Friday, August 15, 2008

Walking

I've been trying to get back into my walking routine. So far, it's been a successful week. I've been walking every morning again.I leave right when Baker gets on the bus and get back in time to get the other 3 kids ready for school. It's nice to get the exercise done early and out of the way. It makes for a better day.

Twice this week, Cara has walked with me. She's been doing a great job getting up and hanging in there with me. Today both Brennan and Cara walked with me. I felt a bit like the Pide Piper (is that how you spell "pide" or am I totally wrong....) with all my little chicks following along, but it was great to have that time with my twins. The mornings have been so beautiful and cool lately. It's very energizing to get out.

Walking this morning reminded me of the week that the kids and I walked to vacation Bible school in the mornings -- about a 2 mile walk. The walks made for good summer memories and turned into a bit of a lesson on conservation -- not that two miles is a huge gas sucker -- more just the principle.

At any rate, on one of our morning walks to VBS, Brennan decided to jog about a 1/4 of a mile. When we finally caught up with him. He asked me if I knew how he could keep up the jogging pace and make it to the end. I asked him how he did it. Here's the gist of what he said that morning: "When I'm running, I don't look ahead at how far I have to go. Instead, I keep my eyes focused on where I am and think about how far I've already come." Whew! That one blew me away. I was recounting that story the other day to a friend, and she asked if I had written it down. My answer was "no;" although it is a tag line at the end of my email signature.  Consider it written down now.

Children are certainly a gift from God. You never know what kind of profound words are going to come out of their mouths -- I prefer the inspiring ones -- they are usually so applicable and so innocently stated. God asks the little children to come unto Him, and He asks us to have faith like a child. What a simple request? What a hard reality to fulfill. Imagine living each day focused on the "now" and abiding in the confidence that God is in control of each second, minute, hour, day and year. We aren't asked to live any where other than in the present. God is here in the present with us. When I'm too focused on the "what ifs" or the concerns of the future, I'm not in the present with God. It's in the present where we find our greatest comfort and source of peace -- Our present should be in His presence.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Big Decisions

I've spent the latter half of the day trying to decide on a new haircut. My hair has been long for years. I need a change. Have you ever been to the hairstyler website? Fun. You can take a photo of yourself and try on all of these different hairstyles -- some look pretty ridiculous on me! 

Warning...

Okay..... here goes. Am I going to completely engulf myself into the viral world? My husband enlightened me this morning by mentioning the "social evolution" of blogging and twittering! I like staying connected, and apparently, this is a good way to do it. We'll see. My goal, though, is to not spend all of my morning setting these things up.... So far, I'm into it for a couple of hours now.

When I walked in the door this morning from my early morning walk, I told my husband that i had been texting while walking and that I would now need an unlimited texting package. My best friend with whom I used to walk with daily until she move a year ago sent me a text this morning, and we proceeded to text for just about our whole walk "together." 

I'm thinking this could be dangerous to my health -- not like smoking and walking but like falling into a ditch or getting bit by a dog while walking. I'm a mom of four, walking my neighborhood with my "Walk Yourself Fit" playing on my iPod and my thumbs "twittering and texting" away -- cool? not cool? Perhaps embarrassing for my 12.5 year old should he see me :>) after his bus takes off. I'll be careful, though, to make sure he's out of sight before I hit the aggregate sidewalk with all of my gear in tow.

This is a good enough start. I'm sure that I'll get more creative as I incorporate blogging into my lifestyle, but I don't know who'll be interested other than me!