We All Need a Wake Up Call Sometimes

So I had a really good weekend with the exception of Saturday morning when I received an email that someone I know and who is younger than me, has just been diagnosed with an aggressive breast cancer.  The news nearly took my breath away.

I met this person in a job that was better defined as Hell.  The profession itself should not have been one of an atmosphere that fostered contention among employees but it was.  The two people who ran the place (and I use the word "ran" loosely) made sure that stress ran high.  They did not really allow the environment to foster friendships; they were much better at turning people against each other.  I did walk away from there (after they lied and fired me for job abandonment, which I so should have fought because I so would have won) with a few friendships with the girls I worked with directly, but not with anyone who worked in the back.  Departments were often pitted against each other by the ones in charge, sadly. 

But a few years passed and I got a message from this girl on Facebook, asking me for help with an exercise program because I had been "inspiring" her.  I was honest with her and told her about my surgery.  I told her I would happy to help her with what worked for me, but that I was no expert. She was in the process of moving back to my town and we had been discussing when we were going to get together.

Then I got her email.  This is a gal who has two young children and is in her thirties.  She is scheduled for a mastectomy this month and this week they are testing her to see if the cancer has spread to any other organs.  I'm praying constantly it has not. 

She has been on my mind constantly and it is such a reminder to take care of every single day we have.  That the things we complain about are often not that big of a deal.  It has also reminded me of all the times we stop talking to God when our lives are going well.  We feel as if we don't need Him when things are going our way and life is good.  I do it all the time.  Then suddenly things get bad and we are wondering where God is only to discover that he has been standing behind us the whole time we had our backs to him. 

I know God is with my friend right now.  I'm hoping she'll let me be there for her too.

Every day we have is a precious gift, to be lived to the fullest.  Don't take any of them for granted.  Take that chance, reach for that brass ring, do the things you are most afraid to do.  There are no second chances to our lives here, so make each day count.  Leave that legacy, point to the heavens for every miracle you witness...and we witness hundreds of them every single day.

I promise.

My Issues

I got some great responses from my little political blog post so I thought I'd go the extra mile and give you where I stand on a few hot issues and why.  Please know that I am not a political person by nature; discussing it is just not my thing and my remarks today have more to do with why I am a liberal as opposed to a conservative.  Please also know that I am always open to hear other thoughts and opinions as long as they are expressed with respect and I promise to give you the same.  I may not agree with you, I may not understand why you feel the way you do anymore than you can understand why I feel the way I do, but I would never tell you that you are wrong.  I feel that our experiences are our experiences and they are what shape of our views of the world and the issues of the world.  My experiences are going to be different from yours; that is simply a given.

Probably one of the hottest debates is the one that has been debated for years; the abortion issue.  In all honesty, though I am pro-choice, I am not always comfortable with that label.  I HATE when abortion is used as a means of birth control for careless people who do not want children but who want to have unprotected sex.  I think aborting these babies is wrong on every possible level.  Please understand this.

However.  I was just doing a little Googling and here is just one statement that I found:

But the number of people raped probably is much higher than what is reported to authorities. In 2005, only 38 percent of rapes and sexual assaults were reported to law enforcement officials nationally, according to the 2005 National Crime Victimization Survey. In 2005 at Truman, two rapes were reported to campus officials or DPS.

There could be any number of reasons why a woman would not report a rape.  Maybe she has been threatened.  Maybe the shame is too great.  Maybe she in some way feels responsible.  Whatever her reasons, the fact remains that she was raped and if a woman gets pregnant on account of a rape, I don't feel she should be forced to carry that child.  Now, people have said to me "but there will be exceptions for that."  I would for someone to explain to me how.  Are we going to tie these women up in a court of law to decide if they were raped and/or if they are permitted to abort the baby?  This would also open the door for any woman who wants to use abortion as a means for birth control to say "Well, I was raped."

In the event of rape, is the baby at fault?  Of course not. But neither is the mother.  I would like to think that if I were raped and got pregnant as a result of that rape that I would be strong enough to be able to carry the baby to term and then make the choice to give it up for adoption or keep it, but I cannot say that with any certainty.  I'd have to be in the position to know how I would react emotionally.  I admire any woman who was assaulted who is able to carry that baby to term, but I also know that not everyone is strong enough to do that; to have that reminder of a brutal attack where a choice was already taken from them.  No woman should have to face that for nine months; to be reminded in a physical way.

So it is because of those women that I have to label myself as pro-choice.  I could never take a second choice from them and I can not figure out a fool proof way to protect them. 

Then there is the whole homosexual issue and this one exhausts me.  Having done much community theater in the past, I have met and friended many gay men.  I have friendships with some of these men that go back to when we were 18 years old and when you go back that far and were that young, you are generally in the thick of some self discovery and acceptance.  I have sat with many of these young men at the time, when they had just "come out" to their parents.  I have sat with them while they told me, with tears in their eyes, how their parents said to them "I don't know why you would have chosen this."  And I sat there and listened as they looked at me in pure anguish and said "Kim, I never would have chosen this!  This isn't what I want to be."

So after many years of thinking about this, I realized that I had never "chosen" to be heterosexual.  I never woke up one morning and thought "Hmmm...men or women?"  So if I never chose, how can I think they did?  Also, can anyone deny the children that are born with sex organs from both sexes?  Or children who from the time they are very small are convinced that they are in the wrong body?  That they were "supposed" to be the opposite sex.  Now stay with me here for just a moment, okay?

No, I do not think homosexuality was originally what God had planned.  The Old Testament makes that clear.  I also don't think God intended cancer, birth defects, MS, polio, or any other number of things children can be born with.  But we live in an imperfect world and we have probably advanced ourselves beyond what is safe.  We use chemicals everyday, take medications for all different things, breathe in all sorts of fumes and toxins and pollutions.  How can we not think that these things in many ways do not have an impact on our heath or the health of our unborn children?  I think there comes a time where religion has to take common sense into consideration. 

The other thing that deeply disturbs me are the radical conservatives who will say "that person is gay and is going to hell."  Despite what the Old Testament says, Jesus came and made a new convenant with God's people.  He died for the sins of the world...so even if you insist on believing that homosexuality is a "sin" Jesus died for all sins, not the sins of the world except homosexuals.  There is just no way I can look at this and think that if you are gay, you are going to hell.  That goes against not only what life has taught me, but also against everything I believe to be true about God.

So there is my two cents on the two biggest issues I have with radical conservatives.  In many issues, I can see where the conservatives are coming from, but the radicals (like the chick on Facebook) just cannot see the rest of the picture.  We can't always see things black and white when we live in a gray world.  I'm just so thankful that God's wisdom is so much greater than me. 

People Need to CHILLLLLL

So I got into a Facebook argument of all things.  Like what is this?  High School? 

So there was a poll about whether or not Obama's speech to the students should be shown in school and I voted "yes" and stated that my reason had nothing to do with if you liked this president or not.  It was about showing children that the office of president needs to be respected.  In my opinion and experience, there are way too many kids out there who are not taught respect, period.  So if the president wanted to go on television and tell the kids about getting an education, I had no issue with that.  So this chick I went to high school with, who is apparently very much a conservative, commented on my answer to the poll stating she was against it and that she felt people needed to hear both sides.  Of course, my thought was "Both sides of what?"  So I kind of asked her that...what is the other side of telling kids to get an education?  Drop out of school and work in fast food forever?  I mean, c'mon.  So she comes back saying it should be at the discretion of the parents (I can give her that...understandable) then she goes into not trusting the president and he is known by the company he keeps, etc.  Again, I questioned her and questioned how she seems to be feeding into rather old news stories, so I asked her about the company the president apparently keeps. Then she goes into a whole religious thing, saying he goes to Muslim countries and says the US is not a Christian country (we do have muslims here, Jewish people etc, after all) and then insinuates that Michele Obama said she was finally proud of her country and construing that to make it sound like she was finally proud because of a Christianity issue.  Hello?  Seriously?  So I corrected her that Michele was proud of this country, as was I, that we had finally elected a black president, because of how far we had come.  And I quoted a news source from the BBC that talked about Obama's religious upbringing (all the while wondering how in the hell we had gotten into this argument over my initial comment about kids being taught to respect the office of president.  Again, seriously?) which she then complained about saying we had our independence from England (huh?).  I explained to her that I was trying to show her how easy it was to find another news source that could denounce what her news source said.  She then told me my reasons were lame, that she was sure I also had something against Palin (uh, yeah) and pretty much just attacked my views.So then I got really ticked and told her she was narrow minded and for someone who originally said people needed to hear both sides, she was certainly unwilling to listen or respect any of mine.

  Then I unfriended her.

I hate that kind of stuff.  I know we all don't feel the same way about most things and I can disagree and be disagreed with respectively. But don't attack me.  And don't turn my opinion on something else into a political debate about our current president. 

In other news, my mother needs to understand that there are things I don't need to know.  I don't need to know that because we have a boat, there are people who think we are loaded with money.  Yeah.  Why do I need to know this?  I know other people who are as "loaded" as we are, who also have boats (and like us make payments on them).  And then of course, we built a deck.  C'mon!  Seriously?  We manage our money.  We have debt.  We have the maximum withheld from our paychecks as it works as a savings account.  I am a cheapskate and proud of it.  I buy my clothes from second hand shops to save money and because I like saving money and recycling clothing.  I will not pay top dollar for anything.  I am a deal hunter. 

People are making me crazy.  I think I will envision a few of them at kickboxing tonight....

Gotta love long weekends

Today was nice and laid back.  Went into work for an hour to finish up some stuff and then took the rest of the day off.  Went to lunch with The Brit and then a little window shopping, then onto Aaron's therapy appointment.  Tonight is Fire Pit night!  Next week I have lunch scheduled with Kelly after not seeing her all freaking summer.  It's all good.

I'm looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow a bit and hopefully doing some studying in my two women's muscle building books.  Not looking to bulk up like the Hulk or anything but I would like to make my loose skin look as decent as possible.  I have the cardio down but now I need to be doing some serious toning to go along with it.  I'm actually pretty psyched about it.  There is lots of stability ball stuff in the books and when The Biggest Loser starts I always tend to do floor exercises while watching because no one else in the house watches so I am down here all alone. 

So lots on my agenda...a hopefully nice weekend and then back to work on Tuesday! 

Spinning Party of One

So after my ride yesterday, I was zonked.  See, when I get out on the canal, my curiosity gets ahead of me.  I am always wanting to go farther, to see what is up around the next corner.  Then there is the deer issue.  They are everywhere out there and when I see them, I have to stop and watch them.   So by the time I was finally on my way back and checked the time, it was 2:48 and I had to pick up JJ at 3:30 for a doctor's appointment...and I still had like four miles to go.  And it was on the way back so my energy was not as good as it had been when I started out, but I had no choice but to put in the hardest gear in order to eat up ground to get back in time.  It pretty much kicked my butt.

Then last night my blood sugar did its plummeting trick so by 9:30 I was falling asleep on the couch and went up to bed. 

Today i had it out with my youngest son who has been boundary pushing and has decided that yelling at his mom is an okay thing to do, especially after she had taken her time to clean his room, so I got my crazy on with him and told him off and he wasn't too sure what to think of that, but he sure has been sweet tonight!

I went to Spin class tonight and was the ONLY student.  Kind of weird but still got in a good workout.

Tomorrow night is fire pit....thank God and I have a four day weekend!

Mostly Wordless Wednesday

14 miles on the canal today and Tod is asking if I want to walk tonight.  I'm still debating...

Beautiful Day

I completely enjoyed my afternoon today.  Got off work and went to run a private, not to be blogged about errand.  From there, I decided it had been several months since I have checked Goodwill for clothing.  Anyone who knows me well, knows that this is my biggest contribution to going Green.  I love used clothes.  I love that they are already broken in and comfy.  Now some of you might say "But ewwww, broken in by whom?" And I am here to tell you that is what washing machines are for. 

I got some great name brand stuff.  Two pairs of workout pants ($3 each), a pair of padded biking shorts (these were a STEAL at $3.  They sell new for thirty-something bucks!), a beautiful St. John's Bay sweater ($4), a hoodie ($5), a Christopher Banks sleeveless hoodie ($6) and Cabin Creek long sleeved soft and snuggly material shirt ($4) and an adorable pair of shorts ($4).  I was thrilled to bits.  I had sent in some broken never to be repaired jewelry to Red Swan and got a small check back from them, and I was trying to decide on what treat to spend it.  This was by far my best option as I so got more bang for the buck!

Then once I got home, I elected to bike to the drugstore to pick up a prescription, which was awesome.  I actually will get in a second workout today with kickboxing and I got two in yesterday as well as I did my gym thing and then
Tod called me and asked if I wanted to walk.  It was such a beautiful evening, I went out with to enjoy it as well as his company.  My plan for tomorrow is to load up my bike on the car before work and then after work head to the canal for a ride. 

Remember that my trainer friend at the Y once told me I needed to look at exercising as being an athlete in training?  Well, I finally feel as if I am back on target!

Life is good....and beautiful.