You Know the Saying....When You're On Your Deathbed....

.....you aren't ever going to wish you spent more time at the office.

Yes, I know you have all heard it - I have - in fact, I have said it to others 1,000 of times...and seeing my grandma on her death bed - literally - it forced me to sit back and look at my life and how I am spending my time.

Right now so much of my energy goes towards my job - and as my loving husband pointed out - I may be reaching a point of diminishing return...meaning the long hours I am working may not be paying off in the quality of my work output. I think I function best when I am very busy so that feels comfortable to me...but there is a point at which being very busy and being overwhelmed prevents me from doing my best work. Does that make sense?

I am not going to beat myself up over not working out last week as much as I wanted or even the week before - I injured myself and lost my grandmother. Which brings me to my next update....on Saturday, June 21st my Grandmother passed away and moved on to the next place...she is now with the friends and family members she has lost along the way. I am so happy for her in that she is no longer in pain or hurting and that her life was long and full of joy. She had 6 kids and 20+ grandkids! What a wonderful life! Thanks to all of you for your support and thoughts. I love you grandma and you will always be a special part of my life! Please celebrate her life and don't be sad - she is in a better place and I guarantee she is reconnecting with lost friends and family looking down on us all with love!

Outside of losing my grandmother and thinking about how I am spending my time, one of Visionquester's posts made a big impact on me this week and that was Stephanie's email to her about taking it one meal, one workout at a time. For those of you who missed it, here is an excerpt from her email:

do the work and the results will come. Don't concentrate on 'I have "x" amount of time' - just concentrate on your next work out - your next meal - your next cardio session... Keep it small - keep it simple...DO NOT CHANGE A THING when it comes to your thinking...Not too much pressure on any one certain day, any one certain meal, any one certain cardio session...It's just one more - that's all- one more"

I am terrible at trying to think too far in the future or think about the past and focus on those things instead of focusing on having my next meal be a good one or getting in my next workout. Stephanie wrote this in an email to Cynthia and yes, I knew this one too but sometimes things just hit you.

This moment, I am focusing on my next meal and making it healthy and good and to feed my body the nourishing food it needs and I am also going to focus on my next workout. And once I have my next meal and my next workout complete, I will focus on the next meal and workout. Little bites....baby steps. So much better than thinking I have to tackle it in one fail swoop.

A couple other things:

• Jody finished the Ozark Valley Triathlon a full 3 minutes faster than he did last year for a time of 1:46 minutes! I am so proud of him - he did amazingly well and he is my heart, my joy!
• A HUGE thanks to Jody for going to Louisiana with me and spending time with my grandma. This is one reason I am so thankful he is in real estate because he could leave and go with me and even though he was COMPLETELY out of his element and hanging out with a bunch of red necks :), he was there for me and I couldn't have asked for more.
• On our way home we had a flat tire on the Jetta at 10:30 at night in BFE. We got the flat right in front of someone's house so we pulled into their driveway to use the light from the street lamp to change the tire. Lo and behold, Jody has completely PIMPED out our car....so we have custom wheels. Wheels that require a special lug wrench that will fit through the holes in the wheel....well, we didn't know this until we got the flat at 10:30pm in Fordyce, Arkansas - population 4700. But where we blew the tire was about 5 miles outside of Fordyce. Luckily, the guy that lived in the house we stopped in front of - who was about 75 and probably wondering why a pimped out jetta and two honkey's with a dog had everything in their trunk on his driveway - was SUPER nice and called his neighbor who ended up ultimately having the proper tools to get the wheel off. An hour and a half later we were on our way!

WHEW! Funny stuff.

Hope everyone had a great weekend! I am back at it kids!
Jess


Jess