Five Week Boothbay Harbor YMCA Challenge

I am not afraid of bugs. Sometimes I find a spider in my home or in my classroom and I'll grab a tissue, pick it up gently, and put it outside. I swat at mosquitoes and horseflies biting me, but I'm always surprised when I see somebody happen upon an insect minding its own business, shriek with fear or disgust, and then squash it, dead. The insect was just doing its insect thing. Even the pesky mosquito is just being himself. So I wonder what the wasp that climbed up my pants leg last Friday was thinking. Certainly, she did not intend to get trapped inside my pants. Had I threatened her nest? Had she intended to defend it, only to get trapped in a labyrinth of denim? I twisted and swatted at myself as she stung me over and over again. I tore my pants off and threw them inside out on the ground. By the time I made it to the ER the next day, my leg was hot, all of the bites swollen together in a giant red lump. I couldn't even bend my knee. Maybe it was the shot of steroids...

I have never really liked riding a bike. But Charles enjoys biking. Back when he and I first met, he persuaded me to ride with him. I'll only ride the bike if it's pink and has a basket and a bell, I said , and a big cushy seat because biking hurts my butt. Pink, bell, basket, cushy seat, I demanded . Otherwise, forget it. I should have known better than to put Charles to a challenge because before too long a bike we called "Roxie" entered my life. She was pink all over and met every single requirement. I was shocked she even existed. I loved Roxie, but not because I learned to love riding a bike. I loved Roxie because of what she stood for: my ability to ask for what I want and get it, Charles' willingness to try and please me, a return to childhood whims left unfulfilled, and a dozen other things I could never explain. Sometimes I felt like Roxie represented things I didn't even understand. Ultimately, Roxie retired. She found her way into the girls' ...

I was so proud of myself last week. I exercised every day, sometimes more than once, and I wrote about each new experience I had. In 8 short days, I had become a Person Who Exercises. Everything that is supposed to happen was happening: my mood was better, I had more energy, my skin was glowing, and I felt stronger. I vowed to carry my exercise habit into the school year, and friends were asking me if I would be doing a Hometown YMCA Challenge Blog next. And then it all unraveled, starting with a pair of Exercise Capris from the Dollar Store. I've always been a little skeptical of the "athleisure" trend. Word blends are annoying and I can't wear multi-colored spandex capris with mesh side cutouts to work. Any spare cash I have goes toward finding Appropriately Boring Teacher Outfits. I'm envious of the Workout Moms who rush out of Barre Piyo Crossfit to pick their kids up at school in their PowerLite Gia Fabletics Capris. They look hot and I look frumpy and ti...

Earlier this summer I did some educational consulting in New Hampshire, and in between sessions I got the chance to visit with an old college friend, Erika. Arriving at her house, I got out of my car and she remarked on my blazer. "Look at you," she said. "Wow!" I own two blazers. One is white linen and the other is navy blue. I put them on when I want to look like I know what I'm doing.  "Don't pay any attention to the blazer," I told Erika. "It doesn't mean anything." Day 8: 9:15 am Easy Rider Cycling I wake up at 5 am and drag myself out of bed for Total Body Challenge. Meagan is mysteriously absent today and so are Super Nice Middle Aged In-Shape Woman and Nice Classmate. I have to create my own program of cardio, weights and sit ups and it's not easy. I worry a little bit about how I'm going to carry my new love of attending exercise classes into the fall, but I decide to put off thinking about that for now...

I didn't get to write a post on Friday, but I did attend Friday's Total Body Challenge at 5:30 am. I started to feel less like an awkward outsider and more like the new kid in class and I chuckled while some of my classmates groaned or harassed each other to lift their core during Meagan's rapid-fire program of jumping jacks, weights, and sit-ups. The girls joined me for Aqua Combo at 8 am, which is another brand of Water Aerobics in the cold pool. We stayed for a swim in the Mermaid Pool and chatted with some of my Mermaid Friends; I learned that one Mermaid is a former grade 7 teacher, and the other had her babies at Beverly Hospital like I did. My friends Jen and Scott arrived on Southport at dinner time, and the girls and I went over for a visit. Because I am ridiculously awkward, I somehow managed to scrape my leg on the side of a piece of furniture while also sort of tumbling head first into a bookcase. "It's ok," I joked with Jen, "I'll put it ...

Publishing my blog ended up being a little more complicated than it originally seemed, both technically and emotionally. My friend Adrianne and I talk a lot about something called "Imposter Syndrome". Wikipedia defines it as, "a concept describing high-achieving individuals who are marked by an inability to internalize their accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as a fraud."  I've struggled with Imposter Syndrome all of my life. In fact, I worked as an educational consultant earlier this year and had a nasty case of it.   Do I really have anything of value to offer? I wondered.   Are my ideas dumb and obvious? In the case of this blogging project, after I let more people know I was doing it and added the subscribe option, I started to worry that this whole project was ridiculous and stupid and that my writing is horrible, trite, and a waste of everyone's time. I sent frantic texts to Allison and Adrianne asking if I should erase the whole t...