jo burgess hannon

fit for today, fit for life

The starting line and more questions

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Ever since I was a little kid, participating in end of school year races,  officially called Field Day, I wanted to win.  Somewhere there was (is?) a photo of me on my 10th birthday, my mom had baked 4 sheet cakes and made me this giant birthday cake for all the 4, 5, and 6 graders.  It was embarrassing and awesome all at once. I won a lot of ribbons sprinting.  I was probably good at it because most of childhood included hours chasing, and running from, my brothers.

Question 1: Ever spent hours down THAT rabbit hole searching for the one perfect picture, only to surface hours later empty handed, head swimming in the past?

Question 2: Turning double nickels this last spring,   I find sometimes it is hard to admit that I don’t have answers to all the questions I hear internally and externally. Is it a personality trait or stubbornness or just human nature?

And still, there is a starting line.  I find myself over and over again, right toe forward smudged into the chalk line drawn in the grass, shoulders leaning forward waiting for the beginning, only to realize that I am always at the beginning.  Right here, right now I have a new start. I am anxious and nervous to remind myself, “I am a beginner. This is a new situation with the individuals in front of me, it is ok that I don’t have answers to the questions swirling in my head. There is always room for a new 1st time.”

I can be a beginner.

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Ah, summer. 5 questions for the season

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1~ Did you know you can freeze watermelon?  Well, I was watching a cooking show where the host was freezing watermelon balls then whirring them up in a blender to make some sort of delicious cocktail.  Then a few days later, I knew I would not be able to eat all the watermelon I had cut up for family dinner.  Since I usually freeze leftover fruit, I tossed the chunks into the freezer container to add to my breakfast smoothie. It’s delicious.

2~Do you hall sprinklers from one part of your lawn to the other?  Ever leave one running all night because you missed hearing your timer ring?  (#metoo! pretty sure this not how this hashtag was meant to be used, going rebel and doing it anyway)  10+ years later, I am still so happy when I hear water rush into the pipes and the yard sprinklers come on. It was worth every penny to have them installed.

3~ Need a summer idea? When the heat gets to much you can always head to the city park with your bag of rollers.  I guess this is what Montana locals do as Honey and I witnessed first hand a woman sitting in her beachside lawn chair rolling up her hair in color coated  curlers.

Just to clarify: this is NOT me. I could never do this without a mirror!

 

4~ Need a laugh out loud movie?  Don’t miss a chance to see the movie Book Club while it is in theaters.  If your over 40 I think you’ll find it funny.  If your over 50 I think you might laugh out loud.  Take a friend too, because giggling in a movie theater is way more fun when you are next to a girlfriend.

5~ Do you every rush through one thing so you can get to the next thing sooner?  For this summer, I am going to try and be right here, right now so I can savor every last warm night, every delicious Rainer cherry, every giggle, every laugh, every pink sky.

Because, summer.  Hello Seattle, you shine brightest during the summertime.

What would MLK do?

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Where’s my mamma????? And nope, not one relative in this photo.

 

About the time we were baptizing our daughter in the St. Luke’s vestibule, the phrase “What Would Jesus Do?” became a faith mantra. Bracelets and rubber wrist bands with the acronym WWJD were everywhere. I bet now instead of brackets, tattoos are more popular.

 

Would you choose the corner or the middle piece of the cake? I am middle all the way, and then I still scrape the frosting off.

 

So anyway, there was a Martin Luther King day event held locally Seattle this year that championed the  phrase “take a knee.’ I shook my head a bit when I first saw the flyer. It just felt off. On one hand, I kind of get it.  MLK was all about nonviolent acts to further civil rights.  And, there is nothing violent about choosing not to sing.

However, while NFL football players took a knee during the national anthem in protest of police violence against blacks, the action was viewed by many as unpatriotic and disrespectful to our flag and military. Would Martin Luther King be grateful and excited our community supported this action in his name? I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. My perspective is limited and possibly tainted by my white girl upbringing, reciting the pledge of allegiance to America every Monday throughout elementary school, my dad fighting in the Korean war, my brother serving in Vietnam, a nephew in the today’s Navy. I grew up with, and still have today, a deep rooted respect for the American flag.

So my question is this: isn’t there another way, any other way, than choosing this divisive topic, to celebrate the works and help further the efforts of a great man?  Wouldn’t  MKL want his name to be the voice for inclusion, rather than excluding those that would always stand while removing their hat for the National Anthem and therefore not attend this event because of the unpatriotic nature it represents?

What would Martin Luther King do? Though I would not wear it on a bracelet, it is a good question to ponder.

Our nation lost a great man when Baptist Minister Martin Luther King was assassinated. How can we best honor the life he gave for the people of this country?

And tomorrow our nation, one nation under God,  celebrates a savior risen.  He has risen indeed.

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I’m leaning in and enjoying every bite

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Pizza by the slice on The Campo, Sienna, Italy May 2016

 

As our extra-large Pride and Joy meat & veggie lovers pizza arrived, the man sitting next to me at The Rock bar says he never eats pizza because it is all carbs, all carbs are bad and he doesn’t eat carbs.  The health coach in me rose to my lips and I said right back, ‘who says carbs are bad?’ As he went on about how he eats a healthy, all organic diet, he proclaimed again how bad carbs were.  I swallowed my bite of pizza, which was delicious by the way, and I fired off something along the lines of ‘what makes YOU the expert?  Are you a doctor, a nutritionist or other trained specialist?’ I need to mention that he was chugging a 16 ounce carb rich, non-organic, maybe GMO loaded, breweski.

Have I ever written on this blog that I might be a little outspoken? OK, Honey might raise one eyebrow (if he could) at the word little. You know why I was rankled?  I didn’t even know this guy and he was pizza shamming me.  Maybe this isn’t as bad as what Gaga endured after her Super Bowl performance, but really?  Dude, we are in a pizza restaurant.  People are EXPECTED to order pizza.

I turned my body slightly toward Honey to finish my slice and raised an eyebrow. He nudged my knee under the table, his way of saying leave it alone. It’s the silent language of couples and most seem to have their own dialect.  My one sided eyebrow raising skill was learned back in Mr. Luft’s high school social studies class.  It was probably one of the most boring classes I ever took, so I usually sat in the back of the room and silently made faces at other back rowers.  One guy, and I don’t even remember who, could raise a single eyebrow at a time.

Usually it’s not the guy next to us that tries to ruin the perfect slice of cheesy goodness, it’s the voice in our head.  Like him, we have these stories we tell ourselves on a wide range of topics. When it comes to food we tend to repeat restrictive words over and over resulting in a whole lot guilt around our food choices.  All foods fit: some more abundantly on a daily basis, some more moderately and less frequently.

And that eyebrow raising skill? Its harder than it looks.

By the end of the semester I was a master.