my parents, who will hosting their grand-Sonars for Christmas for the first time, and I have absolutely no doubt, will be spoiling them silly. My dad is sending me messages every couple of days, questions, observations, little announcements that they’re ready and really excited and will we be there soon? And can we come sooner?  I love it. 

ABAW October-November Edition

I know, October and November ended a long time ago. I am a slacker in more ways than one.

I have read much, much less the past few months than I did earlier in the year. When I began planning for NaNoWriMo, my daily reading time was cut down by my planning and writing time. These two need each other though, so I must seek balance between the reading and writing.    

October

One Day by David Nicholls

This one might be my favorite book this year. It’s at least in my top three. Read my review here. 

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

I struggled with this one. Read my review here. 

How I Write by Janet Evanovich

This is Janet Evanovich’s memoir on her writing process that expands on a Q&A from her website. I love Evanovich’s writing style. Irreverent but honest, clever, accessible, and funny. I reread very few books, but I come back to the first four Stephanie Plum novels over and over. Reading about Evanovich’s writing confirms what we know as writers: writing is hard, it’s a job, we have to work at it, and then we have to work at it some more, and if we work hard enough maybe we’ll have the chance to get published and continue to work hard.

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman

The back cover of this book suggests that it is about the way in which a story is born from events. I’m not a Christian, but I know the gospels well, and it was fascinating reading Pullman’s deployment of the story of Jesus. He builds plausible scenarios for the events, actions, words, and ideas that might have inspired the narratives, parables, and metaphors in the gospels as we have them now.  You can read about Pullman’s personal philosophy here, but don’t let the atheism scare you away from this book.  I know that the redeployment of the story of Jesus, this way of trying to find a plausible explanation for what many believe was miraculous, is potentially offensive to some. To that I say, read this book with an open mind. Literature, as many of us know, has the amazing power to make us FEEL and understand things in ways that we don’t expect. I found Pullman’s depiction of the story of Jesus to be very inspiring precisely because I felt connected to the essential humanity of the characters. I felt very acutely the sacrifice that the characters make in a way that makes me want to be more compassionate toward my fellow human beings. Philosophy aside, the plotting of the story is also really good. Pullman managed to take one of the most famous stories of all time and surprise me with it.

November

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

Ok, no, I still haven’t finished this one. It is beautifully written, but I find that I have to read it in small doses. I’m frustrated on behalf of the women in the story and I get emotional and angry as I read some of it.  Each time I put it down, it gets harder to pick up. Couple that with reader’s guilt. I haven’t read all of the books discussed in the story, including Lolita! So I have put this book down several times thinking that I should read these other books and then come back to this one. It’s a heartless cycle for me.  Yet another title that shows I don’t do well as a reader of non-fiction and memoir, even if I really really love the subject matter.

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

I enjoyed the idea of this book, planning month-by-month activities throughout the year to increase one’s overall happiness. Rubin has a website to encourage us to build our own happiness projects as well. As she says in her introduction, each person’s path to happiness is different and individual, but reading about her very particular path was edifying. I find I’ve made small adjustments in the way I think about the things I do, and even if I go no further in developing a happiness project, I find that very satisfying.

Composed by Rosanne Cash

I love Cash’s writing style. She has a fluid way of structuring her prose so that one incident, idea, or metaphor can recall and connect to earlier ideas.  I’ve never listened to her music, but saw her on a recent episode of Austin City Limits and was intrigued by The List.  When she turned 18, her father gave her a list of what he considered essential songs for her to know if she wanted to be a musician. Cash’s latest album is selections from that list. I have enjoyed discovering her music (and her twitterfeed) and am even more in love with Austin City Limits for teaching me about artists I might not discover in other ways.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling

I finished reading this one out-loud to the Sonars. Yes, we all still love it.

These Days

I’ve been reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire to the Sonars. This is our second time through out-loud. I love how well the stories are holding up to the growth of the kids and to my growth as a writer.

I came home from the library last week with Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story.  I love the first line (“Dearest Diary, Today I’ve made a major decision: I am never going to die.”). I’m a bit baffled by the first chapter.  After this I’m considering The Passage by Justin Cronin or The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood. Which would you choose?  

For Christmas the past few years, we’ve made a habit of reading Cornelia Funke’s When Santa Fell to Earth. This year we’re going to listen to Funke read it on our 900-mile drive. If you haven’t found this gem of a holiday story, please go check it out.  I love the way that Funke takes the best bits of magical Santa tradition and adds just the right kind of modernity to it, so that the story feels both more real in the context and more magical in the details. And I can’t tell you how much I’m in love with Nicholas Goodfellow. He could live under my Christmas tree any day.  Ahem. 

Cleaning the shelves, photo vignettes

A wandering of my bookshelves, presented for your consumption. If we’re lucky, you can click to embiggen each picture. 

A fingerless Mary among the books

Mary wants her fingers back. She lost them somewhere between Gregory Maguire and Carl Sagan. She glows in the dark, so if you have them, she’ll haunt you. 

It’s a bloody stone!

This is a pair of flat metal bars meant to represent money, wrapped in the program from a show at NMSU in ye olde dayes. How does one display such a memento among the other sentimental falderal?

Three glass bottles

There used to be four of these glass bottles. The fourth one, which had a cork rather than a ground-glass stopper, exploded into glitter all over the floor when I knocked it over.  There were many expletives.

A Gargoyle and a Nose

The Gargoyle is watching you. And he’s hungry. The Nose Knows. But they’re both kept in check by the Tim Horton’s can.  The Tim Horton’s can hopes we will do 10 Things again soon. Otherwise it might have to eat the Gargoyle.

A photo of a portrait of Richard II of England

Almost forgot to add Richard II. He used to live on the wall in the hallway, but staged many a coup to escape the wall. Lacking a horse, I gave him a kingdom on a shelf. 

What’s on your shelf?