Succeeding while failing!

   Back in March, someone in DHEC got the idea that the entire department should participate in the "Healthy Palmetto Challenge."  This Challenge was a state-wide initiative circulated amongst all kinds of health-related organizations, encouraging individuals to walk.  All the participants were issued a pedometer, a book for recording steps, and a booklet all about the health benefits of walking.  Honestly, I have no idea how the challenge ended.  I still have the pedometer, and have been using it faithfully, but I never got around to sending my steps in to the director of the program.  In fact, there were twenty people who signed up for the program, just from my office, but none of us ever sent our steps in.

    In the course of natural events, when a group fails to complete one task, they rarely decided to attempt the same task again.  But now we were apparently not following the course of natural events, as about two weeks into our failed attempt to "Walk to Hollywood" (The original intent was that together, all the participants would record the number of steps needed to walk from Columbia, the state capitol, to Hollywood, SC. ), our assistant office manager came up with the brilliant idea to form an office-wide exercise program.

  Believe it or not, we were excited about this.  We signed all sorts of release forms, we all brought in our dusty old exercise DVDs, and just about everyone went out and bought yoga mats.  We signed up for our exercise slot (mine was at 5:00 p.m!) and began exercising with gusto.  Then began our "succeeding while failing."

  On our first day we decided to do Pilates, which just about killed us all.  As the woman on the DVD gave instructions, her voice was met with choruses of "Are you crazy?"  "Ok, now she's just trying to kill us."  "Wait, she wants us to bend that far?"   Needless to say, the next day we were all moving VERY slowly and I know that I personally took the maximum amount of extra-strength Tylenol, which is something I almost never do.

  After a few more days of this, we moved on to kickboxing.  This was quite a departure from Pilates, and most of us were happy with this change.  This did present it's own set of challenges though- even though our groups of exercise participants had dwindled by a few, there were still a few too many people in our tiny classroom.  More than one person was almost given a black eye while "jabbing,"  and several participants made accidental attempts to kick holes in the walls.

   We mastered kickboxing, and then promptly lost two co-workers: one to injury and one to switching shifts.  We continued on though, now taking on "Theraband" resistance exercises.  I was in heaven, I love my resistance bands! On our first day with the Therabands, we acquired a new participant.  Two of us in the room were clearly not following the proper procedures, as even after completing the entire tape, we felt no soreness at all.  Our new participant, however, was not so lucky.  She almost called off sick the next day because she was in such a tremendous amount of pain.

  Fast forward a couple of weeks to this last week.  Two of my co-workers were working out with me to a new video, one that involved dance aerobics led by an entirely too energetic British girl.  I had tried this video a few weeks prior with some other co-workers, but after she stopped doing the basic step moves, we got lost and eventually just started flailing around, telling each other that just the fact that we were moving was good enough.  On Tuesday, I was doing well following all the moves this chick was doing, but I couldn't get the rhythm down.  Basically it was like a bad Japanese movie.  On Wednesday I was doing a lot better with the rhythm, but in order to keep up with the tape I had to eliminate a step or two with each set.  Also, when she started adding spins to the "grapevine," I almost threw up, and I don't get easily nauseated by spinning.

   Thursday was going to be my day! I hadn't really thought about the tape that much, but in the last moments I had before we started the tape, I decided that I WAS going to get all the moves and rhythm down!  I started off strong, I mean, you really can't mess up marching in place.  As we kicked it up a notch, I was still doing ok.  I have those toe taps and cross steps memorized!  We moved on to the "funky walk," which I can complete only if I channel moves I learned during my self-defense class in college.  Then came the grapevines.  Since I was over halfway done I was pretty proud of myself.  I was extremely pleased that I was keeping up with the video, not losing my rhythm, and operating almost exclusively on muscle memory.

  THUD!  That was the sound my body made when I slammed into the plastic literature racks on the wall.  I don't know what I was thinking.  Actually, I probably wasn't thinking, and that was my problem. In any case, I lost it at that point.  I tried to get back into the groove of the video, as we were just heading into the easy cool down portion, but I was just about doubled over with laughter.  The impact jarred me out of whatever fairyland state of mind I was in, and my co-workers and I spent the last three minutes of the video laughing hysterically, out of breath, trying to keep up with what we were supposed to do.  I imagine that we looked like drunks stumbling around.  We looked up to see our assistant manager staring at us.  A look of confused disbelief crossed her features as she said, "What are ya'll doing in here?!"

   Later that night, as I typed a little blurb of my idea for this post onto a "sticky note" on my computer's desktop, I started off considering that afternoon's exercise a complete failure.  However, by the time I finished mulling over the events of the week, I couldn't help but be pleased by the idea that even in our (my!) complete and utter lack of ability to master that routine,  we were getting our half hour of physical activity in, laughing all the while, thus succeeding while failing.

  Well, again it comes to that point in time where I must draw this post to a close.  I have tomorrow off work due to Memorial Day, and my biggest plans for tomorrow are to visit the Atlantic Ocean early, like sunrise early, and find a Memorial Day observance here locally.  It will be odd not standing in front of St. Mark's in Wadsworth  for the parade and then walking to the ceremony in Woodlawn, but the holiday still has the same meaning hundreds of miles from home.  Please remember all of those who died while serving our country and their families, and especially at this time, the family of 1st Lt. John Runkle of West Salem, who was a friend of my aunt and her family.  Have a good night everyone.

Boredom = Danger

 The fact that I had to leave out 1/4 of the ingredients should have tipped me off.  Starting at the low setting didn't work, but standing in one place turned out to be my biggest mistake.  You would think that in three horrible seconds I would have been able to formulate some plan of action, but instead I just proved to myself yet again that I don't think clearly under pressure.

  Let's rewind to the beginning.  Usually on Saturday I have a few plans for some fun or interesting things to do.  The beach is nice, I occasionally go to garage sales, I have started going to different free events around the area just to get a sense of what goes on around here.  But yesterday I woke up and decided that the first order of business was to pay my bills.  That effectively squashed any plans to go out and shop or even drive more than 10 miles from my house.   I went outside to sit on the patio, but at 9:15 it was already in the mid-seventies and way too humid for my taste.  In that short time frame I became very bored.  I am not one to sit and just stew in my boredom, I can't even really sit at the computer for more than half an hour.  So my first order of business was to finish some of the projects that have been sitting on my "to-do" list for far too long.

  I logged into Pandora and started playing some of my favorite music and began cleaning out my closet.  All I wanted to do was organize the paper I've been throwing in there and make room for my laundry basket again. That turned into a one-and-a-half hour trip down memory lane.  Each time that I get ready to go home, or someone comes to visit me, I start to get all nostalgic.  This time was no exception, as amongst the clothes and Christmas decorations I found all of my scrapbooks.  I immediately created 10 layouts for all the scrapbook pages I need to complete.  Haha.  I've needed to complete those since, well, since three years ago!  Maybe I'll finish that project when I am home!  I also found a scrapbook with the title, "Defying Logic."  There are maybe 5 people in this world who have seen or have read this book.  As always I laughed my way through the pages and all the events that inspired them.  I can't wait to add to these events and memories when I come home. (You know who you are and you know what we have planned!)  The danger here?  Last year there were some flames involved, some flammable liquids, and a ballgame that spilled onto a busy road...you know, the usual.

  So once I was done with that, I decided that I needed a break.  I decided to catch up on all the books I rented from the library.  I had a lot of fun reading "The Darwin Awards."  A few dumb criminal stories always seems to make me laugh.  Unfortunately, "animals" was the theme of the first chapter and I read about twenty stories of people doing dumb things and being killed by snakes.  I am hearing stories about the variety and prevalence of snakes down here, and I am none too pleased!  After I finished a chapter there I moved on to my algebra book.  That's right, algebra.  The other day I decided I was tired of saying, "Oh, I'm not good at math.  Math makes my head hurt.  I just don't understand math."  So I started my 6 week quest to get through this book (I can only borrow the book for six weeks!) I'm not really sure what benefit this will have for my life, other than the fact that I will have broadened my knowledge base.  Just preparing for my future appearance on Jeopardy, I'm sure.  The danger here?  Algebra will probably end up being a "gateway drug" to Geometry.  Plus my brain will hurt some more and I'll likely have nightmares about boa constrictors sometime soon.

   Finally, I decided that a nice, cold mocha would hit the spot.  I had most of the ingredients ready, so I went ahead and made the coffee, some coffee-flavored ice cubes, and even made some homemade chocolate syrup since I was out of Hershey's and didn't feel like driving to Bi-Lo.  I was pretty darn proud of myself.  This is where we pick back up with the beginning of the blog.  I was pouring everything into the cup of my blender when I realized that everything wasn't quite going to fit.  I poured out a little of the milk/coffee mixture and made room for the syrup and sugar, leaving about an inch of clearance.  That was a mistake.  When I turned on the blender I could see the problem starting.  I would have had about a second to turn the blender off and save myself, but all I could think was, "maybe it won't splash."  When the splashing started, I had a few seconds to quickly turn the blender off and minimize the damage, but instead, in my panic I hit the "high speed" button.  Mocha hit the wall, the cabinets, my canister set, the crock I use to hold my kitchen utensils, the floor, the closet door, my houseplant, the sink, and the dishwasher.  IT WENT EVERYWHERE!  As I was dancing around trying to avoid getting hit, Cooper ran over and decided to help with clean up.  Now I had a floor half covered with a sticky chocolate/coffee concoction and also some slobber.  The danger here?  Apparently I don't know how to work a simple drink mixer, let alone a blender.  The good news is it gave me a reason to clean my floor and I got all the mocha cleaned up before it stained anything.  Phew.

  Well, that is all for today folks, since we're heading into Monday I am no longer bored! Quite a few things to be done between now and then.  Included in the festivities?  A trip to the pool, seeing as how it's 84 degrees at 7:30 p.m.  It's a little too warm for me to want to be outside during the day, but the evenings are absolutely gorgeous.  Have a good night all, and to all my Ohio friends, I will see you in forty short days!

My life in a campground...

  I like camping.  I enjoy having one or two days out in the "wilderness,"  enjoying nature and just relaxing.  The typical activities associated with camping, such as hiking and swimming, are enjoyable.  When I was little, at least once per year my family and I would go tent-camping for four to five days at a state park.  We would have a blast.  I remember hiking at Mohican. I remember riding at Findley and having the pedals fall off my bike as I went down a hill.  We would cook dinner by the fire each night, having pizza pies at least twice, if not three times during the course of the trip. As we got older, we traded tent camping for staying in cabins, which was a huge step up and made camping even more enjoyable for me (even if you want to argue that it's not REALLY camping anymore!)

  Back in December, my sister came and visited during the week before Christmas.  Any time you visit a friend or family member's new home for the first time, obviously you HAVE to tour the abode and proclaim your admiration of the dwelling.  Even if it's contrived, there is always at least one compliment you can pay the proud owner.  After taking the five minute tour (it's a 780 square foot, one-bedroom apartment, it doesn't take long.) Kacy proclaimed that the apartment was "cute" and she gave her approval.  Then at the end of the week she cracked me up when she said, "Your apartment reminds me of a campground."

  At the time, I never gave that statement any thought. It was just a statement.  But over the last week I just couldn't help but think about how much my apartment complex really is like a campground, specifically a campground with cabins!

 First, you have the setting.  Any respectable campground is in a secluded area filled with mature trees.  To get to my apartment, you drive down the incredibly busy highway, maneuver your way through the heavily congested retail area on the north end of town, head down the parkway, and turn on to the four-lane-and-a-median road filled with small shops of every variety.  Trying to drive on this road during rush hour is terrible. It's so incredibly busy.  But once you turn into Martins Creek, you immediately find yourself in a different world.  A line of very tall pine trees creates a barrier between some shops and the property.  Old oak trees provide graceful beauty and shade.  Cleveland pears, magnolias, and maple trees are scattered around all 15 buildings on the property.  Azalea bushes and some type of bush similar to a lilac are used for landscaping around all the buildings.  Where I walk Cooper there is a fence that is covered with a vine that produces reddish-orange flowers.  Each morning when I walk Cooper, the sun filters through the leaves creating an incredibly peaceful scene.

  Seeing as how the campground is usually in a secluded setting, wildlife is abundant.  There are quite a few squirrels around here at my place.  I am VERY lucky that Cooper isn't overly excited by squirrels.  He will let a squirrel walk within two or three feet of him without caring.  He does however, mind the cats that run around.  There is a black cat and a white cat that I usually see running in and out of dumpsters all around the complex and Cooper gets REALLY angry and tries to attack them.  While him trying to maul cats is not funny, me nearly having my arm ripped off when I'm not paying attention is probably a funny sight.   You know those birds that sit right next to your tent and wake you up in the morning?  Yeah. We have those too, courtesy of the mockingbirds and crows that live nearby.  There are some cute little lizards that crawl around, oh, and don't forget the "palmetto bugs."  (Remember, palmetto bug is just a polite Southern term for cockroaches!!)

  Half the fun of camping, for me anyways, is the people watching.  You have the "lifers" who will set up camp and stay there all summer.  You have your "enthusiasts" who enjoy camping but typically just spend a few days here and there throughout the summer.  Even though they may only spend a little time camping, they have all the gear and enjoy showing it off.  Then you have the rest of the people, who really only go camping because at one point they thought, "What should I do this weekend. Oh, this sounds like fun."  These people usually don't have much other than the basics, and they rarely stay more than one night.

  You have basically the same scenario here.  You have the people who have lived here for years and plan to live here for many years more.  Their apartments are decked out!  They are the ones with piles of wood sitting on the patio, ready for use in the fireplace next year.  Their patios are decorated for each season. The "enthusiasts" here are the people who are living in apartments basically because it's the most economical option at this point, i.e. college students, single people, young families.  You know the enthusiasts because they put a little effort into making things look good, like a few chairs and maybe a plant or two on the patio.  They make themselves comfortable, they have all the right gear, but they aren't trying to settle in forever.  Last but not least you have the rest.  They were probably looking for a place to stay anyways, but I feel that their thought process was probably "ooh, shiny."  These are the people who are really excited about moving somewhere, but they don't have quite everything in place or have a place for everything they own.  This includes my neighbor who left his recliner and car seat on his patio after move in.  While not necessarily the best look, it was semi-amusing to think that to relax on his patio, his seat of choice wouldn't be your typical patio furniture.

  One of the givens of a campground is the smell of smoke generated by hundreds of people cooking dinner over an open fire.  Obviously there aren't any open pit fires here, but if you're really lucky, all the smoke stars will align here at my complex.  How so?  1.) Someone is grilling at the pavilion.  2.) People nearby are smoking (and there's always someone nearby smoking) 3.) I walk in the door when the AC comes on and that nice of stale smoke enters in my apartment.  Yep.  My version of a campground!

  If you go to the right campground, you will find a few attractions, usually a swimming pool, a canteen, and something odd like a mini-golf course.  Apartments are really no different.  Mine has a fairly nice pool, except for the ash trays which double as beer bottle collectors.  The pool is deep too, which is nice, because it offers some distance from little kids! Every once in awhile, Cooper will run crazy circles in my house trying to burn some energy.  There is a dog run here, but Cooper will literally walk in, make one very slow lap while smelling everything, then stand by the gate until I take him out.  Way to go dog, way to go.

  Well, my weekend is almost over and I still have a few chores left to do.  Rather than yummy camping food, I have a few weeks worth of yummy regular-type food that needs to find it's way into my freezer.  Then it's time for bed, which sounds REALLY nice right now.  And the nice part?  It's my comfy bed, not the ground with some tree root sticking in my back!  Sleep tight!

The smells...

    The other night I was out on my patio reading a book, enjoying the waning moments of daylight and the light breeze that was gently rustling the leaves of the bushes just behind me.  In that perfect moment, I took a deep breath to fill my lungs with the sweet aroma of the fresh air and sigh in perfect contentment.    Well, that last sentence is what I wanted to do, what actually happened was I went to take a deep breath and ended up choking on the odor.

   I couldn't help it.  Even having lived here for seven (SEVEN!!!!) months now, I still haven't gotten used to the smell of pluff mud.  The best way to describe this smell is to think about smelling sulfur, but that's an imperfect description.  You have to smell it to understand it!  Once I quit gagging, I started laughing and my thoughts wandered to the sense of smell.  Specifically, how certain scents can conjure up positive memories of seasons, happy times in my life, my home in Ohio, and new scents that I will forever associate with South Carolina.

  Summer is probably my favorite season, and there are certain scents that have always made me think of summer, like the smell of the chlorine in the pool.  To me, chlorine=pool, and pool=summer (or even mid-spring here in SC!!!!)  One of my neighbors had their grill out the other night.  Even just the smell of charcoal smells like summer to me.

  I have flowers on my patio, with alyssum included among them.  These dainty little flowers aren't flashy, and they attract a LOT of bees, which greatly displeases me.  But every year that I have a flower bed, from now until the day I die, I will include alyssum.  Why? The smell reminds me of my Grandma Henry.   Outside what used to be the main entrance to her house there is a flower bed, with one short edge being lined with concrete blocks that were turned on their side.  The holes were filled with dirt and she used to plant alyssum as a cute little edging.  I can see myself, all of six years old, standing outside the door, inhaling that wonderful aroma.  It took me probably another decade to realize that the flowers were actually the smell I remembered, but it still sticks in my head as the smell of my Grandma's house, which is and always has been one of my favorite places to visit.

  Every time I talk with my mom on the phone we compare the weather.  Lately I say, "Oh I don't miss that one bit" as she shares that it was yet again fifty degrees, cloudy, and raining.  I cannot tell you how much I enjoy the sun and the warmth here.  I do miss the flowers around my house in Ohio though.  Someone had daffodils this year, but they were in a ditch along a busy road, so I never got to enjoy their scent this year.  Peonies are one of my favorite flowers, and I can remember their scent wafting into my bedroom window at night in late May.  I haven't seen any here, but the magnolia trees are starting to bloom, and you can smell their VERY strong scent from quite a distance.  To me, they smell like a Southern version of peonies.  Basically, instead of just enjoying the new flowers, I am comparing it to home!

  Then, like pluff mud, there are scents that I will ALWAYS associate with South Carolina.  For example, the other day I came home for lunch.  It was a particularly warm day, and as I got out of the car, I couldn't help but notice the scent created by the sun beating down on the wood siding of my building. I know I've smelled that aroma before, but from now on it will be forever associated with my first apartment.  (And me thinking, "It smells like something is about to spontaneously combust.")


  Well, right now I smell my dinner, which means it's about two minutes from burning.  So I will draw this post to an end by wishing my Grandpa Henry "alles Gute zum Geburtstag!"  Also,  I will be back on Ohio soil in 61 short days!