Work It Out

LoveItAll was created when I became inspired during the Lent season this year to acknowledge and celebrate being healthy and happy. And I have to say (and high-five myself) that I think I've done a relatively good job sticking with that theme. Of course there have been months I've slacked on posting, but I'm revamping my dedication to LoveItAll and will be posting more! (I was going to write 'will try to be posting more' but my fiance's favorite quote stopped me from typing 'try.' The quote is from Yoda from Star Wars, "Do or do not. There is no try.") So I WILL be posting more.

Looking at previous entries, I find it hard to believe that I've only mentioned my favorite workout of all time once or twice when talking about health and happiness. After high school when my basketball and volleyball days ended, I struggled with finding ways to stay in shape. Before college my workouts were structured, scheduled, and not optional. In college they were trying this and that (yoga to abs classes) and were few and far between. I can honestly say until I found TITLE Boxing Club, I was in a work out rutttt (One 't' didn't make the five year rut seem long enough so I added a few extra).

My whole point is not how awesome TITLE is and how I don't know how I functioned before without my kickboxing classes since they have improved every area of my life from fitness, to sleeping, to diet, to happiness, although I could go on and on. My point and advice is to find something you ENJOY doing and work it out. Let's face it- working out is hard, as it should be. You simply will not stick with something challenging if you don't enjoy it. So go find your work out niche. Whether it's running or walking or an at home video like P90X or old school Tae-Bo, just work it out and have fun. The ripple effects of enjoying yourself while getting in shape will pleasantly surprise you!

You gotta have faith

I've been thinking a lot about faith lately. One of my favorite real life examples of someone who walks by faith is my amazing soon-to-be sister-in-law, who has also become one of my great friends.

She is weeks away from giving birth to her first baby- a perfect little girl named Mackenzie. Rewind nine months to when she and her husband first found out she was pregnant: it was just days after they received news that one of her surgeries to remove cancerous lymph nodes was not successful. Rewind a couple years back and see that she has been battling Thyroid cancer and all the effects of surgeries, radiation, and healing on her body. Rewind even further and see her husband surviving life threatening melanoma, and going through chemotherapy for over a year. Because of these and other factors, the pregnancy was diagnosed as high risk early on.

When I asked her if she was scared, and how she was feeling about everything, she just looked at me and said, "You know, for me it's a total faith walk." And that's been her mentality her entire journey- from cancer, to pregnancy, and all of  life's challenges, she has continued to keep the faith. Which has inspired me to not only continue to keep the faith in God, but in others, and in myself. After all if we view life as one great faith walk, there really is nothing to be scared about.

Blame It On The Block

In all the books about writing I've read, (On Writing by Stephen King tops my favorites list), I inevitably come across a chapter on writer's block. As an on and off, okay more off than on, creative writer and blogger, I never experienced what is referred to as writer's block. Not until recently. And only recently have I realized that the frustrating, headaching, curse of writer's block and more importantly, the desire to get over it's hump and untangle the knot that forms in the mind and stomach of those who suffer from it, can actually be experienced in a bigger, meaner form: life's block.

As a naturally happy, positive, let's face it, Love-It-All-type of person, I can make sense of difficult events and trying periods. I find gratefulness and lessons in sorrowful events, and am genetically empathetic to a fault. These statements I would have sworn true two months ago. Lately I seem to repeat them as some sort of affirmations.

I know I'm happy, truly truly blessed, and am grateful every day for my life. I just find myself wondering sometimes why I can say those words without feeling or applying them the way I used to. And the most difficult part has been that I acknowledge the block I've put on my mind and heart, but true to reputation, neither writer's nor your life's block goes away when you beg it to. Day by day, ideas, feelings, sentences, and memories appear and with each one the knots are loosened. Before you know it, you can breathe deeper and truer than you have in weeks, and you start to recognize your mind and heart back in your control. Day by day. And on the great days the happy, positive, gratefulness returns. And so does the writing.

Get Your Gwapes

I love clean jokes: the cheesey, play-on-word jokes you can tell around children or your pastor without being inappropriate. One of my all-time favorites is ultimately about persistence, and knowing what you want. It's also just plain cute.

A duck walked into a bar and said to the bartender, "Hey, got any gwapes?"
The bartender said no, so the duck left.

The next day, the duck walked into the same bar and asked the bartender, "Hey, got any gwapes?"
The bartender said just shook his head, and said, "Nope." So the duck left.

Still determined the next day, the duck walked into the bar, and asked the bartender, "Hey,  got any gwapes?"
Visibly annoyed, the bartender said, "No, we don't have any grapes, and if you come in here and ask me that one more time, I'm going to staple your beak shut."
So the duck put his head down and waddled out of the bar.

The next day, the duck walked into the bar, right up to the bartender, and said, "Hey, got any staples?"
The bartender, fed up, said, "No, we don't have any staples."
So the duck looked around, then back to the bartender, and said, "Okay.... Got any gwapes?"

A Week

It’s been a week.

It’s been a week in which happiness doesn’t feel quite as happy.

It’s been a week of cliché songs on the radio about life not sounding so cliché anymore.

It’s been a week of  finding ourselves thinking over and over, “I wish it was this time this many days ago.”

It’s been a week to be grateful for the many thoughtless actions we’ve walked away from unscathed.

It’s been a week of being reminded of loyalty, trust, and friendship.  

It’s been a week where many lives have been forever changed.

It’s been a week full of prayer.

It’s only been a week.

Songs to Share

I love music, and am guilty of playing a song I find that I like on repeat for weeks. I’m talking one song, non-stop, at work, at home, in the car, a cappella. And when the obsession hits me it’s typically not when the songs are brand new, it’s when I happen to hear them in a new way, and just at the right time they strike a certain chord in me. Here are a few that, after hearing dozens of times now, I still can’t get enough of!

Dog Days – Florence and the Machine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWOyfLBYtuU

Fugitive – David Gray http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utLCu-Mpnqo

Fix You- Coldplay http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI-o25K6B-E

No Surprise – Daughtry http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyl24HRGgSU
Save Me San Francisco - Train http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zftcZYdOl3Y

Do So Anyway

This past month has been a whirlwind; so much so I have neglected one of my recently developed favorite hobbies- this blog. I should say that I’ve been so busy that I haven’t even thought about it, but that would be a lie. I have thought about writing many posts this past month, but just haven’t had the time to do it. Oops, there I go with the lying again. Okay, I haven’t been posting because, like not wanting to say something out loud in fear that it makes it too real, I have not wanted to put my all of my confused thoughts and feelings down in writing. Life in general is wonderful, and I’m thankful every day for it; I’ve just been faced with making many decisions recently, big and small, that have me excited, stressed, hopeful, and more all at once. But I’ve decided to quit avoiding organizing my thoughts and “rejoin the blog world,” as my sister Katy put it.

For now, however, I’ll let the majority of my most jumbled thoughts be, and just share something I’ve learned recently: Good Samaritans still exist.

On the 4^th of July night around 10:30, Shane and I’s one year old puppy, Brooksie, broke her collar and ran off. I’ll skip the chaos that was the next 20 minutes (we got her back in one piece and she’s fine thankfully), but I want to talk about the driver of a white SUV. A young man, probably around age 30, was driving down our street right as Brooksie broke free and took off. The driver luckily saw Shane and I running and screaming and waving our hands right before she ran in front of him. When he stopped he got out and tried to call her to him, but a firework went off and she was gone again. As Shane and I split up our routes, I sprinted panicked to the corner of our street wondering which way she went (she’s a black, fast, dog and the thick haze of smoke from all the fireworks, not to mention the constant noise, was the least ideal of situations to lose a black, fast, dog in).

The young man, having done a U-turn to follow us, pulled up and shouted, “Do you want my car? You can take it.” I told him I’d stay on foot and then he volunteered to drive up and down the street while I ran. I saw him take off searching for her, and when I turned to run down another street, he turned around again and drove down to where Shane was running. Later I found out he shouted to Shane, again asking, “Do you want my car?” Shane stayed on foot too, and the driver told him he’d keep searching around the block. Running barefoot by dozens of people lighting fountains and caterpillars in their driveways, knowing that not only Shane was looking for Brooksie, but that someone else was out searching too made me a tiny bit hopeful in what seemed like a hopeless situation.

Shane finally found our puppy who had already ran past our yard where it all started, and we quickly took her inside away from the fireworks that had her so terrified. A couple times we checked outside to see if the SUV was driving by so we could tell the young man we found her, but we never saw the good Samaritan again. The good Samaritan who offered two complete strangers his car, gave me comfort in his looking, and spent at least 20 minutes of his 4^th of July night driving around to find a dog. We will never be able to thank him; if I ever could I would not only thank him for trying so hard to help us, but for reminding me that some people still do the right thing, even when unexpected, or scary, or when it would be easier to just not get involved. It was a great example of what kindness is truly about- you may not be acknowledged or given thanks for helping someone out, but you should always do so anyway.