My JourKNEE Back

Where is this month going and how did it get to be April 17th already?! I wrote on April 3rd in my blog titled, "In a Rut" that I would make it a priority to come up with goals and a concrete plan to achieve them. In complete honesty, I have not done that. Actually, it doesn't seem from the outside that I have done much during this month. My days seem to pass lately without giving much conscious thought throughout the day to anything. I am on autopilot. The weather has been going back and forth between rainy days and sunny days, cooler temps and warmer temps just as my mind goes back and forth between giving myself permission to rest after harder workdays or to push through and keep being productive. To add to my brain fog, I have two children graduating in the next two months, one from college and one from high school. There are things added to my to-do list on a daily basis, it seems. I'm starting to feel the pressure to make the most of these sentimental, most amaz...

  While most of North America watches the skies today, April 8th, as the moon eclipses the sun, my eyes will be on this guy just as they have been for the past twenty-nine years. Today we celebrate our anniversary. I remember being nervous to get married. My parents were divorced, and I had known so many others that were as well. What made us think we could make our marriage last? After all, we had no real goals for ourselves at the time. We were so young, being married when I was just nineteen. We thought we were so mature and responsible. We didn't even discuss any important issues before making the most important decision of our lives. We really just went with the flow. My mom's advice was "Marriage has to consist of the three C's: Christ, Commitment, and Communication".  Christ slowly grew as the center of our home. I had grown up in the church but still had so much growth to do. He had gone to church from time to time with a family friend but was just beginni...

  Several years ago, my mom and I attended a business workshop. I cannot remember exactly what the instructor was talking about, but I remember the illustration he gave vividly. He said if we keep doing the same thing repeatedly, our brain is trained to follow that pattern. It becomes like a horse plowing a field or a pony giving rides, going in a circle, following the same track. We begin to do things without even thinking. For example, brushing our teeth with the same hand, driving the same route to work, repeating the same activities throughout our week. Our brain becomes stuck in the same pattern. To achieve new goals, you need to set a new pattern. “Do not remember the past events; pay no attention to things of old. Look, I am about the do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43:18-19 (CSB) Now that it is April and I am one month in from beginning this blog, how am I doing? My...

  "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me." I'm sure we are all familiar with this saying in one form or another. Let's face it, though, words DO hurt. They may not leave outward scars like our physical wounds, but they hurt in a very deep and personal place. Our inner thoughts may have to fight with them for years until we can finally be freed of their effects. When you grow up hearing words or phrases to describe you such as "little piggy", "chubby", "Ox", "Shamu", "She has such a pretty face.", "big boned", they follow you into your teenage and young adult years. They haunt you when you gain weight after marriage, when you become pregnant so that you try to hide your growing belly instead of being proud of the life you are growing inside of it. They haunt you even when you lose the weight, and you are at the lowest you ever remember being since high school when you would eat hal...

Today, there will be cake, birthday cake to be exact. It will not be a joy filled, opening presents type of celebration, however. Nineteen years ago on March 16, 2005, I had an experience that changed my spiritual and mental outlook forever. It was definitely a defining moment in my life. I was about thirty-two weeks into my second pregnancy and things were progressing well. As a matter of fact, I went for an ultrasound on March 14th and was told the baby was developing normally, everything looked good. We decided we didn't want to know the sex of the baby, as we did with our first pregnancy. I loved the element of surprise, it made it even more exciting and, man, were we excited! March 15th was probably like any other ordinary day at the time, filled with playing with our daughter, something imaginative I'm sure, followed by the mundane lunch, naptime, dinner and bedtime routine. I was mostly an at home mom at the time, with a biweekly cleaning job and this was my week. I woke...

I have the exercise part of getting healthy down pretty well, but nutrition has always been my downfall as long as I can remember. Beginning in March 2024, I planned to start conciously thinking about what I ate and trying to make some changes. March 1st fell on a Friday, and everyone knows that you start new things on Mondays, not over the weekend. (wink wink) What would a new eating plan look like for me? If you talk to me about micros and macros, how many grams of protein or fiber you should have, good carbs versus bad carbs, it will go in one ear and out the other. I do not have the concentration to try to figure all of that out. If it gets complicated, I give up. I've had an exercise and nutrition coach send me a list of fruits and vegetables with the instruction to cross off in red everything that I do not eat. I looked it over, made my marks and sent it back only to be told "that's a lot of red." Yes, I am a picky eater. I don't remember being exposed to a ...

I used to ride bike as a kid, of course. I did the classic trick of putting cards in your spokes, so it made a cool noise as you rode. I have memories of riding to the park to use the tennis courts. I would strap my racket around my shoulders like a guitar and put the tennis balls in my bike rails. I also have a few traumatic memories involving the two-wheeled monster. One time, I was on roller skates, holding on to the back of my sister's bike when she got moving a little too fast and I fell and scraped the side of my leg. Then there was the time that made me a little fearful. Again, my sister and I were out riding. We turned to go down a hill near our house when my bike skidded in a pile of loose stones. As I made the turn, the bike slid out from under me and I fell off, scraping my knee while falling in the pile of little stones. I had stones in my knee. My (step)dad had to pull them out with tweezers. I have a scar to this day. I'm pretty sure I did damage to the bike I was...