Of food and fresh air……

I’m not someone who has ever written much about exercise and food.  But this past year, continuing in this year, I’ve started changing in the way I feel and think about those two things.

In my previous post, I kind of talked about this a little. I thought maybe I’d share a few more of my thoughts.

The biggest thing for me is that I am not focusing on losing weight or following a strict one-time diet.  Why? Well, the weight thing would not help me mentally.  I would obsess over it.  And if I focused so exclusively on my weight, all my insecurities about myself and my body would make it overwhelming.  I don’t want to be that obsessed with my body. It is for this reason I never look at scale or weigh myself unless I need too.  I’m pretty comfortable in my own skin, but like others, I can be insecure about a lot of things, and I feel that focusing on excessive weight loss would be negative and not positive. (Nor, do I feel the need for it that drastically.)

The strict diet doesn’t appeal to me either.  Unless, medically, you really need a strict diet and exercise regime, I don’t  see the point of it.   Eliminating everything all at once would set me up for failure.  And when I fell, I would fall extremely hard. Not to mention, most diets are one-time things.  You do them for a while, and then you’re done and that’s the end of it.

So I don’t want to worry about losing weight. What I want to do is live a healthier lifestyle.  This means something that is going to last a lifetime.  This means something that I’m not going to do perfectly, but I can continue to strive for, grow in, get better at, and build upon for the rest of my life.

Making drastic, massive, immediate, short term changes are not something I see working well.

I want to do small things. Simple things; things like putting more fruits and vegetables in my diet, eating smaller portions of things, less and less of other things, and maybe sometimes, paying a little bit more attention to what is on the ingredient list.

I’ve already begun to lose my appeal for junk/fast food.  I’m thankful for this because it helps makes those things a lot less appealing.

I’ve been striving to get into a regular walking routine and doing it outside, because I am convinced that fresh air is just as important as exercise, and one should always exercise outside whenever possible. I have a little exercise bike to use on those days when I simply can’t go outside, or when I don’t have time to.

I want implement these things into my life, not just to lose weight, but for much bigger reasons. Simply, overall to be healthier in mind, body, and spirit. If I do shed some pounds along the way, I’ll just look at it as a blessed bonus.

I’m not interested in running a marathon.  I don’t want to spend hours working out.  If I had free access to water, I’d use it too, but I don’t. So I‘ll simply walk my dog, and I’ll breath in fresh air, whether its sun or rain or snow. I’ll keep aiming at eating more naturally good stuff, and less of the junk and crap that the government (yes, who else?) conspires to put into our food.

This is where I am, and where I want to head. Taking small and simple steps that just might get me to live healthier overall.  For someone who really isn’t athletic or interested in being so, this is the path that feels and seems the most right for me.

I don’t expect perfection.  (God only knows how I can crave sugar sometimes. ) but I do pray for determination to continue in the right direction and to always, always have the right mindset; to pick myself up when I do mess up, and just keep going forward.

My body is God’s and he has given it to me as a gift.  If, by his grace, I can become a better steward of it, I will be thankful.

In the New Year…..

It’s another new year.  They say time goes faster and faster the older you get and it’s true.  I’m pretty sure that 2011 blinked and was gone, just like that.

I could tell you all the things I’ve learned in 2011 or experienced, but I think this year I’d rather write about what I want to do in the New Year.

Now, I’m not really a big resolution person.  This is because I feel that making a definite resolution for something puts pressure on me to do it perfectly all the time. Which isn’t going to happen.  Realistically, I’m going to fail at the resolution. Also, I’ve never been a big goal-orientated person either.   I’ve never been good at being determined that I was going to do something or get something or accomplish something by a certain time.  I’m not good at looking far into the future and knowing exactly what I want.

However, there are some things I would simply like to get better at in 2012. And most, if not all these things are desires born out of some of the things that 2011 has taught me in some way.   By God’s grace, I hope to improve on these things, even if it’s a continuously slow and imperfect process.  (Which it definitely will be. )

I probably won’t be able to express everything as well as I’d like too.  But I’m going to try.

 

1. I want love on people better –Really? Yeah….this is a big thing I’ve been thinking about lately.  It is struggle to know how to communicate well with the people you love, even though you love them.  Humans really suck at communicating. But you don’t find a way to express that love, how will people see it? I feel like in the last few months of 2011 I’ve been really struggling with this.  I’ve also been thinking a lot about all the people I used to be good friends with and now have lost touch with.  That saddens me. Why does it feel so overwhelming to give as much as I should give to each person in my life? Why do I so easily allow the business of life to get in the way of people? People are the most important things on this planet, thus, I should give them the most attention.  Nothing else is comparable to a human being.  Therefore, I should be spending most of my time investing in these humans.  Nothing else is that important.  Not my job, (even though that IS important), not money, not stuff, not house-cleaning etc…. Nothing else. And yet, I’m looking at my relationships, and my role in them, and I’m seeing failure everywhere.  I see failure in all the friendships I have lost touch with.  I see failure on my part in the relationships I do, falteringly try to invest in.   I find myself getting more easily annoyed by things that shouldn’t annoy me.  Small things get to me more than they should.  So, where is this unconditional love that I believe in so strongly? Somehow, I feel like it used to be so much easier for me to invest in people.  I used to be so much better at it.  I want to find that again.  I know that I have to take care of myself too, in order to be good at my relationships, so that I don’t fall apart or push myself to hard.  And sometimes, that means, I need to be alone. But I feel that I’ve gotten worse, not better at these relationships.  And I want to get better.  I want to spend time investing in real people.  I want to pick up again, some of those relationships that I lost, not because anything bad happened, but just because we both got too “busy.”   What that looks like? I’m not sure….I think it will be different with each person.  And it will be challenging for me.  I’m a very anti-social person.  I’m realizing this more and more. I prefer small groups of people and good friends over large crowds and loud parties.  I get easily overwhelmed by a lot of people.  It’s kind of like something in me shuts down when I’m that overwhelmed and I can’t talk.  Even with good friends, sometimes, it’s hard for me to simply be social.  But if I can get better at that with the good friends I do have, and maybe catch up again with some of the good friends I used to have; and if I can find a way to simply be okay with myself around new people (and not so utterly petrified), it would be an improvement.  Above all, I want to be known as someone who loves unconditionally.  It won’t be a perfect love, but if by God’s grace I can do better than I have been doing, then it will mean something.
2. Being a God-person:  Basically, I need to spend more time with God.  Actually, this probably should have been first, as it directly correlates to the above.  For, if I don’t have a good relationship with God, how can I have good relationships with the people he created?   If I love him, I spend time with him right?  This is something that will require a large amount of “just doing it” and getting over any excuses I might come up with. I think, and firmly believe, that my life would be much more grounded, if I could find improvement in this area.  Again, grace will be needed, because it’s unfortunately the easiest thing in the world to brush this off.  I think it’s probably something that always needs improvement.  I just pray, I don’t give up on striving for that improvement.
3. Living a more simplistic life-style:  I don’t know if this needs too much explanation.  Basically, I would like to get better and better at things like, not having too much stuff, keeping only what is important to me or needed, not spending much money on unnecessary things, spending money only on what is needed or for doing things with real people, and always finding and maintaining ways of keeping my life clutter-free, so I can spend time on the more important things.
4. Taking care of my temple –This also is a constant process.  I’m not a big exercise person.  (Most of it just sounds utterly boring to me. Lol.)  Nor, do I really believe in rigid diets.  (Complete elimination of some things would not be helpful to me.)  But, like I said, there is always room for improvement in this area.  And I think it can be simple, and doesn’t have to be as complicated as we sometimes make it.  So, if I can just get myself into the habit of walking as much as possible every week, and doing it outside as much as possible, it would be helpful.  I’m learning to eat better, though not perfectly.  But I’ve gotten sick of junk food, and I crave home-cooked, real food more than ever before.  It would also be something as simple as just taking smaller portions of things, and forgoing the second or third helpings.   Also, sleeping better.  I’ve already been working on this, and it’s still not perfected (nor, will it ever be I think), but it’s getting better.  I’ve also been inadvertently rubbed off on by people around me who passionate about this kind of stuff. (Yes, that’s you Melissa Coombs.   I’ve started reading ingredients, and looking for things that have less junk in them.  It’s hard, because I don’t always have the time or the energy (after an 8 hour day of work, I do not feel like cooking, lol.)  However, if I can just keep gently, plugging at the things I’ve already started, I know I could feel a lot better about my body.  The other aspect of it, is, that I’ve noticed how certain things affect me mentally.  I’ve been beginning to really make the connection between how I feel physically and how that affects how I feel mentally.  Being someone who has a tendency to struggle with things in the mental world, this is definitely important.  The other part of it is also making sure I’m looking at this whole thing properly. God gave me my body and all its lovely little imperfections.  It is a temple, a gift, something that belongs to him.  Like the rest of creation, I am a steward of it.  Therefore, as steward, I should take care of this body to best of my ability.  With God’s help, I will, and with his help, I’ll continue to get better at this stewardship.
5. Living in the real world –This is a big deal to me.  We live in a digital era, and while technology is a beautiful and wondrous thing, sometimes it worries me that the more digital we go, the less we live in the real world.  The digital world can never, ever replace the real world. So, I want to constantly keep that in my mind.  I want to constantly keep technology in its proper place, as nothing more than tool, in light of what is real, of what I can smell, and taste and touch.  So, things like writing by hand…or using cash….or talking to real people instead of FB, or reading a real book instead of a Kindle.  This is something I’ve gotten incredibly passionate about, and it’s something I want to continue to fight for, and to get better at in my own life.  No matter how good or amazing our technology gets, it will never replace creation from nothing.

Stories and meaning….

I think I’m different from a lot of people in that I don’t believe in stories (film or books) being entertainment for entertainment’s sake.  I can’t accept something that is mere fluff. I need to have meaning, and I need it to be deep meaning.  If I’m going spend time engaging with a story, I need it be something I can take seriously and it needs to be something that has meaning to it.  It can be entertaining to a certain degree.  I can appreciate humor, but even humor needs to be something I can take seriously too, in that the humor or the “entertainment”  means something.

I think this is why I can’t completely accept Twilight.  Twilight is merely fluff to me and it doesn’t have much meaning.  I can’t take it seriously and therefore it’s not worth paying much attention to.  When I first read the books, (and I did read all of them), I actually found them fascinating.   I was absorbed into them and I read them all rather quickly.

But that’s about as far as it went.  Ultimately, the ending was never satisfying to me.  The whole thing was so ridiculous, and so anti-climatic.  (If you are going to set up that much tension in a story, and then not have a big fat battle over it, where people actually die, than you shouldn’t have raise the stakes that high in the first place.)

I knew that Twilight wasn’t going to work for me when I tried re-reading the first book again. When I did that, it annoyed me so much, I couldn’t stand it.  I felt that way when I watched the first movie for the second time.  If, after the first time I engage with a story, I don’t feel that I want to see it again or read it again, then it’s probably not working for me.  It’s the stories that I want to re-read or re-watch the minute I’ve finished it the first time that I know are going to stick to me; the ones that are going to last in my heart for a long time.

Maybe Twilight isn’t supposed to be taken that seriously.  Maybe some people that get into it, do it for the mere ridiculous fun of it, and maybe it’s not that big a deal to them.

But if I can’t take it seriously, then I can’t accept it. And I think the thing that annoys me is that some people do take it very seriously.

I can accept Harry Potter and The Hunger Games as legitimate because they both have tons of meaning in them.  They are worth making a big deal of, because they can be taken seriously.

So maybe I shouldn’t take things so seriously all the time?  Yeah, you are probably right.   When it comes to other parts of my life, I have learned to lighten up a little. But I can’t help this when it comes to stories and storytelling.  Is it so wrong that I question, analyze, ask why, and insist that in a shallow, meaningless (without God) world, my stories need to mean something?

Stories are a deeply human way of understanding the world and our place in it  The best stories always teach us something.  Whether we know it or not, whether we think about it, the greatest stories will affect us in some way, and they should be things that change us somehow.  If you engage with a story, walk away from it,  forget about it, and it doesn’t affect you at all, I would consider it a waste of time.

Maybe some people do find meaning in Twilight.   I don’t know.  (I really didn’t.) But I do know, that if I can’t find significance in my stories, and if I can’t take them seriously, then I’m unlikely to accept them that easily.

Not a perfect person……

Hello Blog. Its been a while.

Today, (tonight actually) I’m going to write on something I’m passionate about. I really should do that more often and I would like to try. (We’ll see how it goes.) So here we begin.

This was posted on Muggle.Net today: http://www.mugglenet.com/app/news/show/5007

And, me being me, I had to respond to it.  I’m passionate about character, nerdy about Harry Potter, and absolutely love Severus Snape. So, it honestly would be near impossible for me to ignore it.

I think my response to the post would be what some of the comments stated; that it is really because of Snape’s flaws that we love him so much.  He was never perfect and he made some really, really stupid and dumb decisions in his younger years. He lived with the consequences of those decisions for the rest of his life.  But the thing that marks him out, is that despite those flaws, the nasty attitude, the bitterness and meanness that flowed out of him as a result, he still loved.  He loved the only person in his life that ever showed any real love towards him: Lily.

I really think most of us who love Snape are not blind to his faults.  Whether he ever really cared for Harry? I don’t know if I could ever answer that question satisfactorily.  Snape’s one and only defining virtue was his capability to love one person and one person only.  This enabled him to find an incredible courage to do what he had to do.  But its hard to tell if he could ever forgive Harry for being James’ son. I would like to think that for the sake of Lily, he could forgive Harry, just like he was finally able to do something right for the sake of Lily. I don’t know though. Rowling doesn’t delve that deeply enough into Snape’s character for us to know everything that we could possibly know about him.  I think there is some mystery, which leaves room for speculation. But maybe its better that way.  I’ve always loved Snape’s complexity, and that complexity isn’t going to explain everything.

As for Harry naming his son after Sev, I think that is actually quite appropriate. Whatever Sev felt or didn’t feel for Harry, he impacted Harry’s life in a way Harry was not likely to ever forget. I think Harry forgave him, and was willing to pay tribute to Snape’s better side and named his child Albus Severus to honor Severus for doing something right.  Somehow I think, it doesn’t necessarily matter whether or not Sev would have wanted Harry to name his son after him.  Severus was dead. Albus Severus was Harry’s son, and he was living and breathing in a world that was Voldemort-less because of what Severus had done.

I’m not sure I’m necessarily disagreeing with the statements made, but maybe I’m saying it’s kind of a moot point in my perspective. Snape was never perfect. But he did love someone, and he loved her fiercely.  This love did not make him a perfect person, but it did I think, save him.

Pieces of the library…..

I have often thought about keeping track of some of the books I come across in my job.  Processing books for the local public library means I see just about everything.  That means all the good, all the bad, and everything in between. Sometimes it’s rather fascinating. This week I did keep track of a few things, and would like to continue to do so.  Random things catch my eye for random reasons. Sometimes, I’m just intrigued (or appalled) by certain trends. Here is a sampling:

1. Paranormal adult romance: There is a branch within the adult romance genre that has aggressively populated this genre over the last few years.  (I blame Twilight.) Paranormal romance of every shape and size dominate these books.  And it’s not just your regular old vampires and werewolves.  There is everything imaginable, half-human, half-whatever you can possibly think of that’s terribly twisted.  But the one to top it all is one that I came across this week: A were-cougar. Yes. You read that right. Were-cougar? Mhm. Now I’ve heard of everything.

2.  Jane Austen gone horror: So, I’m sure you’ve all heard of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, right? Well, did you know that Mr. Darcy was also a wolf? http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Darcys-Bite-Mary-Simonsen/dp/1402250770/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319597074&sr=1-1. Or that Jane Austen was a vampire?  http://www.amazon.com/Jane-Austen-Blood-Persuasion-Novel/dp/006195831X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319597186&sr=1-1

3. The title of a book written by the same authors of the popular children’s series Captain Underpants goes thus: Super Diaper Baby 2: The Invasion of the Potty Snatchers.  (So this is what we let our kids read?)

4. Sometimes I see titles that sound fascinating, but end up being books I probably won’t ever read like the following: History of the World in 100 objects.  http://www.amazon.com/History-World-100-Objects/dp/0670022705/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319597355&sr=1-1

5.  So, all you computer people out there might like to know that Steve Jobs has a biography: http://www.amazon.com/Steve-Jobs-Walter-Isaacson/dp/1451648537/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319597402&sr=1-1

6. I like cookbooks that sound yummy like Lidia’s Italy in America. 

7.  Among the vast and “varied” world of “Inspirational” fiction, there is an obsession with the Amish that has run wild.  You wouldn’t believe how many of these books take place in the Amish world (or the clashing of our world with theirs.)

8. And then there are those kids books that are so stinking adorable and sweet, they just make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside: http://www.amazon.com/Neville-Norton-Juster/dp/0375867651/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319597532&sr=1-1

Sunday, September 4, 2011, in single words….

Sun.

Clouds.

Water.

Sky.

Sand.

Food.

Laughter.

Stillness.

Peace.

Joy.

Timeless.

Memory.

Woods.

Waves.

Kite.

Wind.

Feet.

Arms.

Milk-jug. 

Faces.

Wine-glasses.

Smiles.

Sunset.

Eyes.

Snape.

Friends.

Kindred spirits.

Woods.

Night.

Cold.

Songs.

Crazy.

Games.

Heartbeats.

Beauty.

Love.

Depression….

(….expressed in my rambling way….)

Everyone pretends to know how to define the brain. Even the church throws around its trite spiritual answers, like it’s so simple to deal with the complexity of a human head, which mysterious enough in itself is complicated by being cursed, diseased, and constantly attacked by self and its autonomy.

Those answers aren’t enough for me, when my life is so good, but still the darkness comes when I’m not looking for it, creeping into the corners of my heart, and suddenly the infernal sadness has returned, baffling me, and bringing me down.

We are whole beings in which all the spiritual, emotional, mental, and the biological, mold together in mystery, and the intricacies of the brain and nerves that God put in our bodies are entangled with the essence of soul-bearing.

Somewhere in the human being it is both/and, spiritual and biological; the struggle we entitle depression, so ill-defined, so abused, so over-used, so real, so much a struggle, secret and dark, so alone for those who fight it, passed over by most, neglected by culture, sin-accused; God only knows the depths of his creatures, how we grapple with our demons, and how we wrestle with our own inner monsters…

If He did not fight for us, we’d all fall prey to ourselves.

Music….

I will go weeks without listening to my music.  I have this thing about quietness, and about not having ear-phones stuck in my ears constantly.  So, I don’t listen any music very often. But then I get the urge or I go on a road trip or something, and I’m reminded of all the music I have and the music I love and I’ll play it for several days, until I need my quietness back again. Maybe I’m weird that way, and the cycle is odd to most people, but that’s just how it is. At any rate I listened to a good amount of my music today, and I’d like to share a few pieces of it with you.

If I were ever to make a movie, I’d want Olafur Arnalds to be my music composer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP_CZ_izanY&feature=related

I sometimes really miss this show so bad. It has to be one of my favorite tv shows of all time.  It was a show that was all about the characters, and I’m so character -driven that I fell in love with every single character and I stuck with them to the bitter and utter end. This track, reminds me of all the things I loved about that show, especially in the first season. It’s a beautiful and emotional piece of music, wonderfully capturing all the goodness of what made up LOST. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRYowiiAOhg

This music sheds several years off of me and makes me feel like an Orlando Bloom-crushing teenager again.  POTC was one of my first soundtracks and I still love it.  It’s so much fun and it has all the good feelings the first Pirates movie had.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFBBKfw59kA

I adore this song. I think its because I feel that it speaks truth, and speaks it in a way that is beautiful.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O5kflDCWN4  

There are just some movies and some movie music that I will always love. This is one of them.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0kGAz6HYM8 

I am grateful for all the undconditional and “not fair” love that I have been given in my life. Love is, after all, a choice. And in being a choice, it often seems incredibly unfair. In that case, God’s love is not fair, for we do not deserve it. He chooses to love us. When I listen to this song I think of His love as well as His love shown through the friendships and relationships that I’ve had. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Pw-BfwClQU 

I’ve probably been listening to this soundtrack for about a year now.  And I have yet to grow tired of it.  Its undoubtedly one of the best soundtracks I’ve come across, and if I had a top ten, it would be in it. The movie itself is AMAZING, and the music reflects that. This, is one of my favorite tracks from How to Train Your Dragon, a movie by the way, that has enough depth to it to be appreciated by adults as well as children.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CJ96LGGP6w 

My Pensieve for the day….

-I sometimes wonder if I could make money by organizing people’s lives and planning their events for them. I love doing stuff like that, and I love organizing. I’m begining to think, however, that that job would also require an ability to psychologically distress people with certain personalities.  If I could just infuse them with my calm, laid-back demeanor in these situations, and do all the planning for them, it just might work.

-When I help my friend do her summer movie projects, I feel alive. Its the same kind of alive-ness I feel when I doing theatre crewing: The same kind of satisfaction that I’m actually doing something I should be doing. I’m enabling gifted storytellers to tell their stories better. I’ve thought in my head so many times that doing this for the rest of my life would be what I would love doing. But I don’t know what that would look like as a 24/7 life. I don’t know how it make it work as a “job.” The thing is, I see it as less of a job and more of a ministry of sorts. I can come behind gifted people, who want to tell great stories to the best of their ability, and become better in their craft/art; I can do whatever I can to make it easier for them to tell those stories and to create beauty.  So, maybe its not supposed to be my bread-and-butter job anyways. Maybe its supposed to be what I feel like it is….the idea that I am serving the storytellers: the artists, the writers, the actors, the film-makers etc…..

-Today is beautiful. Every day is beautiful, even when its bad day……

Another Snape thing…..

(….because I’m one his girls, to the core…so, you’re just going to have to deal with and accept that fact.

I was just looking through some of my stuff, and came across a Snape thing I’d written a few years ago. I think I had written it before the 7th book came out. However, while I was reading through it, I decided to re-write it. And so I’m sharing the re-writing here. I think the concept behind it is/was something along the lines of this: That Severus was so good at being controlled and hiding things during the daylight hours, but what about at night when he was alone? Did he ever fall apart, ever lose control, ever have those moments where he simply was overwhelmed with everything? This is what I would envision what that would look like.

~*~
It was night. He sat alone, hunched over, shrouded by the peace and quiet that only comes in deep night-time. But his mind wasn’t quiet. It was whirling and tossing like it did every night. He never found peace in the quietness. Instead, the silence forced him to face himself, his darkness, and his memories.

He was sleepless again. He was always sleepless.

Every night, about mid-night, the silence woke him up. All these years and he still wasn’t able to sleep well. Often, he spent hours, almost to dawn brooding over the thoughts and feelings that came crashing down on him when he was alone, defenseless tired, and couldn’t find the strength to keep them from coming.

When the morning light came, he always managed to put himself under control again, to hide behind his mask. He was good at hiding. No one ever saw his pain. No one would ever know how deeply he hurt.

He was alone, so utterly alone. That terrified him sometimes. He hated himself for that fear. He hated himself for what he was.

These nights, especially lately, the memories engulfed him. He didn’t fight them during these moments, for there was no one to see him break down, and fall apart.

As much as he hated them, the tears would often come. They came whenever he thought of her. His darks eyes would fill up and he would give up trying to stop them, because it hurt too much.

When he could hardly stand the tears anymore, or the pain that came with them, the anger started. It boiled up inside of him, and turned into an awful fury.

It was in these moments when he lost complete control, and would often raise his wand and fling curses all over the place. He imagined every one of those curses hitting one person; the one person who had destroyed his one chance at living a good life.

After a while, the fury would disappear, and he would sink to the ground exhausted. And in those moments, he hated himself even more, and sometimes considered concocting a deadly potion and drinking it and ending everything.

In those moments of utter despair, he would remember why he couldn’t stop fighting.

“Lily.” He would whisper her name softly and gently to the night.

And with her name, upon his lips, he would fall asleep where he was, until the sun rose, and he awoke, to put his mask back on again, and play his deadly game of survival.