Unwanted Walking Companion

My sister Carolyn and I met someone on our walk last week.

Well, we met someTHING.

 The funny thing is, when dogs rush at us with barking throats and slathering tongues, Carolyn stands her ground, puts her hands on her hips, and tells them to leave.

When we ran across this little fellow small enough to step on (if you don't mind the crunch!) she nearly climbed up onto my shoulders. 

I sent a picture to Bob, and he said it was, indeed, a tarantula. (I have my shoe in the picture for size reference. Don't quibble if it doesn't look like a shoe to you. The only time I completely cover my foot is when I ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO, such as in 12 inches of snow or places that don't accept open footwear. Believe it or not, there are such places!)

Also keep in mind that my footwear is a glorious size 11, so that makes the tarantula even bigger than you first thought on seeing it.

Perhaps we should have used one of Carolyn's shoes... but I'm not sure she would have survived the trauma of having her footwear in such close proximity.

From what Bob told me, and what I read online, tarantulas rarely bite people. If they do, it may feel like a bee sting.

Worse than a bite, if threatened, tarantulas can scrape stinging hairs off their abdomens and flick them at intruders, which can cause a painful rash. (And a bald tarantula belly!)

Tarantulas may sometimes eat their own legs.

I prefer to keep my legs intact so I can keep on walking!

Do you like to go on walks?

The Hare in Me

When Ephraim City offered employees a fitness challenge with a cash prize, I walked and stepped and swam and biked and raked and houseworked toward the month-long goal of walking around Utah with zeal. After moving so much in three weeks that my legs and feet hurt, and learning that my mileage was way ahead of everyone else, I decided to slow down for Thanksgiving week.

Big mistake.

My very own personal trainer son, 13-year-old Michael, urged me to keep going. When I told him I didn't need to, he asked, "But what if someone else is exercising while you're not?" In my best grown-up voice, I assured him that I was so far ahead that no one could catch up to me.

Oh, the smugness of my Hare-like attitude!

After turning in my final mileage, I was astonished to discover that I'd won the contest by a scant 7.88 miles. Now that may sound like a lot to you, but it's not much when considering that my total mileage for four weeks was 522 miles. The tortoise nearly overtook me! That would have felt terrible because I'd slacked off that last week. (I feel like I almost deserved to lose for not keeping up the pace!)

LESSON LEARNED - If you want something badly enough, never give up until the goal is reached. I plan to never slack off again. I will stay true to my determined path of action until my goal is reached or I see fit to change it.

This is not a New Year's goal, as I tend to set goals whenever they're needed. This is a lifestyle change.

What do wish to change about your life?  

Forgetful Memory Foam

I took the challenge when my employer, Ephraim City, (for my Story Time job) began a fitness program for its employees. The person who walks the farthest in a month receives a cash prize, so with Christmas sitting on the horizon, I've been walking and walking and walking. (Stepping in place counts.) To my reckoning, I've walked over 500 miles in three weeks. (There's mileage compensation for about a hundred activities such as bike riding, swimming, housework, and raking leaves, too. Unfortunately, no mileage is allowed for eating. I can't figure that out.)

In my enthusiasm, I have been stepping in place while cooking, putting on makeup, waiting in checkout lines and any other time I find myself vertical. (My husband calls my energetic stepping "the pee-pee dance." I'm not sharing any of my prize money with him.) My writing place is at my piano, which is tall enough for me use my laptop on, but unfortunately, it's in a room with a hard wooden floor. To compensate for leg and foot fatigue, I've been stepping on a memory foam mat (I still get leg fatigue, just not as soon) yet it appears that I've stepped all the memory out of it. (See pad above left.) The un-stomped pad on the right still has the lofty softness that endears it to my feet, but the other one is like stepping on a plan old flat towel.

I wonder if the company is aware that their memory foam forgets after 500 miles?  

Walking

When I last saw my doctor and proudly reported that I walked my dog 10-15 minutes a day, old Doc Nay raised his eyebrows and said, "If you upped that to 45 minutes a day, you'd get greater benefits."
(What, was he calling me FAT?)
Obedient girl that I am, I experimented with using my walky thing that sits in the living room (I don't know it's official name...see teeny tiny photo below)

or walking on the streets of my town. What I have learned is that if you walk on a walky thing in your living room, it's very easy to step off "just for a minute" to go get something to cool you down... say, a dish of ice cream... and then answer the phone and run to the post office before it closes and deal with a child's emergency and ultimately fall into bed without getting back on the walky thing.
On the other hand, when you walk on the street a certain distance from home, there is no alternative but to walk that same distance back in order to reach the freezer and bowl and spoon, thus getting in the desired walking time.
This means something profound. It could be that you've just got to get yourself far away and then write yourself home.
What do you dedicate yourself to completing? How do you reach your goal?

The Incredible Power of Persistence

This is my mother, Ruth, who found to her great surprise last spring that she could no longer walk on her own. When I watched my tall strong son and nephew practically carrying her down the sidewalk for "walking practice," all I could think was, "She's headed for a wheelchair."
You'd think I'd know by now that Mother does not take anything like this lying down.
She forced herself to take baby steps around the house while leaning heavily on her walker. Then she became a regular on the cemetary's smooth roads, laughing off the sextant's challenge to a race. She put in her time, step by step, until two weeks ago she could stand without help. She's graduated to using a cane or two, except on the day she got an adrenaline rush and dashed from the computer to retreive her purse without thinking. When she looked around for her canes to return to her computer, they weren't there. She'd left them behind, walking without any help at all! She is living proof of the value of determination and consistency, whether you want to write a book or race the sextant around the cemetary. Let's all stand as tall as straight as my mother and step out to meet whatever it is that brings joy into your life!

Stay in Love - Make Money

by Shirley Bahlmann
I was in church when I found out that staying in love is not only good for your body and soul, but also for your pocket book. I'm not even talking about the old axim, "Two can live as cheaply as one." No, I'm talking about cold, hard cash.
How can this be?
It's simple, and I even got it from the horse's mouth. (Sorry, Shirley Ann, you're not really a horse, that's just what they say! No, they don't SAY you're a horse... ahem.) Shirley Ann is the almost-octogenarian who reported that showing affection for her equally age-advanced husband brought some green into her pocket.
"We were walking down the street in the city," she said, "and this man walked up to us. We thought he might be asking directions or something, but instead he held out a dollar bill. 'What's that for?' I asked, immediately suspicious.
"Pressing it into my free hand, he said, 'I always give a dollar to older couples who hold hands.'" Shirley Ann smiled when she said it.
So there you have it.
One 88-year-old widower was watching people walk by at a craft fair. After awhile, he commented, "You can tell what stage people are in by the way they walk. When they're young and in love, they have their arms around each other. When they're first married, they're holding hands. Then they might have a small child or two and walk beside each other. Then a little later on, one is walking a few steps ahead while the other is a few steps behind." He stopped a moment, then said, "I sure miss my wife. If I had it to do over again, I'd sure do it different."
So there you have it. Now you know. So grab the hand of your loved one, live with no regrets, and maybe you'll even get a dollar for your pocket.

Walking Boxes

by Shirley Bahlmann
They were big, they were beautiful, and they were in the dumpster. Two huge boxes, big enough to reach from my head to my ankles, sat unappreciated, waiting for their final journey to the dump. How could I let these building blocks of imagination meet such an awful fate? There were castles and rocket ships and secret clubhouses just waiting to be built!
I recruited my big fourteen-year-old son for project "Save-a-Box." We each hoisted one up, up, and over our heads, upside down, so we were looking through little peep holes that were torn along the bottom. Walking with a big box on your head takes some getting used to. By the time we reached Main Street, we were moving at a reasonable pace, and were glad to find the crossing guard willing to hold up his STOP sign so we could cross without worrying about being blindsided by a turkey truck. I thought the most dangerous part of our journey was over, but that was before I decided to take a shortcut through the elementary school yard. That was real danger.
Curious children started squealing and pushing on our boxes, making me stagger to catch my balance. I don't know about you, but falling down is not one of my top ten favorite things to do, and falling down inside a box where I had no option of putting out my hands to catch myself is an even worse prospect.
"Hey, stop pushing us!" I yelled.
There was a moment of silence, then a small voice asked, "Are you Michael's mom?"
"Yes," I answered, claiming parentage of my third grader. Since I'm a minor celebrity at the school, working with producing social skill skits every month, most students know me. Once they knew who the alien box monster really was, the pushing stopped and we survived crossing a street on our own.
A block from home, a stream of wolf cub scouts flowed toward us, parting around the boxes like rocks in a river. Then I saw my son, Michael's, face through my peephole.
"Mom, what are you doing?" he asked, his cheeks turning red.
"Taking these boxes home," I answered.
"What for?" He tried to sound exasperated.
"To play with," I said.
"Whatever," he answered, and walked on to join his den.
When my son got home from scouts, he spent the rest of the afternoon playing in the boxes. I grinned, remembering all my cardboard box adventures, and marked double time on my walking exercise chart.

Mysterious Gravel

by Shirley Bahlmann
I was nearing the end of my half mile walk home when I felt a tiny bit of something tumble gently into my hand. It was too dark to see what it was, but it just smaller than a green pea, was hard and had rough edges. When I got home I examined my windfall in the light. It was a piece of white gravel.
Where had it come from? I was walking under a tree when it landed in my hand. What would a piece of gravel be doing in a tree? Also, there wasn't much hand for it to fit into. I had a tape player looped around my wrist, and my fingers were cupped around the strap. My sons wondered if it had been kicked up while I was walking, but I was on smooth sidewalk.
"It's a magic rock," one son said.
"It's a meteorite," said another.
"You could write a book about it," they both agreed.
So there you go. Ideas for books come from everywhere, even falling rocks.