Exercise

I was always a tomboy growing up.  Sure, I liked dolls and girly things.  When I was REAL little, my Mom dressed me in those frilly dresses, frilly pants and little ankle socks with the ruffled edges.  There were lots of boys in the neighborhood so we'd all ride bikes, shoot baskets, play kickball and baseball.  I remember riding my bike once, and I went up into a crushed stone driveway to turn around.  I lost traction, the bike fell, and I went down onto my right knee.  I got up got back onto the bike with my bleeding knee.  I remember one of the boys asking if I was okay, and I said, "Yes.  I have to go home now."  I didn't start wailing until I was halfway up the street.  I still have scars on my knee from that fall.  When I visited my Grandmother's house (usually every weekend), my cousin and I spent a lot of time throwing a ball (baseball or football) around.  I was pretty active, and it was fun.

Once I got to school, athletics was no longer about having fun.  It got to be a lot more competitive.  In the team sports, everyone wanted to win.  If it was individual activities, it was always a competition to see who was the best.  I did not excel in gym class.  I hated being the center of attention so the individual stuff made me uncomfortable.  The team stuff was bad because all it took was some mean girl making a nasty comment about something I'd screwed up and I was devastated.  I changed gym classes because of that very thing once.  A girl had decided to make my life miserable and taunt me every class so I asked to be moved.  They put me into a different class of younger students, and I became a "leader" (or teacher's assistant).

The only after school sport I participated in was bowling.  There again, although it was a competition, it was also fun.  I went with the same group of girls who were my closest friends, and we had a riot.  We didn't care if we threw a gutter ball or not, and we had a ton of laughs. When I met my husband, we used to go bowling when we were dating.  We sometimes bowled with his parents.  We even belonged to a league at one point.  I started to lose interest when I realized how seriously Eric was taking the whole thing.  He'd tell me what I was doing wrong if I didn't get a strike.  He'd get very down on himself and frustrated and upset if he did not do well.  He wanted to win. It was no longer fun for me.

I belonged to a gym for a few years when I worked downtown.  The Bausch & Lomb building had a gym for their employees, and they opened it up to others.  I worked at Nixon Peabody at the time, and we were right across the street.  I joined with a bunch of women in my department, and we went for the fun of it.  We did the step aerobics classes together, we did the weights machines, the treadmills, the steppers and the bikes.  It was a lot of fun.  When I left that department to move to the Patents group in my firm, I was no longer on the same schedule as my friends were.  I only saw them every so often at the gym.  I liked to go early to beat the rush and get back within 60 minutes.  I stopped doing the step classes because of the timing. It wasn't as much fun doing things alone so eventually I stopped going altogether.

Recently I've been thinking of joining Planet Fitness, but there again, it would be a solo attendance, and I don't think it would be as much fun.  I'd have to get up and go very very early in the morning, and I haven't been able to motivate myself to do that yet. I have arthritis in my knee, and I have tendonitis in both Achilles tendons.  I have found when I don't exercise, everything hurts and I move like I am 20 years older than I really am.  I have a stationary cycle and a manual treadmill at home so I usually exercise here now, but I wouldn't say it was ever "fun".

I do think the key for me and being successful with any kind of exercise program is to have fun with it.  I either have to trick myself into thinking I am having fun and then I enjoy it more, or I have to find an exercise buddy so that whatever I do becomes more about fun and friendship than exercising.

Along the way I found a couple of amusing quotes about exercise -

"Exercise is bunk.  If you are healthy you don't need it.

If you are sick you shouldn't take it."

Henry Ford

"I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting."

Mark Twain

I don't subscribe to either of those philosophies. My favorite exercise quotation isn't truly about exercise -

"Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body."

Sir Richard Steele

Give me a good book any day.

SOURCES:  http://www.dboone.org/schools/highschool/Pages/Announcements.aspx

http://www.kenmorelanes.net/
http://www.imageenvision.com/cliparts/seniors
http://quotationsbook.com/quotes/tag/exercise/
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/26854.html

Assertiveness

“Dorland's Medical Dictionary defines assertiveness as a form of behavior characterized by a confident declaration or affirmation of a statement without need of proof; this affirms the person's rights or point of view without either aggressively threatening the rights of another (assuming a position of dominance) or submissively permitting another to ignore or deny one's rights or point of view.”

I have taken a number of classes on interpersonal communication skills, but I am still not very assertive.  This has hurt me in a number of areas in my life, but I find myself unable to do much about it.  I know what I should do in most situations, but I am not usually able to push myself when I need to respond differently. 

Back when I was in the fifth grade, my parents received a letter from the School District inviting me to attend a different school program (sort of a middle school for smart kids).  It was to be held at School No. 43 (corners of Mt. Read Boulevard and Lyell Avenue).  Being shy and not willing to push myself outside of my comfort zone, I declined.  I chose to stay at School No. 38.  At around the same time, I was also offered the Guardian of the Flag position if I stayed at No. 38 so I selected that option.  I would not have to leave the school that I knew and the environment I was so comfortable with.  I knew that I was only offered the Guardian slot because someone else had moved on to No. 43 (I was likely the 2^nd or 3^rd choice to be Gurardian).  That didn’t matter – I was still honored to do it.  I also know that most of the kids that did attend the Advanced Placement school were further ahead academically when they returned to the High School setting in the 9^th grade.  They were the brainiacs – the ones who went on to bigger and better things.  So many times in my life I have wondered what I could have become if I had gone to the advanced program.  That is one of the few regrets that I have in my life. Why did I take the easy way out?

Deciding to finally get my A.A.S. degree this late in life is certainly a case of “better late than never”.  The fact that I am a straight-A student and was recently nominated for the Alpha Beta Gamma Honor Society tells me that if I had asserted myself I could have been much more than a secretary.  Work has never been the “be all and end all” for me – it was just a paycheck. If I had pushed myself to get a college education right out of High School, what could I have been?

In various job situations, I have never been good at speaking up for myself.  When I left my job years ago and interviewed for a new one, I asked for a $500 raise over my last job.  I am sure they were thrilled to pay me that!  I found out later that kids right out of business school were starting at that company at higher salaries than I was making, and I had more than 10 years experience at that point.  When I left one job and went to another at the same pay scale, why didn’t I negotiate for a third week of vacation?  I could have done the same when the offer was made for my current job.  I didn't even ask. I am good at what I do, and I am loyal and reliable and have a lot of experience.  Why couldn’t I turn that into a better deal for myself?

If I had been more assertive along the way in life, who would I be today?

  

SOURCES:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assertiveness

http://citb.iprock.com/2012/07/29/5-steps-to-assertiveness-and-setting-boundaries/#.UEuScbJlSSo

http://surreysatro.wordpress.com/2011/05/25/win-a-signed-brainiac-box-set/
http://www.imageenvision.com/cliparts/student

Girls

Going through friends' and relatives' postings on Facebook this week, I enjoyed looking at all the first day of school photos.  Time goes by way too quickly.  How did everyone's children get so big so fast? Such handsome young men and young women in all the pictures.

One posting in particular about girls and BFFs and their mean behavior stayed with me.  I have two sons, and I have never had to deal with those kinds of girly issues.  I won't lie - I always wanted a daughter.  I had such a wonderful relationship with my Mother that I wanted that closeness with a daughter of my own.  It was not to be, though.  I did end up with two handsome and awesome young men.

As I read Facebook and the comments about the mean girls being nasty and excluding others, I am so grateful I got to miss all that by having boys.  I went through enough girl issues when I was in school.  Not having to repeat it with daughters was a blessing. Sure, we had bully problems with the boys.  Ask Alex about the broken wrist he got when kids were chasing him in the hallway and he tripped.  Ask him about the other broken wrist he got a year later when the neighborhood bully taunted and dared him to ride his bike off of a huge ramp and jump - something he'd never done before.  Boys have a whole different set of issues - they usually hurt each other physically not mentally or emotionally.

I myself was never popular in school.  I was too tall (5' 9").  I was not skinny.  I wore glasses.  I was extremely shy around strangers and in most social situations.  I was never going to be cheerleader material.  I ended up with the greatest group of friends, though. The girls that I hung out with on a daily basis were not popular either.  We were all too different in one way or another.  We were not "cool".  We had some really great times, though. We were always laughing and getting into trouble for talking too much in class. There really wasn't any cattiness in the group.

While growing up, my BFF was always my cousin.  I still consider her my very best-est friend.  We have lived in different states for longer than we lived in the same one now.  She moved to Texas when I was 26.  She later moved to Michigan.  She has been gone for 27 years - that's so hard to believe.  When we get together, it's as if we had never been apart.  We pick right up where we left off.  We still laugh over the same stupid things.

Then and now (1970's and 30 years later)

I have recently reconnected with most of my High School friends through Facebook.  I haven't seen some of them in 30 to 35 years.  It's wonderful to be part of their lives again - even if it's only in a limited way.

And that closeness I treasured with my Mom?  I have that with my sons.  It's a little different, but they are very loving and protective.  We laugh at the same things, we spend a lot of time together, and I truly enjoy having them around.  You always know where you stand with boys. Girls are nice, but I don't need the drama.

SOURCE:  http://integrameadows.com/blog/page/2/