21 Day challenge - week 1

Before I tell you about how mediocre I was with keeping my goals, let me remind you what they are:

1. Eat 5 fruits and veggies every day
2. Serve 1 veggie every night with dinner.
3. Pick up the house every night before I go to bed.

I've actually done the best with the one I thought would be the hardest - serving a veggie with dinner.  Jay claims that he doesn't like vegetables, I don't think he gives them enough of a shot.

Wednesday: Jambalaya mix + Italian sausage + can of corn (drained)
Thursday: Wasn't home for dinner
Friday:  Leftovers - Jambalaya, shells & cheese w/rotel, something else I can't remember
Saturday: Pepperoni Pizza = FAIL!
Sunday: Didn't cook dinner but had black bean and corn salsa for lunch
Monday: Chicken Pot Pie (can of Vegall included in recipe)
Tuesday: Pizza with banana peppers (by Jay's request - SCORE

So I'm 6/7 on that one.  Not bad if I do say so myself!

As far as my 5 fruits and veggies, some days I've only made it by the skin of my teeth (assuming that pizza sauce counts) other days were epic fails.  I'm doing well at getting a couple of pieces of fruit in, but the veggies are a struggle for me. I've purchased carrots and cucumbers to snack on, and then of course get the 1 veggie at dinner.  Any other suggestions for a veggie that could be paired with lunch to get my 5th in?

Picking up the house, well that's a work in progress.  Its hard to keep a tidy house when you're married to such a busy and important man.  Seriously though, Jay works very hard to provide for our family.  While the feminazi inside me protests, I've come to realize that if I want to have our house paid off in 5 years I'm gonna have to pick up a dirty sock or two that doesn't belong to me.

Even though I haven't been doing a great job of picking up the house nightly, I have been doing a little along the way.  That little has made a big difference - I don't have such an overwhelming job at the end of the week when I go to clean.  This habit is definitely one that shows immediate rewards and I'll keep around a while (if a bit modified.

For those who haven't already, check out my latest 5K race report here.

How are your goals coming?  Tells us all about them then head over to the Sisterhood to link up!

Proverbs Living

I just recently finished Kaleidoscope by Patsy Clairmont.  Booksneeze sent it to me to review.  Its the first nonfiction book I've gotten from them and I very much enjoyed it.  With each chapter Clairmont takes a proverb and delves into real life applications.

When I first got the book, I sat down with it and flew through the first couple of chapters.  Its easy to do, as they each are just about 4-6 pages long.  I quickly realized, however, that's its not a book to be devoured.  Rather its meant to be taken bit by bit, one chapter at a time.

As someone who prides herself on my quick reading skills, it was difficult to only take 4 pages at time, reading the small book over the course of a month.  To do anything else with this book is to miss the point, to read with no regard for what the book has to say.

Each night before bed, I settled in with the book, a notebook, and a pen - prepared to do the homework questions that follow at the end of each chapter.  Without the questions and related scripture passages, this book is merely a collection of cute, sometimes emotional stories.  With the questions, the reader dives into the scripture and challenged to apply it to every day living.

I very much enjoyed the experience of the book.  Clairmont, who's most known for her humor, is very honest with the her struggle with depression.  Its refreshing to see someone on the other side of such a dark illness, shining the light with the message of hope.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

SMARM 5K & Sisterhood run month!

Being the kickin/awesome Shrinking Jeans member that I am - I psychically knew in advance that May was Sisterhood run month and signed up for a 5K weeks ago.

OR

I just so happened to run a 5K on Saturday and then hop on the web to see this morning that the Shrinking Jeans ladies have claimed the month.



First off I want to say - if you're not a runner, don't think you could be a runner - just give it a try.  Its amazing where it has brought me this past year.  Like the One More Mile tee says "You don't have to go fast, you just have to go."

I'm certainly not the best runner in the world but I can tell you that its about far more than pace times - its about that feeling of pushing yourself.  Its about digging deep.  Its about knowing you can.

Because as long as you have two legs and two lungs - I promise you can do it.  It may take a little work, but you totally can.

Probably not very encouraging that I'm mixing this post telling you to lace up your kicks and hit the pavement with the race report for my worst 5K ever.  Then again maybe it is.

I started the morning with the breakfast of champions - normally foodies who take pictures of all of their meals get on my nerves.  To you I say "to bad so sad" and "deal with it!"

Not quite the breakfast of champions, but it sure was yum.  Please don't comment on the grease soaking through the biscuit wrapper.  I realized it was greasy.  And I just didn't care.

The race registration was in the Dollywood Splash Country parking lot.  If you'll notice on the sign, denim in the water park is expressly forbidden. 

Yes, that is something people in this county have to be told.

Moving right along, there was a long line for registration, but I had gotten there plenty early so I took my place and waited.

I wish I had some clever things to share with you about the race, but unfortunately most of the race was filled with me gasping for breath. The pollen here is outrageous and my chest has been hurting for the past week or so.  Its very frustrating when something as natural as breathing hurts every time you do it. 

I knew I probably shouldn't race, but I had already paid my entry fee so I decide to push myself.  Also, the 2009 SMARM 5K was my first race ever, and I was interested in rerunning the course to compare times.

Want the comparison?

2009 - 33:59

2010 - 36: 48

Sad huh?

Only would I have thought it was sad if Pubsgal didn't do so hot on a race because of her diabetes?

Would I have felt the same if one of the Team Shrinking Jeans gals performed under par because of one of their leg/knee/foot issues?

Of course not.  I'd be sure to praise them for their hard work and perseverance.  Finishing under those circumstances is a victory itself.

So why was I disgusted with my performance?

It wasn't an oh crap I'm out of shape and winded form of having trouble breathing.  5 minutes into the race I was gasping for air and couldn't get a deep breath.  By the top of the 1st hill I was wheezing.  Near mile 1 I started getting dizzy.

That's right, so little oxygen was getting in my system I got light headed. 

Several times I had to stop and walk just so I could get a good breath. 

This is one time I can say that I sucked out loud.  Literally. 

At the turn around point I decided to give up on having a good race (or else I just faced facts), and decided to encourage others along the way.  There were a couple of women around me, and I tried to be as encouraging to them as possible.  Also as I encountered people I knew headed toward the turn around I would cheer for them.

A couple of ladies from the local running group were just a little behind me.  "Great job ladies keep it up!"

The guys behind them took issue with my cheer.  "What about the fat men?  Are we not doing great?"

Even though I didn't know them, I became their cheerleader upon request.

I must admit I'm a bit thick in the head sometimes.  Over the past year with the Sisterhood, over the past 2 decades being a Christian, I never knew what my spiritual gift was. 

God claims that He gives a gift to all believers.  Since I didn't have a problem with the Jesus as Messiah claim, or the walking on water claim, or any of His other miracles, why did I choose that one Biblical truth to doubt?

Because it pertains to me.  As annoying as those people are who can't take a compliment - I was given a gift upon turning my life over to Christ, yet I couldn't see what it was.

This past week, as I've been giving up things for God (calorie counting/the Daily Plate, the Daily Mile) I considered the Sisterhood.  I came to the realization that the Sisterhood was good for me, and I am good for it.

Why? 

The same reason that this race should be considered a success.

The same reason the Covenant 5K should be considered a success.

Because I was using my spiritual gift.

I'll give you 3 guesses as to what it is, and the first two guesses don't count.

My purpose in blogging?

My purpose in racing?

My purpose in life?

Encouragement.

Only I'm really seriously thick in the head because this post should have been a red flag for me.  As should have been this one.  And by my own admission this one should have been the kicker.

Only it wasn't.

And while i waited at the finish to cheer on the 86 year old man who finished in just under 53 minutes, I was still disgusted with my performance.

As a matter of fact I didn't "get it" all weekend.  I went home, showered, then went straight to bed.  Then I devoured a novel, then another trying to get my mind off the race.  (Oops, forgot about the 8 mile post race bike ride.)

Finally God hit me over the head yesterday morning with the sermon.  We read in John 21:1-14 about how after denying Jesus, Peter went back to doing that which came naturally to him - fishing.  Only he spent all night catching nothing.  The next morning, Jesus paid them a visit and instructed them to a net so full of fish they couldn't bring their catch in.

The point?  Without God there is no point.  Its just a fruitless pursuit.

Yesterday I gave everything up.  I knelt at the alter and told God that He could have it all.  During our discussion this morning He gave triathlon training back. 

Not for me, but so that I can encourage those other first timers along the way.  Or maybe for those veterans who need a reminder about how awesome they really are despite their times.

He gave it all back.  All but my pride. 

I've said that my goal is to finish the race but dear God please don't let me be last.

Taking back the triathlon I had to agree that last would be okay.  Not finishing will be okay - assuming that I give it my all. 

So once again I leave you with the choice...either:

This was my worst 5K ever.

OR

This was the most enlightening race of my life.

Flashback Friday!

For kicks and giggles I decided to play along this week and post a picture of way back when!

When I was a baby, I was shy, but it didn't take me long to go from this:

To this:

and this:

No, my father isn't Earl Hickey.

Yes, we realize they could be twins.  And we're quite scared.

Anyhoo - I was a sassy, skinny little thing.  Not sure how I got from there to the woman I am today, but in this little girl I can already see early shades of the KFW's own Athena. 

Of course Athena isn't around any more, but I'm seriously considering wearing her tiara in the Disney Marathon next January.

Refresh my memory - have you all met Athena before?  If not, I think we're over due for a post about her stint as the general manager of KenFolk Wrestling.

You might be married to a redneck if...

aka - Lord help me I've married my father!





I hope Lora doesn't mind me coming up with my own Thursday's 10 - I thought we could all use a light hearted break today.

You might be married to a younger version of your father if...

1. The lady at the gas station near your house exclaims "I know who you are!" by just your last name and your request for 2 cans of long cut natural Red Seal tobacco.  (Apparently my dear husband is the one that requested they keep that specific kind in stock. 
2. Your husband insists on listening to David Allen Coe (living room window open, stereo at full volume) while working outside in the yard.  Ever hear "Would you lay with me in a field of stone?"  Only my father and my husband could enjoy listening to that macabre song and find it poetic.
3. He hasn't yet turned 31, and he's already balding...
4. And it seems to be falling from his head and making his chest hair thicker.  Don't know about you ladies but I <3 chest hair.  I am, however, bracing myself for the day it starts sticking to his back. *Shudder*
5. Because of said balding he wears a cap everywhere but church.  Even out for a run.  In the 70 degree weather.
6. He spoils me rotten - although unlike my father, he's not ashamed to admit it.
7. He does sporadic exercise, but isn't consistent.  My father sprints on the football field every Friday night come August, but doesn't bother to exercise beyond that.  Jay exercises when he's bored and needs to reaffirm how much more awesome than me he is. :P
8. He wants a pickup truck for his next vehicle - even if it has to be a 4 door version so that he can use it to show property to clients.
9. They love chatting with one another about random sports events or the latest UT Vols news (be it a new recruit or an arrest.)
10. He loves me - despite the millions of reasons he shouldn't.

So there you have it - proof that I've become a cliche and married a man just like my father.

I will say, however that I desperately hope it doesn't take such extreme measures for Jay to quit dip as it did my dad.  Daddy had to watch his own father die a slow and painful death from lung cancer - not to mention the trips together for my Papaw to receive radiation treatment.

Are you married to your father?  A spitting image of your husband's mother?  Tell me all about it!

Wednesday...you know what that means, right?

It means my last official Weigh-in Wednesday post at the Sisterhood!  You read it right.  I'm done with weighing myself.  I shared a little yesterday about my life changing weekend, and I wanted to explain it a little more today.

I borrowed the following from Lora, who borrowed it from from the Stuff Christians Like blog. 

...the day my 5-year old got a scrape on her face playing in the front yard. I rushed in the house and returned with a princess bandage. As I bent down to apply it to her forehead, her eyes filled up with tears and she shrunk back from me.


“What’s wrong?” I asked.

"I don’t want to wear that band-aid.” She replied.

“Why? You have a cut, you need a band-aid.” I said.

“I’ll look silly.” She answered.

Other than her sister and her mom, there was no one else in the yard. None of her friends were over, cars were not streaming passed our house and watching us play, the world was pretty empty at that moment. But for the first time I can remember, she felt shame. She had discovered shame. Somewhere, some how, this little 5 year old had learned to be afraid of looking silly. If I was smarter, if I had been better prepared for the transition from little toddler to little girl, I might have asked her this:

“Who told you that you were silly?”

I didn’t though. That question didn’t bloom in my head until much later and I didn’t understand it until I saw God ask a similar question in Genesis 3:11. To me, this is one of the saddest and most profoundly beautiful verses in the entire Bible. Adam and Eve have fallen. The apple is a core. The snake has spoken. The dream appears crushed. As they hide from God under clothes they’ve hastily sewn together, He appears and asks them a simple question:

“Who told you that you were naked?”

There is hurt in God’s voice as He asks this question, but there is also a deep sadness, the sense of a father holding a daughter that has for the first time ever, wrapped herself in shame.

Who told you that you were not enough?

Who told you that I didn’t love you?

Who told you that there was something outside of me you needed?

Who told you that you were ugly?

Who told you that your dream was foolish?

Who told you that you would never have a child?

Who told you that you would never be a father?

Who told you that you weren’t a good mother?

Who told you that without a job you aren’t worth anything?

Who told you that you’ll never know love again?

Who told you that this was all there is?

Who told you that you were naked?

I don’t know when you discovered shame. I don’t know when you discovered that there were people that might think you are silly or dumb or not a good writer or a husband or a friend. I don’t know what lies you’ve been told by other people or maybe even by yourself.

But in response to what you are hearing from everyone else, God is still asking the question, “Who told you that you were naked?”

And He’s still asking us that question because we are not.

In Christ we are not worthless.

In Christ we are not hopeless.

In Christ we are not dumb or ugly or forgotten.

In Christ we are not naked.

Isaiah 61:10 it says:

For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness.

The world may try to tell you a thousand different things today. You might close this post and hear a million declarations of what you are or who you’ll always be, but know this.

As unbelievable as it sounds and as much as I never expected to type this sentence on this blog:

You are not naked.

What do I think when I read this?

Who told you that your legs were fat?

Who told you that your 5K time wasn't fast enough?

Who told you that you needed to weigh 120?

I have spent the last year focusing on myself and its time for that to change.  God doesn't care what I weigh, how quickly I run, or what my thigh measurement is. 

He does care that I'm healthy, but that's never something that's been called in to question for me.

What could I accomplish for His kingdom, if I put half the energy into living for Him that I put into tracking calories consumed, burned, weight fluctionations?
This past year I've spent a lot of time learning how to train and how to eat healthy.  I'm not throwing that under the bus.  I'm going to continue my training - I'm just losing the tracking.
 
I mentioned yesterday about my revolutionary 12 minute mile run.  Here's how it changed my life - I ran, I know I gave it my all, and even though the statistics weren't all that good, I enjoyed every minute of it.
 
Starting today, I am not weighing myself.  Comparing my body to others.  Comparing my training to others.
 
So no more Daily Plate or Daily Mile for me.  But yall know that I can't say goodbye to the Sisterhood!  I'll still be around - I hope to do Wednesday posts about my training or race reports and still link up with you all (assuming that's okay). 
 
I'll also be sporting this fancy button from now on -
 

 
Am I scared that I'll gain those 15 pound back?  Of course.  I also know that is completely illogical - I weighed almost 140 pounds because I ate fast food every day for lunch (it got boring and expensive, I'm not going back to that life) and being inactive (I got lethargic & unhappy, I'm not going back to that life). 
 
Over the past year I've changed, and for the better.  Now its time to stop obsessing and move on to the next big adventure!

Weekend Revelation

Doesn't that sound dramatic?  I'll confess that it is a little hyped to suck you in, but there certainly was an air about this weekend that was more than just your standard couple of days off.

I took Friday off, yet my alarm went off at 4:30 AM.  Ever year I volunteer (aren't I a good Tennessean?) at a charity shooting tournament my boss hosts to raise money for Cystic Fibrosis research.  I mostly stayed inside in the (over) air conditioned club house tallying scores, but it was an exhausting day.  That night I came home and crashed.

The weather forecasters were calling for thunderstorms all weekend and I had a long bike ride to squeeze in.  Thankfully the bad weather was a little delayed getting to us, so I was able to get in a 10 miler before showering and heading to church Saturday morning.

From 10-4 my parents church was hosting a live simulcast of Beth Moore's "So Long Insecurities" lecture.  I've been reading the book for a couple weeks now, and was excited to hear more about the topic.

Earlier in the week a friend of mine (who seems to be the only secure woman in the world) told me that insecurity is nothing but vanity concealing itself as humility.  While at first I resisted the idea - after all what did she know about insecurity, it wasn't anything she had struggled with - the more I considered it I realized her theory had at least a grain of truth to it.

Wouldn't you know Beth Moore said the same thing.  She said she wanted to make women think enough of themselves so that they thought of themselves less often. 

How self centered to assume that the people over in the corner whispering are whispering about you.  Do you really and truly thing that everything revolves around you?

Another point that she really hit home is that our security must come from our heritage in the Lord.  That's something that I've been considering on my own for a while now, so it was like a slap upside the head from the Holy Spirit.

This past Thursday I ran the SMARM 5K course in anticipation of my upcoming race this weekend.  I could feel that my pace was sluggish and I berated myself for not going faster.  After all what would it mean if I repeated my first ever race and didn't better my time?

If you let your worth come from racing, what are you left with when you don't achieve your goals?

Sometimes I argue with the Holy Spirit.  He nudges me in the right direction and I respond "but..." or "well the thing is..."  This time I had no argument.

A years worth of training and competing and what has it gotten me?  A couple of racing bibs, some self confidence when I reach my goals and the blues when I don't. 

I'll spare you the details of Saturday night - we'll just say that it was a huge reminder that I'm not the woman of God I'm called to be.  I went into Sunday with a different attitude. 

Well sort of. 

I was still considering how I could change up my training schedule so as to not conflict with my triathlon training but also to give me at least one day of rest before the race.  Thankfully I was able to get a run in Sunday afternoon which clears up my Friday for just rest.  A mini taper of sorts.

You wanna know what I learned on that run?  That I enjoy running.  I enjoy challenging myself.  And even if my Daily Mile stats aren't anything impressive, I can still feel good about myself. 

How did one 3 mile run at a 12 minute mile become so revolutionary? 

You'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out!!