Flashback Friday: Being Inspired by Iron Cowboy.

 

  Flashback Friday is a place for all things reminiscence.  Flashbacks can be personal recollections or they can also be looks back to the “Good Old Days” of our collective past.

The pic that started it all!

If you follow me on social media, you may have seen the above picture.  The caption I posted with this pic was: "Great day for a ride! 10 miles...nothing compared to what @ironcowboyjames is doing everyday...but it's a start."

James is in the black shirt holding #82
Felisha is on the bottom left.

    You may be like me, who had no clue who The Iron Cowboy was until just a few months ago. James Lawrence, aka The Iron Cowboy, is this amazing individual who is doing 100 full triathlons in 100 days.  That means he swims 2.4 miles, bikes 112 miles, and runs/walks 26.2 miles(yes a marathon!) Every. Single. Day.  When my friend, Felisha, told me about James a few months ago(she is also one of his massage therapists and his friend), I got interested and have been following him and his journey to "Conquer 100" since.  If you would like to know more about James and his journey to 100 full triathlons, click HERE.

    So, after that ten mile ride on April 3rd, I was thinking: What could I do that would push myself and actually get me more motivated to be moving? I came up with 1000 miles before summer was over.  Yeah....that would be a lofty goal, but then I instantly remembered that May 17th was the day of my hysterectomy to rid myself of the fibroids and ovarian cyst that have been making my life horribly uncomfortable.  I was going to be down for a bit this summer and maybe wouldn't be able to get in those miles, but wait, I could set a goal for the next month.

    So, I thought about it for a little while and came up with 200 miles before May 17.  It wasn't 100 miles a day or anything, but for me, a non-trained cyclist, it was a great goal.  So, I wrote it down and planned it all out.  I had to get in 30 miles a week, which is about 3 hours on a bike each week.  3 hours to squeeze in with my two full time jobs: teaching and momming.

The bike.

An adventure with a good friend.

So, I started on my journey.  In just a month, there were tons of highs and lows.  Two great rides with one of my friends from work, Kristen, definitely a high.  Sunshine on my face and getting to look at this all the time:

Utah is pretty!

Definite high!  But then there was the wind: low.  The rain and cold that would shatter my motivation some days: low.  The day I found out one of my students had died of an accidental overdose the night before: huge drowning low.

Therapy ride.

    I remember almost that whole ride that day.  I took a different route.  I didn't wear my helmet or my clip in shoes.  I rode slow.  I cried.  I swore. I mourned. And I healed, a bit.  The sunshine was out, it was pleasant weather, a homeless man told me to have a good day, and the river rushed by. I am so glad that my boss was okay with me taking the time in the middle of the day to have the tender mercy of that release ride.  

    He also allowed an early ride the day a fight broke out in my class. Wowzer, I had forgotten how exhausting a five minute situation can truly be.  That ride was another one that happened to seem low at the time, but pedaling as fast as I did that day made it easier.  Movement definitely can be therapy.

    On my last ride I also took that different route.  It was a short ride, only 4 miles left to my goal.  I was so proud to have made it.  The week before I had to push myself a little harder and ride a little further than I had the previous weeks.  I wanted a celebration, so I asked for it.  Nobody was thinking, hey, Alice should have a party after her last ride. It just wasn't their journey, it was mine.

    So, I had a coworker be in charge of the ribbon I would ride through at the finish, and I had another make signs with 200 on them.  I also invited anybody who had actually stayed a little late at our school that Friday to come and celebrate with me.  On the ride I also reached out to Reuben and my kiddos, remembering I hadn't invited them, and they all came!

Crossing the finish line!

The support

My Biggest Fans.

    This Flashback Friday is truly a special one.  Be sure that you make yourself a goal.  Do something in the near future that you love to do.  Challenge yourself to do something that makes you a bit uncomfortable and have to work a bit.  Be inspired and inspire others.  I promise it will brighten your life and make time fly.  And you'll have something big to look back on and say: "Hey, I did that."  There is nothing like that feeling!

Haiku Obsessed

  Writing Wednesday is a place for me to write whatever I want to write.    

    

    Have you heard of haiku?  Maybe you know it is Japanese in origin, that it has three lines, that each line has a certain number of syllables(5-7-5), and that they it is traditionally about nature. Sure these  poems that originated in the 1600s would seem to be just about painting a picture in one breath about some nature scene, but in reality the new haiku is whatever you want it to be about. 

    I was first introduced to haiku through the Central Utah Writing Project and BYU English Professor, Chris Crowe.  He is a master of the haiku, having written an entire novel in haiku, but his most popular among the CUWPers(those who are members of the Central Utah Writing Project) is his Zombie Haiku. I hope one day he will publish them and all of us can enjoy them.  

    I do not write much zombie haiku but I do love writing haiku because it is short and I can write them even when tending to all of my children's needs, like the million times a day they ask for juice or snacks.  Not that I don't love helping with those needs, it can just sometimes interrupt the writing process.

    Anyway, here are a few of my favorite Haikus that I have written recently.  Feel free to comment by writing your own haiku, I would love to read what you can come up with.

Correlation

With COVID-19

No toilet paper or food

Good! Correlation!

Ruining My Life

Coronavirus

Cancel, cancel everything!

You’re ruining my life.

Always Stealing

Whose honey is this?

Honey Badger never asks;

He’s always stealing.

My Happy Place

Splish Splash splish splash splish

Relaxing moving water

This, my happy place.

Reuben at the Beach

Bucket hat; smooth cast

A checkered, button-up shirt

Reuben at the beach

Zarah at the Beach

Wet seat of her shorts

Pyramids, casting, and songs

Zarah's at the beach

Ellis at the Beach

Piles rocks in carns

Then heaving the at boulders

Ellis at the beach

My Day at the Beach

Mirrored sunglasses

Pen strokes writing poetry

My day at the beach

Cling to Every Moment

Thinking I'll forget

I cling to every moment

Babies do not keep.

Peace in Paradise

Cotton candy clouds

Marinate about palm trees

Peace in Paradise.

Now...seriously....write me some haiku, people!

We are all Poets

Write me some haiku

It is easy if you try

We are all poets

    

The Pen is Mightier Than The Sword: A Low Tech Love Affair

   Tech Tuesday is a place for all things technology.  Here we will discuss both low tech and high tech thing-a-ma-jigs.

    

    I am a pen addict.  I collect them like some people collect coins, except I am really particular about what kind of pen I collect.  (I guess there is some particular coin collector out there only looking for pennies, what a weirdo.)

   

Jinhao 321 Fountain Pen
(I have three of these pens: black, red and yellow)

    I love fountain pens.  I have three of them and I even have ink bottles to refill them. There is just something about dipping the tip into the ink and puling up to fill the cartridge.  You can buy pre-filled cartridges, but what fun is in that? I love that fountain pens are thin tipped because I tend to write very small and very quickly(I lose my thoughts and to avoid the loss I must rush).  

   

Happy Day Korean Pens
(can still be purchased on Amazon)

    I bought some Korean pens that I really loved on Amazon a few years ago.  The main reason for the purchase was because the pens were thinner tipped than any pen in the U.S. at a very thin .3mm.

    You may or may not be a pen nerd like me, so you may or may not know that pens come in different tip measurements.  The smaller the number the thinner the tip.  In America, our pen tips are typically .7mm or .5mm,  .5mm are okay for me, but the .3mm Korean pens were a game changer.  Fountain pens come pretty close to the .3 so I write with them a lot.

   

A close 2nd The Pilot G2 

    I also have a few name brand pens that I gravitate to.  At work, it is hard to carry around my fancy fountains, so I resort to mainstream store bought ones.  Cheap Bic pens are not a preference, in fact, ballpoint pens of any brand are just meh to me.  I love the G2 Gel Pens by Pilot.  Gel pens often write smoother and Pilots are top of the line, in my opinion.  

   

The Paper Mate Flair

    The other mainstream pen I have always liked is the Paper Mate Felt Tip.  Currently I have about six black .7mm Paper Mate felt-tips.  They were on sale and I have a weakness both for pens(obviously) and for sales.  (By the way: I just spent about 10 minutes looking for thinner Paper Mate pens, I found that they have an ultra-fine felt tip that is .4mm.   Somebody may be spending ten dollars on eight new pens today.  I think I may have a problem.)

    I get it, some people may just think a pen is a pen and any pen will get the job done, but for me pens are much more significant.  The pen is what takes my ideas from a neurological spark to a tangible symbol on a piece of paper.  I want that tangible symbol to look a certain way.  I also want to feel a certain bit of feedback from the paper as I write down those neurological sparks. (Don't even get me started with paper.  That is an entirely different post. )

Media Monday: Book Edition

  Media Mondays is a place for all things media.  From social media to news media, music, movies, and art we will cover everything concerning creativity and communication.

Book Cover Selfie: Drink, Slay, Love

    Books are wonderful things.  They take you away. They take you to new places.  They create a different reality.  I used to not read novels much; I would pick non-fiction instead. But in the past few years, I have needed that escape from reality.  

    This book was given to me by my school's librarian, Nancy.  She had gotten a bunch of books donated and had many copies of this particular book.  I was intrigued when  I read the back cover:

"Pearl is a sixteen-year-old vampire...fond of blood, allergic to sunlight, and mostly evil...until the night a sparkly unicorn stabs her through the heart with his horn. Oops."

    I instantly flashbacked to The Twilight Series, but thought: "wait, a unicorn?"

    I took a few copies from Nancy as a joke and shared one with a friend, the cover totally making me think the book was a joke. Then I had a crazy idea.  Why not give the book to a few other friends as well and have a reading group.  I actually was joking, thinking all of them would hate it, but they all read it, and we all actually liked it.

    This very entertaining read has lots of fun high school drama mixed in with vampire drama.  It takes a vampire through a life crisis where she must decide if she is more loyal to her family of vampires or to the greater good of the world. 

    And it has a UNICORN in it.  Hello.  

    You should find a way to read it.  Lifetime also made this literary masterpiece into a movie and you can stream it in various places, including Hulu, Amazon and iTunes. 

    I give Drink, Slay, Love ten pints of type O negative.

Flashback Friday: Menacing 30th Birthday

           Turning 30 was hard for me. I felt that I was officially becoming old. I was single which made the transition even more difficult for some reason. Looking back, I realize 30 isn’t old and there is nothing wrong with a person who happens to be single and 30.  The more birthdays I have, I realize age is just a number and numbers are often relative. 

To avoid feeling pathetic back then though,  I decided that turning 30 would be much more enjoyable away from the land of “single over 30 makes you a loser.” So, my roommate and good friend, Mary Beth and I hightailed to San Francisco, the land of “nobody cares that you are single and over thirty!”

It was on this trip that I fell in love with cable cars, Alcatraz, The Golden Gate Bridge, sesame cookies, Chinatown, and Redwood trees. 

There is nothing better than a city where you can get anywhere you really need to by hanging out of the side of a cable car, feeling the balmy air through your hair, enjoying the bells of the car and clammer of the underground cable, captivated by the skill of a gripman, who carefully maneuvers the car up and down the slopes of San Francisco. I have since been back to SF a few more times and I seriously could ride cable cars all day and be content. In fact, one day I did just that, while the group of friends I was traveling with went to Alcatraz(I had been twice and didn’t feel the need to go that day!). 

As I am now mothering two little humans, I travel a little differently.  Sometimes I mourn my single days and wish I had cherished the moments a bit more. Maybe not the moment that Mary Beth and I realized the beach we were exploring was in fact a nude beach(some moments need not be cherished) but the other moments like the ones I feel I may have wasted by worrying about being judged for being single or the moments I pinned for the whole not being single anymore. 

I turned 44 this past Monday. Funny, that turning 44 didn’t make me feel old. Life often seems to be getting better and better with age. I know who I am, what I want, and what I can say no to. Aging is truly liberating. 

Whatever spot you are on the age timeline, may you take a step back and reflect on where you have been and more importantly on where you are going. Make each moment one to be cherished and enjoy the journey. 

Age is just a number after all.