Let's get physical

Some may think my mild obsessions with the zombie apocalypse and The Hunger Games (OK, so maybe I haven't mentioned my new found love of The Hunger Games trilogy...and yes, I did read all the books before I saw the movie) and the like are complete and total wastes of time.  I'm here to tell you they are not.  Not at all.

Turns out, these obsessions are a really great motivator for getting in shape.  Really, if our world were suddenly thrown into Panem rebellion like chaos, I'd need to be in much better shape than I currently am.  Mutts are fast.  Scary fast.  And don't even get me started on the need for serious cardio in case the dead begin rising from their graves & feasting on the brains of the living.

And this is why I've renewed my interest in exercise.  Well, that and the fact that I paid $150 for a bridesmaid dress for Bubba & Beck's wedding and I can no longer zip it up (and it's one of the rare dresses you really can wear again.....speaking of which, does anyone know if you can dye 100% polyester satin?).

When A Starry Night started posting about jogging on her Facebook page I chimed in that I am not a runner.  She suggested I download a C25K podcast (no, that is not a Star Wars reference- it stands for Couch to 5K) and give it a try.

You might recall that Husband lost around 60 pounds last year on a C25K program so I thought I'd give it a try.  Much to my surprise, it didn't kill me.  And my intro was a bit harder than Husband's.  His started out with 60 second intervals of jogging,  Mine started with 2 minutes of jogging broken up by 3 minutes of walking.  On my off days (which I'm keeping religiously), I'm stretching, doing a mish-mash of yoga and Pilates and strength exercises I've picked up over the last year or so.

In reality I gained 20 pounds a year or so ago & while I could use the extra weight, it's dispersal is what I'm having issues with.  It's all settled between my waist and about 6 inches above my knees.  Busha says I can thank her family for that gift.  It seems not only are she and her sisters well padded but their mother, grandmother, aunts and cousins were as well.  I don't mind some of the extra padding (it sure helps on Sundays with our lovely, antique, solid wood, non-cushioned pews) I just mind the jiggle.

So I run.  And hope.  And should probably lay off the cinnamon brown sugar Pop Tarts.

Bits of Farm Life captured just for you.

As promised, some pictures of life on our little spread. I would post pictures of our garden, but it's in a sad state this year. The massive amount of rain we've had has stunted everything but the grass & it has flourished where it shouldn't. It doesn't help that I have had absolutely no drive to get out & work in my garden this year so the weeds are thriving while my beans are struggling. Whoops.

Instead, I offer you a picture of Bitsy rocking in the yard:

I should explain that her hair is not always that fabulous. She had in pigtails & was looking as cute as a button, but decided she'd had enough of them. When she pulled the bands out, she refused to let me try & comb her hair back into submission....hence the wings.

She was trying to rock Moon to sleep (Moon is the little black fuzz ball on the ground fleeing from Bitsy's loving intentions). Moon was uncooperative, so Bitsy decided to rock by herself & shout at Moon to go nigh-night instead. Oddly, her plan did not induce Moon to nap. I wonder why.

We spent some time naming cats this weekend. Some of last years kittens had never really been named & three of them that looked very similar were named Rose. Baby is our oldest cat & mother/grandmother to many of the others. Jasmine is probably next to her in age. Now we also have Baby's Rose & Rosebud (to differentiate two of the three named Rose), Sweetface (who used to be the third Rose, named after Did's dearly departed cat), Sydney, and Sammy. The kittens are Moon, Follow Cat (named by B.B. because "he follows me"), Amelia, Grey Ghost, Fiddler, and Teveya (both named for Fiddler on the Roof characters because of their penchant for hanging out on the roof of Fort FarmHands). There are two others that need to be named, but as they're hard to tell apart, that will have to wait until they're a bit bigger. That's a lot of cats!

While we were exploring the creek last week, we lugged a bucket with us to gather up our treasures so I wouldn't end up with pockets full of rocks in my washing machine. The FarmHands decided to gather up pretty rocks & bits of shale to put on Andrew's grave and a few crab apples. I found the piece of glass.

I never have figured out what the glass was from, but it was covered in writing & was fairly thick. The dogs found it & drug it out into the drive-way where I found it smashed up yesterday. But here's a closer shot of what it said:

I could make out dates & a few words, but would love to know what it was from. One of my favorite things about living in the country is all the old "junk" that can be found when you take the time to explore. Not all of it is fun....we've found lots of rusty barbed wire buried on our land. Chunks of broken jars & bottles are not uncommon in ditches. But then I have a decent little collection of bottles brought up from old country dump sites. The FarmHands like to find old bones. A cow leg bone is often mistaken as a "real life T-rex bone!"

Such adventures! There are times when I miss living a half a mile from the grocery. There are times when I long for sidewalks & paved roads. There are days when I wish we could still walk to the library. There are moments when I miss having the neighbor kids knock on the door to come play with BabyGirl. But then I see something like this & I don't miss it so much anymore.

If we lived in town, the FarmHands wouldn't be the FarmHands. They wouldn't spend hours fishing tadpoles out of the pond. They wouldn't have 8,000 kittens to pack around. They wouldn't have a creek to get plastered in mud in. They wouldn't have "Huckleberry woods" to tromp through. They would be different kids all together.

Brace yourselves

I have a rather shocking announcement to make.



You may want to prepare yourself for it.



You should probably sit down....unless of course you already are sitting.



Ready?



Drum roll please.



























Today I jogged.



It was not a planned jog. It was more of a survival sprint.



It's been raining all day. I was disappointed as I really wanted to go walking before Husband left for work. The rain would ease up & I'd think, I'll just take a short walk. By the time I was ready to leave, it was always raining again.



There was another break in the rain, I shrugged on my hoodie, grabbed my CD player, and shot out the door...well, walked out the door. I rarely 'shoot' anywhere. I made it all the way to Big BIL's drive when the thunder rolled (not the Garth Brooks song...the real stuff). I thought I'd go to the end of his woods, then head back. This is when I also thought, "I wonder if I can jog that far." It's not a long distance...maybe 50 yards. I made it about 15 yards when the rain started. It was followed closely by a flash of lighting & a rather loud crack of thunder.



That's when I thought, "Forget 50 yards, I bet I can jog all the way home!" And I did. Grant it, Big BIL's house isn't a quarter mile down the road, and my chest was burning nicely when I got home, but I'm still proud of myself. And to be honest, had it not been for the lightning, I wouldn't have minded walking or jogging in the rain.



If this weather ever clears I think I'll start alternating jogging & walking on my short treks. When I got home, got out of my wet hoodie, dumped off my CD player (really useless when jogging), and wiped off my glasses, my pulse rate was still 120 bpm. I'm assuming that's good. I really have no idea. No, wait, I just found a heart rate calculator....it says I'm golden.



Yeah me!

I'm feeling much better today. No more pain. Not totally wiped out. Just the good old fashioned kind of tired. And just to set the record straight, no, I'm not worried about being pregnant. I have great faith in Doc's surgical abilities.

And guess what else....I walked today!! Yeah me! I headed down my normal route past Grandma-in-Country's house, but encountered JC's stupid dog. Why people keep giving him dogs is entirely beyond me. The latest is a german shepard I'd never laid eyes on until today. It wasn't too happy with me walking down the road, so I turned around & headed in the opposite direction. I walked to MIL's driveway, then headed back. While it may not have been a full mile, it was long enough to wake me up, and further convince me of my need for an MP3 player.

I have learned a few things since starting my walking regimine.

1. Keystone Light is the beer of choice for road trippers in our neck of the woods.


2. Dead Opossums stink even when it's fairly cool outside and they're fairly fresh.


3. Whatever got into Big BIL's duck pen didn't eat the ducks. It just left their carcasses in the ditch & adjoining field.


4. Odd tiny red fungus grows among the rocks on gravel roads.


5. People think nothing of tossing old shop vacs in the ditch.


6. Walking on gravel is much more chalanging than walking on pavement.

That's all I can think of at the moment.

I have decided to save up my birthday money this year (yes, I'll be 32 & I still get birthday money) to purchace an MP3 player. What I'd really (really, really, really) like to get is a 4GB Zune. That may be wishful thinking. I don't get that much birthday money...but if I can convince Husband of my need, maybe the difference can be his gift to me.

NM let me check his out Monday & I lurve it. I know, I know, it doesn't fit my initial description of pink, cheap, and no video...but it's still pink.