Love

The scenery barely registered on my brain as I rode the bus to work on Wednesday morning. It seemed inconceivable that Saturday through Tuesday could have already been lived. Four glorious days spent in the Salt Lake area with our daughter, son-in-law, and 12 week old grandson. Tears stung the corners of my eyes as I recalled sitting on the patio just 24 hours earlier, coffee ignored and growing cold on the glass-topped table beside me, while I stared into the sleeping face of the brown-haired little boy who had captured my heart in record time.

The bus driver snapped her gum incessantly and the air conditioned bus was too cold. The driver's habit of making slight adjustments to the steering wheel had long ago forced me to give up reading 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' but it had started out slowly so not much of a sacrifice. Besides, the first day back to work after a four-day weekend spent in Utah didn't feel like a good day for a crime novel, no matter how incredible it was purported to be. My heart just wasn't in it. I found myself thinking ahead to my next solid (read: more than 5 mile) bike ride but this would not likely be the day for that ride since rain was forecasted all day and into Thursday. My heart felt as heavy as the rain clouds looked.

I recalled an article I had just read online about a Norwegian mother who had been reunited with her 16-year-old daughter after the bombing and massacre near Oslo. The mother, in trying to convey the daughter's anxiety level in text messages she was sending throughout the siege by the gunman on the resort island, had said that the daughter texted, "I love you" to her mother. The mother went on to say that Norwegians aren't like Americans, who are "so clever to tell anybody that you love them but we in Norway, we normally don't do that." I found that I was personally offended by her comment because I say "I love you" quite often, and yet, not as often as I'd like for fear of making someone feel uncomfortable or obligated to respond in kind. The woman’s comment had me questioning whether I’ve ever said those words casually; have I ever said them when I didn’t really mean them?

I suppose there have been a few “I love you man” moments that were meant to be jokes imitating the old Bud Lite commercials. There may have even been an “I love you” to a boyfriend I thought I loved when I was really too young and inexperienced to fully comprehend the meaning. By and large, however, my expressions of love have been truly heartfelt and the words have grown more meaningful to me with time. Likewise, when someone says “I love you” to me, I take them at their word and treasure it in my heart. On the other hand, I have been accused more than once of being emotional and even overly-emotional by some people so I leave it to you to form your own opinion. I’m about to tell ‘anybody’ that I love them.

I love my husband. I love my grandkids. I love my kids (natural, step and in-law kids). I love my Mom. I love my family. I love my friends and their kids too. Does this make me “clever”? Nah, just blessed.

July

Last July we had rain, lots and lots of rain. Six months ago we had snow, lots and lots of snow. This month we have near drought conditions plus oppressive heat and humidity. Call me sick but I'll take the heat and humidity. Granted, I don't work outside for a living, but this is just my opinion based on my experience. All that rain and flooding was scary and all that snow was a pain in the back. In the heat I go from my air conditioned house to an air conditioned car or bus to an air conditioned office. It's okay for me so I'm not complaining.

Successterol!

Cholesterol down from 247 to 160 in six months. Now that's what I call success! Yeah baby!

Are we there yet?

We were in Springfield, IL last weekend. It was 86 degrees on Sunday. I laid on a lounge chair on the deck in the sun like a cat and fell asleep. My winter weary bones were quite happy to feel warmth again.

In spite of my love for flora, I hate Spring. I especially hate Spring in Wisconsin. I hate the roller coaster ride of warmth and sun teasing me and then turning to cold with snow/rain. I hate the way it drags out and goes on for weeks and weeks. I have no patience for that cycle and it depresses me. It is getting steadily warmer by an average few degrees per week so I guess we're going in the right direction.

On another note, in an effort to increase my good cholesterol and reduce my bad cholesterol (not to mention my pants size) I've committed to a 3day per week routine at the gym. This started sometime around the 1st of the year but I have yet to make it 3 days in any one week. Today might be the day!

Here again, losing weight and gaining fitness is such a long, drawn out process with highs and lows. I have very little patience for the ongoing cycle - too bad I've done it nearly all my life.

In other news, I am studying to take the CMA (Certified Management Accountant) exam in Sept/Oct this year. I've discovered there's an awful lot of information that I don't know or don't remember. This exam typically has somewhere between a 50% to 60% pass rate. This is not going to be a piece of cake.

I believe it was the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland who said, "If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there." Okay, so I think I know where I'm going and I'm on the right road, are we there yet?

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Turn and face the strange, changes.

I'm starting a club that I'm going to call PMC for "peri-menopause club". Peri meaning "around" or "about" and of course you know the rest. Back in the day this was spoken of in hushed tones, as in, "she's in her changes" and supposedly we all knew what that meant. I just found out a bunch of stuff about being pre-menopausal that I wish I had known about six months ago... it would have saved me a lot of "WTF" moments. No one told me about all this stuff! I knew about hot flashes, hahaha that's hilarious comedic material right there, not. And even night sweats, although no one really wants to talk about those, kinda gross. But no one said anything about debilitating fatigue, depression, moodiness, irritability, insomnia... those are just the ones I feel okay about mentioning in this blog. There's a whole host of others! I won't tell you all the symptoms I have personally experienced already, but suffice to say there have been enough of them to make me feel a bit relieved at this point to know that there's a reason for what I've been living with for months and wondering what the heck my body was doing to me!

Wanna join my club?

Happiness is...

Happiness is finding a long, lost friend and picking up where you left off. Yesterday I reconnected with my long, lost friend Heather. We met as neighbors when we both lived in VA in 1996. In a very short span of time we became fast friends and as close as sisters. She was the last person I hugged, the person I waved good-bye to, as I began the long drive back to Milwaukee after my marriage broke up. In six short months of friendship we had been through so much together. I believe God put her in my life to give me strength. She says I was the strong one. After I moved we managed to stay connected via phone calls and e-mail for awhile but then, between moves, name changes and life changes, we lost each other. On Friday night I finally found the breakthrough I needed and yesterday we talked on the phone for the first time in about ten years! With tears and laughter we caught up on each other's life - kids, marriages, jobs, moves, homes and just about everything else we could think of that happened since the last time we talked. We peeled away ten years of living like it was 10 minutes. We both said we had thought about each other often and missed each other. Although we're about ten hours apart by car, we're hoping to get together sometime soon. I am so happy that we've reconnected!

I agree...

I'm really not political... honestly... but I did watch the President's State of the Union address the other night. I watched mostly because it was on right after Biggest Loser and because there wasn't really anything else on at that time that I wanted to see. He said something that resonated with me (see my 2010 blog "I'm just sayin...") and I wanted to mention it here. He said we should celebrate the winners of the science fair like we celebrate the winners of the Super Bowl (paraphrase) and I just want to say that I agree that we (myself included) have placed a high priority on the sports entertainment industry, and entertainment in general, to the exclusion of more important things like education, poverty, etc.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to sit here and spout off some idealistic rhetoric as if I'm not going to watch the Super Bowl next weekend; I'm just suggesting that we should be mindful of how we prioritize life and be sure to keep sports in proper perspective.