Mayree's Mental Moment of Muscle

I'd arrived Thursday morning at JCJC Bobcat Fitness Center to (hopefully) become instructed on the proper use of cardiovascular equipment.  Mr. Lavon was manning the desk and couldn't fit an appointment in.  I set out on the fitness endeavor all by myself, if you don't count the other four souls in the center.  Being clothed in leggings and tee shirt and having two hours until class, a quick spin on the stationary bicycle and upper body work out on the weight machines was in order.

The stationary bicycle panel is full of all manner of programming.

 I've not strayed from the manual program yet.  Height and weight and time were entered and cycling was started on level 2 to properly warm leg muscles.  Three minutes later, it was increased to level seven.  Within seconds calf muscles started feeling the resistance on the pedals.  At the minute mark, I was sure all the leg muscles would freeze into place.  I could see it happening, the paramedic team called along with the fire department, to use jaws of life to extricate a still-sweating middle-aged corpse from the machine.

The resistance level was bumped down after two minutes before the smoke detector above my head went off and the fire department was, indeed, summoned.  Amazingly, the machine's sophisticated monitoring told me that heart rate had only reached 136.  Whew!  Visions of the jaws of life tearing favorite leggings kept the remainder of the ride reasonable, with forays up to level six worked up to and back down.  The thirty minute ride traversed almost six miles over machine-fixed terrain.  Not too bad...

Thirty minutes gone from two hours left plenty of time to take the ten steps into the land generally ruled by testosterone:  the weight room.   What was I thinking?  What WAS I thinking???  Someone tell me what I was thinking, please.  It must've been the elation felt at simply being able to walk that boosted confidence enough to work on building upper torso, shoulder, and arm muscles.

All the various machines have padded adjustable seats and stationary back rests, although at different positions and sometimes obscene angles.  There are rubber-padded grips to be clung to, rolled padding bars to lean against, welded steel foot rests to prop on.  It reminds me of an overly illuminated dungeon cell (a full wall of mirrors is the first clue it's a place of torture) with all manner of torture machines, except there are no knives, loppers, pincers, spears, or Iron Maidens here.

The first method of torture machine selected is for the pectoral muscles.  Who figures out how to make a machine just to exercise the muscles that are supposed to exist under the ta-tas?  I barely finished one set, ta-tas shaking and jiggling so mightily a minor earthquake was created in Alaska.  If you know me, you know there's not a lot to shake and jiggle.  To create this seismic event, serious momentum had to have been generated. The weight was dropped back to 20 pounds to complete a second set of repetitions.

I don't know what it's called, but the machine works the tricep area.  Yes, those muscles with the under arm wings of flab attachments.

If I were hanging on the edge of a building and had to pull myself up, using upper body strength, I'd perish;  probably wouldn't hang around too long either.  I can't do it.  Most folks have "visit Paris" "drive a NASCAR" "fly in a hot air balloon" on their bucket list. I only have two items:  attend Burning Man and do a dozen pull ups.

Annnnnnyways.  The machine has the grips in front of the seat, spaced barely wide enough apart for a wide-bodied gurl like myself to sit down without having to turn sideways.  I'm thankful for that small fact, at least.  The seat is adjusted so feet are flat on the floor, shoulder length apart.  I'd already set the weight to twenty pounds.  I can do twenty pounds.  A voice was heard to say "That's too easy, you can do more."  One set of 35 pounds was not too bad.  A second set was started... and barely completed.  Yikes!  What is that sensation that feels like someone is pinching the entire back of my arms????  OWWwwwwwch.  Three minutes of elbow-across-body stretching ended the beginning of tricep cramps.  A third set could be managed.

Even though there were only four people in the entire facility at that moment and help certainly could be attained with nothing more than a loud whimper, I determined this could be done by myself.  No help.  No excuses.  One more set of 10 repetitions could be done.

Repetition #1 was okay.  On #2, I forgot to breathe so on #3 the burning started such that #4 felt like scalded muscles inside stripped-away skin.  Rep #5, I pushed lower back into the padded seat (thankful that it was padded) and, causing the after shock tremors in Alaska, jiggled and shook the push outward.  And locked elbows.  New combinations of expletives coursed through the brain--some I'd never even heard before.  I'm asked if assistance is needed.  "No!  Don't touch me!  Don't touch the machine!  We are going.  to.  finish.. this!!!"

That's when I saw the emergency cardiac defib machine on the wall.

These are all stock photos, by the way,

right off the internet.  If it's YOUR photo, I'll

be more than happy to credit you.

Yep.  Right there, the other side of those huge rubber balls in several colors of the rainbow, in a case (did it say "In emergency break glass"?) was a defibrillator.  Wow.  My mind heard Mr. Lavon saying, "Ms. Mayree, we'll be more than happy to shock your heart back into rhythm, but first you're going to have to uncurl your buttocks from that seat, let the weight down, and finish those last five reps."

They probably think I'm crazy.  The weight was let down.  I walked out the door laughing loudly.

Even though those muscle toning activities were three days ago, biceps, triceps, trapezius, and pectoral muscles still fell the effects with every heart beat.  But there's always next week.  Maybe I can successfully lift more than a pen then....
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I actually did have that early morning appointment with Mr. Lavon this morning.  It wasn't so bad -- working out those muscles that I was sure would never function properly again.  And just for the record, there haven't been any more after-shocks in Alaska either...

I'm a Bobcat now, Dr. Williams said so...

(stock photo)

I sat in the library at Jones County Junior College awaiting a counselor to set a class schedule.  To kill time, I took out the twenty-six year old college transcript from The University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg.

The coffee became very heavy as an empty gut wrenched, knotted, twisted, and turned;  my face flushed.  It's 2013:  the year of no excuses.  Yet, looking at semester after semester of poor academic performances, excuses were the only things coming to mind.

To say I was sheltered as the youngest of five children and the only daughter would be an understatement of epic proportion.  I was.  Those years made the caring, sharing, loving person the writes before you.  It also, once high school graduation commenced and ended, gave me the feeling that much had been missed -- and I was determined to learn what that was.

I enrolled in college and late-night (or rather, early morning) life where much consumption of beverages of the alcoholic sort and socializing were the norm.  Eight o'clock classes were seldom met and certainly not the boring ones.  I'd graduated sixth out of a class of 63 in high school.  Chemistry 101 was held in an auditorium with 250+ students.  Why go?  I wouldn't be missed.

Daddy and I had began butting heads continuously after the first grades came in.  He began to hinder party mobility by not allowing use of the family car.  I viewed his restrictions as a way to bridle a new, free spirit; to suppress ideology not in accord with his own... I didn't like him very much at all.

Kicking and screaming, I returned to boring Greene County to teach piano lessons and help work the farm.  Daddy and I came to a sort of cease fire of hostilities and worked shoulder to shoulder under a hot March sun laying corn by and staking tomatoes in a splendid early garden one fine Saturday.

He died of a heart attack in his sleep that night.

You'd think I would have buckled down harder than ever, returning to college, to attend class, study, and make him proud of me.

I didn't.

Thrown, nay, hurled into a sorrow and depression not understood, roll playing games, committing the entire dialogue from Rocky Horror Picture Show, and drinking as much apple schnapps and beer as possible became a life for which thought was unnecessary.

Am I making excuses?  Not at all.  I'm letting y'all know I was ignorant of the blessings of my youth.  Gratitude for an incredible environment of loving, living, and learning meant nothing.  Denial and self-indulgence were once a way of life for this (now) middle-aged Southern gurl.  I'm reminded that "where sin increased, grace abounded all the more."  

I'm fessing up to a couple of years of hard living (some college friends are amazed to find me still alive).  I'm not proud of them, but they, also, have shaped a person more determined than ever to use a talented mind to do something.

I have no clue what the last word of the graphic is supposed to be.

You'll have to ask Dr. Williams.

There are no excuses.  It is what it is;  or what it was, a feeble dismissal of events and a weak excuse in itself.  A past was exposed today.  And the truth has set me free.  I'm a Bobcat now.  Just ask Dr. Williams...

Watch out, folks.  I'm running with knives.  Stick around and

learn with me!

-----------------------------------------

Thank you, Dr. Williams, for taking on this non-traditional student with scheduling;  for listening;  for knowing;  for leading Jones County Junior College in the state and nation with non-traditional student services.  Your encouragement and patience were invaluable in keeping emotions from running high and helping to keep an addled mind focused.  I can't thank  you enough and look forward, not only to your tutelage, but friendship as well.

Doxology

An odd thing happened during church today.

I'd finished playing the Doxology:

Praise God from Whom all blessings flow.

Praise Him all creatures here below.

Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts.

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Amen.

Removing myself from the piano bench and getting situated on the pew (second on the left), I caught a glimpse of Mrs. Johnnie, three rows directly behind, her white hair, bright smile, and twinkling eyes giving a nod as I sat.

She wasn't there, of course -- hadn't been there for many years, having entered the Sabbath Rest like so many beloved others of our small congregation.  Her soft voice reached through memory, "You get on back to school, Missy.  You'll do just fine."

Perhaps it's the anxiety of being a non-traditional student at a junior college at this late date in life that summoned other voices, long quiet, to calm and strengthen a hesitant soul.  Daddy's clear tenor quipped, "Time to do it, Shug.  Fix us a pot of coffee and figure that out."

Tears were fought to keep from falling as Thomas' exposition of Genesis 3: 15 and an Old Promise for a New Year continued.

Billy's sweet spirit touched lightly, "You're my favorite aunt.  Make me proud."  John's no-nonsense words rang true to his eldest sibling position in the family.  "Be careful on the road;  lots more idiots than you out there.   Don't be quite so much yourself.  Just because you can speak doesn't mean you have to.  Study.  You're smart enough."

It was odd, all right.  Was I visited by spirits during church?  No.  Did this soul, spirit, and mind manufacture necessary words of selective encouragement in the one place of Ultimate Encouragement?  Yes.

An Old Promise for a New Year concluded.  I play and we sing, "Then in a nobler sweeter song I'll sing Your power to save, when this poor lisping stammering tongue lies silent in the grave."

Lie silent now.  And thank you.

Oven Roasted Rutabagas and Mr. Van

**sigh**  I don't suppose there's a single food consumed here that doesn't bring back a memory or two.  Even rutabagas bring back thoughts of great fondness from young family days lived in Oxford, Mississippi and our next door neighbors there, Mr. Van and Mrs. Faye.  Mr. Van loved rutabagas, too;  Mrs. Faye didn't like to cook them, didn't like the way the smelled up her house.

It's the nature of a Southern cook to cook too much.  Store bought rutabagas this time of year are gargantuan, compared to those grown in home gardens in the area.  And there's no such thing as cooking only half a rutabaga.  We hadn't been living in Oxford long before I'd bought one and cooked the huge pot of them, plenty enough to share with the neighbors we were still getting to know, along with a half-pan of cornbread.  Mrs. Faye was pleased to have a neighbor that could cook but Mr. Van was one very happy retired truck driver with the gesture.

They became a part of our lives and Mr. Van became a fixture in the kitchen.  Several times a year, he'd bring over a rutabaga and, with a sly grin ask "You reckon it's fit to eat?"  His tall, lean person, topped with a shock of white hair and ever-present hat would offer the vegetable and usually a small portion of salt meat.  "I don't know, Mr. Van,"  I'd say, "But I reckon we can find out."

Friends come and go, moving in and out of our lives but good neighbors, I find, are hard to replace.  Mr. Van died several years ago.  Mrs. Faye and I talk several times a year.  They'll always be our neighbors, though.  And I'll always think of Mr. Van with every rutabaga.

Tonight I've cooked oven-roasted rutabagas.  They're super easy to prepare;  the ingredients list is short; and take little time to cook.  AND they're heart friendly, with no saturated fats whatsoever.

You'll need a rutabaga, coarse salt, and extra virgin olive oil.
 
Preheat oven to 500 F.  Yep.  500.  It's not going to take this deliciousness but 30 minutes to cook.

Peel and cut rutabaga into huge steak-fries size, roughly 1/2 into to 3/4 inch sticks.  I'd been gifted these locally grown rutabagas.   I was going to can them but decided to have them for supper instead.

This is a 14 X 18 baking sheet.  I like to line it with foil

because it is one of the cake pans.  The foil

assures that there won't be any funky stuff

to have to scrub before a cake gets baked in it.

And it makes clean-up a snap, too.

Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with coarse salt.  How much?  Use enough to oil to coat the rutabagas (maybe a half-cup?) and roughly a tablespoon of salt for this big pan full.  They can be salted after cooking, too, but I enjoy having the seasoning braised right in to the vegetable.

Cover with foil and put on lowest rack in preheated oven for fifteen minutes.

Take foil off rutabagas and turn/flip/maneuver them over.  Put back into oven for another fifteen minutes.  You can hear them sizzling and the aroma, I must disagree with Mrs. Faye, is far from undesirable.  

Ding!  They're ready!  Be careful, you'll want to sample them right out of the pan before they ever reach a serving dish and wowzers are they hot!  

See how nice and brown?  MMmmmmmm...

Tadadaaaa!  No sugar is necessary to sweeten them, no other fats needed to flavor them.  They're a little different from traditionally prepared rutabagas but if you love rutabagas like me and Mr. Van, you'll still enjoy them.

And don't forget to share...

The Problem With Excuses...

I love excuses.  I can come up with excuses for everything considered too much of a challenge or too great of an overcoming or too big of a problem to think through or.  Or.  Or anything an excuse can be found for.  I'd blame it on intelligence, given a natural ability to think through just about any and every unpleasantness to be able to manufacture an excuse for.  I've been overweight my entire life, morbidly obese for the last 26 years.  It couldn't be helped, I excused myself.  A genetic predisposition: bad eating habits begun in infancy by a doting over-nurturing mother to whom food was a reward, comfort, way of life;  excess Epstein-Barr virus;  lack of health club/gym; lack of time to exercise; lack of money to purchase healthy foods;  young family to be MY mother to (a vicious cycle of sweet unhealthy rewards).  I could excuse it away.

In a previous life I was a professional college student, coming within 30 hours of two degrees (music education and geology), neither of which I care to pursue now.  I excused not having a degree.  After all, I'd met the X and married, had two sons.  Money always was (and probably always will be) tight.  I didn't want to put us in debt finishing college;  didn't want to take away from The Fellows.  I was too old, too set in my ways, didn't want to commute.

  

And then there were the excuses for not having my own vehicle.  I'd let Youngest Fellow have the ancient Chevrolet to go to college.  Mama was letting me use the Danger Ranger.  I couldn't save enough money, being unemployed (STILL!); couldn't afford insurance; wouldn't be able to buy gas even if I did have one.   My credit score sucked.  A lender would laugh in my face.  It couldn't be done.  Good excuses.

But an odd thing happened this spring.  Oldest Fellow was fussing one day.  Fussing at me.  I was in a funk, having worked a hard week out at Mama's house (after her mini-sternotomy AVR in March);  feeling very tired and old and manufacturing a ton of well-thought-out excuses.  I'm not even sure what the excuse du jour was but he said, "Mama, just do one thing for yourself."  It took me a couple of days to think of it.  He was talking about a manicure or a pedicure but I thought about it long and hard and decided I'd like to be **ahem** Rubenesque.  

I'll never be a small frail delicate lass but I could be thinner.  I could do this for myself - this one thing.  And I started April 1st:  April Fool's Day is the best day ever to begin a thing.  I've lost 65 pounds, going from a 26W to a 16 petite.  I'd like to lose another 15 pounds but, without using any excuse if it doesn't happen this year, I'll be happy to maintain what's gone.  I didn't need a gym or healthier food, only to realize the sad excuses were nothing but sad excuses.  I was solely responsible for quantity and quality of food going into my mouth.  Mama may have given her only daughter a chubby beginning but consarnnit, only my spirit is child-like any more.  Mama gets her break from adolescent angst and I'm a lot healthier physically and mentally.

It has been liberating.  Other excuses began failing.  I could save money with the three little part-time jobs.  I turned the thermostat up (or down); quit watering the outdoor plants, cut the cell phone bill down, hung clothes on the line in everything but rain and then they went on a rack in the bathroom, began canning an abundance of fresh produce to cut back the grocery bill even more.  **snicker** I can skin the hide off a Buffalo nickle, spend it, AND save the nickle.  A good used mini-van was found and purchased and I've yet to run out of gas or fail to pay insurance.  Where did the moolah come from?  I'd saved a good bit of it.  Most of it was liberated from the need to over-compensate to keep up with what the brothers were doing for Mama (they are such wonderful sons to her - y'all should never doubt it).  I needed no excuse; Mama didn't require any purchases from me.  Indeed, all she ever wanted or needs is my time.

In light of a business venture not going through (it didn't fail - it just never came to fruition) the big excuses keeping the college degree at bay finally fell.  The Fellows don't require my attention at home.  And if I need to take out a school loan well what of it?  I haven't yet, may not have to but what if I do?  To be middle-aged only owing a mortgage and school loan?  There aren't too many folks in that position. If the one dream barely kept alive of having my own little blue-plate diner/bed and breakfast/bakery is ever going to happen the time is now.  None of us are getting any younger.  No one is going to give it to me the same way no one could lose the weight or convince me I could ever save enough money to have a vehicle.  I'm going to Jones County Junior College.  I've been accepted into their culinary arts program and register January 8th, two days before my 52nd birthday.  OOOooooo... "I'm too old," I try to tell myself.  My b.s. detector knows I'm apprehensive, scared of failure, terrified of tightened finances, and lazy.  Yes.  Lazy.  I do like to sleep.  No excuses, though.  I've been going to bed early and getting up early. I'll purchase another alarm clock if necessary.  Financial aid is secured and arranged.  And I've maintained enough smarts (I hope) to get through the coursework.

Excuses lead to a victim mentality.  I'd've never considered myself a victim if a long, difficult look hadn't been taken at where and what I was and what and where I'd be more content being.  I'm happy to put the 2012 calendar away tomorrow;  happy to have realized and recognized the excuses for what they were;  finally happy to see a new year come;  content that all is as it should be.

Thank you, my friends, for following along with this Side of Life in the Deep South.  I sincerely appreciate each and every one of you.  I'm thankful to have you visit and blessed to know many of you through a  funny little social media called Facebook.  I wish you each a very joyful new year, full of all manner of possibilities and realizations.

Ever,

Mary

And the Truth Shall Set You Free

I was at a small social gathering Saturday evening.  I'm not much of a social creature, socialization limited to church, family, and shopping at Piggly Wiggly.  It was good to visit with folks at an event specifically for visiting outside the realm of church, family, and Piggly Wiggly.

A beautiful little girl ran up to her grandfather to bid him goodnight.  I'd noticed her giving me looks throughout the evening.  I get that a lot.  She gave her pawpaw a hug and, looking at me said, "You look like a monster in girl's clothes."

What came out of my mouth was "Well, thank you, Sweetie.  It's important for real monsters to dress nicely."

What I was thinking was, "I hope your world never changes and that the ugliness that is disease and illness never finds you;  that you continue to feel the whole world was made just for you and your thoughts;  and that your words will be the only ones you ever listen to or need.  I hope, Sweetie, that you learn to temper a child's honesty (she was, after all, just being honest) with compassion so that honesty without compassion is never unleashed on your incredible life force.  Most of all, Granddaughter-that-I-hope-to-have-one-as-cute-as-some-day-in-the-very-distant-future, I pray you learn to see beyond the distorted monster faces that are sure to come into your life, to look into a soul and find embedded beauty and strength:  superficial imperfections hide much."

She skipped off, taking a year's worth of self-esteem with her.

I'd been soaring high on the events of a good year:  Mama's successful heart surgery and recovery, losing weight (60 pounds {WOOOT - I'm a new creature!}), deciding to go to, applying, and being accepted into a local junior college culinary arts program, a sibling's remarkable return from the brink of catastrophic illness, my sons continuing to make their way (successfully) in the world.  This baby's words brought me back to earth, to see myself in her eyes.  It's silly for an adult to be stung by the brutal honesty of a child.  She hit the one thing, though, that I cannot change.  This warped skewed face is my Achilles heel;  a vulnerable spot that defies all attempts of armoring and protecting with makeup or masking and guarding with temperament.

It is, though, just another side of life to be consumed.  This morning, gratitude is given to a little girl for bringing me down to earth, for a grounding in the sure blessings of an Almighty that loves me despite myself, family, friends and work when so many are unemployed.

I'm thankful to be where I am.  How 'bout you?

Not-Really-a-Bread-Pudding Recipe with Caramel/Sour Cream/Godiva White Chocolate Liqueur Sauce

It's all that was left!

Any given weekend there are almost always several gallon ziplock bags full of cake trimmings, i.e., the crowns sliced from cakes so they'll lay nice and flat when put together.  I do a couple of things with them:  layer them into a tub o'trimmings with the week's cake fillings, feed the deer out at Mama's (deer have a notorious sweet tooth also), or save them for bread pudding.  Yep.  Bread pudding made from cake trimmings!  That's what I did with this week's trimmings.  It was a pretty equal amount of chocolate cake and butter cake trimmings.  The amount of each one doesn't matter, though.  What matters is a very flavorful pudding, the likes of which has everyone asking for the recipe.  There really isn't one, you know, but since I've been asked for it, I'll do my best to recreate it.  

Pudding Ingredients:
8 to 10 cups of cake trimmings OR bread OR biscuits (I love bread pudding made with biscuits!)

4 eggs

1 cup milk

1 tablespoon vanilla
1 cup of sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter or margarine, melted

Crumble cake trimmings or bread into a large bowl.  Combine all other ingredients well and pour over crumbled cake, stirring everything together until cake or bread is thoroughly saturated.  Bake in large buttered casserole at 350 for as long as it takes for the center to be set, a little over an hour in my oven (but ovens vary so yours might not take as long to bake).

It was full Sunday morning!

Since I was making this for the Family Dinner Leakesville Presbyterian Church has the first Sunday of each month, I didn't particularly want to make a bourbon or a rum hard sauce.  Bread pudding just isn't bread pudding without a hard sauce though.  I had Kahlua (but it's quickly coming upon Kahlua and coffee season in the Deep South and I wanted to save it for decaf evenings on the front porch) and Godiva White Chocolate Liqueur.  MMMmmmm... Godiva...  I also didn't want to open a bag of confectioner's sugar to use and didn't want to go to the Pig to purchase a bag just for the hard sauce.  After all, my hair was already up in the hot rollers.  I got to thinking how nice a caramel flavor would be with the white chocolate.  Brown sugar would work.  I wanted something to make it creamy, too.  Sour cream was in the fridge.  I came up with this really quick recipe to satisfy all those prerequisites for a hard sauce suitable for Family Dinner.

Caramel/Sour Cream/Godiva White Chocolate Liqueur Hard Sauce 
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup Godiva White Chocolate Liqueur or whatever is in the cabinet or not at all if you want a sauce without the 'hard'

Quickly cook brown sugar and butter in a skillet until it's the sugar is melted into the butter and it's all sizzly and buttery.  Take off heat and whisk in sour cream until smooth.  Whisk in vanilla and liqueur and serve with bread pudding.  I like to pour it all on top of the bread pudding.  My neighbor likes it spooned over individual servings.  It doesn't matter how its served - just make sure you serve it with the pudding.

Everybody loved the not-really-a-bread pudding and hard sauce.  This was all that was left to bring home: just enough to take a photo of.

Y'all give it a try sometime.  It's easy and tasty and I hope y'all love it!