Coming back from a visit to Tulsa, my home city, last January, I felt a strong pull to move back there. I fully envisioned where we would live and what school our girls would attend. I felt a yearning inside my heart for this. When I arrived back in Ohio and asked my husband if it was possible, he had been having his own pulling. His pull was to move back to California, where we had lived before moving here to Ohio. I felt deflated and yet hopeful because I love California. So, we decided to move back to LA. The sign went in the yard and we started preparing ourselves mentally for that move. I’ve struggled as a parent to make decisions for our girls that would be beneficial for their future. I’ve laid awake at night questioning what exactly those things are. My values for them, who I want them to be, and where I want them to go in this life. I have been a parent who believes that it is within my realm of responsibility to cast vision for them. To be a part of God’s plan to give them a hope and a future. It isn’t lightly that I make this decision to move them away from the comfort of all they’ve known–so far. In fact, I’ve been paralyzed with fear at making the wrong decisions. I think most of us agree that parenting is not for the weak-hearted. God help us all.

In the process of that last several months, I began to have an anxiety about moving back to LA. Putting our girls in school out there. I began to have nightmares and insomnia. But yet, if my husband felt that that is where God was leading us, I had to trust. So I prayed for peace. I prayed for God to give me peace about the decision because I believe that He has a plan for all of us. In late March, my husband came home from a business trip to LA, and I could no longer keep my anxiety quiet so I shared with him what was going on in my heart. My husband looked at me and told me that he too had began to have anxiety about the move and said, “I think it would be best for you if we moved back to Tulsa.” I felt like the wind got knocked out of me. And not only did he say, but long after I had gone to bed, he had been awake looking at houses online. He suggested we go to Tulsa over the girls’ spring break to look at houses. I was in disbelief. But we did. I waited upon telling anyone, we just seem so crazy sometimes. I wanted to be sure that the situation was real. So, we are moving back to Tulsa.

I know this brings disappointment to some and joy to others. It brings sadness to my heart because goodbye is never never never easy. Not only for me, but I must contend with the sadness of two little girls who stand on the cusp of saying goodbye. This tears me apart. And so I have stuffed all of that as there were many many more weeks before school was out. But now, only 10 days remain. And reality is setting in. Relocating one’s family is one of the most stressful events in a person’s life. I do not underestimate this change.

And today was the beginning of the tears.

I had some financial obligations to finish up with at my daughter’s elementary school today. So I went in and found that her lunch account was current and that she would actually have an overflow, normally the school would just push this into the next school year, but since she wouldn’t be attending, I asked how they would handle that refund. It was the first time I verbally spoke out loud that she would not be attending next year. And suddenly all the stuffing and suppressing came to the surface. Right there I broke down in front of the office staff. And I couldn’t stop. They handed me tissue while I signed the check for some other business and told me they understood.

There is a lot to do between now and the move which is set for the first of August. But one thing I know, we are all in this together. My little family. And if we are together that’s all that matters in the end.

This morning while cleaning out my youngest daughter’s backpack I found this little piece of artwork. I know that it was her Mother’s Day gift to me and she had forgotten to give it. It affirmed and confirmed my position with her and I hope to build upon it for the rest of her life. Something that she and I like to do together is to play frisbee in the street. What a gift.

MARGARET ELIZABETH SANGSTER, “The Gypsy Spirit”

Five weeks ago a friend of mine posted on Facebook that she was going to ban sugar and dairy from her diet for 30 days. She asked if anyone would be interested in joining her. She had in recent months had surgery on her back and was still suffering from inflammation and pain. Some of you may or may not know that what we eat can trigger or make this issue worse. Sugar, dairy, and wheat (grains) can be a culprit. They also trigger allergies. I’m a pretty health minded person so I know that white processed sugar is bad bad bad. But who can resist? We are ALL ADDICTED to sugar. It’s in everything from ketchup to cereal to anything that comes in a box on the grocery isle. It’s even used in processed meats! I thought about her offer for a split second and decided it would be a good idea to get away from sugar for a month. So I told her that I would join her. As we shared a little about the strategy, she sent me a link to a website, RobbWolf.com and as I looked it over I thought why not take it to another level and completely wipe out sugar, dairy, grains and ALL processed foods. I had heard a lot about the Paleo diet because it’s pretty big among crossfitters. And well, have you seen their abilities? Not to mention their bodies? Now, although I mention bodies, changing my body wasn’t my ultimate goal here. My ultimate goal was to detox from all the junk I had been eating and see if my performance increased. I suffer from frequent headaches and chronic pain from stress in my upper back, neck, and shoulders. I thought if she’s doing this to decrease inflammation..then maybe this could work for me too. And work it did.

I just want to say that this is MY experience. I do not know what your specific issues are or if you have any. This is what it did for me:

I have not had a headache since the first week in. Although with the sudden change in season, I did have one allergy headache this past week, that was quickly corrected by my chiropractor. For someone who has a headache on a daily basis..this is HUGE. One headache in 30 days? Thank you.

My energy level has increased by leaps and bounds. I’m not even being dramatic when I say this. It’s like before I lived with a cloud of fatigue hanging over me and was tired when I woke up. Fought through the day, fought through workouts, fought with tired of being tired and nothing I did fixed this. Once I eliminated the processed carbs and sugar from my diet and got past the sugar cravings that hit in day 6..I was like another woman. And I’m still going strong. Bright eyed. Awake. And motivated! This is the BIGGEST change I’ve seen in my physical health.

Although, my weight was not an issue before (since I run and eat somewhat good) my body has changed. An acquaintance mentioned that I must’ve lost 20lbs having stayed on this for 30 days, but the truth of the matter is, I didn’t have 20 pounds to lose. I didn’t even have 10 to lose. In fact, my weight has stayed the same give or take 2 or 3 lbs. BUT what has changed is my size. And I’m only going to mention my size here to show what the diet has done for me, I was an average size 6 before. I am now a comfortable size 2. But how can my weight not change and my size go down? Because I’ve lost body fat and maintained muscle, if not even added a bit of muscle growth. This is awesome. However, had I had the extra 20 or 10 to lose, I would have lost a good portion of it in this 30 day challenge.

So here is the deal:
Expensive? Only you can say. I do not know what your shopping habits are or the foods that go to waste because they were not eaten as a result of eating out too many times. For us, cutting out eating out and sticking to the 4 week menu plan offered by Robb Wolf helped tremendously. So it balanced out as far as expense for us. Also, I bought grass fed beef, free range chicken and eggs, and organic vegetables and fruits. Coconut oil and coconut flour and almond meal are all expensive if bought at Whole Foods, this can be remedied by buying online or at your local ethnic grocer. Also to help save, I bought farm fresh hormone, antibiotic free eggs from a friend who sells them for $2 a dozen. Sure beats that $3.79 a dozen at Trader Joe’s. Now that spring and summer are here/coming buy your organic veggies at your local farmer’s market. Cheap.

Time consuming? A bit. I was in my kitchen cooking breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack/dessert. But I was prepared with all that I needed for the day so that cut my time. The meals were not time consuming to make, they were very simple, but to some the idea of making every meal for 30 days can feel time consuming. And if you work, you will have to get creative about your lunches. Make them ahead of time and take them with you. Not hard, just strategy and desire to do it.

Studies show that fat is not what makes us fat. Sugar is what makes us fat by jacking up our blood sugar and insulin levels. And NON-FAT foods are full of sugar to help cover the taste of being fat free. This diet is full of good fat! Butter, I buy grass fed butter or pasture butter, coconut oil for frying/sauteeing, and Olive oil. Nut oils are good too..walnut, sesame, etc..Olive oil for light sauteeing and salad dressings. This diet gives lots of opportunity to consume nuts (NOT peanuts as that is a legume). I have eaten a lot of walnuts, pecans, and almonds in the last 30 days. All raw..not roasted. Except for when the recipe called for roasted like in a baked apple crumble.

So here is what Paleo is: Meats including dark meat, wild game, pork, free range poultry, grass fed beef (cow or bison), eggs. Nuts and seeds. Organic vegetables and fruits (berries most important to be organic. Fruits that have a peeling or rind are okay as conventional, such as: oranges, limes, lemons, canteloupe, pineapple, watermelon.
Here is what it is not: Dairy (other than butter for fat), legumes, grains, sugar.

I am certainly not an expert on Paleo. But I am learning. I know what it has done for me in these 30 days and now that I’ve completed it, I have decided that a 90/10 eating style will work best for me. 90% Paleo and 10% conventional. This will allow me to have birthday cake, popcorn at the movies, an occasional pepsi, a girlscout cookie, dinners at friends houses, a a cocktail/beer..etc…because this is doable for me and it makes sense to me. I feel better than I have in a long long time and nothing can compete with that.

As far as my athletic performance in running. At first, I felt great as my body was still burning off the stored carbs, but as that became depleted and my body switched to burning fat for fuel (which was created by stored carbs), my training suffered a bit. It was a transition to allow my body to do that. The third week was the hardest for me. My training runs seemed very difficult and I was hitting a wall early in the lower mileage. This caused me a bit of concern because I didn’t want to fill my body with junky carbs in order to perform. So I ordered the book The Paleo Diet for Athletes and this helped me understand how to fuel up for training runs and races. For most people this may not be much of an issue.

I’m a runner who sets goals. I do not run just for exercise alone. I run for the accomplishment of seeing my potential. I run so that I can race. And I want to keep pushing myself to see what I’m made of. So, from the time I could walk (at 10 months) I have been a competitor. I ran track all through elementary school and only lost one race. Ever. I was a short distance sprinter. So I’m genetically “gifted” to haul ass for a short period of time. Endurance has always been my biggest achilles heel. It is unfortunate that I did not have parents who pushed me to become more than I was. I have remembered this with my own children. So, once I started training for longer distances my inner sprinter/competitor has come into play. I just started so late in the game that I will never fully be what I could have been, but I am going to do my best right where I’m at. I give every training run its proper respect and I don’t waste time. I pretty much stay in training mode except for January and part of February. Those are the months where I fun run/jog or just chill while I plan out my racing year.

I had a great 10k race yesterday and I tapped into potential that I didn’t know I could achieve. I did not know I could hold the stamina of an 8:30 pace for more than a 5k race. I had not been able to do it efficiently in any of my training runs this year. This has been my dream pace since I started endurance running a year and a half ago. Everything I’ve done has been with this pace in mind. To me, it means I’m a contender.

Yesterday.

I had not slept all night long. I went to bed at 10pm and woke up at 1am. And then stayed awake with fitful dozing the rest of the night. Finally, at 6am I got up to start my day. My stomach had been bothering me all night long and was still in a jumble. I kept trying to breathe it off and relax as I prepared to drive the 40 minutes to downtown Columbus for the race. I was feeling terrible. I was also by myself as my husband is in Florida working and I never ask my friends, most who don’t run, to come stand in the cold and wait for me. I was stressed out about parking and where to put my car keys and blah blah blah..I couldn’t find my waist pouch. I also gone down prior in the week to pick up my race packet to find they weren’t ready when they said they would be and that I would have to come back. I didn’t want to waste gas going all the way back into Columbus, so I decided to pick it up on race day. This added to my stress. Just extra work is all. On the way down, I was mentally struggling to make myself feel better physically, but then a song came on the radio. I don’t know why, but suddenly it was as if a lightening bolt jolted through me and I became God conscious. I reminding Him that I had been faithful to my training and that although I knew it was all on me, I asked Him to run with me. I became emotional and happy all at the same time. The song was by Havana Brown ft Pit Bull, We Run The Night.
When I arrived I was amazed at how many people were there to run. There were two races in one, a 5k and a 10k. We would all run together, while the 10k runners would run the loop twice.
I think there was a total of 1500 people. I grabbed my race packet, ran back to my car, pinned my number on, stashed my free t-shirt in the car and headed back into the building to stay warm. It was cold and misty. At 10 minutes till 9 (race time) I went out and joined the start line crowd. I chose to step into the middle somewhere as I didn’t want to be in the front and in anybody’s way because there were some serious bad ass looking runners up there. Once the gun started we began to move forward past the start line. Immediately, I was passing people. I felt strong and focused. In less than half a mile we had a nice hill to push up..I was passing people on the hill. I kept telling myself to conserve that this was six miles not three. But I felt so good..I went with it. I continued passing people, while running the rolling hills of the course, at a pretty good clip until about mile 3 when the 5k racers diverted off the path, leaving the rest of us 10k runners to continue on. This is when I leveled out.

On occasion I would pass an individual here and there, mostly on the hills, but for the most part we were all in a steady pace. I looked at my Garmin and it showed I was running an 8:31-8:40 pace. My first thought coming into the fourth mile was, “There is no way I can maintain this pace, I’m gonna burn out soon.” But I never did. And as I hit mile 5, strong, I realized that I was running with people who ran 8:30 paces, and was holding my own. Psychologically this was the most spectacular feeling and revelation. I literally said to myself, “I’m one of them.” I kept pushing. Rolling hills and I’m still on target. As we came into the finish with .20 miles to go, a girl on my left shoulder asked me what my split time was, I looked at my watch and it said, 7:43. I was running a 7:43 mile. I almost started crying right there. But I wanted to finish strong so I held my emotions in tact. I crossed the finish line with a 52:45 time and felt high as a kite. The hardest part about this run was that I ended up alone at the end, I didn’t have any support people there. No one was there to high five or hug. That was very difficult emotionally and mentally. I sat in my car and cried to release some of that energy. And because I had accomplished a great race and realized that I had more in me to give. I’m thankful to all my online friends who encourage me and support me. I carry you guys with me on every race because I set goals, you see these goals, and I don’t want to disappoint you. This puts me on target for my sub two hour half marathon in Cincinnati at the Flying Pig on May 6th. The question is..can I double the distance at this pace? We’ll see.

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As you can see in this image the crop is very tight. Although when looking through the optical viewfinder it showed that I had plenty of space in the image. I ran into this problem numerous times as I did the old “chimping” method (take the pic, look at the screen) to check the image focus and framing. This is one of those objects in mirror may seem closer than they appear things. It’s going to take some time to get used to the optical viewfinder, but I’m determined to figure it out as I think in the long run I will obtain the quality and style that I’m looking for in my street photography work.

This couple here were playing with makeshift instruments, spoons and a suitcase. I had always heard of spoons as an instrument but had not had the pleasure of actually hearing them played in the way that I had read about. This was fantastic. We (my husband and I) were so impressed with this duo’s musical talent that we stood and listened for several minutes. We threw some money into their box and they gave us a smile and a nod as they continued playing, we went on our merry way. There is so much talent in the world. I feel like they gave us a gift. The gift of ingenuity with their talent, spoons and a suitcase. Amazing.

So far in 2012:

I’ve ran a half marathon race
Reunited with my birthson after nearly 22 years
My husband has traveled to the middle east
We have put our house on the market
We will be moving back to Los Angeles, soon.

To say that this year is off to a crazy intense start would be an understatement.

I hesitate and ask God, “Are we moving too fast?” Because it seems that all of the waiting has suddenly come to an end. Suddenly. In many areas.

My word for 2012 is “Conquer” but I’m thinking it should be “Suddenly” But perhaps they go hand in hand and I should have two words that call this year out.

California.

I have confessed that I love it. But I not only love it, I am passionate about it. I dream about it. I love the air, the idea, the freedom, the diversity, the weather, the terrain, the people, the dream. Many people know this about me. I am an adventurer. I always knew we would go back to California, it was always in the future somewhere when the kids were grown…and we were older. Too old perhaps to enjoy it fully. We’ve been confronted with the issue of moving back many many times and every time the frustration being a wall of resistance that prohibited us from making the move. It was either finances, or our kids and their school/friends, or the work..or the fear. Oh dear Lord, yes, the fear. I’ve written about this issue many many times–my fear.

When I lived in Los Angeles prior to moving to Ohio, I had an amazing job working with people I really really liked. It was an exciting job working for the American Cinematheque. I was in my element. Daily, I was confronted with the humanity of homelessness, global tourists, urban landscaping in the form of graffitied walls, earthquake crippled sidewalks, street musicians, costumed characters and Walk of Fame stars. My employment at the Egyptian Theater had me in Hollywood on the Blvd four to five nights a week. It was amazing and I miss it every day.

We explored various famed locals like Hearst Castle up the coast in San Simeon, the intensely steep hilled streets of San Francisco, and even visited Skywalker Ranch to hang out with Academy Award winner Gary Rydstrom who was mixing the sound recording for A Bug’s Life. And this was just the beginning. The company in which we found ourselves was exciting, to say the least.

Once we had our first child, I found myself part of a mommy group. We all had our babies within months of each other and would make dates to walk the canyons in the warm beautiful California sunshine pushing our babies in jogging strollers while talking about various creative ambitions. I loved my life.

I am looking forward to returning. I am looking forward to finding myself again in that place. In the city I love, Los Angeles. I will be writing more on this as the days go by and we find ourselves in one of the biggest moves of our life. We now have two children and that first one is in middle school. Things will be different. It won’t be what it was before…it will be challenging as we have already begun to make preparations for the life changes ahead. I keep dreaming of those earthquake crippled sidewalks, the smell of jasmine, the palm trees overhead, long runs on the beach, the connections we’ll make with insiders, the entertainment industry, the dreams of hopefuls coming to make it big–did you know that people still come to Hollywood to make it big? They do and I gotta tell you, it’s inspiring. Dreaming is good. What’s your dream?

My first birthday, center position, between cousins.

The final image here courtesy of my sister, Joanna. Nice shot, sis!