Musings of a Madman

Who’s Counting on You to Be at Your Best?
– By Mike Kramer, Staff Write

On March 28, (give or take) I’m going to become a dad for the first time. This thought is inconceivable to me, yet seems perfectly natural.

Friends and family promise me that I’m in for the biggest and best adventure of my life. In the next breath, they also warn me that I’m in for thousands of the craziest, most maddening days I’ll ever hope to see.

And I’m cool with that. Because there’s a thought that calms me down and pushes me forward every day – he (for sake of discussion) only wants one thing right now. And I know that I can give it to him.

Sure, he’ll need a house and a room and a place to sleep. He’ll need Halloween costumes, birthday candles and hidden Easter eggs. When he’s 16, he’ll need me to get out of the car so he can pick up his Homecoming date alone. When he’s 30, he’ll probably need me to babysit his kids.

But for now, he really only needs one thing from me – to be at the top of my game. He needs a Dad who’s fit enough, healthy enough and happy enough to do what needs done and have fun doing it. He needs a Dad with enough energy reserves to light up Sioux City, Iowa. He needs a Dad who’ll be playing on the floor more than lying on the couch. He needs a quick, clear thinker, a heavy lifter, and an all-around fixer of things mechanical and personal.

“Fall seven times, get up eight.” – Japanese Proverb
“Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.” – John Quincy Adams
“The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.” – Chinese Proverb
“Never give in. Never. Never. Never. Never.” – Winston Churchill
“Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.” – Samuel Johnson

These quotes all say the same thing. No matter how many obstacles you run into, what matters is that you’re able to overcome each of them, one at a time.

“Two steps forward, one step back” is usually a negative term to describe someone who is having trouble making progress. But switched around, “1 Step Back, 2 Steps Forward” means that instead of grousing or feeling guilty about a misstep, you can still come out ahead if you put your head down and push forward.

Steps back can take many forms: a family vacation, breaks in your routine, personal tragedies, injuries, or that lost weekend in front of the tube. A big mistake people make when trying to get healthier is that when they fall off a bit or something happens, they think they “have to start over”. Wrong! When missteps do happen, a better strategy is to simply take two steps forward. You’re still ahead of where you were before, far beyond the starting line.

(continued…)

I did my spring PFA yesterday at Langley.

Well, I am not sure how to put it but…I was okay with the results; a little bit disappointed, as I could have done a bit better. At any rate, no need crying over spoiled milk though. I did well and that’s all that there is to that.

Also, for the first time I did the Elliptical. I have done the treadmill in the past; and even though at the time I was in pretty good shape, it was a beast to get to the end…it was quite the ordeal. This time around with the Elliptical, it was the opposite. I suppose owning an elliptical does have some merits to it. I did quite well…next time it will be outstanding…I promise. Here are my scores:

• Push ups: 82 (Not as good as I wanted to; thought I would be able to pump out some more – score 90)
• Curl ups : 72 (This was pathetic, in fact, if am being honest, I probably did 50% properly – score 68)
• Elliptical: 240 calories, the equivalent of 10:33 – score – 100
• Final grade – Excellent High.

Having missed the last 2 cycles, I can’t say I am totally disappointed, but I will definitely push for the outstanding next time. My goal for this summer:

• Push ups: 105
• Curl ups: 105
• Elliptical/Bike: 300 calories in 12 minutes
• Final Grade in Fall – Outstanding High

I have also started a couple of challenge groups to help in the motivation department. See you next post!

Reach Other Goals by Starting With Your Self
– By Rebecca Pratt, Staff Writer

You’re a parent, school volunteer, Little League coach, and trusted assistant to your boss. You’ve been up since 6 a.m., made breakfast, packed lunches, cleaned the house, chauffeured the neighborhood kids, helped with homework, read bedtime stories, and finished extra work from the office. It’s 11:30. You’re exhausted. And, in about six-and-a-half hours you’ll begin the whole 24-hour cycle…again.

If you find yourself saying ‘Stop the merry-go-round, I want to get off!’ you’re not alone. Most of us—especially women, but men too (hey, there are reasons that men die younger than women)—have at some time found ourselves at the bottom of the heap when it comes to taking care of our needs.

The problem with that is that if we don’t take care of ourselves, sooner or later we won’t be of much use to anyone else—or to ourselves. Just as the airline attendant tells you to put on your own oxygen mask in an emergency before helping a child with theirs, you must take care of your own basic needs before you can attend to the needs of others. What’s more, being busy is not necessarily the same as being productive with meaningful activity. (Do the workaholics you know really accomplish that much more in proportion to the time they invest?)

If “putting yourself first” (a common admonition) sounds too selfish or too hard, try something simpler: put yourself on an equal footing with those you love and tend to. Do you insist that they get enough sleep? Start making that a priority for yourself too. Do you give them time for fun and socializing with friends? Then you do the same! Remember Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: human beings must meet their basic needs before they can move on to higher-level goals.

Since most of us already know that we should take care of ourselves—but often have trouble figuring out how to do it, here are some guidelines for getting there:

• Preserve your physical health with adequate sleep, exercise, and nutrition.
• Value your emotional health as much as the physical, with a support system of friends and a willingness to laugh—especially at yourself.
• Schedule fun activities on a regular basis—it’s just as important to plan pleasure as it is to plan work.
• Identify “busy behaviors” (or people) that drain your time and energy but aren’t really important, then dump ‘em, or at least minimize their hold on you.
• Kill two birds with one stone, combining family time with exercise, for example, which benefits everyone involved.
• Try to look at the problems in your life with new eyes to find solutions. If you’re a new mom, for instance, see if you can trade childcare with another new mom to get some time for yourself.
• Learn to say “No!” Your “yes” is valuable and should not be automatic. Instead, reserve it for the things that are most important to you.
• Don’t try to change every problem area in your life all at once. Start with one or two items, then expand as you get things under control.

Your life should be like a checking account, balancing out on a regular basis so that you always have assets to draw upon. By making even small deposits—taking care of yourself with a 10-minute walk or a nutritious meal—you’ll be amazed at the interest you’ll reap.

By Alice Turner

A new study has found that on average, after marriage the wife dedicates seven hours per week more to housework, while husbands do on average one hour less of housework.

“It’s a well-known pattern. There’s still a significant reallocation of labor that occurs at marriage — men tend to work more outside the home, while women take on more of the household labor,” said in a statement Frank Stafford, of the university’s Institute for Social Research (ISR), who directed the study. “And the situation gets worse for women when they have children,” he added in the statement.

I can hardly see the situation “worse” for women. It’s quite clear that men and women have different preferences and men tend to work more outside the home while women have a tendency of doing more housework. This is hardly a matter of culture but rather a psychological difference which goes far back to the beginnings of mankind and will not go away anytime soon. Also, the study found that both genders did more around the house after exchanging vows.

It was quite interesting to find out that while married men worked more inside their home, by an average of one hour, before they got married, unmarried women worked less than any other category of women. Married women with at least three children do around 28 hours a week, nearly threefold compared with their husbands’ 10 hours.

The study, which was federally-funded, is based on time-diaries and questionnaires from a nationally representative sample of men and women over a 10-year period between 1996 and 2005.