5K - I Did It!

 Wow, the first 5K is in the past, completed successfully and was a lot of fun. I am continuing to run several times a week, and walking on other days. I am up to four miles at a time and am aiming for 6 miles so I can do a 10K. Here are some pictures from The Color Run 5K Fun Run.

Getting ready to leave the house for The Color Run, I was pretty pumped up.

My fellow runners, daughter Amber and her husband Brad, me, and Skylar who is Emily's fiance.

Ta Da, I DID IT!! First 5K completed.

Husband Dave, my "manager" :)

The cheerleaders, daughter Emily, husband Dave, and the grandsons!

Sweet Pete, the littlest cheerleader.

The grandsons after they played with some of the color packs, compliments of The Color Run.

5K Training!

Well if you had told me one year ago that I would voluntarily sign myself up to do a 5K run in the spring of 2015 I would have laughed at you. But this is exactly what has happened, three weeks from today I will do my first 5K, a fun run, so it should not be intimidating and it is not timed.
For the past week I have added running to my walking routine and all that fast walking for miles at a time has paid off, it has really built up my endurance. A 5K is around 3.1 miles, last Saturday I ran that distance and managed it well, I was very pleased. I have since run 3.1 to 3.2 miles three more times
Running uses different muscles to walking, this rather surprised me, so I plan to mix it up, some days run, some days walk, some days both.  Walking is definitely easier on the body, my right heel is a little sore from the running, but I am doing stretches and have iced it, and feel this will improve with time.
I am not a fast runner! I have read several articles about getting started with running, all said don't focus on speed, focus on endurance and run a pace that is comfortable. This is key, one day I started out too fast, quickly I was breathing too fast and feeling out of breath and had to stop. My mantra when I start is, "keep it slow and steady", this works well for me.
Daughter Amber, and son-in-law Brad signed up for the fun run, I am excited to have their support. Husband Dave, and our daughter Emily will be there to support us and watch the grandsons while we run. I am really looking forward to May 23.

On other news, the shingles are really healing up now, still a little irritation from time to time, but for the most part I feel back to normal, and that is a GOOD THING.

Ughhhhhhhhhh Shingles

Three weeks ago I was standing in the kitchen washing dishes and noticed that I kept scratching the right side of my back. It was an annoying itch so I went into the bathroom to look in the mirror, I could not see any reason at all for the itchiness and after a while it subsided. On Sunday evening my back ached on the right side above my waistline, I had worked hard all day cooking Easter dinner for the family, cleaning up afterwards, and playing corn hole for the first time in 2015. I assumed my back ached because I was tired from a busy day, I did not sleep well that night. Monday night was the same, a sore back, no position was comfortable and another restless night. On Tuesday evening I left with my son, daughter-in-law and grand daughters to drive to Florida to see my parents, a fifteen plus hour drive. We drove all night, my back bothered me quite a bit. The next morning my back was super bothering me, we still had five hours of driving to do, and the pain was now radiating through my ribs and around my right side and across my stomach. I felt quiet unwell and began imagining all kinds of things must be wrong with me. Suddenly I thought about shingles, and thanks to the wonders of the cell phones and internet, within a minute I was reading articles about shingles and understanding that my symptoms seemed to be the onset of this nasty illness. A day later my self diagnoses was confirmed when I noticed a nasty rash developing on the right side of my stomach and back.
The rash grew for around five days and then looked yucky and has since slowly dried up and scabbed over. The shingles pain is very odd, sometimes just itchiness and burning, other times such annoying irritation, and often deep pain that feels like extreme bruising or a very pulled muscle. I have had very few good nights of sleep, and have felt very tired, tonight is the first night in a week that I have stayed up past 8:30 pm. Tylenol and Advil have helped immensely. Initially calamine lotion and cortisone cream helped the rash when it was at a very itchy, annoying stage.
It seems this virus lasts for three to five weeks, I am hoping that I am now cruising into the final weeks of battling shingles, I sure hope so. The good thing, the younger you are when you get shingles the less likely you are to have long lasting after effects from it, and once you have shingles it is unlikely that it will reoccur.
Walking helps a lot to relieve the pain of shingles, but I have not walked as much as usual because some days I have simply been too tired, but I am doing the best I can. Today I decided to sign up for a 5K run, a first for me, and I am excited as it gives me something to work towards and I should be well over the shingles by May 23, whether I will be quite ready to run the full 5K who knows, but I will give it my best shot. It made me feel a lot better this afternoon to have something to focus on in the near future that will be a new experience and it is a motivator to get back out to daily exercise and not let these stupid shingles slow me down.

A Journey to Good Health

Just over a year ago I turned fifty. I was overweight, and continued to gain weight through the spring of 2014 and by late summer was at the heaviest I had ever been in my life. I did not feel good at all, my clothes were barely fitting me, my joints ached, I walked at a very slow pace, I was always tired. My blood pressure was high so I went to the doctor last June and he put me on medication to control it, but he also said that I should lose weight and start walking each day.

Well June ended, July came and went and I gained more weight, in early August our fifth grandchild was born, Dave and I had our picture taken with all five of our grandchildren, I looked at the picture and was disturbed at just how large I had become, I felt upset and frustrated, I knew I needed to do something and I knew that I had to start with my diet, lots of baked goods, candies, snacks and daily overeating had taken their toll.

At first I just started eating less and avoided junk food, I lost ten or twelve pounds fairly quickly, then the weight loss slowed and a pound or two crept back. Frustration kicked in, I needed a better way to track what I was doing and to measure progress. In October we had a bonfire and invited family to come hang out. While sitting around the bonfire someone asked my husband's brother-in-law how he had lost weight. Bill was never a heavy man but over the past few years he had gained about twenty pounds, he started feeling unwell and went to the doctor and they diagnosed him with type 2 diabetes, his doctor said if he would commit to losing 15 pounds he would probably be able to reverse the diagnoses. Bill found an app on the Livestrong website and started using it, it tracked his food and helped him stay on track, he lost thirty pounds, he looks and feels great, but best of all when he returned to the doctor his blood sugar had normalized and he no longer has type 2 diabetes. My son-in-law's father, Conley, did the same thing, he was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, followed the doctors orders to lose weight, and low and behold he no longer has type 2 diabetes.  I was inspired by both Bill and Conley, they both decided to take control of their health and are all the better for it.

After the bonfire I downloaded the Livestrong app, I used it to track all of my food and kept within my calorie allowance each day and by Thanksgiving I had lost almost twenty-five pounds, although still heavy I was feeling really good. Unfortunately the Livestrong app had many issues working on my phone and when I contacted their tech support they told me it wasn't supported on my device. Thankfully I found another app, MyfitnessPal, and to say it has been a lifesaver is not an exaggeration. It helps me track all of my food so I can stay within my calorie budget, and it sort of retrains you to eat better, I always get plenty of fiber each day, enough protein, eat my green leafy vegetables, and enjoy a treat here and there, but I can plan my day to make sure I don't overeat.

Over thanksgiving my sister and brother-in-law were visiting from England, both are in great shape, they run, they bike, they eat healthy foods and both are lean, trim, and energetic. Each Thanksgiving they have done the Turkey Gobbler run, a Fort Wayne tradition on Thanksgiving morning, when they returned from their run they encouraged me to start training so I can join them on the 2015 run. I felt encouraged by my sister and brother-in-law.

My sister Marika has also been an inspiration on my weight loss journey, she was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer in January of 2013, she had a partial mastectomy but refused further traditional treatment of chemotherapy and radiation.  Marika instead did research on diet and natural approaches to treating cancer, she visited a doctor in New York and followed his regimen, she follows a very strict diet for optimal health but my goodness she is the picture of health and two years later remains cancer free and is living her life to the fullest. Another person who decided to take control of her health and is all the better for it.

Well after Thanksgiving I found another app, MapMyWalk, an awesome app, it does what it says, it maps your walk, it times your pace and tells you how fast you walk and kind of challenges and encourages you to compete against yourself.  I have gone from walking slowly and painfully last summer, to taking five to six mile walks daily at a pace of fourteen and a half minutes per mile. As I march around the countryside I feel alive, pumped up, good. Last week I did a 9.8 mile walk, I was tired when I returned home, but felt wonderful when I thought back to where I was a year ago. I incorporate some running into my walks, one day I jogged two and half miles without stopping, but the running is coming along slowly, I will persevere.

Now it is April, I am down sixty pounds. Sixty pounds! That is a bag and a half of softener salt, six sacks of potatoes, that I am no longer lugging around. No wonder my joints ached, no wonder I moved slowly. I still have around twenty pounds to go, but I feel absolutely fabulous, and my first major goal was met two weeks ago.

Remember the blood pressure medication? Well doing what my doctor recommended, walking each day and losing weight paid off.  My blood pressure started getting very low on the bp meds, 93 over 60, those sort of readings, so I called the doctor and they said halve the dose and come see them in a week. I did that and they said to STOP taking the medication and keep an eye on my bp, it has been two weeks and my bp has remained in a normal range all of that time and I feel so happy to be off of the medication as this was one of my main goals when I started my weight loss journey.  My next goal is to reach a healthy BMI, I am two pounds from the high end of normal weight BMI for my height, so the goal is almost reached. My third goal is to get twenty more pounds off so that I am in the mid-range of healthy BMI for my height.  And my final goal is to maintain a healthy weight for the rest of my life by eating a good diet and daily exercise.

My motivation to walk each day is that it is my daily dose of medicine for my bp, I would much rather take a brisk walk than a pill. My children have encouraged me and for my birthday this year, I turned 51, they gave me a FitBit, and I love it, it tracks my steps each day, my heart rate, my sleep, it links with MyFitnessPal to track my exercise and calories, it is a great little motivator, you really, really want to make sure you get the 10,000 steps in each day. (about five miles).

Another inspiration is a post that was shared on FaceBook about a lady called Ernestine Shepherd, google her, the seven minute YouTube video is well worth watching. Ernestine is the worlds oldest female body builder, she will be 79 this coming June.  Ernestine takes no meds, is lean and strong as can be, she runs, yes runs, 10 miles each day, she eats a healthy diet, she does weight training for two hours a day, and she teaches exercise classes at her church, in addition to competing in body builder competitions and giving motivational speeches. She is 78! And, Ernestine looks FABULOUS in a bikini when she is competing, and did I mention, she is 78!  When I don't feel like exercising I think about Ernestine getting up at three each morning to run 10 miles.

In closing it takes self-motivation to make a life change, but it also takes encouragement and inspiration from family and friends and from people we don't know who share their stories. I hope my story helps someone move off of the couch to start taking those first steps towards changing their health and their life.  Not only do I feel better, I look better, I have energy, I have strength, I move quickly, I feel twenty years younger, taking control of your health is about the best thing you can do for yourself.

Thank you for reading to the end of this very long post :)

Bean

Knitting and Bread Making - What else is a girl to do on cold winter days?

Well as the title to this post suggests, I have been busy knitting and making bread. We had such a cold February, and March began with five inches of snow and very cold temperatures, but today is the last day of super cold and boy am I glad to know things are warming up. Even with the cold, cold weather it is nice to see the day light hours lengthening, and my thoughts turn to the garden, what we will plant, where we will plant, I can't wait to get outside to play in the mud.

Anyway, back to knitting, I have been on a roll lately. First I made myself a new cardigan knitted in a bright and cheerful variegated yarn, I love the way the colors knitted into stripes and I very pleased with the end result. This must be my winter of variegated yarn, I knitted Alivia a very colorful sweater in a primary color variegated yarn and will be making Charlie a matching sweater next. Next week I will see my mom and will borrow from her a pattern for a zippered, hoodie sweater, I plan to knit one for myself in the same variegated yarn I am using for Alivia and Charlie's sweaters. Henry asked for a sweater too, I may end up making all grand babies the colorful variegated sweater, boy will we look a riot of color if we all go out and about together. 

I really love browsing the knitting books at our library and found a gem of a pattern book recently, Baby Knits Made Easy, I am LOVING this book and will order a copy for my very own. I knitted baby Aubrey a ballet wrap cardigan and am working on a matching one for Alivia. I then made a long, striped cap for Emily's new baby, grandbaby #7,  who is due on August 8, (Dave's birthday, which he already shares with our son Ben, and our grandson Peter!!).  

It was nice to bake bread on Wednesday, I decided to do a double batch and ended up with 9 loaves, the grand babies devoured the first loaf and the rest went to the freezer. Kneading bread is very relaxing, the aroma of baking bread is awesome, the taste of fresh baked, warm from the oven bread is amazing. And along with all of the delights of the bread making, baking, tasting is the cozy warm kitchen. 

Some Memories From My Mother

Recently I was listening to an interview on BBC Radio 4 with author David Lodge. It was an interesting interview and David sounded as though he is in his thirties rather than in his early eighties. Anyway, I thought to myself if the author is so interesting what must his books be like? I did a quick search on our local library website and wowsers they own many titles by David Lodge. I left work that day and headed to our fabulous downtown library, (we truly have a most wonderful library service in our county, I think one of the best in the country), I quickly located David Lodge in Readers Services and selected four of his books to read.
 I am reading the first of the four David Lodge books, I am most of the way done, I seem to have very little time to get reading in, but it is very good. In fact, I thought to myself, self your mother would really, really enjoy this book, so I emailed good old Mumpy and said you have to read this book. Wow, when I speak Mumpy jumps and she looked the book up on Amazon and ordered it. Mumpy read the book in about two days flat, she sent me email updates, to say she enjoyed it is a bit of an understatement.
The author is five or so years older than my parents, but they all grew up while World War II waged on, and all were impacted by rationing and the austerity of 1950's Britain. In the book the author is lucky enough to take a trip to Heidelberg, Germany and to experience the American way of life at an American military base, my parents moved our family to America in the late 70's. For the author, and for my parents, the American lifestyle was something unimaginable in England and life changing for all of them..
By now your are wondering to yourselves what has all of this to do with the title of my post, well a lot. As I mentioned my Mom emailed me several times as she read the book, it so resonated with her, it resonates with me too and I was born way after the end of World War II. So below I will, with my Mom's permission share her memories she emailed to me. I just loved her emails and want to keep them forever, and posting them on my blog is a great way to keep them available for many years to come.

Email #1
It arrived in the mail today.  Good golly does that not bring back 
memories.  Of course, I was five years younger being born in 1939 - But
I surely remember the anderson shelters, the mickey mouse gas masks and
the morrison shelters. And, just when I thought he had forgotten about
shrapnel collecting, there it was.  I remember so well, going into the
street after an air raid and finding the warm twisted pieces of metal
laying in the road.   Just got as far as the buzz bombs!   It is
extremely readable and brings back a lot of memories.  House across the
street from where my mom and I lived was bombed just after we left to
stay at Auntie Edna's for the rest of the war.

Email #2
How well it resonates.  I am in Heidelberg now.  The visits to the
American stores reminds me of when we first came to America.  We were
overwhelmed by the variety of goods, food, et al and the inexpensiveness
of it all.  Not that we had any excess of money by any means as you will
well recall.  But we did eat a lot better and it certainly was reflected
in the waistline. Our very first bedroom set I believe is the one that
you and Dave sleep in was on sale of course. Unbelievable. You will
remember how we rushed out to every sale at 25% off. Sales only occurred
in Uk in January and August and then it would only be 10% off.  When I
worked at Clement Jocelyn in Bury they would trot out the remnant fabric
and offer it at 10% discount and any that did not sell went back into
the store room to be trotted out six months later at 10% once more.
Also  I remember Jim Miller here, in America. We were invited over for
July 4th, he placed an enormous steak on my plate which was great and
when I was half way through and struggling he threw another steak  on to
my plate.  "Oh no I cried, thank you but this is great and is far too
much".  He did no more than lift the steak from my plate and put it into
the dog's dish.  The dog really appreciated it. I had not eaten steak in
at least three years......I was horrified. Also, I had not had a glass
of wine in three years either!

After Marika was born, things went downhill fast in UK. Inflation went
to 28%.  Our mortgage was linked to the bank rate. That went to over
17%.  Every month a letter came indicating that we could pay the same
which would mean we would never ever pay off the loan because it would
go to infinity or, we could pay the stated amount and stay on track.  We
agreed we would stay on track. Each month we had to pay more money which
meant less money for other things like a bottle of wine on a Saturday
night and a steak.  That was why we invested in the digging machine and
were planting potatoes and growing green beans.  We severely rationed
our intake of meat. The reason I knitted everything and made as many
things as I could was because that was the most inexpensive thing to do.
Clothing was expensive.  I saved the family allowance for your new
school uniforms each year - I did not dare spend it on day to day stuff
because the start of the school year was expensive and I did not want
you guys not to have new stuff for the new school year.
America was a wonderful opportunity for us and I remember when I was
first in Fort Wayne, all be it in the blizzard of 78, I felt a sense of
freedom more than I had ever known.  It was down to us. We could sit on
our behinds and starve, or, we could stand up and make a life.  Our
choice.  It was a great feeling.  And, by golly we sure faced a
challenge when Pete lost his job at Bowmar. Thank goodness for the $2000
rainy day fund I stored in the bank.  Thank goodness for my sewing
machine in the basement - I think I shortened every guys pair of pants
in the neighborhood at $4 a go. It was a tough three years.  Pete, lived
out of his car in Florida since we could not afford for him to live
anywhere.  He could not get a job in his field of expertise because he
was not a citizen and had to take what he could.  But you know all of
this and I am chattering on.  But, not once did we want to return to
UK.  We were determined one way or another we will make this work and we
did.

We have a wonderful family and we built a successful business - what
more could anyone want.  Even today, apart from visiting there is no way
I would want to live in UK. Our, "out of the shelter" is definitely here.

I just love these emails, I remember our life in England in the 70's but never realized that my parents were pinching every penny until it screamed, I remember a pleasant childhood, a wonderful garden, cool dresses my mom made for us, and one time some really cool pink fur parkas, and lots of lovely knitted items. I certainly have no negative memories of this time at all, because as an adult, I sew my own clothes and sew for my grandchildren, I knit all the time for myself and grandchildren, my husband and I keep a large garden. One of my favorite shows from the 70's is  The Good Life, a show about a suburban couple who decide to become self-sufficient in Surbiton, a suburb of London, I liked it because my parents kind of did the thing, except my Dad worked and did everything else in his spare time. Maybe a lot of people in England did this sort of thing in the 70's, even if they didn't, it was a great experience for our family and has given me many good memories.

Anyway if you want to read a good book check out, Out of the Shelter by David Lodge.

Blessings to you,

Bean

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow...... Okay glad it did finally stop!

On my previous post I mentioned that we were expecting snow over the weekend. The forecasts at first were vague, but by Saturday afternoon we were under a Winter Storm Warning for 10 to 15 inches of snow. Snow started falling Saturday night and by Sunday morning we had around 4 inches of wet snow on the ground, the temperature was around 32 degrees and the snow had stopped. Dave shoveled the driveway and I went for a brisk walk. It was wonderful outside, the wet snow clung to the tree branches and power lines making everything stunningly beautiful. The snow muffled all sound and it was amazingly peaceful, I stopped along the way to take pictures some are below.

When I returned from my walk I decided to play in the snow and built a snowman and snowkitty, it was fun and I was pleased with how they turned out.

By lunchtime it was snowing again, we never had blizzard conditions, we just had a steady snow all afternoon throughout Sunday night, this morning we awoke to very cold temperatures, twelve degrees, and brilliant sunshine, it looks spectacular outside. We will be off to shovel the driveway in a bit, it drifted heavily overnight, but it will be a joy to be outside and enjoy the sunshine and work together to dig out. I took pictures throughout the day to track the snow accumulation, and cannot believe we ended up with 11.5 inches!