We could cast shadows on clouds

This week I was at the library picking books for my kids and I found a great book, it's called Zen Shorts by Jon J Muth. For anyone with kids, I highly recommend it. It's about a panda who meets 3 children and tells them 3 different stories. One of them is about a farmer and how a series of "bad" and "good" events turn out to be the opposite of what they seem. I really don't want to say if you get lemons make lemonade, but nothing else comes to mind. For example, a couple of years ago, I finally found out that I have malformed kidneys which was why I was suffering through several kidney stones a year, infections and all kinds of fun stuff. I was so relieved to find out that it was something real and I wasn't imagining things. Since then I have drastically changed my life. I am so much healthier now than I was then. I am lucky that my problem is minor and can be controlled by a healthy lifestyle, and it turned out to be an amazing turning point in my life.


On Monday the 26th, to start the Chinese New Year off, the students at Silent River Kung Fu were given a challenge to do 1000 pushups and situps. I have never participated in these challenges simply because I thought it was too hard for me. I have watched my husband go through a few of these challenges before and thought to myself, wow, I'm glad that's not me! But on Monday I did it too. I woke up really unenthused at the prospect of doing pushups first thing in the morning. As the day went on I was surprised how great it felt, besides the burning muscles and joints of course. At the end of the night the best part of crossing off the last 20 reps on my page wasn't getting to say that I had done 1000 pushups but that I had stuck with it even though it hurt.

I know that the next 12 months are going to be hard. Like I'm sure everyone else has, I have started to find out that there are some parts that are going to be really tough. There are already nights that I don't feel like doing anything... but I know without a doubt that being a part of the UBBT is a turning point in my life that is definitely for the better.