Time for Some Changes

I got caught in the rain this morning.

Dang! I completely forgot about the movie challenge. I'll pick it back up soon. I still have a lot of great movies to talk about.

I've been jotting down a lot of notes and random sentences and paragraphs the last few weeks. They are not going to become one very long blog post but I think it's time to start developing them into something I can share.

Last week I signed up for two ten-mile races, one in July and one in October. I haven't raced any distance since the Marine Corps Marathon last October. My longest run since then has been about seven miles and that was back in March when I thought I was going to run a half marathon in April. I knew I wasn't ready for it, though, between the injury and some other health issues that cropped up so I backed off running and started doing some serious thinking about my health and my habits.

I'm recovering from an injury that came up during marathon training, disappeared with ice, stretching, and rest, and then hit me like a sack of bricks during the race. At this point I feel like I will probably be managing it for the rest of my life, but at least I can manage it with stretching and strength training and cross training. It's my IT band across my left hip and sometimes in my left calf. If I sleep wrong, I wake up in the middle of the night with pain in my hip and I have to figure out how to fall back to sleep and rearrange my workout routine for the next day.

Since I turned forty a little over a year ago I feel like I've been in a constant battle with my body. One friend put it this way: At forty plus one day, all your warranties start expiring. I know my body isn't the same as it was in my twenties and my thirties and there's only so much I have control over of my forty-year-old body. I'm not thrilled with my body right now. Summer clothes from last year don't fit and it's not because I got so muscular from marathon training. It's because I've eaten too much macaroni and cheese.

I'm trying to come to terms with the difference between accepting my body and accepting the changes that I have to make in order to maintain a body that I want. I need more quality rest. I need more water and less sugar. I need more stretching. I need to make the time to be cognizant of the little changes I need to make regularly in order to fit back into those favorite shorts and skirts from last summer. I'm pretty sure that eating less junk food and exercising more is going to be cheaper than buying new clothes.

I'm not on a diet, other than the gluten-free one that I have to be on. I am being more aware of the calories I choose to put into my mouth, although I've decided that some of those calories are going to be chocolate and wine. I've got a ten-mile race training plan that involves a lot of cross training in order to take the pressure off my injury-prone areas while still building strength and endurance. I'm making my family eat more vegetables, since I'm the one who does most of the grocery shopping, meal planning, and cooking, and I'm not inclined to make different snacks and meals for every family member. If I'm putting this much effort into our food, it's going to be good for all of us.

One of the things that has held me back from wanting to make some changes is struggling with how my child might perceive these changes. She's six. I don't want her to know that I'm unhappy with my body right now. I want her to see exercise as a fun activity that sometimes we do as a family and sometimes Mommy and Daddy do as individuals, and that eating healthy gives us the energy for everything we do, whether it's swimming with friends or going to work or school.

This is hard. 

Book Review: The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher

After you've read something, please consider leaving a line or two on Goodreads and Amazon. The authors appreciate it!

Here's my review as it appears on Goodreads.

The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was a little disappointed with this book. I'm not quite sure what I expected. But the main realization that Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford had an affair during the filming of Star Wars had been released with the book and there were no other real surprises within. Some readers have said they're disappointed to learn that Ford was so quiet and aloof, but I already figured that about him. He's always been a fairly private figure. Have you ever seen him on a talk show?

Thirty-three-year-old Harrison Ford took advantage of a nineteen-year-old Carrie Fisher. Maybe there's even more to it than Ms. Fisher revealed but from her telling of it I can't see Mr. Ford in a more flattering light over the affair. I know affairs happen. I'm not naive. Ms. Fisher tells us that Mr. Ford isn't a bad guy and that we should take her word for that despite all the evidence she provides that leads me toward not having any sympathy for Mr. Ford in that situation.

I also found the actual reprinting of her journals written when she was nineteen years old to be as tedious as any other nineteen year old's journals, including my own. I'm not sure what they added other than the thrill of voyeurism. I didn't find any deep insight in them.

I didn't hate the book. I found some of the personal details interesting although I found myself skimming through many paragraphs to find one of those interesting details. I'm still a fan of Carrie Fisher and of Princess Leia. I'm just maybe not a fan of Ms. Fisher's writing.

View all my reviews

Trying to Figure Out Why This Commercial Bugs Me

When I first saw this commercial I appreciated the girl-power-ness of it, being a mom myself who cruises through the neighborhood in a black car with a daughter who's going through a black-and-purple phase (and who never had much of a pink phase to begin with). My daughter would definitely choose the black and purple paint and peel into the driveway if given the opportunity.

But then I realized, these girls appear to be my daughter's age or older, and they are riding Big Wheels with helmets. They are riding Big Wheels, a toddler toy. And they are wearing helmets while they ride huge plastic three-wheelers close to the ground with very little risk of falling. Are we so overcautious that helmets on Big Wheels is a thing now? And why aren't they riding bicycles? Or skateboards? Something a little less babyish?

Maybe I'm so involved in our own style of parenting that we've missed Big Wheels for 6, 7, 8 year olds being a thing now. Our six year old is excited to go mountain biking this weekend (with her helmet on, of course). A friend's six year old just had a skateboarding birthday party on the halfpipe the dad built in their backyard (with their helmets on, of course). Are we the odd parents out? Or are commercials reflecting some nonexistent overly protective society that they think parents want to see?

***

I wrote the above a few days ago. Since then I've Googled "helmets on Big Wheels" and I've found that, yes, many parents insist on their toddlers wearing helmets on Big Wheels, when riding in wagons being pulled by an adult, and some parents have rules about helmets when kids are on anything with wheels. While I can understand this for some circumstances, at some point doesn't it seem overprotective for the general population of toddlers? The risk of a fall from a Big Wheel bike is slim. Most toddlers aren't going to be allowed to leave their yards or driveways without adult supervision so there's no risk of being hit by a car on the street. Many parents monitor their children outside even in their own yards so the risk of any danger is very, very low. Parents argue that helmet wearing is a good habit for children to start as young as possible and I agree with that for certain activities. Riding a bike, even a balance bike. Skateboards and scooters. Anything that requires a certain amount of balance and coordination. At some point though aren't we going a bit too far in wrapping our kids up and protecting them from every single bit of pain and discomfort? By making them think the world is always dangerous but if you always take these precautions everything will always be okay?

I also learned that some states require helmets any time a child is on public property on a foot-powered vehicle. So a parent cannot decide that it's safe for their three or four year old to ride a Big Wheel on a dirt path in a park without a helmet.

Let me point out again that the children in this commercial are not toddlers. They are old enough to have the balance and coordination to be on bicycles or scooters. I can sort of understand the visual because the Big Wheel moves more slowly so is more of a cruising vehicle than a bicycle. Every child I know who's around my daughter's age, if given a Big Wheel to ride, they'd be in the backyard crashing them into each other for fun because it's a babyish safety toy. I'd rather see this girl cruising by on a skateboard. Or rolling into the parking lot at the park on a mountain bike, pulling up to her mom's car, speeding past the girls with pink streamers on their bikes, if that's the message they're trying to get across. Why put them on toddler toys?

30 Day Movie Challenge Days 5, 6, 7, and 8

Day 5: Your favorite drama
This is one that I had to think about. I was this close to naming something else after going through my DVD collection and scrolling through Netflix and Hulu to remind myself of all the movies I've seen. Somewhere I saw an ad for Terms of Endearment and I realized this was my favorite drama. It was the first movie I remember being a "grown-up" film that made me emotional, rather than a children's film (like E.T. or Old Yeller). I don't own this film in any of its forms and I always relied on finding it on television randomly. I'd plan afternoons or evenings around watching it, or I'd be flipping through and find it halfway through and drop everything to watch. Now that I do less channel flipping I need to find a source for watching this on demand.




Day 6: Your favorite comedy
I debated this for a long time and, see below, where Day 7's film could easily have been switched with The Royal Tenenbaums. Despite some bizarre and low moments in this film I always find it funny, whimsical and irrelevant in just the right spots.




Day 7: A movie that makes you happy
I almost put this one for Day 6 but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that The Big Lebowski makes me happy when I'm feeling down, whereas The Royal Tenenbaums makes me snicker in places but can also leave me feeling low in places. The Big Lebowski, despite any greater message you try to find it in, ultimately is smart and silly at the same time.




Day 8: A movie that makes you sad
I considered another Jake Gyllenhaal film for this category, Donnie Darko. I realized, though, that while Donnie Darko makes me feel pleasantly melancholy, Everest makes me cry my eyes out. I've read the book Into Thin Air twice and I've seen Everest several times and even knowing who died before I'd read the book the first time, I still bawled. Every time. Climbing season started on Everest this week. While I have no desire to climb the mountain myself, I always keep an eye on news from there. And I'll probably watch the movie again in the near future because I'm a sucker for a good cry.

30 Day Movie Challenge Days 2, 3, and 4

Day 2: The last movie you watched

I used this prompt as an opportunity to watch something new that I've been meaning to watch since it was released several months ago: Hidden Figures.


I'm so glad I took the time to watch it and I can't wait for Muffin to see it. Over the spring break we took a Virginia road trip and learned a few things about civil rights history in Virginia that were really brought home by the film.

Day 3: Your favorite action/adventure movie

Hands down, Raiders of the Lost Ark. And since I'm pretty sure you've all seen it, instead of a clip I'm going to show one of my favorite GIFs.


via GIPHY

Day 4: Your favorite horror movie

I don't watch enough horror movies to really have a favorite. I don't care for them much. But the most recent horror-like movie I've seen that I really liked was The Witch.


I wasn't going to bother watching this film until a friend posted about it on Facebook, saying he needed to turn on the subtitles because the seventeenth-century New England English was too difficult for this California boy to understand. I exclaimed that seventeenth-century New England English was practically my second language and he replied I would probably really enjoy this film, for reasons other than the language. He was right. I appreciate how they incorporated so much of the folklore and the different reasons given for episodes like the witch hysteria in Salem, such as the children faking it for fun, or the mold on the rotten corn. (Rotten lamb stew is also used as a reason for Lizzie Borden's activities a couple hundred years later. So if you live in Massachusetts, make sure your food is always fresh and free of rot or you'll be held responsible for some horrible stuff.) There's also a creepy rabbit and a creepy goat, which makes me feel betrayed because I love rabbits and goats so much.

30 Day Movie Challenge Day 1: Your Favorite Movie

Because I don't have enough challenges in life I decided to take on a new one. (I'm kidding. I'm just not blogging or tweeting or Facebooking about every single challenge.) I've seen a number of friends on my Twitter feed doing a 30 Day Music Challenge lately, and I may do that one, too, but when someone suggested a movie challenge yesterday I realized it was much more my style. I'm not going to blog my movie selection every day but I will be tweeting it daily and maybe I'll follow-up with weekly posts or every few days.

Number 1 on the list easy. My favorite movie is The Philadelphia Story, starring Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and James Stewart. It's got fast-paced, witty dialogue. Comedy. Romance. Strong, independent women, some of them wearing pants. Reading. And drinking. So many things that make a perfect story for me.

I can't remember when I first this film it but for many years it's been my absolute favorite. I watched it last night, thinking of this list. I watch it every six months or so. I always want the ending to be different even though I know it's not going to be and it ultimately does have the right ending. This moment always has me on the edge of my seat in anticipation even though I know exactly what's going to happen:

This may seem like a spoiler but it's not. And really, the film came out in 1940 so the statute of limitations on spoiler alerts has pretty much run out.

If you're in the mood for what I consider to be one of the origins of romantic comedy in cinema, give this a chance.

Here's what's to come in the following days:

Who actually represents women in this administration?

Interacting with members of the opposite sex is a part of life.  Dining alone with a woman other than your own wife or being at a function where alcohol is served without your wife is only a threat to your marriage if there are trust issues and insecurities to begin with. If you don’t want to cheat on your spouse, don’t cheat on your spouse. That’s it. It’s so basic it shouldn’t even have to be a religious mandate.

How many women have worked for or with Mike Pence? He’s never had so much as a coffee meeting alone with any of them? Sometimes you have to work late and get dinner. What does it say that he’s willing to do this with his male staffers but not his female employees or coworkers? It says that he fears women as sexual objects and does not value them as equals in the workplace.

Attitudes like this strengthen the belief among religious conservatives that sex is a woman’s fault and men are helpless beings. She was raped because she wore attractive clothing. She was raped even though she wore a burka because a man found her to be tempting. She was raped because a man was threatened by her making more money than he does. Women can’t be in the military because the strongest, most disciplined manliest of men will lose all control of themselves if a female body is anywhere near them and it will be the woman’s fault for simply being present.

Some conservative op-ed writers are saying liberals are blowing this out of proportion. That liberals defend this kind of practice among Muslims because we care more about Muslims than Christians. Um, no. The fact that in several Muslim societies women are not allowed to be out of the house unless they are accompanied by their husband or a male family member is pretty frickin’ abhorrent to this liberal. Before I read that sort of criticism of liberals I was thinking about how much fundamental Christians and Muslims have in common with that view of not being alone with women or allowing women to be in the company of other men.

I’ve also read that he should be commended for making this decision to protect his marriage. It’s true that this could be a private decision between Mr. and Mrs. Pence. But Mike Pence also made a decision to be a politician, and politicians have to attend social functions, where alcohol might be served, and, see my example above about working with women. If protecting his marriage is that important maybe he’s chosen the wrong line of work.

The Billy Graham rule that Pence’s personal decision is based on also only acknowledges heterosexual intercourse, as if male members of the church and male politicians have never been caught sexually assaulting boys or having affairs with men.

I also wonder, if Mike Pence has made this decision for himself, does the same hold true for Karen Pence? If she feels that she can safely have a meal with a man without sleeping with him is she allowed to do so? Is she sheltered from furthering any of her own goals, or simply having male friends, without bringing a chaperone along?

I have a problem with the vice president being afraid to be in the same room as half of his constituents, especially when so many of those constituents are terrified to be in a room alone with the president. Who actually represents women in this administration?

For further reading:
The Religious Reasons Mike Pence Won't Eat Alone with Other Women Don't Add Up