Currently, I am in a fluxative (lol) state. I recently turned 40 and I am trying to look on the bright side. Is there one? I definately dragged my sorry butt up and began improving myself once I turned 40. If you took a snapshot of me at 39 and compared it to a snapshot at age 40, there would definately be an improvement. I have been losing weight (s l o w l y) and exercising. I have been eating better and taking vitamins. But I am beginning to notice a crunching noise in my right knee and a popping sensation in my lower back. I have begun using facial moisturizer (never did before) and my feet are dry (never were before). While I am working on expanding my lung capacity, strengthening my heart, toning my muscles, you gotta wonder if my joints and organs are secretly planning their retirement.
nutrionally
Anyway, many people, particularly the mother hens at my daughter's dance class, think I am nutritiously nuts. Why? Because I rant and rave about hydrogenated oil and acrylamide. I spout conspiracy theories regarding our demise and hydrogenated oil and tell the mother's not to feed their children french fries. Not to mention the Burger King hamburgers with rain forest beef! Eat a hamburger from Burger King, kill another square foot of rain forest. Does that mean I never eat fast food, I never allow hamburgers or french fries to touch these lips? No. I am human, I am weak. I have been known to consume the fast food burger and fries in a weak moment brought on by raging hunger. Currently, if I am planning raging hunger, I bring a Zone Perfect bar. While I have tried many of the flavors, nothing beats a Zone Perfect Peanut Butter bar. I love them! I buy an average of 20 per week. I eat one almost every day for breakfast or lunch. I would rather have a Zone Perfect Peanut Butter bar than just about anything else. Walmart or Sams appear to be the most economical place to purchase these tasty concoctions. You can get them at Walmart for about $.89 each in a box of 5 and for $.84 each at Sams, box of 12.
Exercise. I am deeply influenced by the exercise obsessions of my sister and mother. My sister has been thoroughly dedicated to exercise since high school (she is over 30 now). She dragged my mother along with her and occasionally they would hook me for a time. The program which got them and us exercising regularly was The Firm. It's a good thing. You use a really tall step and moderate to significant dumb bells and work out slowly and deliberately, using that weight to tone and snap those muscles into attention. I am a firm believer! There is a great Firm website. The firm promises visible results within 10 workouts and I believe it. This doesn't mean you can do 10 workouts within 3 years and notice a result. In order for their promise to work, you should probably try to fit 10 workouts within 2-4 weeks. While I am not an expert, it is my opinion that you need to exercise 4 days a week to really make changes to your body.
I am lucky in that regard though. My body changes fairly easily. I can change my body with considerable exercise fairly quickly but on the other hand, I can get fat if I simply look the other way.
Okay, enough about diet and exercise. You came to this page because of caving, right? I love caving. I have been caving (organized caving) since 1990 when my husband and I, my sister, my brother, Michelle (my sister's friend) and my brother's friend went with us camping and caving the first weekend of May at Mammoth. We signed up for Mammoth's Wild Cave Tour. I remember it cost $25.00. At the end of the trip, you got to keep your helmet. I still have a couple of them. I recall that I was in graduate school at the time and reading Tartuffe. Tartuffe is a 5 act play by Molière. It is the story of an attempt, by an irreclaimable hypocrite, to destroy the domestic happiness of a citizen who, charmed by his seeming piety, has received him as a prominent guest. I must have discussed Tartuffe at length during this trip because as we crawled along on our trip, a cry of "Tartuffe" was often heard from my gang. In 1990 I was 26 but my siblings were more or less still in high school. Our goofiness with Tartuffe wasn't considered to be too misplaced by our cave guide. Our cave guide was wonderful; entertaining, informative, and clearly enjoyed his job. At the end of our trip (which was more or less 9 hours), I asked him for more information regarding caving. He told me about the National Speleological Society (NSS). He told me that there are local chapters of the NSS known as grottos and that there were several throughout Kentucky. Oh yea, I said. I remembered seeing signs on the UK campus about caving. Something like "wanna cave?", come to our meeting. I went to a couple of meetings. It was at a house across the street from Linas, just off Euclid Street. I asked the people at the meeting a bunch of questions about caving. They never invited me on a trip, so I quit going. It seemed they talked about it a lot but never went. I was thoroughly interested in caving because as a girl I had spent much time at Carter Caves State Resort Park, a wonderful, beautiful state park in eastern Kentucky. We went often and spent lots of time camping. My friends and I would often put on old clothes, grab a flashlight and go crawl in any hole we could find. I had no idea there was organized caving out there. I remember my senior year of high school. We took our senior trip to Carter Caves (I had hoped for NYC)for a picnic, touch football game, etc. My friend Ruby and I chose not to partake of the usual cliqueness, jocks and chicks, watermelons shaped like baskets and filled with fruit, some of which ended up spiked with rum. Instead we chose to visit Laurel and Horn Hollow Cave. We weren't dressed appropriately but we were young and dumb. We went through both caves and then continued walking and walking through the valley, for ever and ever. We ended up far from the park and it was almost time for the bus to leave. I remember approaching the door of a farmhouse. Several rusing farm implements lay in the yard. A toilet seat was on the front porch; remaining toilet portions seemed to be scattered around the side yard. An old hound dog lay on the porch just under the lip of a porch swing. As we walked upon the porch, the boards squeeked and a man came to the wooden screen door. He was kind, he face was craggy, he had a few teeth missing. We told him we were lost and our bus was about to leave. Could he give us a ride or tell us the right direction, at least. He said, "darlings, I'll help you anyway I can". Then he hollared into the dark, small house. "Mother, you serve these girls some lemonade, I'm gonna fire up the car". He wife bought us delectable, fresh squeezed lemonade, cold, perfectly balanced with the right blend of sugar and acid. We couldn't imagine what the nice man needed to do to "fire up" the car. After a few minutes we finished our drinks and his wife told us, "Hank is in the back yard waiting for ya. You girls better git before you miss the bus". We walked into the back yard, fearing what kind of carriage was going to carry us back to our classmates. I imagined something an old truck like the Beverly Hillbillys. You gotta crank it several times before it roars to life. Hank didn't have an old truck. He had a brand spanking new silver Mercedes, with all the accouterments. It was a comfortable ride and I was quite mezmorized during the ride back to the park. Our classmates hooted and whistled from the bus windows when they saw us stragglers climb out of the elegant auto. I never understood why someone would live in a near shack, with trash everywhere and a squeaky screen door and drive a new Mercedes. I wanted to ask but it would have been rude. "Tell me Hank, why do you live in a crappy old house, junk everywhere, a dog who ain't worth two cents and you got this here car?" I never asked but it makes for an interesting story, doesn't it?
