New horizons... new shoes

The sun is shining

The rain has ceased

My mind is clear

I am at peace

My own little poem to commemorate this beautiful season of change! Many things are upon the verge of great change, and I am one of them.

I started going to a gym one year ago to begin my journey back to what I knew before I had put on two babies' worth of girth. Let me say that my mission was accomplished. Let me also say, though, that I have a long way to go. Before those last two children, I had a significant amount of poundage to part with, and so to say my journey is complete would be an out-and-out waste of breath. Breath that could be used huffing and puffing along on the treadmill. There was my problem. My gym had no treadmill. Just a circuit. I began running in the summer, and the weight FELL off! It was miraculous! It was stupendous! It was... tiring. But it was a success. Then the winter came, and with it, the ice and snow-covered sidewalks in urbania. I stopped running.

So I joined a new gym. Got a trainer. This gym has lots of pretty (okay, not that pretty) treadmills and ellipticals and such. I also bought some new shoes. Gym shoes. Ahh, I feel like a schoolgirl! A schoolgirl in love with her new shoes. Pretty little pink swoosh... Pretty little silver streaks dancing around.

All my life, I knew two things: I was not a runner, and I hated pink. Here I am, running in shoes decorated in pink and loving it.

This truly is a time where I am looking at a new horizon--one where the sky is a different shade of blue (or is it pink?), and the birds seem to all sing a new song. Someone very significant recently said that this is a new season. Now you may be thinking literally here, but it was meant to be much more than that. And I believe her. A new season in life for many things. Change is amazing, if we accept it.

I look forward to new things. A new waistline, to be perfectly shallow, a new role to play in life as we know it, to be less shallow... And an opportunity to take others with me up the road leading into this new horizon. Hope to see you there... My mind is clear, I am at peace.

. . .

And here's a little fun for you... my eldest was reading to me about the Potowatomi Indians today and tried to get me to guess the next word in her sentence... "Their goal was to make contact with...." and she looked at me, eyes shining, expectant. I looked back, a bit distracted, truthfully, and said nothing.

"Withhhhhh..." and then she hunched up a bit, wrinkled her nose, made almost claw-like hand motions and said yet again, "withhhhh?"

"Cranky badgers?"

Much laughter ensued from the 8-year-old scholar. And then: "Evil spirits! You were WAY off!"

Enjoy your day and hope you had a nice smile. On the house.