Thank You, Beyonce

"The time is going to pass whether you do something with it or not.  Next year it will be Next Year no matter what I do, so I might as well do something good with what I've got in the meantime."

When I was a wee sprat in middle school, I had a friend who's mother was going through a rather sudden divorce.  She used the chaotic time in her life as a spring board to change her circumstances & rather than sit & mope, she decided to get her college degree.  The above quote is something I overheard her saying to another mother (not my mother!) when asked why she was taking the time to go back to school "at her age," especially since it would take so long doing it part time.

Little did Beyonce (sadly not her name--I honestly can't remember her name this many years after the fact) know that she was not only taking charge of her life, but she was also shaping mine years down the road.  Not much good comes easy or quickly.  It takes time & hard work & consistency & perseverance to get to a long term goal. 

I don't know why I'm thinking about Beyonce today, but I wonder where I would be without that inadvertent lesson?  I pulled that quote out of my memory many times in the early stages of my journey, reminding myself that each small good choice was a step toward a big step that I wouldn't be able to see without the benefit of time.  Now that some time is past & I can look back on two years of better choices & accumulation of effort, I'd like to say: 

• Thank you, Beyonce, for giving me an idea to hold onto when the small steps are frustrating (this is how Internet rumors get started, by the way, but I'm not saying anything mean about Beyonce, so I don't think she'll mind...it's not like I'm naming a big metal chicken after her--if you're not afraid of impolite snort out loud laughter & four-letter-words click here & you will find THE funniest thing on the Internet).
• Thank you, Shortsighted Other Mother, for asking a hideously rude & inappropriate question within earshot of impressionable youths.  You're just lucky that Beyonce took the ball & ran with it.
• Thank you, Memory for hanging on to at least one useful thing in my whole life.  If I can't remember kidnapping my (then) boyfriend for an impromptu trip to Graceland because Graceland should be on EVERYONE'S bucket list, well then at least I can remember a golden idea that I eavesdropped as a 14 year old.

 The take-aways:

1. I can't stop time from marching on.  All I can do is the best I can with the time I have right now.
2. There's always a tween looking for a life lesson, so have your message-stick at the ready at all times.  Look, there's one now with the clothes of an 80 year old man & the make-up of an 80 year old hooker.  Oh wait, that was me.  Carry on.

New Sara + The Machine

This song.  So much:

I found myself hangin' with Ursula this afternoon & discovered this as a kick-hiney running song.  I already loved it as a grooving-in-the-kitchen, but when Florence wails "run fast for your mother," I really really wanted to!

Not only that, I really really wanted to keep running.  For the first time in a long time, I felt the thrill of fitness & wanting to make my body strong again.  I even started entertaining the idea of training for the local 20K in June. 

I was so excited about working out (wha-ha?!?!?) that I put on a clean pair of running tights & tank after my shower so that I'm ready to hit it again tomorrow morning.  Yup, I sleep in my work out wear to eliminate one excuse from the endless supply I find myself with at the crack of early. 

So here I sit ready (but for my new Smart Wool socks that are in the dryer--looooooove them) for my run in the morning & looking forward to my second ever plank (did one this afternoon after Florence got me all whipped up--10 seconds...I've got lots of room for improvement!).  It's time to make New Sara strong as well as lean.

Our Daily Bread

I'm a freak. 

About a year ago, because I didn't want to dump whey (leftover from making yogurt) down the drain, I bought a bread machine & started making all of our bread.  At the time I did the math & figured that the fancy-schmancy machine (a requirement if I was going to bake bread as I knew--& still know--nothing about baking) would pay for itself in one year with the savings from not buying our $3.50 per loaf grocery store bread.  Factor in the "savings" in preservatives & highly processed nonsense & it was a no-brainer.

Today is "free" bread day...

...it's a beautiful day.

I'm celebrating by pushing myself waaaaay out of my comfort zone & making hamburger buns for our veggie burgers tonight.  Anything that requires me doing anything with dough that isn't of the cookie variety terrifies me, but what's the worst that can happen?  Veggie burgers a la plate isn't the end of the world & maybe hamburger buns can be one more thing I can make to take better care of my body & the other three bodies that I feed each day.