Leather-bound Thoughts

Month o’ May

April — Sun, 31 May 2009 12:58:15 +0000

The first month of the great weight recording of 2009 did not go as well as planned. Excuses are as follows:

-The first two weeks were the last two weeks of school, including final projects, tests, finals, and so on.

-Graduation included lots of food- really bad food.

-We went to Nebraska for a family reunion which meant lots of food and lots of sitting.

-It rained a lot.

Okay, the last one doesn’t count but the other three are legit. There has been coming and going and eating like nothing before and my poor will power has been torn to shreds. I vow to start June with a fresh slate, literally, I’m wiping my refrigerator chart clear and starting over. Here are the other changes I’m making:

-Work harder at the gym. I have gotten lazy, stopping at 20 minutes, rather than 40, skipping weight lifting, skipping the gym completely . . .

-Go to the gym at least twice a week including 2 40 minute sessions of cardio and 2 full weight lifting routines.

-Eat only when hungry.

-Don’t eat dessert. Ever. Fill up on veggies.

-Eat more veggies.

Food wise, I generally make really good choices. However, in about one every three days I give myself a “break” and eat more or eat worse. I’m not going to worry about eating more as much. Instead, I will just eat more carrots, or more fruit, or more cheese.

All of that being said, the end result for May was an average of 26.78 pounds, my weight on the last day being 29. If I did, in fact, start out at 30, that would imply that I lost 3.32 pounds. However, I lost three pounds just by switching scales, so I doubt that I lost anything at all. Sad.

June will be better! Goal: 22 pounds by the end of the month or an average loss of 2 pounds (down from 26.78, so 24.78).*

*Why am I averaging my weight?

I’m trying to be realistic. Weight is generally a bad way to record health, because it takes nothing else into account: muscle mass, BMI, nutrition levels . . . Also, I think the female body is a big joke in how it retains so much water and changes so much just in one month. So, I will only be recording my average weight in order to have an overall look at my weight. If you could see my May chart, you would notice that it look a bit like the weather, in that it changes from day to day but there is an overall trend that can be seen from a distance. I’ll admit that I felt really good on the days I weighed 25, and discouraged at 29, but I firmly believe that one day does not accurately tell me anything, and that keeps me trying.

The Magical Scale

April — Sat, 02 May 2009 02:07:16 +0000

Today, I was magically down three pounds. I have a couple of theories for this. One, Matthew and I just bought a new scale that is probably slightly different than the one at the gym, which was what I had used before. Second, we found that the scale reports a different weightage depending on where it is placed in the house. We both lost several pounds just by moving from the kitchen to the bathroom. Third, I have been closely monitering what I eat starting yesterday and this new awareness might just have inspired my body to kick off three whole pounds by sheer will power. I vote number three.

Weight Loss Plan

April — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 03:11:31 +0000

In an attempt to renew my lagging motivation, I am going to start recording my weekly weight loss achievements and exercise plans on here. There will be fancy graphs and menus for healthy dinners because I love nothing more than to make fancy graphs and menus when I should be working out. However, once the planning is done and properly recorded for all the world to see, I expect I will have THAT MUCH MORE motivation to do the actual losing weight thing. Here is my goal:

The months start with April as month number 1 and December as month number 9. The goal is to reach the desired weight by the end of each month.

Good luck, me!

Contact

April — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:38:06 +0000

If I asked a question
for every fax I sent
I would learn more
from your answering smile
than I could wonder while
the dial tone became a call.

I would feel happier
if you wrote the wrong area code
than if I’d never seen you.

The waiting would seem
more like meeting a friend
than wishing away the seconds
and I might tap my foot but
it would be because I liked you
and life can be like that-

shaking me to the core
as I stare at black and white.

Next time you ask me
to dial your number
I’ll want to know to where
and if you liked it there
when you were younger
or if this new life is better,

because I’ll know that it’s really both.
And then I’ll smile and hand you the page
confirming we made contact.

-April Stublefield

© April for Leather-bound Thoughts, 2008. | Permalink | No comments yet... |
Post tags: Conversation, Fax, Friend, poetry

Fourth of July

April — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 02:58:33 +0000

We gave the street a rainbow colored breeze
of smoke to battle smoke from up the hill.
Our parachutes were landing in the trees,

small vict’ries sought by shaking limbs and leaves
or firing up basketballs that failed,
their red-orange flash producing just a breeze

that almost targeted the favorite neice
who screamed and sent it back up to its goal.
The singed and whiplashed soldier in the tree,

with straightened arms and stiffened plastic knees,
clung cheaply to the chute that wouldn’t fall.
The moon was hidden by the smoke-stung breeze,

just visible above the littered eaves,
and hard to see through plants that grew too tall.
The moon was just a whisper in the trees

its crescent filled by popping, flaming streams,
abandoned with the patriotic soul.
We gave our land a fetid smelling breeze
and left our soldiers hanging in the trees.

5 July 2008

© April for Leather-bound Thoughts, 2008. | Permalink | One comment so far... |
Post tags: fireworks, fourth of july, poetry

Signs

April — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:32:50 +0000

The creepiest part of my trip to the gulf coast was the “X” marks left on two thirds of the houses that had been destroyed by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. I noticed them first in the areas where we did our construction. The house across the street had one. Our house had a new door, and while the interior was still stark and unfinished, it showed distinct signs of being made reinhabitable.

My first response to the marks was the sensation that the building had been shunned. I pictured a lone teen sitting off to the side at a football game, the “Xs” of society. Someone had come through saying “yes” to the yellow brick we sweated over and “no” to the white across the street, marking it instead with the sign of neglect. Its state was mocked by the new born home on either side. It’s wild lawn was magnified by the two inch blades of grass surrounding. Our first evening at the volunteer village, we were told not to make assumptions about why one house had curtains and its neighbor only a plywood view through the window. Racial statistics made no difference to me, I only knew that where I saw an ”X,” I saw homelessness and hard work.

On closer inspection, the “X” was a grid, splitting four pieces of information. The top quadrant told the date the house had been searched. The left was the name of the search and rescue crew. The right held miscellaneous information, such as ”Found: one cat alive.” The bottom had a number from zero to however many dead bodies were found. The “X” became a mark of death. One dead house could be easily overlooked if not for the dozens of like houses sharing its fate. This was not just one haunt but an entire ghost town, with a few brave souls rebuilding in the wreckage. As I wandered through the vacant streets, passing “X” after “X” that flashed bright against the stained wood, it was almost like a game. The counting and checking started, eyes flicked from door to dusty door, and the numbers blurred together until I saw it, a number greater than zero. I stared and images came to mind about the life that drowned or suffocated or gave up.

Then, without realizing it, I would avert my gaze to every patched roof, window, and lonely front step and away from the door. I almost smiled at the holes in roofs that had been someone’s escape and were now boarded up. Homeowners had left spray painted notes that read, “Do not demo. Will rebuild.” But always, at the last second, I would look back at that “X” that most likely read zero but sometimes not. I had to know, I couldn’t avoid them, and it was exhausting.

© April for Leather-bound Thoughts, 2008. | Permalink | No comments yet... |
Post tags: construction, death, house, New Orleans

What Have I Gotten Myself Into

April — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 22:04:08 +0000

I’m teaching piano. As a volunteer at the Midtown-Carnegie Library, I pretty much get to do whatever I want if I’m not shelving books or watching Anime. So, I hinted at my moderate musical skills, suggested lessons for any young adult interested, and now on Wednesdays from one to three in the afternoon I am a teacher.

I AM excited about it and glad that my summer has turned out so interesting but I’m afraid that one week from today I might have a slight panic attack.

I’ll let you know.

There and Back Again

April — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 23:18:03 +0000

I recently returned from a nine-day trip to New Orleans, LA to build houses among other things. I traveled with members of FnC, the college ministry I attend, as well as some people who are friends of members. Therefore, the trip included strengthening of old relationships as well as creating new ones.

Trips like these often bring to light a new perspective on life, your relationship with God (if you have one), service, purpose, discipline, leadership, and so on. At least, these are a few of the things that went through my head while I learned how to swing a hammer in the six inches of space between my head and the roof of the house I was dry-walling. In the next few days or weeks, I’m going to be emptying all of that out here. Reflection is the best way to make memories last.

I, like most people in the U.S. Of A. recall the events of hurricanes Katrina and Rita as a highlight in a somewhat uneventful life time line. I knew people who lost family. I watched friends go south to help. I was grateful to live in the mostly mild state of Missouri but it never occurred to me that I could do anything. I’d never been close to construction other than the time my dad added two rooms and a deck to our house. I was eight years old.

I know more now. I know what disaster looks like, even three and half years later. I know exhaustion and I’ve experienced despair and hopelessness for all the work left to do. PDA is scheduled to continue their relief program until 2013 and then their resources will have evaporated. The social workers down there working with victims of PTSD and depression are on depression medication themselves. Who will help the helpers?

My college minister’s wife gave me the encouraging words that ‘life is full of work.’ God calls us to keep on doing what we can in our small ways. It may not seem like much but we must do it unceasingly, faithfully, and expectant for God’s miracles to appear now or, when humans usually become aware, in retrospect. There is always hope.

© April for Leather-bound Thoughts, 2008. | Permalink | No comments yet... |
Post tags: FnC, hope, hurricane, Katrina, New Orleans

Defense of Marriage in Mythology

April — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:11:58 +0000

The following is a paper I wrote for my Classical Mythology class. It was so embarrassingly passionate, I decided to share it with the world.

In my mythology class we have read many tales of heroes but Odyssey is the only true hero in my opinion and inspires the only true heroines.

Heracles, Theseus, and Perseus sought immortality and communion with the gods. Odysseus chose a mortal life, giving up immortality to have a happy marriage. His choice was heroic. He had a chance at what every other man wanted but remained his rightful human self and kept what was truly priceless – love.

Other heroes valued strength, cleverness, and honor and had to prove in great acts that they contained them. Odysseus contained them all as well as favor with the gods just by being himself and a good husband. (He did cheat on his wife but he didn’t want to and it’s the thought that counts, right?)

These natural qualities were seen by Penelope and Nausicaa who chose to help him unconditionally and were rewarded with their own heroic status and power in return. Other heroines such as Medea acted out of self interest, but her real downfall was in her choice of hero. Jason was not worthy of Medea’s assistence and had she been as wise as she should ahve been, she would have saved her virtue and skill for someone with the character to truly succeed and pay back what he owed to those who helped him.

The most admirable quality of Penelope’s is her cleverness in self preservation. She does not fall to the will of men. Instead, she makes men follow her will and her directions. She commands the suitors to a contest and even tests her own husband. Odysseus must win Penelope just as she was faithful to him. It is refeshing to see a woman standing up for herself.

The Odyssey is a story of homecoming and it is one we should all take to heart. We need to give up wild dreams of golden fleece and divine status and hold tight to love, the only thing that really matters in this world. Odysseus knew that, the gods honored his choice, and he was truly blessed.

Yet Another Sleeping Beauty

April — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 01:02:53 +0000

I recently finished reading Briar Rose by Jane Yolen and it was the least satisfying fairy tale retelling I have seen yet. It had the feel of a short story but stretched for nearly 200 pages, a short novel that lacked proper character development and a convincing plot. The theme was more successful, applying the basics of a classic fairy tale to a highly complicated and traumatic historic event (the Holocaust). But it was like a sandwich: without the bread to hold it together and the lettuce to dress up the flavor and make it interesting, the theme was just bland turkey that’s too tough to chew. (What a brilliant metaphor!)

The book starts with a memory of the main character’s (Becca’s) grandmother telling her the story of Sleeping Beauty. The entire story is told in such memories throughout the book, in between chapters of the main plot. I really like this idea in theory. It allows the author (Jane Yolen) to present the original story practically alongside her own version so the reader can compare the two (and ideally realize the depth and reality of the tale made manifest in the author’s portrayal of it). The memories also provide glimpses into Becca’s past, her developing relationship with her grandmother, and her set of specific philosophies that continue to guide her actions for the rest of her life (or at least for the rest of the book).

My main complaint about this method is the same complaint I have for every aspect of the book: it was not fully developed. For example, each memory contains very specific details. Jane Yolen knows how to paint a pretty picture; each image is stark and the reader is pulled right into the scene. If that was all, I would be OK, but there is always more. There is a mini plot, a little story within each memory that is never completely resolved and it always involves a conflict between Becca and her two older sisters. This problem exists to some extent in every book that uses flashbacks, switches characters between chapters, or uses some other device within the bigger context that drags the reader away from one setting and plops them down in a completely new one. It is difficult to pull off smoothly and should not be done unless it directly strengthens the novel. In this case, it did not.

First, the conflict between Becca and her sisters is left hanging at the end of the book, having not even reached some sort of climax. Second, the sisters are more of a distraction than a help. While there is a nice contrast between the sisters’ relationship with the grandmother and Becca’s relationship with her, their presence ultimately gets in the way of the reader’s first hand experience of the grandmother (she dies at the beginning of the book and is only seen in the flashbacks). Since the grandmother is the author’s Sleeping Beauty character, she is kind of important to know.

Third, the grandmother does not seem like a real person in the flashbacks. She does nothing more than say the words of a fairy tale and ward off any prying questions Becca or her sisters may ask with one or two-word responses. I realize that Yolen is attempting to create a sense of mystery (the reader is not told the grandmother’s history or why she loves the story of Sleeping Beauty until the end of the book) and show the developing insight of the girls but the result is a shell of a character that seems only to exist in the past.

Finally, while the plot and the characters were intriguing and the theme was original, I felt like I was reading someone’s diary or a short history lesson described in a fanciful way rather than a fictional, literary work. A few of my other complaints are the random, halfhearted love story between Becca and her editor; the conflict of the main story: is it about Becca or her grandmother?; and the mentioning of Becca’s favorite book, another retelling of Sleeping Beauty that I have read and still love, was the worst mistake Yolen could have made. It is called Beauty and is written by Robin Mckinley. Go read it.

I have been unfair to this book as a whole. There are more good qualities to it that I have not mentioned so as not to make this entry too long. But I do strongly believe that it would be a far more excellent book if it were at least 100 pages longer, probably 200 would be best. So many things could be expanded on and all of the separate plots could fit so nicely if given a chance. I’m sure the grandmother and Becca could happily share the main character-hood if the grandmother had a personality and Becca did more than think and talk.

You can find more information about this book and The Fairy Tale Series created by Terri Windling here: Briar Rose

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Post tags: fantasy, holocaust, sleeping beauty