Fitness Program Update: Week 4

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

FITNESS PROGRAM UPDATE:

WEEK 4

I am sharing my personal fitness attempts with my loyal readers. To read previous segments, click on: Spring has sprung…with yard work and fitness workouts & Exercise/Fitness Program Landmark

     Two days, during the first week in June, I swam a mile. And two days I swam three-quarters of a mile. (to view photos, click on: http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolyncholland/3612835506/ & http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolyncholland/3612835176/  &  http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolyncholland/3612834718/in/photostream/  &  http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolyncholland/3612019637/in/photostream/ )

     On Thursday, May 28, I also did a fifteen-minute mile on the treadmill, spent six minutes on the elliptical machine, and did an incomplete regimen on the fitness machines. I did not take a nap that afternoon.

     Exercise is supposed to make you sleep. Right? Then why, that night, when I was so very tired that I went to bed at ten o’clock, was I still awake at three a.m.? I only slept

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Exercise/Fitness Program Landmark

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

EXERCISE/FITNESS PROGRAM LANDMARK

      I promise not to journal my spring exercise/fitness progress too often—it can get boring to both the reader and the participant. However, on May 26 I hit a landmark. However, if you want to read the first post on my new fitness program, click on Spring has sprung…with yard work and fitness workouts

     Two days off—Sunday the Ligonier YMCA is closed, and Monday was Memorial Day, another closed day.

     Tuesday it was bright and beautiful, and I relished not going. But go I must. However, I lazily enjoyed my morning coffee and breakfast on the porch, reading parts of two books: The Hanging of Ephraim Walker 1806 and Walker’s Point (on the west coast, not the Maine coast summer place belonging to the former president). I didn’t leave the house until after ten o’clock.

     In the fitness room, I used the

Spring has sprung…with yard work and fitness workouts

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

SPRING HAS SPRUNG…WITH

YARDWORK & FITNESS WORKOUTS

      A mile on the treadmill at a fifteen-minute per mile pace…five minutes on the elliptical machine…familiarization with fitness machines, capped with fifty twenty-five yard laps in the pool. My new membership in the Ligonier Valley YMCA will hopefully pay off.

     My membership in the YMCA began three weeks ago, with the coming of spring. I’ve managed to keep this schedule—with some variation, since the swimming lengths have escalated up from twenty laps—three days a week, even though I’d prefer to do it five days.

     It’s a tough routine, because, as I informed the trainers in the fitness room, I am naturally a sedentary person. It’s a real sacrifice to leave the early morning enjoyment

The “Meow” Chorus: A cat symphony on a Greyhound Bus

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

THE “MEOW” CHORUS:

A Cat Symphony on a Greyhound Bus

     The bus passenger carried a suitcase—an ordinary enough looking valise, dark brown with stains and stickers identifying places its age and destinations. It was one of several unmatched pieces she was traveling with.

     She was returning to her hometown after a years sojourn in a strange city. All her worldly goods were in these bags. Ordinary items. Clothes, a few books, financial records, photos and a favorite glass from the state fair.

     But another bag held one thing that was not ordinary. She held it tight to her side as she stood in the bus line, waiting to board.

     As the line shortened, she grew nervous. Could, she, would she, be successful? After all, there were rules. And she was intentionally and uncharacteristically breaking one of them.

April Days to Celebrate

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

APRIL DAYS TO CELEBRATE

     It’s April 1. I’ve had six different persons wish me a happy birthday. One wished me a happy fake birthday. Another wished me a happy unbirthday.  
     OK. So it is not my OFFICIAL birthday. It’s an alternate birthday celebration in response to having been born at a time of the year when a birthday is secondary to a holiday celebration. Thus, when I turned forty, and considered it my right to reveal my hidden eccentricity (OK, so not so hidden), I chose an alternate day to celebrate. My criteria: a date

THANKSGIVING READING

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

To all my faithful readers.

Thank you for your support!

And now, for some

THANKSGIVING READING:

 

TWO THANKSGIVING STORIES:

THE SNITTY CAT LIKES PUMPKIN PIE?

LEFTOVER TURKEY

A THANKSGIVING POEM

 

To read a post about the birthmother in LEFTOVER TURKEY:

PENNSYLVANIA WEDDING, (LAMOINE) MAINE ROOTS

 

THE KILLER KITTEN

QUINTESSENCE

JUST ANOTHER WEEKEND IN PARADISE

“DATING WHEN FIFTY-SOME:” A Guy’s Version

IS THIS “CHEERS?”

ON THE EVE OF 27

LEGS UP

THE WRITING LIFE: There’s a World Out There?

CHILD ABUSE DEFINITIONS

 

THE SNITTY CAT LIKES PUMPKIN PIE?

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

THE SNITTY CAT LIKES PUMPKIN PIE?

 

      Imagine my surprise when I walked into the kitchen on Thanksgiving morning and discovered about a third of a dish of cooked pumpkin pie filling missing—like something had lapped it up! I guess I was naïve—I never knew CATS liked pumpkin pie! But Honey must have yearned to have a Thanksgiving meal.
     The next morning, another third of the pumpkin was gone.
     I determined to discover if the culprit snitching the pie filling was our snitty cat, Honey—although there was no other answer unless my hubby was playing tricks on me, which I doubted.
     That night, I cleared the counter, fetched the cat off the closet shelf where she thought she was hiding, and set her on the counter in front of the dish of partially eaten pumpkin. Sure enough, she began

CHILDISH CHARACTERISTICS

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

CHILDISH CHARACTERISTICS 

While traveling along the road on a work/vacation trip to New England, we met many people in libraries, courthouses, beaches, stores, and restaurants. Interactions with children provided many wonderful moments. Below are stories of some of these meetings.  Carolyn

the JOY…of something other than McDonald’s food…Monte and I ate a buffet lunch at an Indian restaurant in Brunswick. We chose to sit outside and then discussed which customers were tourists and which were locals. As I began a survey, a couple with two young sons entered. They said they were from Canada. I said I hoped the boys liked the food, and the mother responded that they did, they were used to it, that she cooks it at home quite often. In fact, the boys preferred it to

THUNDER MOUNTAIN LENAPE NATION POWWOW

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS
THUNDER MOUNTAIN LENAPE NATION POWWOW

Thunder Mountain Lenape Nation will hold its 2008 powwow August 16-17 (http://www.thundermtlenape.org/ ) in Saltsburg, Pennsylvania. It held its ninth Annual Native American Festival on August 18-19, 2007. My husband and I attended, with our granddaughter, Jordan. Click on http://www:flickr.com/photos/carolyncholland/   to view illustrations.

The last lap to get to the Thunder Mountain Lenape Nation 2007 festival grounds was driving over a narrow dirt road on which one hopes not to meet a vehicle coming from the opposite direction. We were fortunate, both arriving and leaving.

When the grounds came into view, in a valley below, we spied teepees set up against a backdrop of green trees.

After parking, we wandered over to where the ceremonies were taking place. There was a circular arbor made from tree limbs and a few four by fours. Shade was provided by

POPHAM BEACH, MAINE

Many newspapers now take their feature articles from the news wire services. Even small local newspapers are turning to these news services rather than having freelancers—who are familiar with the nuances of their communities—write their feature stories.

For example, when I first contacted the newspaper I’d freelanced for about writing a travel article on the Moxie festival in Maine, they told me to submit the article for review. ( MOXIE: LOVE IT or HATE IT & SOUTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIANS DRINK MOXIE: Do They Like It?) By the time I completed the article, they had started using the wire services for this genre.

The Buffalo (N. Y.) news is no different. While visiting Buffalo, I was pleased to see their headline MAINE ATTRACTIONS. To my disappointment,