The Down and Dirty

I posted almost a year ago that I was doing a mud run then never posted the pics! 

 

Well, here they are... 

 BEFORE

 



DURING

 

AFTER

 

 

It was ah-mazing!  My favorite obstacle was the upside down rope traverse.  An 8-10' rope was strung on an ascending angle above a pit of muddy water, and we had to hang upside down and pull ourselves up to the top with our hands and feet.  It used every muscle and ounce of strength! Making it the full way up was worth the purple bruises on the backs of my legs for the next 2 weeks!

 

If you're looking for a challenge or just want to have fun and support a good cause, I highly recommend grabbing some friends & looking for a fun mud run like this one.  It isn't competitive but it's challenging and a fun day with your friends!

 

Next up...  Tough Mudder, Spartan Race??  We'll see....

 

Falling Together

     There should have been shouting and laughter in the street, but instead there was a still silence in the air. There should have been the clinking and scraping of bike pegs and skateboards against the ramps, but instead there was just distant noise from the traffic a block away. It was a perfectly beautiful, warm Fall afternoon.  There should have been kids riding through the yard – but instead I stood there alone, drenched in the silence, feeling the hole left from a young life ended too soon.

     Maybe you’ve read the tragic story of Autumn Pasquale, a 12-year old girl from a small town in New Jersey, murdered for her BMX bike in October 2012.  Autumn was best friends with the girl across the street.  Almost every day, they would ride their bikes up and down the street, and my sons would bring out their bikes, skateboards, and ramps.  But no one has wanted to play outside for weeks, not even on a beautiful day like this one.  News vans and reporters have left our town.  No matter - the news reports will never be able to capture the emotions that are frozen in time, or the efforts of a town grasping for understanding and trying to move forward while everyone knows that the loss is still just a scratch below the surface. When something like this happens, you can't help but think of the person and how they were when you last saw them – smiling, spunky, determined. Then you can’t help but think of their final hours – trapped, alone, scared. And your heart breaks with helplessness and grief and anger. 

     I stood there in the yard utterly alone, my thoughts broken by yellow leaves falling like snow.  I looked a few yards to the left, and the brilliant orange maple leaves were doing the same thing. And so were the bright yellow leaves from the tree next to it. The wind was blowing the leaves off of their trees, and they were falling together.  But they didn’t just fall. They were suspended in the air - several feet high, several feet wide – swirling and dancing, like they were celebrating that they were finally free. This went on for at least five minutes without them falling to the ground!  It was surreal and so completely opposite of what I was feeling inside. Beautiful and free – I think I might have pinched myself at one point because I had never seen anything like it.

     Beautiful and free… like Autumn is now. No matter what she ever experienced in her short life, no matter what despair she experienced in her last hours, I heard the wind whisper that she is now free. I haven’t read of a way to make sense of such a selfish tragedy. I’ve never seen a commercial for that magic button that returns everything back to normal. All I know is the sense of comfort and shred of hope that somehow, some way God will use this vile act for good. That over time hearts will be healed and people will be able to move forward.

     I kept watching those leaves. Eventually they slowly and peacefully began to float down, covering the ground with a magnificent orange and yellow blanket.  Like Autumn, their journey not wasted but still bringing beauty to the world.

 



 

Eye Full of Sandy

     After volunteering in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina, I'm all too familiar with the devastation a hurricane can bring.  Even that experience and the ability to see news reports and pictures of the damage from Hurricane Sandy doesn't compare to the stark reality of witnessing the destruction with your own eyes.

     This past weekend, doors flew open for me to be part of a hurricane relief assessment team and tour areas of the Jersey Shore and New York that were hit hard by Hurricane Sandy.  Our 4-day journey brought us together with pastors and volunteers who have been working on the front lines in Ocean and Middlesex Counties in New Jersey, and in Coney Island, the Bronx, and Babylon, NY.  These people are amazing!  Despite the heartbreak around them, they contain an infectious energy and vision for helping people recover from this storm.

     Just please know - wherever you are reading this - YOU ARE NEEDED!   There is alot of work to be done.  Right now, there are thousands of people who have been displaced all along the coast and in the inner cities.  There are thousands of people who need help clearing their home and mitigating the mold.  Yes - still!  Many of these people will also need help re-building in the near future.  Funds will be needed for tools and supplies.  There is something that everyone can do! 

     I encourage you to be thinking of how you can help.  Think about:  what you are willing to do, where you would like to do it, when would you like to do it.  With your help, someone's life will be changed forever.  ~

Daddy Knows Best!

     Pictures are worth 1,000 words - like this one I have of me with my parents outside of their Florida home.  It was the last picture taken of my dad.  Mom was sporting her cancer wig and dad, holding a travel cup of coffee, had his fishing hat on to cover up his chemo head.  I’m in the middle with poofy eyes, trying to smile.  It was the end of my visit with them, and each time I went back home, I left not knowing if it would be the last time I’d get to see them again on this side of heaven.  Turns out, two weeks later cancer finally kicked dad’s butt and 3 days after that we said our goodbyes.  So in memory of my dad, here's 500 of those 1,000 words.....

~ Life Lessons from Bob ~

#1.  There are no do-overs.   The cancer doctors gave my dad 1 year to live. Well, my dad was stubborn and hung around for 3 more years! Every 6 weeks, I would visit for a long weekend, and we’d hang out in the recliners in his room and watch “In the Heat of the Night” and “Walker Texas Ranger” recordings and nap, wake up, chat, eat popsicles and watch some more. He wasn’t a super open guy, so I was surprised one night when he looked at me and said, “You know, if I had the chance to do it all over again, I wouldn’t have worked so much. I would have spent more time with you kids.” We were blessed to have that time together at the end, but it doesn’t always work out that way.  Make your today count!

#2.  You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.   Gotta be honest – I don’t know why I remember this or what I did for him to say it to me. I must’ve been a sass-ball like {ahem} one of my daughters {ahem}, but what a true statement!  It even says it in the Bible: “Pleasant words are like a honeycomb; sweetness to the soul and healing to the bones.“ (Proverbs 16:24)  In other words – Be Sweet!     

#3.  Always keep a $20 bill in your bra for emergencies. (Yes, he said bra!  Remember - I’m a girl.) But since these are good words for anyone, if you are a guy it would probably be okay to keep it in your pocket.  I suspect that’s what my dad did. And that’s what I do too…or my shoe, that works too.

#4.  Nothing in life is free.  Everything comes at a cost. If it doesn’t cost you money, it costs your pride or can leave you beholden to someone or to something, such as a negative emotion. Even the most  free thing of all – the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ – came at a price. It was free to me and it is free to you, but it cost Jesus His very life. So weigh your decisions carefully; if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

#5.   Birds and bees.  Oh man, I’m sorry – Bob’s actual words were on the crude side, so I can’t post them here. But they saved me from many a comprising situation, so they merit mention. It went something to the affect that when things get passionate between a guy and a girl, the guy’s common sense goes out the window and he is no longer thinking with his brain or even his heart.  So girls – make sure you use your brain and don’t get in that situation in the first place.   ‘Nuff said. 

#6.  Credit cards are for a true emergency.  A true emergency is more along the lines of car repairs, not “I don’t have a shirt to wear to the party Friday night” or “I need to get everyone the perfect gift for Christmas but have no job.”  Thanks Dad, for the best college graduation gift ever – a $450 credit card bill.  Lesson learned!

#7.  And last but certainly not least - Never do a jig too close to the Christmas tree.   No explanation needed, but you just might see it on America’s Funniest Home Videos one day.

Mom & Dad "Back in the Day"

What about you?  Have any words of wisdom handed down from your parents?   

Leave a comment – I’d love to hear them!

Closet Full of Masks

     It was just Halloween time, and my son announced that he would like a costume with a full mask this year.  Why?  Because he would like to make the rounds twice – one with his normal face, then one with his mask on so people wouldn’t recognize him and he could get twice the candy!

 

     We all like to wear masks, don’t we?   My daughter recently made a comment to me, “Mom, church people aren’t as good as you think.”  Um… ouch?!?   It was a heart-breaking revelation that actually threw me back to my own teen years, where I struggled to figure out who I was.  I was basically a good person, crazy, goofy, sassy yet sweet; I loved church and youth group and had a great bunch of friends there; I had school friends that I didn’t really mix with my church friends because we participated in different activities; I spoke three different languages – the one I used at home, the one I used at church, and the one I used everywhere else.  So I guess you could say that I had a closet full of masks.  As I’ve grown up, I’ve worked hard at weeding them out.  Some just plain dry rotted – old, some vile, some no longer used, and most I have decided to just throw away.  Although I try to live transparently, my daughter’s comment made me realize that I would be lying if I said that I didn’t have an emergency mask or two tucked in a drawer somewhere.  

 

     What about you?  Have enough masks to fill a costume shop?   Well, guess what  – we’re not meant to wear masks.  Nope, sorry but it’s true.  God created us to be amazing and with incredible potential – but we wear our masks because we care more about what people think.  We put them on out of fear and insecurity and a desire to be liked and accepted.  Some people wear them to hide something they are ashamed of or a behavior that they know is incorrect.  

 

     But the awesome part is................

 

Mud Runs and Coffee

     Today is my birthday, and although I will not say my age out loud (EVER) I will say I am the age of the people who I always saw as older and “mature”.   Rats!   Rats that I’m there, and rats that I don’t think I’m as “mature” as I’m supposed to be yet – maybe that’s a good thing though!

     This weekend was my mother-in-law’s memorial service, so this morning my thoughts were all over the place. They landed on a dear friend of mine who lost her battle with ovarian cancer three years ago.  Perhaps it is a morbid thought for my birthday morning, but the unknown of the future stared back at me in the mirror.  I realized that as she woke on this # birthday of hers, she probably had no idea that she would only have 7 more years to live.  If she had, would she have lived differently?   Would there be places she would visit, things she would do with her daughters?  She was my 2^nd friend who died at that age from the same disease – is it possible that I may only have 7 years left to live?  Or 5 or 2 even?  How then will I live?  What am I going to do to be sure that I leave behind a strong and meaningful legacy? 

     Then my final thought,

it’s too early for this – where is my coffee?

On Sept. 15^th, I will be participating in my first Mud Run, the Bill Bottino Mud Run for Cancer, and I dedicate my efforts to my dear friend Tish.

Minute to Win It

“You can do anything for a minute!”   

     I could hear Tina, my spin trainer, shouting above the music as she pushed us at a “10” on an interval ride.  The only difference was tonight I was on the treadmill, not in spin class.  After watching Bob train Daphne using speed intervals on "The Biggest Loser", I was inspired to mix it up some.  I was already warmed up from Zumba, so I started at my base speed then increased it by .5 mph every minute.  Run 1 minute, walk 1 minute – it was amazing!  I pushed myself faster than I’ve ever gone on the treadmill.   Did I break a world record?  Nah.  Did I look as strong as I felt?  Probably not.   Was I as strong - and confident - as I felt?  Ohhh yes!  I can’t wait for my next treadmill day to try it again.

     One minute, just one little minute… next time you are struggling or you want to give up, just find your focus and tell yourself – “I can do anything for a minute” and keep pressing on.  You are stronger than you think!