Sophie's Story

     One of the things I have been trying to do for the last several years is get in shape. One way to do this to to get a membership and commit to waking out at a gym. For me this isn't a really good option. I'm more than a little self conscious in workout clothes, introverted with left-right confusion. The thought of going to a group fitness class of any sort is enough to make me feel sick.   Fortunately, there is You Tube and its wealth of workout videos. There are all kinds of workouts I can choose from. There are Jane Fonda workouts, Tae Bo workouts, aerobics, step workouts, walking workouts and too many more to list. I was looking for something to add to the yoga I'm already doing. I needed something more along the lines of a traditional cardio workout.      My challenge is that I tend to get bored doing the same thing all the time. I also get bored if I have to work out for more than say 20-30 minutes. I'd looked at several different people who had series of work

   One of the pleasures of living in this part of the Midwest is spring. Spring around here is not the beautiful season it is in many parts of the country. Spring around here can be rainy, gray, cold and muddy. Depending on how fast the snow melts and how much rain falls it can also be a time where people living near lakes and rivers wonder if there will be flooding. Sometimes a sign of spring can be sandbags and dikes along rivers.    I know that spring is coming when leaf buds appear on trees and bushes. The tulips begin to poke up from the ground sometimes poking through the leaves that were left on top of the garden. It has always seemed miraculous to me that this can happen after some of the winters we have had.   I'm especially happy this year because my small mock orange bush is showing signs of life. My poor little bush didn't do well in the last really cold winter we had. A lot of the branches broke off and it had no flowers last year. I watered and fertilized it and t

        A few days ago My cousin Liz posted something on Facebook. Her son, Van was complaining about having to go to school. According to her this is something he does often. They talked about it and she ended the conversation by saying, "You'll live through it. We all do." His response was, "School shootings say otherwise."    There was nothing she could say to this except to express how much she hates that this is part of her son's reality. She's right. I hate it as well.     School shootings are not new. I looked at Wikipedia to see how many school shooting there were before 1999. The earliest on the list was in 1840 when a law professor was shot by a student. From that date until the end of the 1800 there were 32 incidents. From 1900 to 1999 there were 298. Most of them had less than 10 victims each until Columbine where 15 people were were killed and 24 were injured. I was surprised there were so many shootings some of them just a month or so apart

      A lot of things I see on Facebook are people who complain about being an adult. Most of what I see is that "adulting" is hard. Yes, there are parts of being an adult that are hard and a lot of work. There are also a lot of things that are good being an adult.     One of those things is that you get to choose whatever you want. Maybe this doesn't sound like a big deal, but it is/was to me. When I was younger, there were things that I was not allowed to eat. The reason for this was because my teachers thought that I had ADHD. At the time there were none of the medicines that are so common now. ADHD was thought to be caused by artificial colours flavours and sugar. There were things that I was not allowed to eat when I was younger. I wasn't allowed to eat pudding that came from a mix, Jello, Captain Crunch, Fruity Pebbles and Kool Aide. Soda was a treat for special occasions. We could have soda sometimes with meals like pizza and tacos or as an evening snack with p

        We've had several days of warm weather. Our bikes have been tuned up and ready to go. We were planning on spending yesterday biking but we weren't sure that the trail we wanted to take was usable. We had checked the trail website which said that portions of the trail still had snow pack and ice on it. Instead of riding we decided to walk instead.     One end of the trail is in Red Wing. We always enjoy a day trip to Red Wing so that's where we went.     On our way into town we went past the usual trail entrance. There's more than one so we found another one. It was sort of hidden away. We parked in the small parking lot and got out of the car. The trail was parallel to a railroad track. On the other side of the track was a large swamp. We saw four herons in the swamp. The trail was clear and dry. A cycler passed us and we asked him how the trail was up ahead. He said it was good. Part of me wished we'd brought our bikes.    We turned around because we wanted

        I volunteer in church every other Wednesday night. Our group of volunteers has a leader who supervises us in what we are to do. She writes a schedule, meets with us before we start our work  and checks up on us to see how things are going as we are going about our duties.     Last fall I was asked to assist our leader. My job is to help her in any way she needs and to fill in for her when she is out of town.    Last Wednesday she was out of town. That meant I was going to be in charge. Two weeks ago she had shown me all I needed to know about writing and printing the schedule. I took notes as she showed me what to do. I had worked with her for several months so I knew what she did during our shift.    Now it was time to put those things in to practice. Writing and printing the schedule was nowhere near as hard as I thought it would be. I had three women who were going to be absent. One of them found sub and I was grateful for that.     The shift went well. There were a few last