Cheryl Katz

I’ve returned to running – not just for fitness, but as some may know, I am training for the San Francisco (Half) Marathon.

I stopped running last fall, discouraged by a complete stall in my weight loss and then encouraged by the better weight loss results AFTER I reduced the amount of workout in my regimen. Recently, for reasons unrelated to anything but circumstance and emotion, I put back on a few pounds, and only just before deciding to run the SF Half had regained my focus and motivation.

It’s been more than a month now, running according to a training plan, and I am stunned to report that while I haven’t lost any substantial weight, the physical results are not only visible but pretty impressive. (Did you know I had abdominal muscles in there?)

As previously noted, the numbers on the scale crept upward. However, it was a momentary thing, for a period of adjustment.  My body can do some pretty awesome stuff, things I never would have expected of it a few weeks ago, but that doesn’t change that on the inside I am still someone who is looking to get healthier and lose weight, and I’m accustomed to progress as charted by decreasing scale-weight.

I’m starting to see those results again, which is bracing; making it through the early weeks where I was receiving feedback that made me feel uncomfortable with myself, to arrive at the results that science, medicine and running-training conventional wisdom told me I should see with time is a worthwhile lesson for me to have learned.

The half-marathon is on July 26 – two months from now.  That means regular training for the next two months.  When I’m pushing out 14 mile training runs, I imagine that I will finish those days feeling quite accomplished.  (I did a 7.75 mile run a few weekends ago on accident – made a wrong turn in an unfamiliar neighborhood – and was rather chuffed with myself.)   However, when I put on my jeans and they are snugger than expected the next day, this sort of conflicting information is confusing and disappointing.

How do I resolve pride in my body’s functionality with dissatisfaction in its image?

Right now I’m resolving it with the knowledge that, with time, I will achieve my goals.  With proper nutrition and an healthy willingness to rest as necessary, my body will perform the way I want it to.  However, since I’ve prioritized my health and performance above my appearance for the purposes of this marathon, I have to accept that it may take me longer to get back into the clothes I really want to be wearing.  That’s ok, because when I get there, I plan to stay a good long time.

Okay, this probably wasn’t posted today… I didn’t look at the date.  However this is the first time I’ve perused GFY in a long time, and their simulated conversations always make me die on the floor laughing.

Without further ado:  here you go.

I found this quote through Metaquotes on LiveJournal:

Yes, go ahead and support Israel all you like, but don’t do it because enough Jews there will cast ‘Summon Jesus.’  (Link.)

Besides the RPG-lingo chuckle, and general agreement with the sentiment in this line – the original post has an interesting take on the appropriation of Jewish stuff for generally non-Jewish purposes.  I’ve had thoughts in similar patterns, but haven’t condensed them to expression point just yet.

That’s pretty much all I have to say. Thanks for casting a shadow on my day by putting off marriage equality a little longer. I’m a little more ashamed of California than I was when I woke up this morning.

Time is going too fast for me.  I keep putting off topics about which I’d like to write because I don’t feel that I know how to best say the things I want to say.  However, this particular swirl of perfectionism serves no one, and I hereby declare myself OVER IT.

I completed my conversion to Judaism on Tuesday.  Nearly a week ago, now.  It feels at once both immense and insignificant, and truly that is how it is.  Nothing is the same and yet nothing has changed!  What I have now, that I didn’t have a week ago, was a line in the sand of my life that divides now from everything that came before.  And yet the rituals of conversion were meaningless in the face of changes I undertook and to which I fully committed many months ago.

And so I’ve not avoided talking about it, but I’ve hesitated to approach it as if the topic were the center of the known universe.  I feel joyful, I feel peaceful, and I feel completed in the intangible and indescribable way of water.  Life continues.

Sami, however, would like it to be known that she is not a Jew.  She became juice.  Blue juice, to be exact.  To each her own.

What am I going to make out of my life?

Why am I 30 and still thinking about this question?

Today, I’m cutting a swath through laundry and turning my home into a place in which we’re enjoying resting.

Tomorrow I hope my contributions extend beyond the walls of my own home.

To Market, To Market with San Diego Foodstuff: Breakfast Surprise at Hillcrest Farmers Market.

Ben, Sami and I biked to the Hillcrest Farmers’ Market on Mothers’ Day (probably the first time we’ve been to the farmers’ market in at least a year.)  (Also, Sami didn’t bike.  She sat on her seat in the front of my bike.)

We had a great time looking for the few things we needed – got some spring onions and shallots which more than satisfied my onion needs, and we brought home a bunch of ruby-red and perfectly sweet cherries.  We also trolled the prepared-foods section in search of a great breakfast, and while there were many options the choices wound up being easy.

Sami and I shared a roasted corn and poblano pepper tamale, which if I recall was the last thing I ever ate at a farmers’ market, how’s that for creature of habit?

Ben got the aforementioned coconut pancakes.  We tried them and were hooked.  They have a custardy, eggy texture and pure coconut flavor – like a coconut breakfast flan.  The post I linked to includes a sample recipe, which I may try one day, but I can’t do these little wonders justice with words.  Go try them!

Necessity is the mother of invention… and in my case circumstances beyond my control compelled me to cut my daughter’s hair for the first substantial time.

Picture this:  a child at naptime.  Half hour later, loud thudding sounds issue from the room of the child, so the parent goes to check on her.  Child has painted her entire arms from fingertips to elbows and then some, her bed, sheets, pillows, frame, blankets, a book, the floor and any other miscellaneous objects she can find… with maximum viscosity DIAPER CREAM.

Believe it.  This was my reality this afternoon.  I don’t think I’ve ever “seen red” before, but I might have had a minor stroke taking in all that there was to behold in Sami’s room today.  LIVID.  Besides the obvious inconvenience of washing, oh, everything with some kind of abrasive cleansing agent, we had the additional bonus fun of throwing Sami herself in the bath to scrape the petroleum-laden goo off her limbs, body and face.

And I forgot to mention her hair.  Completely coating the bottom third of her hair.  I shampooed her whole head about 4 times, emptied the tub twice for fresh water, and had limited success (if you can call it that) getting any of the diaper cream to budge from her hair.  Combing helped minimally.

So I did what any enterprising, self-respecting mother of a totally infuriating going-on-3-year-old would do.  No, not throw her out with the bathwater.  I whipped out the hair trimming scissors and went to town.  

I’m sure it’s not professional looking, though her hair has just enough natural wave to get away with any minor inconsistencies.  I hacked at it somewhat unscientifically, and she was not a steady subject, but she wound up with a haircut shockingly similar to the pro job I wear.  (Pictures will follow when I get the rest of the residue off her head.)

Maybe I shall consider a career in children’s haircuts.  HA.

As if I don’t have more serious things to be posting about.

Tiny Art Director.  This website just about killed me with laughing.  Also, I truly believe it is a flash forward into the snarky comments Sami will be able to make for me and Ben in the future.  (See “About the Tiny Art Director” in which she says, “I want Daddy to go away on a trip.”)

So…. maybe not so far in the future.  Today Sami told me, “You BAD mama!”

I was like, “Um, what?  Bad mama?”

She revised, “No, you BAT mama!  I’m Batman… GIRL hahahaha.”  (It was pretty maniacal.)

Also, at bedtime, she says, “I don’t want HIM in here.”  Him = Daddy.  We seriously can’t please her.

Clearly she needs a job.  Hopefully a good one like the Tiny Art Director.

I made these lemon bars this weekend and they were amazing.

I went to IKEA today, and I hope that someone will remind me next time that whenever I go I want to stab out my eyes with one of their stylishly designed carving forks.  I went in looking for kitchen shelves.  They were out of stock.  I also spied a new set of dishes, but decided to wait for Ben’s approval since he’s expressed that he’d like to be included in some domestic matters; and I observed a few options for kitchen island/cart ideas that might work for additional baking surface space that I have found myself desperately needing.

I left, however, having purchased nothing.  The process of navigating the store was so frustrating (normally I go with the flow of their floor plan, but today I had objectives, people, ‘kay?) on a day when  I just wanted to be in and out.  No such luck.

My schedule this week and weekend sort of necessitate that I move up my running schedule by a day, so I need to squeeze in 30 minutes of running that I otherwise would do tomorrow.  I’ll probably also move Thursday up to Wednesday and somehow squeeze in an extra run day this week.

In running news, I did a series of hill intervals on Thursday, rested Friday and Saturday, and when I did my Sunday run (3 miles, it’s a rest week) I was not just measurably but palpably faster.  On the order of a whole minute per mile.  It was much cooler than it had been on previous recent runs, and also a shorter run, so these are also factors, but it is nice to see some results – theories in action, I love it!

That’s about all the news that’s fit to print today, so far.