Home

This little house is the house I grew up in and lived in most of my life. The little house on Linnwill. In truth I will always think of myself as a “Linnwillian” first and an Iowan second. I wouldn’t say it was a house full of happy times, as a lot of sadness lived there. But it was my home. I lived there on and off, mostly on for all of my life, until 2005 when my mother died.

It was small, the main floor only 848 sq feet, but the truth is, I never thought of it as small until someone asked me once how three people who could have lived in that little house at the same time. My brother lived and mostly stayed in the basement. I had my own room. We all shared one TV – which was always on. Always.

This is my house in the early morning on May 6^th 1986. Oh yeah and that is my wee little LeCar sitting out in front parked on the street, or the creek, depending how you look at it. This was a time when living in the basement wasn’t such a good thing for my brother! Oh well, he got a new bed out of the situation. And I got a new car. Who got the better deal?

One of the best things about growing up there was that our back yard opened up to Legion Park.

Swing sets, jungle gyms, slides, teeter totter. A wading pool. A Tennis court that became an ice skating rink in the winter. A baseball field, a basketball court. I loved that park and certainly felt like I was a part if it, and it was a part of me. I remember once, when I was about 20 or so, sitting in the park once night, a few friends and I, when a cop car drove in and parked. And the cop came over and ordered us to leave, as the park closed at 10. I actually said to him “I don’t understand, this is my park”. I did understand, I just never thought of it as something that closed. I mean it was my back yard.

The park looks nothing like it did in those days. Three tennis courts are now one. Both shelter houses have been torn down and new fancy things rebuilt in their place. The good old metal, they should last forever toys were all removed and replaced with some sort of manufactured stuff that is at ever playground everywhere. All the risk was removed! I cut my head open when I was four on the jungle gym and had to have stitches. Now that my friend is a true jungle gym! Today’s kids are pampered.

I couldn’t find any pictures of the park “back in the day” but found this on the Parks and Rec website. It doesn’t show much. And this isn’t the park how I care to remember it.

Anyway, all of this makes me think of this song by Karla Bonoff:

Home

Traveling at night,
The headlights were bright.
But soon the sun came through the trees
Around the next bend
The flowers will send
The sweet scene of home in the breeze

And Home
Sings me of sweet things
My life there has it’s own wings
To fly over the mountains
Though I’m standing still

Opposable

Since about early September or so, I have been having problems with arthritis in my left hand.  I am left handed so it has been, well, rather inconvenient. Slowly it got worse and worse, until sometime in November I lost use of my left thumb.

It was no longer opposable. Just… well… straight.

Pretty much just like the picture above. 24/7. Painful and immovable.

As December came, it just got worse, and the right hand was also starting to show arthritis. Dressing in the morning became a chore, especially putting on my bra, tying my shoes.  Putting on gloves made it worse. Scraping car windows wasn’t pleasant, and pulling on my seatbelt made me want to bite through my lip. There were many mornings where I was crying as I drove to work.

Typing wasn’t too bad as the thumb doesn’t do much but hit the space bar. Writing was very painful, and so no Christmas Cards were sent this year. I had to use pliers to open up my pop bottles!

Finally I gave up and went to the Doctor who prescribed something called Rabumetone which is an anti-inflammatory for arthritis. He also had me go to radiology and have a series of hand pictures taken. The last one, the tech said.. now make an “Okay” sign. When i said I couldn’t do that, she walked over and with some sort of evil smile on her face (not really) she took my hands and made a damn “okay” sign. Ex..cruc..iat… ing. Ahhh.

And the medicine just made it worse. The doctor said a couple of things – give it a good three weeks and don’t take any Aleve or Advil. There were days during the past three weeks when I wanted to sit at my desk at work and cry. Every joint in my body started hurting. I had to have a friend wrap my presents for me. She also had to buckle my seat belt for me on a day we went shopping together (suddenly I was suddenly elderly!)

It all came to a head this past Friday night. I took a nap and woke up, unable to use my hands at all. I tried to cook dinner and could barely stir the pot. I couldn’t use the can opener and to open a little packet of taco seasoning, I needed scissors. I felt like I had no hands at all. Just balls of uselessness stuck at my wrists.

Luckily Saturday the hands were a little better. I decided to go to the gym and swim. I love to swim as often it is just me and a few people, and it is very meditative, just slowly swimming lap after lap. I spent 45 minutes in the pool and got out and did 10 minutes in the whirlpool.

I felt like a new person. My hands felt great. I also made the decision to stop the medication, three days before the 3 week mark. I was done with that.

And an amazing thing happened…

Is that thumb looking all bendy?? Why yes it is! It bends! It moves! No pain!

I can almost make a full fist on both hand too. There is still some tightness in the fingers but no pain and it is so much better. I got dressed today with no pain. I put on my bra, I tied my shoes and I put on my gloves. I scraped my windows and put on my seat belt. No tears!

I went swimming again tonight. And I can’t help but saying it…. I feel A-okay.

And totally opposable!

 

Changes.. finally

Well there is it. The long dark wait is over. I have officially changed the name of my blog.

An Iowa Life.

It’s just one single life in Iowa.  I don’t expect it to be a representation of every Iowan’s life,

Just me.

Just mine.

Here.

Where this goes and where I take it are up in the air, but with a more generalized title I think

I will feel like I can post more about anything.

Like this.

That was sitting in my parking lot today. Poor old chair. I’ve been feeling a lot like that lately.

So has my blog.

Poor thing.

A Hero Gone

This has been a sad week for me. Sunday one of my heroes died.

 

I am going to write a story that most of you have no interest in and do not need to read, I just need to write it. Sorry.

I have been an indycar racing fan for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid my favorite driver was Bobby Unser. Later I became a Rick Mears fan. I drifted away for a few years until the mid90s when a young Italian came on the scene and l was a newly committed Team Target  fan, that year Alex Zanardi won rookie of the year and his team mate Jimmy Vasser won the championship. A few years later I drifted away again. The split, Greg Moore’s death, and then not long after 9/11, Alex lost his legs in a race in Germany.

When Iowa Speedway opened up, Indycar racing came too. I couldn’t wait to go to my first race, and immediately planned to check out the Team Target paddock.  And there was Dan Wheldon. And he was hot! He had a new fan!  That was the year of the devastating Iowa floods. When Wheldon won the race that day he donated his winnings to the flood relief. Now he had a fan for life.

 

(Wheldon Banner at Iowa Speedway 2009)

 

In 2010 I won pit passes from NewmanHaas. Being able to be in the pits put you way too close to the action… And the drivers. Passing Dan Wheldon in the pits, I stopped and wished him luck. He thanked me. I was over the moon.

(Getting in his car in 2010)

 (his back- in his pits in 2010 – I have about 5 pictures of his back!)

 

 (There’s the side view!)

 

 (At pit in after completing qualifying)

 

This season Dan was without ride, but was able to put together a one-off and in a surprising turn of events, he won the Indy 500 – for the second time.

The team he had driven for in the 500 had been chosen as the test team for the new car coming out in 2012, and so Dan was chosen as the driver.  That didn’t start until August so he took a job as a commentator on the Versus channel for as few races.  That brought him back to Iowa.

 

This year I won pit passes as well as access and all meals in the paddock club. This is where league officials and the broadcast team eat. Catered, and excellent food! And Dan Wheldon.

My brother and I were sitting at a table eating when Dan walked in. I turned into a 50 yr old junior high schooler “oh my god…  Oh my god… there’s Dan Wheldon!!” I said to my brother, who was used to this Wheldon-induced reaction from me. Dan sat at table behind me. I was both frustrated that he was behind me so I couldn’t stare at him, and relieved that he was behind me so I couldn’t stare at him.

 

(With Robin Miller for Versus)

Since he was the current  500 winner, and without a ride, INDYCAR came up with a challenge. Dan would start the last race in the last position and if he won, he and a chosen fan would split 5 million dollars. After practices and qualifying many drivers complained that the racing there was too dangerous. A high banked 1.5 mile oval with too much grip in open wheel cars with too much downforce and speeds of 225 mph.

12 laps in, one car in a mid-pack of cars drifted, touched wheels with the next car and triggered 15 car pile-up.  It was fire and shredded metal.  4 cars got airborne. Will Power, Pippa Mann, and JR Hildebrand were lucky to walk away, but ironically the safety of these cars saved their lives and they are now all out of the hospital.  Sadly the car couldn’t save Dan.

At 33 yrs old, he leaves behind a wife, Susie, sons Sebastian 2yrs and Oliver 7 months.

And he leaves behind a heartbroken community, of which I am one.

 

His legacy will live on. Besides his face on the Borg-Warner trophy twice, the new 2012 car, which he was the test driver, will be named after him.

 

RIP Dan Wheldon – Lionheart.

Here is a link that Indycar has set up:

The Dan Wheldon Memorial Site

 

Donations for his family can be sent to:

Fifth Third Private Bank
Attn: Dan Wheldon Family Trust
251 North Illinois St.
Suite 1000
Indianapolis, IN 46204

Also Graham Rahal has been spearheading an auction with the proceeds going to the Wheldon Family. More information about it will be available at the memorial site.

Life in The Junction

Valley Junction, the historic part of the town I live in, has a farmers market every Thursday evening. Also along with that is Music in The Junction. I meet my friends there most Thursdays from May to October. It’s a big part of my social life and something that I miss after market season is over. Living alone, I guess I have come to depend on certain things for regular social outings. This is the big one!

Here is a guy playing a violin in the doorway of the newly remodeled original city hall. The “doorway” he is standing in was the entrance for the fire truck… back in the day.

I don’t know these people… thankfully…

Saturday and Sunday this past weekend was “Smokin’ in the Junction”. A Barbeque contest and they had bands playing from about 11am-10pm both nights. We went down on Saturday.

Here are my peeps:

Note that not much is happening by us. We sat at our usual location where we normally sit on Thursdays but instead of the band being at the permanent stage in front of us.. it was over on the main street. Over there under the arch:

Here are some crowd shots:

And what would we do if there wasn’t a guy in a kilt at the temporary tattoo stand:

So that’s where I will be most Thursdays this summer. My hope is that this will help me get out of my little “funk” and get back to it.

Just a week ago…

It’s seems like just a week ago that I had a little baby fit. I held my breathe, I jumped up and down shaking my fist. I cried. I turned red, then I turned blue, then a little purple.  All the time screaming “I don’t wanna… I don’t wanna…. I don’t wanna“.  (Yes, I was screaming and holding my breath and crying all at the time! Talented!)

What a baby!

Oh hell, it happens to us all, doesn’t it?

However I went last Monday night (yes it was a week ago!) and talked to my trainer… using up way to much of our time on my piddly little problems.  I am an emotional eater, I am! And apparently I am pretty emotional- like all the time!  I talked about going back to Weight Watchers, however my trainer isn’t a fan. She doesn’t think that counting points is a good way to set me up for a life change, nor does it help with the emotions. She did however whisper the word “Therapy”.

As in “Have you ever thought that maybe you should deal with this issue in therapy“. The “therapy” whispered of course. That made me smile a little.

I think hypnosis sounds way better.  Hypnosis won’t make me cry and say how mean my mother was (She was! She was! I’ll blame her!) I tried to look on line to see if there was someone in the area that practices hypnosis, but I got sidetracked by a free download for my computer.  Then once I had that downloaded, I got sidetracked by falling asleep trying to listen to the little compute man hypnotize me. My computer was on my lap when I started, and it was turned off and closed, sitting on the table when I woke up. Had I been hypnotized to shut if off? Or, more likely, was my body rebelling against the idea of hypnosis and it turned off the computer? It’s my body saying it will eat donuts and pizza as much as it wants, damn it.. nothing is going to stop it!

So I shall get back to that web search.. we need a professional.. software (and maybe the fact that I am just too tired in the evenings) will not overpower my body’s – well my mind’s- needs!

I also ordered a book from Amazon called Shrink Yourself: Break Free from Emotional Eating Forever by Roger Gould. Will it work? I don’t know. I do know that until I charge up my Kindle, I won’t find out.

So what have we learned this week?

1-      Therapy is word that should only be whispered and then avoided at all cost.

2-      My body has practically superhuman ability to control me even though hypnosis. Now maybe next it could clean house while I sleep.

3-      Someone needs to charge up their Kindle and actually use it.

I really need to do the last one, because I also bought a Madeleine Wickham book, and damn it I need my chick lit!

Anyway, I am about to go change into my work clothes and head out over to the gym. And work out my lower body. Arg. But I am doing it. I am going. I plan to whine to myself the whole way there. That will never change. No hypnosis or self-help book could ever change my amount of whining! Not Therapy either!

And I also wanted to thank my friends who commented last week. Having support means a lot, especially when you are in the trenches and there is no skinny little daylight looking back at you. Thanks guys!

To Stop & Give Up

I have to meet with my trainer in 30 minutes and all I want to do is go home.

I have been sitting here for about 45 minutes trying to think of excuses to stop

and give up. To stop and give up.

I have to weigh in tonight and have probably gained about 7 lbs this month alone. I am at the

exact same place I was almost 6 yrs ago when I gave up as well. I don’t think I have lost any

weight in 6 months and the only inspiration I can come up with to walk in that door tonight is

that I can get done 30 minutes later, go home and have a pizza and maybe some donuts to

go with it. Seriously. This is all I can think about.

I don’t know what the F**K to do, except give up.

In two hours, I doubt I will feel this same way, but I am sure I will be eating a pizza by then.

I just don’t know how to get past this point and get back to it. I haven’t figured it out for

the past 6 months and truly believe that I just simply won’t.

Just Simply Won’t

Mother’s Day

I was at the grocery store Friday and when I went to leave, I saw all these baskets lined up, with floral bouquets
that said “Saturday Delivery” signs on them. I’d never seen that before. A guy was standing there who worked
there and I almost said “What’s the occasion”… but luckily it dawned on my right then.

Oh yeah.

Mother’s Day.

So it was time to visit.

Flowers for Mom.

And for Dad

Procrastination and Change

You know how it is right?

You take a semester off of college and never go back.
You take some time off from working out and you never go back.
You take a week or so off from blogging and then just can’t get inspired to start again.

I’m two for three.
I am still working out.
4-5 times a week.

Still working out with Amanda twice a month. Still haven’t lost any weight since November.

Oh and Doughnuts and Pizza. Don’t ask. Some things just aren’t quittable (a new word!). Arg!

It’s hard to write about working out and getting fit and losing weight, when out of those three things, all you are accomplishing are the working out part.

Getting to where I wanted to be by the time I turned 50 in July isn’t going to happen, unless a large part of me get amputated. Some things aren’t amputatable (another new word!).

London has been postponed. If I come into some big money, then it is happening in October, if not, then next spring. The Year of Susan has been postponed… no delayed… no… maybe elongated. It’s gonna be a long year. Yep, it’s gonna be a long one! Hopefully not too long. Still, too long.

Anyway, I have been thinking about changing this blog a little bit. I will need to come up with a new name for it, however it will still feature stuff about my weight loss struggle. I just want to incorporate other things in it as well. I have another blog, practically long forgotten called “Watching Bad TV” and I think I will probably do away with that blog, and when some show drives me crazy, just write about it here. I have also been planning to do a blog on my going through my family tree at Ancestry.com and  since I couldn’t find a good title for it, it never happened. So I will write about that too.

Basically, this blog is going Multipurpose. I will tag all of my weight loss and working out stuff with “Fit for 50” so if that is all you are interested it, you should be able to ignore everything else and just find The Fit for 50 tag.

The big question is.. what do I change the name of this blog to? No one knows yet. It’s a mystery.
I would like something 3-4 syllables and maybe some alliteration as well. I’ll be thinking about it.
If you have any ideas… use the comments.

Thanks… and see you around.
Sooner than later.
I hope.

Resolutions.. Not for me!

I don’t believe in New Years Resolutions. I set myself up for failure just fine, without needing a Holiday to announce my impending failure. Nope don’t need that.

I am not a goal oriented person, so this goal of getting Fit for Fifty or losing 60 pounds by the time I go to London, is something that is hard, a struggle, for me to maintain. You might be able to tell that by the way it takes me so long between posts. If I was doing well, I’d want to blog about it, wouldn’t I? Maybe. Maybe.

I have one friend who is very goal oriented and it seems like every goal she sets she always accomplishes them.  I watch her set goals and then reach every single one of them, and am in awe of that.  However, I am not like that. Goals are a struggle for me. I like immediate satisfaction too much. Way too much.

So for the past week or so, I have been looking at different blogs and emails newsletters.

First I came across Peter Shankman’s blog, A Year to Ten Percent. Last year he set a goal to do and complete the Ironman Cozemel. However his conditioning didn’t lead to much weight loss as he only lost 18 lbs, so he set a goal this year to get to 10% body fat. I wish him luck… I am not that crazy!

Check out his blog:

http://ayeartotenpercent.com/welcome-to-a-year-to-ten-percent/

I was reading through the comments on the site and saw one person had posted some links for helpful tools and so I checked them out.

1-Habit Changer:

http://habitchanger.com/

Give them 42 days to change your ways. If you click on programs, you can enroll in one, however they cost you money. That’s where I stopped.  The 42 day program Lose Weight is 29.95. For that you get daily challenges sent to you by text or emails, as well as tools to help you achieve those tools. For $30, it might be something I might try further down the line.

2- Stickk

http://www.stickk.com/

I liked this one. I thought it was very interesting, and actually started to sign up but something stopped me.

First you pick a goal. You can choose from the Pull Down or chose one yourself. I chose “Lose Weight”. I got the Goal page and put in my information – my weight, my height, my goal weight and how many weeks until I want to reach it. I want to lose 60 lbs in 30 weeks. So my commitment is 2lbs a week.  It also calculated my current BMI and my goal BMI. I also have to “check in” on Thursdays.  The next step is “setting the stakes”. This is the good part. You are putting money down on your goal.  You have four choices. Choose and “Anti-charity”, a Charity, a friend or foe, or No stakes. I like the Anti- Charity. You have choices. If you are pro-choice, then you can choose Americans for Life, or vice-versus, if you are pro-Life you can chose NARAL.  There are enviromental choices, Gun control Choices, Gay Marriage or Political.  A charity from opposite sides for each. So I could choose The Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, since I am pro-gay marriage. The last think I want is for that charity to get any money from me! Another option, the “Friend or Foe” would be good if you were trying to lose weight with a friend and wanted to challenge each other.  I am a bit on the cheap side, so for now I would choose “No stakes”.  When I originally tried to set this up last week, I did chose Anti-Charity, but when I went to set what my weekly monetary commitment, I wanted to do $1, but it has a minimum of $5. I don’t have enough faith in myself to put $150 on the line, especially because you have to enter your credit card information right there and right now! So I checked “no money at stake” and it warns me that putting money on the line triples my rate of success. Sorry, too cheap today.  Next it tells me to pick a referee.  I chose myself and so I am on the honor program! Next, you can pick supporters either by entering their email, or posting on Facebook or Twitter. It would then send people a message of what you are doing and ask them to monitor your project and offer support. Well, I can’t do that, so I am skipping that step! So now I am all set up, but I have no idea if I need to remember to go in once a week and update my weight, or if it will email me. I guess I will find out on Thursday as that is the date I put in to start.

3-My Food Diary.

http://www.myfooddiary.com/

I haven’t looked at this one much past the first page. There is a free trial and then it cost $9 a month which isn’t much. I have my food log at my Fitbit page, so that is why I didn’t look into it. If anyone does, please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

4- Life Balance

http://www.llamagraphics.com/products

I know  nothing about this. There is a free trial and then it is a paid app. I think when I first looked at it I thought it was an iPhone or Android app and didn’t look further, though now, opening the page again, it seems like it can also be a download for your computer.

This is what the website says:

How do you achieve a lifestyle that works for you?

Life Balance™ is personal coaching software that helps you to decide what to work on, so that you can put your effort into the goals, projects and tasks that really matter to you.

I could probably use some major life coaching, but for now, I will work on myself alone. Or at least with what I have.

If you chose to check it out, again, please leave a comment and share your thoughts.

5- HabitForge

http://habitforge.com/

This one I signed up for last Thursday. I once heard that it takes 21 days to form a habit, and this site seems to agree with that.  Basically you set something that you want to do every day. I chose two things. 1- Eat a fruit or vegetable everyday. 2- Walk extra everyday.  So I set those up and now every day I get an email telling me to click on the link. It takes me to my goal page, with my two goals and asks me if I did them yesterday. I hit “yes” or “no” for each one. When I hit yes, it marks a circle, however anytime I hit no, it resets all of my “yes” marks and I start all over again. I have yet to eat a fruit or vegetable since I started, so that has been a whole lot of no!

 

So those are the ones I have been looking at this past week.  I am doing Stickk and Habitforge, so it will be interesting to see how they work out for me.  If you try any of them, let me know what you think. If you just look at them, offer up an opinion.

Thanks and good luck with whatever goals you are working on. Just don’t call them resolutions!