I am very cognizant of the fact that although I started this blog with the best of intentions, I am spread too thin these days to post as often as I would like. I am keeping a log of my training and nutrition on precisionnutrition.com and with daily posting there, training 4 days a week (yay, that's a check mark for the entry "Get back to training 4-5 times a week " on my list of 40). Got myself a trainer - interesting relationship really, we've never met face-to-face, it's a distance program where he keeps track of my training and diet based on the updates (including girth and weight PLUS photos), and he writes my training plan. He's been keeping tabs on my nutrition too, the bit I'm having SERIOUS trouble with. Sigh, why must everything that makes me happy (in the way of food and alcohol) be bad for me? I continue the battle, knowing that this for me is the greatest struggle, but keeping at it because I wanna turn 40 looking fan-freakin-tastic.
Right now I should be working on my presentation paper for this week's conference in Nassau, but so don't feel like it. This is taking procrastination to higher heights. Just got back from seeing "Rambo" with my partner in procrastination, Craig. Good procrastination flick - he goes to Burma, blows shit up, the end. Good old John Rambo. Kinda sorta looks the same as he did THIRTY YEARS AGO...yay for growth hormones (eeeeeewwwww).
Fell into this weekend in a bit of a funk - think I have had enough of winter, but also think I have become a Valentine scrooge...sad isn't it? I didn't feel any kind of distress or whatever about the whole Valentine thing coming and going, but the fact that I was in a funk immediately after, suggests that...yuck, I don't wanna be a bitter, grouchy spinster, gotta fix that, but I think I really want to end this period of singledom.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Celebrating my grandmother
Just got back to Orlando after a tiring day of travelling - coming back from Jamaica after my gran's memorial service. Here's a version of the eulogy I gave there:
Today we are here to celebrate the life of Albertine Hamilton Steele, Miss Bert, Mrs. Steele, wife, mother, aunt, grandmother, great-grandmother and Christian - my grandmother. For those of us here, she was all these things and more.
She was a proud, but simple woman. She never wore make-up that I can recall, but loved getting her hair styled nicely and putting on a nice dress. I remember one weekend when Grandma showed up at our house in Kingston wearing a pink pantsuit - she looked good, and she knew she did. This is the person I like to think about, the person who makes me smile - a very sombre, serious lady most of the time, but she loved a good joke, even if the joke was at her expense. She loved surprising us, catching us off-guard, like showing up in Kingston in a stylish pantsuit when we would have sworn she would never be seen wearing pants.
Today it amazes me to contemplate the fact that Grandma was born before there was such a thing as indoor plumming, television, or microwaves. She never worked at a paying job, yet she was one of the hardest-working women I have known. Her husband Ashton, my grandfather, died leaving his 7 children from his first wife, and the 4 children they had together, my mother, Hilma, My Uncle Dorrie, my Uncle Lin and my Uncle Nal. Grandma devoted the rest of her life to this family and to dozens of other people she mothereed along the way. She never tired of giving. Over the years I have heard so many stories of her kindness to others. And although she was always busy, she would take the time to o see how you were, and be genuinely interested in your life. Heaven knows how many people have stayed at that tiny house at 13 Boundbrook Road. The children, grandchildren, cousins, neighbours, friends down on their luck. We each stayed there and learned from her example, to treat others with respect, to be kind to our neighbours, to never forget our humble beginnings, and to always strive for more.
In the last few years (I did not get to see my grandmother very much in the last 10 years) it was always such a pleasure to call her - hi Grandma/who this, Vettie?/of course grandma, what, do you have any other granddaughter calling you? - and she'd laugh and laugh and laugh and say, "my King, this is better than gold." What a way to make someone feel special - my call had a value greater than gold.
In these talks I was always amazed at her memory. Grandma was one week away from her 99th birthday when she died, yet she never seemed to forget a single detail. At school I study history, stories about peopl's lives in the past. I do this because of the years and years of me always asking "Grandma, tell me about the time when _______," and her always having those storiuees ready for me. Stories about her parents, about her brothers and sisters, especiually Lill and Jen, who she talked about all the time. Through these stories she taught me about family, about what is important, about keeping alive the memories of your loved ones. For that, and for everything else she brought to my life, I am eternally grateful. She was a remarkable woman who influenced the lives of many people over the years. It is our jobs now to live up to her standards - take in the odd stray cat or dog, the child, and be loving and supportive of each other.
Enjoy a well-deserved rest Albertine, yours was a life well lived.
Today we are here to celebrate the life of Albertine Hamilton Steele, Miss Bert, Mrs. Steele, wife, mother, aunt, grandmother, great-grandmother and Christian - my grandmother. For those of us here, she was all these things and more.
She was a proud, but simple woman. She never wore make-up that I can recall, but loved getting her hair styled nicely and putting on a nice dress. I remember one weekend when Grandma showed up at our house in Kingston wearing a pink pantsuit - she looked good, and she knew she did. This is the person I like to think about, the person who makes me smile - a very sombre, serious lady most of the time, but she loved a good joke, even if the joke was at her expense. She loved surprising us, catching us off-guard, like showing up in Kingston in a stylish pantsuit when we would have sworn she would never be seen wearing pants.
Today it amazes me to contemplate the fact that Grandma was born before there was such a thing as indoor plumming, television, or microwaves. She never worked at a paying job, yet she was one of the hardest-working women I have known. Her husband Ashton, my grandfather, died leaving his 7 children from his first wife, and the 4 children they had together, my mother, Hilma, My Uncle Dorrie, my Uncle Lin and my Uncle Nal. Grandma devoted the rest of her life to this family and to dozens of other people she mothereed along the way. She never tired of giving. Over the years I have heard so many stories of her kindness to others. And although she was always busy, she would take the time to o see how you were, and be genuinely interested in your life. Heaven knows how many people have stayed at that tiny house at 13 Boundbrook Road. The children, grandchildren, cousins, neighbours, friends down on their luck. We each stayed there and learned from her example, to treat others with respect, to be kind to our neighbours, to never forget our humble beginnings, and to always strive for more.
In the last few years (I did not get to see my grandmother very much in the last 10 years) it was always such a pleasure to call her - hi Grandma/who this, Vettie?/of course grandma, what, do you have any other granddaughter calling you? - and she'd laugh and laugh and laugh and say, "my King, this is better than gold." What a way to make someone feel special - my call had a value greater than gold.
In these talks I was always amazed at her memory. Grandma was one week away from her 99th birthday when she died, yet she never seemed to forget a single detail. At school I study history, stories about peopl's lives in the past. I do this because of the years and years of me always asking "Grandma, tell me about the time when _______," and her always having those storiuees ready for me. Stories about her parents, about her brothers and sisters, especiually Lill and Jen, who she talked about all the time. Through these stories she taught me about family, about what is important, about keeping alive the memories of your loved ones. For that, and for everything else she brought to my life, I am eternally grateful. She was a remarkable woman who influenced the lives of many people over the years. It is our jobs now to live up to her standards - take in the odd stray cat or dog, the child, and be loving and supportive of each other.
Enjoy a well-deserved rest Albertine, yours was a life well lived.
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