Female in Motion

My son-in-law, Derek, recently went on a bicycle camping trip. That's right, he packed everything he needed for a weekend camping trip and piled it on his bike. (His photo at right.)Talk about a challenge...he rode that loaded-down bike 30 miles to the campground. It's a good thing to be young, fit and a little bit wacky! Seeing that bike fully loaded with all that stuff reminded me of camping trips The Hubster and I used to make to the Cowley County State Lake when we were first married. We were young and broke and enjoyed getting away for a night from our tiny apartment. We would pack a cooler with food, take a skillet and the pup tent and head down to the lake. Most of the time no one was there, which was nice. We hiked, fished and cooked hamburger patties and eggs. Once our first daughter, Sarah, was born, we packed up her baby equipment and went camping. That was a bit more of an undertaking. Babies require lots of stuff, to put it mildly. It made the campsite loo...

Driving home from church last week, I saw a car parked in a vacant parking lot. It was a nondescript white sedan with a red For Sale sign in the side window. No, I'm not in the market for a fine, low-mileage pre-owned sedan. Something made me pause, though. The sign said, "As Is." You've seen that phrase before, I'm sure. "As Is" means that what you see is what you get. In this case, the early-90s sedan had a dented rear fender and four bald tires, not to mention whatever mysteries lay beneath the hood. This vehicle had seen better days, my friend. When I talk to people about turning their lives over to God, some say they need to get themselves straightened out first. They have some dirt or imperfections in their lives; they want to tidy up a few loose ends. Perhaps they feel like their Heavenly Father won't accept them "as is." That condition is God's specialty, however. He took a simple lump of clay and made it into a man,...

It was September of my junior year in high school. I had dressed very carefully that day, a cute cap-sleeved t-shirt with French cut jeans. Leaving my English class, I entered the stairwell to go down to my locker. There he was. The object of my huge crush. "Mr. T" was headed up the stairs as I was coming down. I flashed my best smile and took a step towards him...and then I took a header. In the coming months, I am going to be retelling my most embarrassing moments, simply for your delight. In my last blog entry, I promised to be more introspective and personal in my writing and I couldn't think of any better way than revealing my most humiliating moments. So enjoy, dear readers! Lying at the bottom of the stairs, listening to the guffaws of various and assorted under- and upper-classmen, I had the chance to take stock of my relationship with Mr. T. He was a senior, varsity football player, and older brother of my own brother's best friend. And I had spoken t...

This Saturday, August 13, 2011, marks the fourth anniversary of the birth of my blog. Time sure flies when you're writing a blog post every week! That equals 208 entries, 208 pithy titles, 208 exercise updates and 208 notable quotes, among other things. Hopefully, as my writing has grown and matured, my waistline has shrunk a bit. Up until two years ago, I didn't really consider blogging as writing. I just thought I was having a little fun, writing about my exercising and trying to lose weight. Quickly, I realized that in between chronicling my workouts and calorie victories, I was actually writing. That was something that I thought I had put away a long time ago, when my girls were young. The Hubster informed me that blogging was indeed writing and I was pretty good at it. "Thanks," I said, and then he hit me between the eyes with his next sentence. "What are you going to do about it?" "Well...hm...let me think about it." In the ensu...

Vacations are a great time to relax and see some new things. My favorite thing to do on vacation, (besides eating like crazy!), is reading. I love to read and would enjoy nothing more than a comfy chair under a shade tree with a ridiculously large stack of books. Okay, somewhere tropical with 24-hour free room service wouldn't be bad, either. I managed to read three books in the last two weeks, partly because I was on vacation half of that time. Receiving a Kindle for Christmas from The Hubster has really made reading even more portable. Instead of packing three paperbacks in my suitcase, I threw my Kindle in my purse. (It currently holds 26 books.) These titles were so good, I couldn't wait to get back home and tell you all about them. Momala's Book Club Pick #1: O, Pioneers! by Willa Cather, is a classic prairie tale about Swedish, Bohemian and French immigrant farmers in 19th century Nebraska. Although this book is not a new title, the main character is a strong, indepe...