Cancer Survivor, writing about Health and Fitness as you age

Maybe it's because I live in Texas? Not sure, but my husband and I decided to do something as a couple for our anniversary and we did a pistol class together! To be honest, I'd never held a gun before and I was literally shaking when I had to hold the gun and load the clip. You can't see it in the pictures, but my goodness I was nervous! Nervously trying to load the clip  It was a lot of fun, we learnt about the basics of handling a gun, how to stand, shoot, safety and a bit about the gun laws. Then, after the in-class session, we went out to the range to shoot. Real, actual guns! I ended up hitting the target, so that was more than I'd hoped for, so I was pretty pleased. My husband was very impressed with my results when we retrieved the target! We shot at 2 different distances,  7 feet and 15 feet. I ended up shooting a .22 and a 9-mm glock. Here I am posing for this shot, largely because with the eye and ear protection and the wind blowing my h...

Soo..., after having our after-school sitter for our boys for a bit, her schedule changed and we had to find someone else. We decided to go with a manny (male nanny), because for one thing we had a manny apply! While he was not able to stay with us long unfortunately, it was a very interesting experiment! The dynamic between the boys and our manny was different than between them and our female sitters. For one thing, the play time was much more rough and tumble. More fighting and wrestling, jumping and punching. When they were not fighting with him, he was less likely to intervene if they were roughhousing with each other. The female sitters would have stepped in much earlier. You may see this dynamic in your own household when Dad is in charge vs Mom or if parents have two different parenting styles. They also interacted with him differently - they saw him more like a buddy rather than someone they had to listen to and respect, so that made his job a wee bit challenging. He had...

So I remarked to my husband recently that 6-odd years ago, when I was staying home with my younger son -  my older son was in elementary school, I would see moms in their work outfits and I suffered terribly from shoe envy . Because, you see dear reader, I would be walking around with the baby in a sling and I was somewhat disheveled by the efforts to get both children ready for drop off. However, now that I am working again, and dropping my younger son to elementary school, (the older one is in middle school),  I can only see moms in their workout outfits on their way to the gym or a run or bike ride while I am in my work clothes, and hustling to get to a meeting/conference call on time. Hmmm. Maybe it is just me. I am not quite sure how good a job I am doing (just hoping not to mess up horribly), but every now and again, it seems necessary to reiterate what NOT to say to a working mom. And since I have to admit, sometimes other people can say it so much better than I c...

My dad is staying with me for the next few months and in the few weeks that he has been at home, I've noticed a few things about him that heralds the aging parent. We don't have a spare bedroom, so we've invested in a bed and a privacy screen and installed him in the "game room" space outside my sons' bedrooms. I thought I'd recount some of our conversations. "You know Daddy, ah tink we should get ah little privacy screen to put up by yuh bed. Yuh know, so anybody comin' up de steps doh see you on your bed, an' give you a little privacy." "Nah, what ah go do wit dat? Ah doh need no privacy screen. Why was'e yuh money? If ah want someting like dat, ah go put ah box or someting or tie ah piece ah sheet across if ah want some privacy." It went on like this for a few days and I ignored him and got a 4-panel folding privacy screen. The evening it was delivered and I set it up, my dad said this: "Yuh know, de sc...

At this time of Thanksgiving I am grateful for my family and the memories we have created together. It also is a good time for me to revisit my bucket list since many items involve my family. In 2011, my therapist (yes, I needed someone to help me get my head in order), recommended I do an activity called " 32 squares ". Take a blank letter-size sheet of paper Fold it in half and keep folding it  in half about 5 times Open it out, you should get 32 (not quite squares) Sit down and write every thing you would like to do/experience, every dream or goal you have They usually work out to be a mix of immediate, medium and long term, maybe even some things you may not ever get to. Welcome to your bucket list. The trick to this exercise, she said, was that the first 10-15 things were usually easy to write, but then by the time you get to 25-32 you really have to start thinking deeply about things you may have given up on doing many years ago. In writing your dreams down,...

I have posted before about the education system and how I felt about public vs private school. After having my son in private school for 3 years, he is now back in public school. See my prior posts here: Path to Private School and My Education Rant. Was it worth it to have him in private school? Now there's a question. I think he would have done well in public school although there is no doubt he did get challenged in private school. It would seem that the question isn't so much public vs private, but more, who is the teacher? I've also taken a step back in my expectations and how I view education. I have always compared the kind of schoolwork that my son does with what I did when I was growing up. I came from a different education system, where we would spend hours doing homework and revision for tests and extra lessons was normal. My son? He is in middle school and does his homework in school and spends no more than 30 minutes at home doing work. If I don'...

I recently had a birthday for which I was very grateful. You never know if you will get another birthday even without having had a cancer diagnosis. So I was pretty sad that my brother didn't tell me "Happy Birthday". I don't have an expectation that my sister-in-law (his wife), would remember, but my brother? He didn't even have to call, since I called him two days before my birthday - he could have said it then. He even had a built-in reminder - his wife's birthday was two days after mine. I never considered myself a needy person who needs encouragement and needs to fussed over unnecessarily, but I just didn't understand it - I still don't . My husband's family remembers every year. But it did get me to thinking about what other friends who have been diagnosed with cancer, have said: Friends fade from their lives, or avoid them. Some friends are so wonderful, they are the cream of the crop. Family get offended if they, (the diagnosed) are ...