oy.

oh my gracious. what a week it's been. we've continued our 'Couch-to-5K' routine, and all I can say is wow. Ow. I mean, good and all but holy moly what has happened to me?! I've apparently seriously neglected my body in the past... oh, year and a half, and much like a friend who's been blown off one too many times, this girl is ticked. and rickety. I'm not kidding, between the running and reading who knows how many pages of narration to accompany economics and accounting courses this week, as well as a training course on 'fatigue prevention' for an energy company thrown in for good measure, my body/mind is having a tough time of it. I should invest in aspirin. and then we bowled today with a group from church, which was a great time and I loved it. except for the part when, after I'd thrown a killer strike, I did a super-cool, excited, dorky pseudo-cheerleader jump with a twist of exultation... and felt something in my back say 'Hell No.' um, yes, I heard it CLEARLY. of course, I'm way too cool to be the old lady who grabs her back and starts moaning and causing a scene. so I jump around some more to convince everyone how awesome and young and spry I am. that sounds so sad, but it's true! I just sucked it up, affixed a smile to the front of my head, carefully sat down, and nonchalantly felt around to make sure a rib wasn't poking out of my back or anything. and then, because I am a genius, I bowled some more. see how tough I am, Coach Daddy?! I can totally play hurt! my second game was definitely not as good as my first, but HELLO. I was SECRETLY INJURED.




we left the bowling alley and came home. I grabbed one of those fantastic aromatherapy hot pads you heat up in the microwave, and hobbled to the bed. where M wanted me to rub his knee. Knee was apparently also surprised and a little peeved at being asked to bowl today. M eventually proclaimed that we had to go do our run for the day. we were supposed to do it this morning, you see, but the alarm went off and cuddles & pancakes just sounded better to us back then. lesson learned - though I am NOT a morning person, it really is good to get the running portion of the day over with early, before you're tired and broken down. check. mental note made and circled in red. we went to the park, where I gingerly stretched and wondered if I would make it a lap. walking. it's a valid concern - I'm telling you, communication between the body and I has been pretty hostile the past five or so days. we took off around the track... and though it wasn't easy, or pretty, I did the whole thing. and my back seemed to loosen up the more I breathed (gasped for air) and relaxed into it. at the end of our 20-30 minutes of alternating walking/running - that may not seem very long, but it is a 'Couch-to-5K' and we're working our way up - we high-fived and staggered to the car. I forget how it came up, but the words 'hot tub' were mentioned and then there was a lot of affirmative grunting and before we knew it, we had plans to meet M's parents for dinner and then go back to their house for the bubbly soak. I had a delectable veggie plate... that wasn't as healthy as it sounds, but whatever, there was bowling AND running today, and the Bells have a flipping fantastic hot tub. as the jets hit my back, my eyes rolled around in my head and the word 'riches' tumbled out toward my husband, who was angling around to get his hips worked out.

now we're back home - he's in the bedroom reading, and here I am blogging the discovery of physical limitation and age. sigh. I'm sure I'll have some very wise observations to make as all of this continues and we keep on 'keepin' on' in search of good health. the truth is, it was a really wonderful day, and I love my life. but no joke, I need an aspirin and the bed.

*whisper* and the heatpad*

another story of "excessive debt and overly rapid expansion"

from Wallet Pop... but I think the original story is from the Wall Street Journal:

Steve & Barry's set to throw in the towel

Posted Nov 18th 2008 7:15AM by Zac Bissonnette
Filed under: Deals, Bad news

After a meteoric rise followed by a swift decent into bankruptcy, Steve & Barry's caught a lifeline when Bay Harbour Management LLC agreed to purchase the company's assets back in August. Bay Harbour hoped to keep 150 of the company's 276 store open. But the sagging economy appears to have dashed those plans.

The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) the company "is set to announce this week it will go out of business, according to two people familiar with the situation." All 5,000 employees will be let go after the liquidation, and the company's brand will probably be sold for next to nothing and live on in a much reduced capacity. For example, I could see Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) acquiring the brand to bolster its value-oriented fashion proposition.

What's disappointing is that the Steve & Barry's concept -- reasonably fashionable apparel at ridiculously low prices -- resonated with consumers and was delivering strong sales growth in an extremely difficulty retail environment. With a less ambitious expansion strategy, the company might well have survived and had a bright future.

For now, it's a case study in the dangers of excessive debt and overly rapid expansion.



this is a sad day for fans of S.J.Parker's 'Bitten' line, which was cute and super cheap. does she sell out of another store? anyway, it caught my eye, because of the last few lines. Steve & Barry's was doing well... they just had a lot of debt and had grown too fast to ride out this rocky time. which brings me to my comments/question: I get that the gov wants to prop up certain sectors to keep the economy going, keep people employed, and boost consumer confidence. however, it stands to reason that businesses need to re-evalute what has apparently become The Way to do things. as unsexy as it sounds, why don't we try Growing Slower. Keeping Enough Capital At The Ready. Not Building Our Lives On Credit. I've read and listened to people poo-poo such ideas, saying that such business practices would slow things down horribly. but honestly, do I want to grow my business fast, or well? do you trade steady, sustained progress for the stress of all of your profits going to debt payments while you finance employee paychecks? I understand that banks need to be able to lend, both to consumers and to businesses, but the largest lesson from this whole debaucle is that people across the board were carrying too much debt, without the funds to back it. it seems as though Those Who Are Spending Our Money To Fix This are so... well, fixated on trying to create credit streams and encouraging people to rush back into using them that they're skipping the part where we acknowledge that rampant credit use is part of what took us down to begin with. and THAT omission, in my opinion, has as much to do with current consumer confidence as anything. it's hard to have confidence in these guys... even now, Mr. Paulson and Mr. Bernanke are defending what they've done so far to Congress. people are befuddled. meanwhile, as the media continues to try to scare the fire out of all of us about everything 'plunging!', I choose to believe there's a bright side. maybe consumer numbers are down simply because people realize they don't need as much, maybe they're choosing where to put their money more carefully. in short, maybe Americans are acting wiser than the Fed. which gives me hope that there may actually be good fiscal change in this rough time.

I'll close with a real display of my ignorance. I am completely perplexed about the recent stories of Houston's looming economic troubles due to a dwindling 'energy cushion'. were energy companies not make record profits just two months ago? are their bottom lines THAT affected by monthly trends? when companies are that large, is the concept of 'laying aside excess, or building a huge emergency fund for a rainy day so you can have some stability, run your business and pay your employees in the event of 6 months of rockiness' just a ridiculous idea that doesn't translate when you're dealing with markets and billions of dollars?

silver platter

I have effectively had my butt handed to me the past couple of weeks. Only I really know what that means, but it has to do with anger and fear and control. As I grow older, I really enjoy seeing changes as they've occurred in my life over time, especially behavioral changes. Which is why it's very pointed when I find myself back in old ruts of thinking. Boo on that. What strikes me this time around is how exhausting it is to be stuck obsessing about the actions of others, how drug-like anger is and how easily it takes hold. Whenever I feel this way, it always seems accompanied by the choice to either insert myself into the other person's situation or completely withdraw, and I sway between the two, wondering which is the best way to walk. These days, I tend to stay right where I'm at, stewing but trying to carefully avoid missteps and allow time and God to work things out. Which is progress, but it's still damaging to my insides, the stew of stubborn thoughts and feelings. I do know that there is a third option... something people close to me like to call 'detachment'. From coping.org:

Detachment is the:

Ability to allow people, places, or things the freedom to be themselves.

Holding back from the need to rescue, save, or fix another person from being sick, dysfunctional, or irrational.

Giving another person "the space'' to be him or herself.

Disengaging from an over-enmeshed or dependent relationship with people.

Willingness to accept that you cannot change or control a person, place, or thing.

Developing and maintaining of a safe, emotional distance from someone whom you have previously given a lot of power to affect your emotional outlook on life.

Establishing of emotional boundaries between you and those people you have become overly enmeshed or dependent with in order that all of you might be able to develop your own sense of autonomy and independence.

Process by which you are free to feel your own feelings when you see another person falter and fail and not be led by guilt to feel responsible for their failure or faltering.

Ability to maintain an emotional bond of love, concern, and caring without the negative results of rescuing, enabling, fixing, or controlling.

Placing of all things in life into a healthy, rational perspective and recognizing that there is a need to back away from the uncontrollable and unchangeable realities of life.

Ability to exercise emotional self-protection and prevention so as not to experience greater emotional devastation from having hung on beyond a reasonable and rational point.

Ability to let people you love and care for accept personal responsibility for their own actions and to practice tough love and not give in when they come to you to bail them out when their actions lead to failure or trouble for them.

Ability to allow people to be who they "really are'' rather than who you "want them to be.''

Ability to avoid being hurt, abused, taken advantage of by people who in the past have been overly dependent or enmeshed with you.


I would very much like to follow this pattern of relationship, as I think it is the most loving to everyone at the end of the day. While the word 'detachment' sounds cold and aloof, those are the last adjectives I would use to describe my comrades who seek to practice it.

*****

I am reading!! Seriously, it's something to cheer about. I began life as a voracious reader, and in the past five years have fallen off to the point that I honestly believe my vocab/memory/concentration skills have atrophied. I read our 242 assignment, Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore, last weekend - it was FANTASTIC - and have moved on to C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce. I'm thankful to feel my brain pulling abstract thoughts together again, to be pulled into a story. It does feel like training a bit, though - my mind wants to wander. or skip the descriptive stuff to get to the plot point. training.

Speaking of training, my husband pulled a very grumpy me from the warm bed this morning to go for a chilly walk/run in our nearby park. We began the 'Couch-to-5K' running plan... which essentially starts by telling you to alternate walking and running 90 to 60 seconds each for 20 minutes. I would love to be able to report that I feel the glow of accomplishment, but the truth is my legs itched from blood rushing into still slumbering and sluggish veins, my feet felt like lead, and I now have a headache. I'm glad I was pushed to do it, though. My body isn't happy with me, and I miss feeling more centered and connected to it.

*****

We saw Quantum of Solace last night. We heard from LontheGrill and her hub that they were a tad confused about the plot, so we watched the last 20 minutes of the first one to brush up before heading to the movie theater. We thoroughly enjoyed it... so action-packed!! and I'll say it... D. Craig is a fine, fine man.

*****

from The Great Divorce:

"What do you keep on arguing for? I'm only telling you the sort of chap I am. I only want my rights. I'm not asking for anybody's bleeding charity."
"Then do. At once. Ask for the Bleeding Charity. Everything is here for the asking and nothing can be bought."

capturing the moment

dog on his bed, sleeping in the sunlight streaming through the window. me with grandma's afghan on the couch, reading a book. cat curled up beside me. and husby in the other room Alphabetizing and Organizing the Music. the sound of various songs and artists drifts in (currently, it's the Breeders), accompanied by his singing voice. he also talks to the Music. we have had english muffins and french press coffee, and so far I am in love with this day.

friday is wOOt!

for grins, here are a couple of links to some samples of locally animated and produced educational dvds I've gotten to be a part of... the first, Money and Making Change, is geared toward ages 6 and up, and Earth Science is targeting grades 5 and up. I get to voice a penny and a globe, respectively. :) the Rock 'N Learn team is really great, and I'm so thankful to get to work with them.

and can I just say... youtube is flipping addictive.  I've spent the last... however long... looking at things like the video below.  10,000 maniacs - mtv unplugged was my ANTHEM one summer in college, and I remember listening to other albums and songs, like Verdi Cries, and being so so melancholy in the way only high schoolers/collegiates really get. it must be said that I'm pretty sure write softly's REM post influenced me a little in my searches... m. stipe and n. merchant were friends (some think they dated, but I dunno) and liked performing together.

other bands I remember listening to then were Toad the Wet Sprocket, Edie Brickell, the Indigo Girls, Tori Amos, the Lemonheads, Pearl Jam (honestly, I just loved the song 'Daughter'), an Irish band called The Waterboys, the Sweet Relief album.... and I have NEVER fallen out of love with Journey and the BeeGees.

and it all spills out.

today, my brain feels both full and tired. this week has been big, and the national side of that is only a small part of my emotional salad. I'm thinking of some people close to me... the horrors and frustrations and pain that comes with aging, the opportunities that lie around every corner to both expose our weaknesses and our strengths, the very real and unseen forces of both good and evil that are and have always been present in this world. the fallible nature of humans, used to God's glory. grief. joy. connection. anger. fear. compassion. I remain blessed and humbled, free to think and yet seriously checked in my imagination and judgements. wild and careful-feeling. self-examining, finally.

In my current mood, I'm revisiting an album by D. Webb called The House Show. I appreciate his candor and ministry... here's an example from his intro to 'I Repent'... if you get the album, be warned that he likes to talk. :)


"I think that we often believe, if we’re really honest with ourselves, that the Christian life is about how well we can learn to hide our sin… we think that we’ll be able to measure the growth of our spirituality by how little we are sinning, or maybe at least how little we can convince everyone, ourselves included, that we are sinning. But the Christian life is not about hiding. It’s not about living in fear. But gosh that’s what we all do, though, is it not? We just live in fear all the time that we’ll be found out. I’m telling you, the best thing that could ever happen to anybody in this room, the best thing, is that your sin would be literally exposed on the five o’clock news. Your deepest, darkest, most embarrassing sin. The one you work the hardest to hide, would be broadcast on the five o’clock news. Best thing that would ever happen to you. Best thing that would ever happen to me. Because I am so weary, I am so tired, of hiding my sin from people. Of deceiving people about who I really am. I’m tired of it. I just wish that my sins would be exposed, I wish there were huge screens that would just show you the truth about me, all the way down to my core…. In order that I could not, I didn’t even have the option to hide from you anymore. In order that I would have nothing but Jesus to grasp on to, because that’s all I’ve got anyway. ‘Cause the truth is, your sins have been exposed… they’ve been exposed to Jesus. He knows you better than you’re even willing to admit to yourself. But he’s forgiven you! Take joy in the fact not that your sins are not real but that they are real, and that your Savior is real! I cannot tell you this enough times, in hopes that any of us, one of us, even me, might believe this. I’ll never tire of saying this to people. I’ll never tire of hearing it myself, because by the time I go to bed tonight I’m not going to believe it again. I’m going to be thinking of ways to hide my sin from people, in hopes they might like me, or something. But that’s not what my Christian life’s all about, that’s not what sanctification’s all about, that’s not what growth as a believer is all about. It’s about coming to grips with who you really are and being willing to admit that to each other. In order that that might happen in your community, that others might come and say, ‘You know, I heard you talking about this sin, and that was bold of you, brave of you to admit that… it’s kind of leading me to repent as well, I want to tell you something. I want to invite you into where I hide in hopes that I might not hide there anymore, make it harder for me to go back there. ‘Cause the light switch has been turned on. Please, please, begin preaching the gospel to each other in a way that you might actually believe it, a way that you might come out of hiding and in a way that might change our communities.” - intro to ‘I Repent’, Derek Webb


here are the lyrics of the song:

i repent, i repent of my pursuit of america's dream
i repent, i repent of living like i deserve anything
of my house, my fence, my kids, my wife
in our suburb where we're safe and white
i am wrong and of these things i repent

i repent, i repent of parading my liberty
i repent. i repent of paying for what i get for free
and for the way i believe that i am living right
by trading sins for others that are easier to hide
i am wrong and of these things i repent

bridge
i repent of judging by a law that even i can't keep
of wearing righteousness like a disguise
to see through the planks in my own eyes

i repent, i repent of trading truth for false unity
i repent, i repent of confusing peace and idolatry
by caring more of what they think than what i know of what we need
by domesticating you until you look just like me
i am wrong and of these things i repent.


heavy, I know. I'm just listening to it. and mulling. one of my favorite parts of the album is the intro to 'Wedding Dress'... "This next song is my own confession... confessing that because of my unbelief, because of the fact that I don't believe the gospel... I don't believe that Christ is really sufficient for me, I don't believe that he'll really meet all my needs... I don't, I struggle to believe that. And you can see it by the way I live. And because I don't believe that I all too often give in, am convinced or wooed by what some theologians have called Lovers Less Wild than Jesus... that would seek to convince us they can satisfy us."

I can't see, hear, or write the word 'theologians' without thinking about this Wilco song.


*****


as for the election... it's a remarkable time we live in, that's for sure. I was undecided for a long time, as hard as that was for some to believe, and ultimately voted third party. I know there's an opinion that doing so is effectively throwing your vote away, but my conscience felt lighter after checking mr. barr's name, and since I'm not particularly interested in furthering partisan politics it didn't make sense for me to vote 'against a party'. aspects of each major candidate's campaign didn't sit well with me, I was disappointed in both of their plans regarding the war, and fiscally I couldn't get behind either one of them. turns out I'm sort of a conservative centrist. maybe? honestly, I'm still reeling from what I consider to be the travesty of the bailout and subsequent decisions made by Congress. I do not support the expansion of federal government's actions and power in such a way at all, and I sincerely wish one of the presidential candidates had had the nuts to really emerge as a leader during that fear-driven time. Witnessing the events of those couple of weeks, the exposed motives of so many and the incredible reach of the Fed into private business at the expense of the tax-payer, I lost much good opinion and faith in our government, and I've become quite cynical about the body's fundamental motives and unabated disastrous stewardship. so that's how I voted. shrug. I will respect President Obama - for his intellect, for running a good campaign and rallying over half of the country, for the office he will hold and the responsibilities that come with it. I told M that in speaking with people and watching election coverage I've been reminded a little of when Clinton ran the first time - I remember voting for him as a freshman in college (I think), and how excited so many of us were about his charisma and appeal, and the great change from the Bush Sr. administration he was sure to bring. of course, this is even more momentous for a multitude of reasons. what huge burdens Mr. Obama inherits, though he has the benefit of a lot of national and international support - at least, for now. regardless, I confess my thoughts remain stubbornly filled with quiet, independent action plans... to keep getting up every day as a believer, working my business, paying quarterlies, staying involved in our church and city, attempting to be in-but-not-of my work communities, trying to make sound choices, living within our means, and attempting to plan and take responsibility for the space we occupy on this Earth while helping others along the way. I think I could have been a pioneer. heh. um, maybe. and does this kind of thinking gel with the sentiments of the song I'm mulling over above?? well, it certainly wouldn't be the first time I've exposed some hypocrisy...


*****

can I say how glad I am to have a place to write these things? for while it lasts, I'm thankful.


*****

behold the blessed bumblebee:




-m.y.

"it's 'Penn's Woodlands'... that's what 'sylvania' means!" - mgb

we're back from our tour of Philadelphia... what a wonderful vacation! there were a lot of interesting things to do, the city is pedestrian-friendly and SOOO pretty, the weather was great, we had good friends to see, and the cheesesteaks were plentiful. rather than photojournal the trip this time, I've made a movie of it... if you hang in there, the payoff at the end is pretty sweet. :)



philly, yo. from married yoshimi on Vimeo.


*****

it's hard to make out, but the phrase engraved on the tomb in the video above is:

'BENEATH THIS STONE RESTS A SOLDIER OF WASHINGTON'S ARMY WHO DIED TO GIVE YOU LIBERTY'


I was slapped by it a little.


*****


I'm glad to be home. and to be married to this man. major props and gratitude for his graciousness in letting me drag him around in search of the best souvenir t-shirt, and for trading foot massages at the end of the day. I'm glad this election is almost over. I wish my house was clean. and that the coffee was finished brewing. today, I prayerfully struggle to hand over worries and concerns to the only One who can bear and transform them into greater faith, reliance, wisdom, and patience.

-m.y.