December De-stress If You Can

I won a contest around Halloween, which resulted in my opportunity to get a session with a personal trainer at the gym for half-price. Never mind that I don’t remember entering the contest… I was intrigued, so I accepted the prize.

Yesterday I met with the personal trainer. At the gym where I go, a session with a personal trainer normally costs $70. That’s a lot of money to pay someone who is supposed to help you meet your goals of — just what are your goals, by the way? To lose weight, to become more flexible, to get physically fit? Or do you have to pay someone to carry on a conversation about and act interested in your health, like you do the doctor or physician’s assistant? Because they will make you sign a waiver that says you realize they are not a doctor and that they cannot diagnose anything.

To be honest, I’ve been so busy I don’t remember much of the session. Just that she wanted to see my range of motion so she had me goose-stepping all over the gym in a pair of old workout shoes that had round-bottom soles (remember Shape-ups?) because that’s the only pair of tennis shoes I could find in the closet. Me that morning, trying to get dressed in the dark: “Uh-oh, I’m meeting the personal trainer today, better find some real shoes to wear to yoga class…” and then I couldn’t find a pair of real shoes… Ironic that I found the Shape-up shoes, that temporary fad item: is that what the personal trainer is for me, just another fitness fad to induce me to work out? Whatever it was the personal trainer had me doing Thursday, it’s now Saturday and my sore, stove-up muscles are happy to hide, to cower, far from the gym.

The personal trainer was very impressed with the good state of my joints, which can only be due to years of doing yoga, even though I have arthritis and I’m not as flexible as I was in my younger days.

selfie in favorite Eco-Flow yoga shorts

Celebrating Cyber Monday score of my favorite yoga shorts on sale. I wish I could replicate this pair of yoga shorts in my own sewing room with the help of some sort of holiday DIY pixie dust.

Reading back over this, I apologize that it sounds so “me, me, me” oriented. But maybe I need to pay attention to myself more often. In this season of shopping, stress, and focus on the materialistic, I hope you find what helps you to feel at peace. What would do that for you? A massage? Get someone to watch the kids while you take a nap? A pair of shorts that are comfy when you’re working out? Give yourself a break.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Converge

American Flags at Florida National Cemetery

For more interpretations of the theme “Converge” in WordPress’s Weekly Photo Challenge click here.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Angular

Angular

This week’s challenge is to photograph something that says “angular” to you. The common area at the local shopping center has just been decorated for Christmas. And I noticed that the crape myrtles are losing their leaves. When did that happen? Amid the intersecting straight lines and angles, it’s starting to look positively fall-ish. For more weekly photo challenge: Angular, look here.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Minimalist

minimalist wardrobe: khaki pants

For more weekly photo challenge: Minimalist, click here.

a Link to Happy-Ever-After…

wedding party

Ah, the dream of one who has mastered the thumb-controller: to beat the game. Your dreams, even though put on hold for a long time due to technical difficulties, may after all, come true. Just keep working and you’ll go from level to level, winning another contest and gaining confidence.

Many of the people I see daily have beat another level and have not lost energy. Winning brings strength and faith.

A girl I know was once called a bitch and a whore every day of her married life. But not any more. Another girl I know stood silent when her husband picked up a casserole she made for a pot luck dinner and dropped it into the trash can with a loud noise, while all the guests were looking on. Not any more. Another girl was threatened. Another was choked until she passed out.

All the time, money, love and laud we’ve given to folks along the way, who have never loved us, but used us and our resources to advance their own agendas and try to bury us under their thumbs…it has gone away into the past. Folks, you are free to go your own ways. I send you a giant, blood-red virtual rose as a larger-than-life emblem of our dedication to finding happiness in this lifetime.

PS. These are my own thoughts. There is nothing to indicate that anyone else in this image or in my life agrees or supports the opinions that I’ve posted here.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Refraction

“Show us what refraction means to you.”

the bends

For more Weekly Photo Challenge: Refraction, look here.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Dreamy

“These dreams go on when I close my eyes…” Heart

For more Weekly Photo Challenge: Dreamy click here.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Signs

Signs in South Philly

For more weekly photo challenge: Signs click here.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Nighttime

Sept 28, 2014: Lined up for water ice on Petrucci’s Last Night of the Season

Lined up for water ice on Petrucci’s Last Night of the Season

Sign on window says “We are closing September 28 [that’s today!], so stock up on all your favorites now!”

For more “nighttime” photo challenge click here.

A Celebration of Hand Sewing

When I see the phrase National Sewing Month, I wonder what sort of people buy into that.

For starters, Ronald Reagan is the president who brought it into existence in 1982, says the organization’s web site. That brings to mind the Genesis song “Land of Confusion” and the part-lyric, “Superman, where are you now?”

I go to the sewing web site and find that it costs $50 a year to be a member of the ASG (American Sewing Guild). And that the United States has a whole bunch of neighborhood chapters, even one in my little town, and the project they’re going to work on this month in my town is a pumpkin pin cushion.

The web site has a link you can click on that transports the viewer to a list of benefits one can obtain by becoming a member of the ASG. I feel that I already belong to way too many groups, but I wonder if I am recklessly disassociating myself from fellow sewing aficionadas by not joining?

This knitting project became a sewing project when I hand-sewed the knitted blocks together to form a Martin Storey Alphabet block baby blanket.

hand-sewn knitted blocks

I can really get into hand-sewing sometimes. Especially luscious Rowan felted tweed knitted blocks. It’s a sweet way of celebrating!