« July 2008 | Main | September 2008 »
Well, I've finally followed my mother's advice and cut out the soft drinks from my diet. I've fallen off the wagon a few times, just because Pepsi tastes so good, or at least I thought it would taste so good. Now that I've been off soda for several weeks, it just kinda tastes syruppy. It's really not as great as I thought it was for the past 20 years.
Sacre bleu! I've been a fool.
Today's Small Thing is to do something that's good for you. When you think about it, with all that is required us daily, maintaining a healthy body shouldn't just be a fantasy, it's a necessity. I am among the world's WORST when it comes to taking vitamins and exercising regularly, but I notice a very real difference when I take just a few moments to do what I know I should do for myself.
I tend to be an "all-or-nothing" kind of gal, and when it comes to taking care of myself, that usually means that I'm doing "nothing." I'd like to change that to be an "all-or-something" girl so that I'm making incremental steps in the right direction, instead of being stuck at zero. Life is tough, even under the best of circumstances, and I need all the reserves I can call on to deal with what gets thrown at me daily. Basically, I need energy.
For many of you Company Girls, you'll have already earned your points today, especially since I'm posting so late in the day. Maybe you've already taken a vitamin and you're sitting at the computer screen, doing your Kegal crunchies right now. Woo Hoo! For the rest of us, all we need to do is get up and walk to the kitchen and swallow a nice little pill that's good for us.
POINTS: 40 (HUH? Rach, why so many?) for doing something, anything, that's good for you today. Be conscious of being healthy today by doing just one small thing, and you probably already know what you should do. Easy.
(And don't beat yourself up over the fries you ate at lunch.)
I've been out of town the past couple of days, (trying to stick my own landing with the west Texas project...finally finished!). My husband was in the car with his foot on the gas pedal yesterday morning as I hurried to hit "publish," hence there was no theme song to go with the "Stick it" post. Darn!
This morning we are leaving for Dallas at an early hour, after crawling into bed at 12:30 am. So I hope you won't mind if I reprise a Small Thing from January today. You might want to break out your platform shoes and do some disco dancing on your kitchen floor!
There's nothing worse than walking barefoot in the kitchen and
feeling the crunch of crumbs beneath your feet. Plus, a dirty floor
just doesn't make you feel like disco dancing!
Today's Small Thing is just to sweep up the kitchen floor. You could run a mop over it and it would take you only about 10 more minutes, but then that would be TWO small things in one day. You don't need to overdo.
Even if you do decide to get ambitious and add mopping today, save some energy for a little boogie fever and get someone to dance with you on your nice, clean floor!
POINTS: 30 for sweeping the dance floor
BONUS POINTS: 30 more for mopping to a nice shine (better for reflecting the disco ball)
On my first Ladies' Retreat ever, I had left my 2 year old and a baby I was weaning from the breast that very weekend at home with my man. I was thrilled to be away and besides, I thought as long as I would be away from the baby for 48 hours, why not completely pull the plug? Other than the fact that I was about to EXPLODE all weekend, there is one other thing that stands out in my mind from that inaugural retreat.
Visit me at Writer, Interrupted today! I've posted some thoughts about
Oops, excuse me, I've got to take this call.
I've posted some thoughts about
Now someone's at the door.
I've posted some thoughts about
OK, now someone's hurt.
I can't remember what I posted about, so just hop over there to find out.
I didn't learn his name until the last night of our long graphics installation in west Texas.. He was an older man with a slight build, who spoke no English. He worked 12-18 hours a day for the construction crew at the Big Spring church and slept on a bare mattress in the hot gymnasium at night. He helped us on occasion and we shared our water and some chocolates with him, and Tom and I marveled at his stamina. I speak just enough Spanish to communicate the barest concepts, but often we would just have to shrug at each other and shake our heads when we couldn't bridge the language barrier. By the end of our job, he would sit with us while we worked...offering to hold a light or carry a ladder or point out something we'd missed. He had earned our respect, even though we suspected that he was an illegal worker.
But I never asked his name. I just called him "Amigo."
The night before he was to leave by bus for another job, we got into a conversation of sorts. Tom would ask a question, I would translate as best I could and then Amigo would answer in his Spanish dialect, which we learned came from his home country of Honduras. We learned that he had risked everything to come here to work..a father of five and a grandfather of 26.
When I finally asked his name, he gave me a look I will not easily forget. It was with a mixture of pride and humble joy that he told us.
"Santos." He tapped his chest gently, as if to say, "That's me."
The utterance of that single word changed everything. We'd been comfortable not knowing his name up to now because of how we feel about illegal aliens. Treat them kindly but kick 'em out. But suddenly, Amigo stepped from the anonymity of an undocumented worker to being known by his real name, Santos. And you could tell how much it meant to him for us to know him by name. He somehow didn't seem like one of the millions of nameless, faceless workers that live and work here just under the radar of the law. Immediately he was a real person: a man with hopes and dreams and sorrows and feelings. We felt ashamed that we had worked alongside Santos for almost three weeks before we'd bothered to find out who he really was.
The next morning we brought him some fruit, granola bars and water for his bus ride, along with a McDonald's breakfast. I thanked him for his help and then, just like that he was gone.
But Santos reminded me of something. And I'll share it in Today's Small Thing.