Health Trek Day 38

Many of my friends and family are going through hard times with job losses and cutbacks causing financial hardship. I remember being a single parent with three children and how scared and depressed I could become worrying about our future. How do we get through such hard times and what good do all the platitudes that people say to you truly do. Things like, "ten years from now, you'll be able to laugh at this." or "you are much better off than some people so you should be thankful" or simply, "this too shall pass". I know from experience that knowing that someone else is worse off does not change my situation or make me any less scared, or less worried when these problems are looming on MY horizon. I remember I got through them by making daily plans of things I could do to change the situation, praying a lot, and trying to keep my kids from knowing just how scared and worried I was. I tried to find ways to have fun that didn't cost money. When the cable TV was shut off because we didn't have the means to pay it, we started having board game night. We read books together, had picnics outside, took walks and just talked to each other. I think the best thing we did is to pull together and work out the problems as a team. No blame games, or wallowing in self pity. Just pulling together and doing what needed to be done on a daily basis. Not looking too far ahead or too far back. Just living day by day. I remember one time we had lost our home and a woman had let us move into a one room cabin next to a small stream. We had to pump our water with a hand pump at the sink. We had to use pails to flush the toilet. We had no washer or dryer and often did not have money to go to the laundry mat, which meant washing our clothes by hand. One day I came home from work and found all the kids busy washing the clothes in a tub of water using the top of my broiler pan as a scrubbing tool. They had strung up ropes to hang the clothes on and were having a ball. They thought of the whole nightmare as an adventure! That is how we got through it. Finding a way to make it an adventure. Looking for the fun. A spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down. I guess that is all we can do, what we must do to get through the hard times. Whether we are trying to make ends meet or reach weight loss goals we can use this philosophy. Take one day at a time, find the fun in the chore and make life an adventure every day.
Rock on everyone!

I wrote this poem on Sunday for my son-in-law's birthday:

WHY
When the world is green
And the days are long
It is fun to bask
In Nature's sweet song
Our troubles seem to be
So far away
We work for awhile
Then come home to play
But when the winds blow cold
And our supplies become low
We are getting too old
To keep working so
We wonder sometimes why
Things are so hard
Why keep going
To bring home the lard
When we struggle each day
Far into the night
Then head for home
We see a bright light
At the end of the road
When we open the door
We suddenly know
What we're struggling for
Our families are there
With such trust in their eyes
A fire in the hearth
In the oven some pies
Such simple pleasures
But without them we'd be
just the shell of the person
God intended we be.

JPH
11/8/09

Plan for today:
Breakfast: tea and English muffin
Snack: fruit
Lunch: tuna sandwich
Snack: pretzels
Dinner: beef and onions, brown rice, carrots
Kitchen closed!

Exercise: Walking with Ben, Yoga and THE LIST!