The travelling fat. . .

The first week of May Greg and I are heading down into the Grand Canyon for a week long backpacking trip. I'm VERY excited about it, and though I'm not overweight, I'm also not incredibly fit, so I've been working on that to prepare for this summer.

Over the past 4 weeks, I've been running, lifting weights, eating healthy, and counting the calories. Rather than start Jan 1st with an unattainable New Years resolution - I started more towards mid-January with a slow beginning that has been picking up speed ever since. I feel healthy, vibrant, and quite victorious as it's steadily becoming habit rather than obligation.

And while I've lost nearly 3 inches off my waist - I've also gained 4 lbs.

And stop with that 'muscle weight' talk. I've heard it before and let's just be honest with each other. As I'm not training for the weight-lifting championships and I'm not drinking muscle builder, 4 lbs is a bit excessive.

But, there's still the issue that I lost 3 inches off my waist.

I have no idea where this fat is deciding to travel to - hopefully here in a few more weeks it will have no choice but to shrink down. Until then - salads ahoy!

Off the Deep End

At work the other day, I met a guy who identified himself to me as a Christian. I myself am a pastor's daughter; and no matter how long and convoluted our past may be together, I still believe in and love God. We're just in the middle (or maybe the beginning) of a long process trying to define what that means.

So I don't attend church regularly - I find it to be stuffy and for the most part not authentic.

I consider myself to be spiritual, and I'm very gun-shy of religious people.

I do read the bible quite a bit, but I also read books from psychics, critics of the bible, books of the bible that weren't canonized, books about the books that weren't canonized, scientific books. . . just about anything and everything that contains scraps of knowledge I read and think about.

And where does this get you?

For the most part it turns your brain into a highly knowledgeable pea soup. A conglomerate of ideas, many of which contradict each other and it makes it difficult to formulate your own ideas. So while I know a lot about many things, I don't have real solid opinions one way or the other.

I don't even know if that's a bad thing. I don't think it is. Seems that too much of our more deplorable world history has been wrapped around people holding too tightly to a solidly held belief.

But, back to my co-worker. We got to talking about Christianity (the rhetoric of which I am too familiar with) and he mentioned that he and his friends wanted to start a bible study here at work where we could start asking some hard questions, toss around ideas. I thought this was a really good idea, and volunteered to help lead it (it is, after all, in my blood). I suggested next Wednesday, as it is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, which I like to observe even though I'm not Catholic. So I threw together an email with some ideas, and it included these paragraphs:

"Maybe these questions are a good place to start:

What unhealthy patterns do I see in my life during the past year?
What relationships need reconciliation or my new or renewed investment?
How can I improve my relationship with God?
In what ways can I join God in healing and restoring the world?

I know we don’t really know each other, so I think our first study should be just a get to know you sort of time. We can throw around these questions, but I also don’t want to get too personal if it makes you uncomfortable. Really, they’re good questions for personal reflection and journaling if you like to do that sort of thing."

Immediately the response was that the questions were too personal, and maybe the only one we should bring up (if even) was the last one.

Now, I don't fault people not wanting to share deeply intimate parts of their lives at a work bible study, but at the same time, if we're not willing to ask those questions - how can we even begin to work on the last one?

Off to War

Well, I'm writing this because my brother, John Craig, has left to go join the fighting in Afghanistan. He's in the Army, 82nd Airborne division and though we all said goodbye in December, I had sort of kept it in the back of my head that I would fly out and say goodbye one more time before he left.

Schedules and money prevented me from doing so, and to be absolutely honest I don't think either he or I really wanted to go through that last goodbye before he left. And so we did it over the phone. When he had landed in Maine. It's funny how conversations like that are so mundane, when really you want to say something much more important . . . but if you say it then you just might be acknowledging just how serious this all really is - and no one wants to do that.

So we talked of books, and of his new address, and how vets were there at the airports handing out phones for our troops to dial home one last time before they left for parts unknown as well as food to keep them comfortable during their flight. Their kindness touched John and his buddies. That these older men would take the time to drive to Maine to say goodbye to younger men they don't even know. . .

And, finally, it was with a heavy heart that I got off the phone with my brother, and said that last 'I love you' and 'Goodbye'. I'mcertain we'll speak again on the phone sometime within the next 16 months while he is there, and I'm also pretty sure that my brother will be safe. But there's something strange about that last goodbye when your loved one is leaving the relative saftey of your home country. Something that has to do with trusting that everything will be OK that makes it especially difficult. Something about knowing that the next time you see him he will be 2 years older than he is right now and that life will have shaped him in ways you will never know about or be able to share with him.

Of Trains. . .

I subscribe to National Geographic Traveler. It lets me live vicariously through it's contributors as I read each glossy page, each inspiring, scary, or gross adventure, and helps me keep a check list of places I should go (and perhaps not go) visit.

Last month, there was a story on train travel and the charm of it that made me very nostalgic. I used to live in India, and we would travel all up and down the coast by train. We would go Second AC class. Which was the higher end of second class because you got, well, an air conditioner to keep you cool during the heat of the day. We would rent out 2 compartments. Each compartment had 4 beds/seats, bunkbed style, and a table between the two opposite the door.

You would provide your own blankets, pillows and whatnot to keep you comfy.

It would be days before you'd reach your destination, and the cl-clack click clack click of the train as you meandered along the countryside was hypnotic. Through jungles and mountians, rice patties and deserts, villages and cities, warm sunrises promising a hot day and cool sunsets blanketing the land with darkness.

You see much more by train than you ever would with a plane, and the food is much, much better. At every stop the car would be swarmed with vendors selling creamy chai, hot frothy coffee, fresh omlets wrapped in banana leaves, curry and rice . . . and the food was all quite safe because it was cooked right there in front of you, all fresh ingredients. I've never eaten better than when I was train traveling.

You meet interesting people. At stops, beggars also swarm the train with their children, desperate for money, the third class passengers get out to stretch their legs, and you see how cramped it is in third class vs. second (we never tried first) When the train is going, you can visit with fellow travelers and see what they're up to, if they have anything interesting going on in their cabin, perhaps a musical instrument or two that they would play. . .

It's great. And I would highly reccomend it. The cultural experience alone is worth the trip, but the landscape and the food is breathtaking.

Sir Howard Thomas the Gray

My good friend Robyn adopted a kitten after she lost her cat of 20 years. Howard Thomas is this new little kittie's name, and when he first was adopted, he was near death. Almost euthanized at the pound because he was so sick with a respitory infection.

Robyn's good deed is that she took him in, and nursed him back to health. I got to help out for 10 days when they were out to Hawaii, and he was at death's door. He was steamed in the shower to help free up his breathing. Medications 2 times a day. Gentle playtime so he wouldn't be bored, but also wouldn't get his heart rate up and start gasping for air. Praying that this poor little thing wouldn't die.

And he didn't.

All those meds worked, and his breathing cleared up, his eyes got brighter, and he got a spring in his step and a viscious bite in his jaws.

Yes. . .a bite.

Sir Howie has turned out to be one of the most bitey, gnawy cats I've ever met. He's also rather calculating, like a Raptor from Jurrasic Park, he waits until the right moment to spring out from behind furniture and plants to attack. Poor Robyn. You'd think he'd repay her with kindness, but apparently he has a lot of exuberance after missing out on some kittenhood.

Sometimes, cats can just be darned ungrateful.

Heat for the winter. . .

It's roughly the size of a motorcycle.

It can heat a space of 2,900 square feet in 30 minutes.

It has a 14 gallon tank that runs on kerosene or diesel.

'Rugged' were the words that described the tires.

It's Red.

We've named it Big Boy.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, we just purchased an insanely impractical garage heater for my husband! It is really much too big for our 3 car garage, but it was half-off, it's COLD in Colorado right now, and we're both a little stir-crazy from having to stay inside every weekend for the past 7 weeks on account of snow.

As we left with our purchase rolling on a super-large cart out of Lowes. . .the men working there gazed fondly at it and made comments.

"That's the last one! What a price!"

"That will keep you warm!"

"That's a real nice heater you got there."

"You enjoy working in your shop now!"

Greg chest couldn't have puffed up any bigger and he walked with a John Wayne swagger as he waved and smiled to those Lowes men.

This weekend our neighbors came home with a brand-new beautiful baby girl, and boy were they proud. But... I must say, they don't hold a candle to Greg and his Big Boy!

A time for lights. . . .

This past Sunday Greg and I put all our outside Christmas lights up - it was a beautiful day, in the 60's, and rather than see Greg perish as he put them up in cold ice and snow. . . we put them up on this fabulous day.

He did all the roof lights - we choose big, multi-colored bulbs to line every single eave - and I did the 4 little trees in our yard. He bought roof clips to attach the bulbs to the gutter just perfectly, and rather than using them every foot or so as a normal person would do - he used 1 clip per light so that each bulb would stand up perfectly. (That's the difference between a normal person and a perfectionist)

At the end our house looks like a little rainbow porcupine, and the lights are perfect and precise, by God. Last night we got home from work, changed into our pajamas, and bundled up to see how beautiful our home was lit up. Greg flipped the switch with a relish, and came out to join me in the street.

And it was at the exact moment that he turned around to behold his creation, that creation played a dirty trick. There, on the right hand side of the foremost eave. . . a blue bulb winked out defiantly.

So we got in early to work today so Greg can change the bulb before it gets dark tonight. A perfectionist's job is never done.