Holidays: Happy Holy Week

Some people are celebrating Passover right now...

Happy Passover.

I think Passover is a terrific holiday to remember, and was impressed as a child that it had been celebrated for so long throughout history. I think it should be celebrated by any nationality. It is a good thing to remember and be happy for.

Others are celebrating Holy Week...

The week of Easter.

I am one of these. I was raised Catholic, and I now raise our children Catholic.

Easter always held a special place in my heart.

Of course, as a child, I looked forward to candy filled baskets (after I got over my fear of the Easter Bunny), but my Catholic upbringing soon brought deeper meaning to the holiday.

I remember many occasions when I hear or see (in many movies) the Passion of Jesus and I feel sad and heartbroken.

I cry all the time when I hear it. Still.

Even though it took place over two thousand years ago, I still cry for Jesus' death on the cross.

Remembering this every year is important to me as a Catholic. It is, after all, the cornerstone of our faith. It is the reason Catholicism exists.

I believe that is an important thing to remember, and to teach our children.

Jesus led a beautiful, peaceful, loving life. If we all aspired to live like he did, it would be a pretty great world.

Now, people spend their lives studying world religions to become versed in them, and knowledgeable in their faith.

This blog is to acknowledge the holiday, so I don't plan on getting too religious.

The neat thing about holidays is you can make of them what you wish. You can celebrate religiously, you can celebrate with the bunnies, you can simply celebrate Spring's arrival. I love that we have the freedom to do that in my country. I like to mix them all up into one celebration.

Easter will always hold a special place in my heart. It is the reason I am Catholic.

This week I will start the celebration by making unleavened bread on Holy Thursday.

I will attend the Passion in Church on Friday, fasting as much as I can.

Saturday will be preparing for Easter morning, as I assist the Easter bunny.

Saturday night I hope to have time to attend our Church's Easter vigil celebration mass.

Sunday I prefer to enjoy the morning watching our three children, two nieces, and one nephew hunt for their baskets, enjoy the charge they get from eating sugary treats for breakfast, then have the rest of my family over for dinner. We also sneak in a luncheon and egg hunt with my in laws.

It's a day of family...

of love...

of remembrance...

of celebration of life.

Happy Holy week in whatever way you choose to celebrate!

Personal Week: Okay, So I'm Fat

Yep, I said it, the F word. No, not that one. Hell, that one is so over used, it’s hardly bad anymore! (But it is though.) The other F word. The one nobody wants to be called, let alone actually be.

Fat.

There. It’s not such a bad word. Three simple little letters put together to describe something the opposite of thin.

It used to be a good thing to be fat. Desired even. (Way, way back, but just sayin.) It meant that you were wealthy. Wealthy enough to have food every day. So much so that your body showed it. The wealthy and powerful were fat. It was cool. They were the “in” crowd.

(Tangent Time!)

I considered blogging about how I got this way. How somewhere around when I was little I became very self conscious about how fat I was, even though I wasn't fat at all. I was an active kid., when I got hungry, I ate. Somewhere along the line that changed. Then lots of other stuff, people I could blame (and did for a while) and circumstances happened.

Life happened.

Today I am fat.

I’m okay with that. It doesn't bother me. I can look at myself naked in the mirror and see my flaws, but fat never seems to be one of them. Gravity. Now that is a whole other story.

(End of tangent.)

Turn to present day in our society and fat is a four letter word. It’s about the worst thing you can say about someone. In fact, it’s hardly used to describe someone at all. Heavy, big boned, curvy, large, XL and more are used instead to try to soften the description of someone who is the opposite of thin. Fat has become an insult.

Or funny.

You can be fat on television or in movies, as long as you are funny. Try to be taken seriously and the roll goes to someone else. So you’d better be funny, or be what I call the fat chick behind the scenes. If you've ever watched a red carpet event. Ever. Look in the background. Everyone behind the person on camera is a fat chick. Doing the work that doesn’t get seen and probably wishing they were the ones on camera, but just happy to be in there somewhere.

WTF.

What a goofed up society we live in.

I could really go on and on about this topic. The long story of how I got here and how I feel about it and blah, blah, blah. Maybe someday I’ll blog about that. For now, I’m fat. I’m okay with that. Society isn’t.

They tell me it’s not healthy. They tell me I’ll have troubles.

I do have troubles. I have knee troubles from a car accident I had 23 years ago. I was in pretty good shape at that time. I was never what you might call thin, but I looked good. I exercised and walked a lot. Of course, I was young, so I  had that on my side too.

Now I’m fat, my knees have extra weight on them. They probably hurt a bit more because of that. But here’s the kicker; I can’t do certain things to exercise because I hurt my knees, so I am heavy, which hurts my knees.

WTF.

I used to like the stairmaster. Yes, the stairmaster. That junk rocked my legs like nothing else! Nope, not after you hurt your knees. Now I avoid stairs. A stairmaster is out of the question.

My blood pressure probably isn’t ideal. I don’t obsess about it and have been told by a second opinion that a normal increase is okay with age (ugh, age…don‘t even get me started), so I leave it at that.

Otherwise I am healthy. I don’t eat take out, fast food, soft serve ice cream…all those things that people think fat people eat all the time. I don’t drink a lot, I don’t smoke or do any other type of drug.

Then there’s sugar.

Apparently sugar is the new cocaine. I believe it. It is the most addicting thing I consume. It’s everywhere. It is the hardest thing to stop consuming that I have ever tried to give up.

I’m an addict. I admit that. It makes me glad I never did smoke or anything else, because this is hard enough. This is my vice.

For years I told myself that it wasn't so bad. Of all the things out there in the world you could be addicted to, sugar was practically harmless. So I’d put on weight because of it, so what? What did that really mean?

What it really means is that I have to cut it out. It’s the one thing I do to myself that is definitely not healthy.

I know this.

I tell myself this every day.

Every day I start off with the intention of doing better than the day before.

Most days I fail.

Some days I succeed. Some weeks are great.

Some days I try not to think about it at all.

Mostly I believe in being healthy. I don’t like being out of shape, getting winded taking a flight of stairs. That’s not good. But being fat doesn't mean you are unhealthy.

Being sedentary and not eating right = unhealthy.

Fat does not equal unhealthy.

I know a lot of people have very strong opinions on being fat, being thin, being in shape, being healthy.

These are mine. I chose to share them to give you a better iDDea of who I am.

This is my life.

My experience.

My blog.

Here you go.

Waiting For Spring

Winter has been long this year. Really. Really. Long.

Extreme colds and extreme hots are not my favorite weather.

I do not spend time in mid winter wishing it were 90 degrees. I hate 90 degrees as much as I hate 20 degrees.

I am more of a middle ground woman. With most things actually.

Middle temperatures are where I’m most comfortable.

Give me a day in the 70’s any time.

For that reason, I like Spring and Fall the best.

Unfortunately, these seasons are shortest where I live. They are a brief few days or a couple of weeks at best.

The rest of the time is spent freezing and trying to stay warm, or sweating while I simply sit and try to remain cool.

So I wait.

I wait for Spring and Fall.

I hope that they will come on time, and maybe have a chance at lasting a season’s worth of comfortable temperatures.

It rarely happens, but I remain hopeful each season.

So when everyone else is wanting and wishing for 80 or 90 degree days, I am silently awaiting a day in the 50’s, 60’s or 70’s.

Waiting for that day when I don’t feel chilly just getting out of bed in the morning, or I don’t feel like I’m going to start on fire after my shower before I get dressed.

Not too hot.

Not too cold.

Just. Right.

The Moon

Ever since I was a very young child, I was entranced by the moon. I watched it follow us in the car at night. I wondered how it did that? How did it know how to go everywhere we went?

Its light is such lovely glow. It teases in the sky and gets you to look at it. It’s like a giant nightlight globe for all of us.

Looking at the moon doesn’t hurt like looking at the sun. The moon has taken just enough light from our sun so that we may share in its beauty without getting hurt. I wonder if the sun is jealous?

I remember from my childhood people talking about, “the man in the moon.” I didn’t understand what they meant. I expected to see a tiny man walking around up there, perhaps waving down at us from time to time. I never saw him.

I love when the moon is full, and it casts its silver light down on everything below. Silver light. How does it do that?

It’s no wonder there are songs, poems and legends based around the moon. It is very alluring. Simple, yet amazing at the same time. It phases in and out, and gets us to follow its schedule.

It’s a quiet temptress.

Sunsets

I have a thing for sunsets. I mean, I really dig them. I love them. They are a magical feast for my eyes.

I grew up spending summers on a lake. We were on the east side, which meant we got to see sunsets every time there was one. Now, perhaps it’s because of this exposure to them that I love them so much. But you would think that seeing them nearly every day, I would take them for granted.

No.

Not even close.

I adore them.

When I was a teenager, I went out to the end of the dock and watched them. I was so enthralled, they took me away to their magical, fiery world. The clouds welcomed me into their realm, always happy, always smiling. I traveled there, among the clouds, and watched the brilliant, ever changing color show in awe.

Now that I am older, with a family of my own, I sometimes miss the opportunity to enjoy a sunset like that. I try to make time for it. It never disappoints.

The moment between dusk and dark is an amazing thing to see.

It is an event.

To see darkness creeping slowly, steadily up onto the blue sky is like nothing else I have ever watched. Yet it happens every day. It happens whether we watch it or not.

But I highly recommend watching it.

Get outside and trip out on a sunset. You won’t regret it.

Nature

The smell of the first snow fall.

Looking at individual snowflakes.

The magical wonder of a snowy landscape.

Sparkling snow.

Lying down in the moist, green grass of spring.

Wiggling your toes in perfectly sun-warmed sand.

Walking outside and smelling spring in the air after a long, cold winter.

Luscious shades of green taking over the woods.

Dew.

Seeing the fawns play in the yard.

The sight of colorful blooms breaking forth out of the ground.

Sitting on a dock bathing in the hot sun with the cool lake beneath you.

Lying in a boat in the middle of the beautiful, blue lake and looking up at the sky.

Sunsets.

The sound of the brook gently trickling through the yard while I swing on the hammock.

Brilliant color displays on the trees every fall, like nature’s fireworks.

The smell and feel of dirt on my hands.

Frost.

Seeing birds soar.

Just a few of my loves in nature that make me feel one with the Earth.

What are yours?

Dream Visits

Have you ever had dreams with people who have passed away in them? Whenever I have these dreams, the person is so clear, even if the rest of the dream is not. I believe these are visits from these people. They come to us in our dreams, because that is neither our reality or their realm (whatever that realm may be). It is a place in the middle, where anything can happen (and usually does).

Have you ever had dreams where you meet or hang out with a celebrity? I have had many of these through the years, and they always seem to come out of nowhere. The celebrity just appears, and of course there are some weird, dreamlike sequences that take place. They amuse me.

Have you ever had dreams with people you don’t know in them? I have had these as well, and always wonder if they are real people out in the world that maybe I have seen for just a second out and about and my mind simply places them in my dream? Or if there is some connection with this person out there that I don’t even know? Like somehow there is something that binds us, even though we don’t know it. We can experience the dream realm together. Somehow our minds know, even though we don’t.

Having all types of dreams makes me wonder; do the other parties in the dream have the same dream? Are we in the dream realm together? Have you ever had a dream with a friend in it, and you asked them if they had the dream too?

Even if they say no, perhaps it’s because they just don’t remember it. Perhaps because it was your dream, not theirs, that they were not meant to remember it, it was too cloudy for them. Perhaps when we don’t remember dreaming, it’s because we were pulled into someone else’s, and it was too cloudy for us.

No matter the night, everyone dreams. It’s the mind doing whatever it needs to do, without us interfering, so it can get us through the next day. So sleep on good people, sleep and dream on…