Hot topics first: No weight loss this week, but inches are coming down. While I want to be satisfied with that, I took a very close look at my food and exercise diaries and found a few trouble spots. Chocolate was a regular (unnecessary) part of my snacks this week. I probably do not need to have chocolate every day. While I am doing better at avoiding artificial sweeteners, I did have a little most days. Finally, I ate "salty" yesterday, which could have affected my weigh-in total today.

Really am liking the resource of the diaries. I can so easily see the places where a little forethought and planning will help improve my results.

Wrote to a blogging friend that for us shorty folk, an average meal may be only 300 hundred calories, and snacks 100 to 200 cal. Reviewing diaries also shows that I do have a few meals of over 500 calories, some close to 600. Those whopper meals appear on days where a) I have not planned ahead or b) I've exercised like a maniac. Which brings me to...

Exercise
Exercising harder during my exercise sessions, and longer (perceived effort is higher, duration is almost double what I was doing at the start). I find my recovery is not as fast. Instead of easily exercising six days a week, I'm finding it a challenge to exercise four or five days a week. From my hard workouts, I often wake with this vast sense of fatigue in my muscles. On those mornings, I've allowed myself not to exercise. But I wonder if there is another approach I should be using? Rise and do my favorite "Stretch and Pray" (always nice to make time for the spiritual throughout my day) would be a good choice. As the early mornings lighten and the weather warms, a brisk walk in the neighborhood in the early morning might also be a good choice. Even getting off the bus a stop or two early so that I include 20 minutes of walking before sitting at my mostly-desk job may be better than sleeping in when I've already had 7+ hours of sleep.

[I think the longer recovery time is a normal part of being older. In my 20s, I could be an animal about workouts. Back-breaking weightlifting workouts in the gym might last 3 hours, then I'd go bike ride, then dance. And still spring out of bed the next morning!]

In the Teeth of Holy Week
I love the Lenten season, holy week, and the journey to the joy of Easter. As a fairly recent convert to Christianity I see the ways that the journey is an essentially Jewish journey. Or maybe it is just Jewish for me, since that is where I came from.

Anyway, Lent feels like the period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. A time of repentance, self examination, awareness, deep prayer. Holy Week feels like the day of Yom Kippur, when we have all fasted for hours, we pray and worship together, we distract ourselves from the fatigue and discomfort of our earthly bodies and try to stay focused on the wonder and awe of G*d, we pray for how we have sinned, and will sin and talk to G*d about how we are responsible for our sisters and brothers. We confess publicly. We have a martyrology (in Judaism, it is a recitation of the broad range of suffering Jews throughout history; in Christianity it is the suffering Christ experiences once he is brought to the hands of Pontius Pilate and all that follows to the Crucifixion). And finally, we reach the place of joy — for Christians it is the resurrection, for Jews [if I remember correctly!] it is the blowing of the Shofar and breaking of the fast (a fast from food and water which may have lasted 28 hours by this time). In each community, through the process of communal worship and ritual, I have reached the place of spiritual refreshment, joy, connection, wonder, awe & trembling. The memory of what I learn, what I see, what I experience through all my senses will sustain me through the year, through the ordinary times and more.

For those who live in faith, some of this may resonate. For those who doubt or do not connect, my sanity or intelligence may be questioned. So be it. How do you explain color to someone blind since birth? — an argument which can be used from both sides. My own journey has taken me from avowed atheist to devout Christian. Isn't life filled with surprises!

City Life Has Its Aggravations
I moved to a small city about six miles south of where I work almost three years ago. A house my husband and I could afford, a sizable yard, open spaces, quiet. All we wanted.

I was a little concerned about the commute. I hate driving, and have never chosen to drive to work but prefer public transit. Public Transportation showed a bus route 1/4 mile from my home – an easy walk. Then I tore my ACL, and that quarter mile uphill walk wasn't so easy. So I found on-street parking downtown in my small city, a five minute drive from home, and then walk the three blocks to the transit center (just a 20 minute ride to my job from there). Then the city changed the rules – no more on-street parking. Okay, I locate a park-n-ride. Park-n-ride is full unless I get there by 7:20 a.m. A full twenty minutes earlier than I ordinarily have to leave for work (making an 11+ hour day away from home closer to a 12 hour day away from home). So I try to scope out other parking options. The Catholic school in the downtown of my small city has on-street parking that is unregulated, so I try there for a few weeks. But sometimes I can find parking and sometimes I can't.

Finally, I think I hit on the perfect parking solution: One block north of the Catholic school is a residential street. Not so far from the transit center that with my joint issues I can't walk. The block is pretty with trees and well-kept homes. It is easy to drive to, and I am happy.

Thursday after work, I walk away from the transit center toward my car. I am ebullient! It is the first time I can walk to the car with no joint pain in my knee or hip. When I get to my car, the owner of the house I have been parking outside is waiting. She says "Excuse me, can you not park here anymore?"

"What, not park on a public street? Why?"

"Because it is an eyesore. I have to sit in that chair all day and look through that window and your car is what I see."

I can't think of anything very civil to say, and I don't want to say the awfully colorful stuff that's floating in my head, so I just say "Fine, I won't park in front of your home on this public street anymore."

What is up with people!? I've gone 'round and 'round in my head decent ways to respond to this. My husband says I should just park there. But there is too much frightened new yorker still in me. Will she scratch my car, let the air out of the tires, find the police and have them dig up some obscure regulation I'm breaking and ticket me? I think I should write her a note and explain how much her request will inconvenience me; and then I won't park there anymore.

All of this just is taking too much time and effort from good moments of my days.

Sniveling is Over

Have a wonderful weekend folks. May there be joy aplenty!

Otter