Five For Friday: Sept. 21

If I get this posted before midnight, it still counts as a Friday post, right?  

1.  River Valley Fitness - (I couldn't find a website or Facebook page - if anyone does, please let me know and I'll link it!)
This new fitness center just opened in Windom September 1st.  I waited a long time for a real fitness center to come to town.  Sure, there is the Hospital Wellness Center...but they have a lot of cardio and are short on real weight-lifting.  Then there was Curves...ummmm, yeah, not for me.  (The one saving grace for me in this town was Sky Blue Yoga- Kris is awesome!)
River Valley is a real gym with cardio, weights, classes, and available personal training.  Too bad for the owner that since I waited so long I now own all my own equipment.  But if you are local, definitely check it out!!!

2. Girls Night Out - A new campaign by the downtown businesses here in Windom.  Every third Thursday of the month, from 4-8pm, there will be specials, refreshments, and giveaways.  Now if only Dave didn't have a meeting that same day...

3. Windom Area Girls Fastpitch Association 5K/10K  Yep, this is tomorrow morning.  I'm late posting this.  Sorry!  But here's the info:  This is Windom's second running event of two for the year.  Especially in this inaugural year, PLEASE support it!  We need more local running events and it supports women in sports.  Really, a no-brainer. 

4. Breast Health Walk  If you ever want to hear an inspiring story about how regular people get things done, this is it.  A local woman (my insurance agent) had an abnormal mammogram and was ultimately diagnosed with breast cancer.  Frustrated with the wait time for follow-up mammograms (we previously had a truck from over an hour-and-a-half away come to perform mammograms in Windom every few weeks), she and her daughter started a fundraiser walk last year to  raise funds to purchase mammography equipment for our local hospital.  Less than 1 year later, our local hospital has their own equipment.  This year's walk (and subsequent events) will promote their other goal- to help women struggling with breast health/cancer financially when needed. 
If you don't know anyone who has been affected by breast cancer, count yourself lucky.  If you do,  please support this event, or others like it in your own community. 

5. Dude, it's a small town... I'm lucky I can come up with four in one week!   Let's hear from you... What exciting things are happening in your own community?  

Five For Friday: Sept. 14

1.  I am starting to get my motivation back!  And none too soon...I have a 10K tomorrow and a half marathon in a little over a month. 

2. Great little article on why your triathlon races may not be going as well as you'd like.  (Thanks to Gillian Clayton for sharing this on FB!)
"Top Ten Reasons Why You'll Never Peak For Your Triathlon"

3.  My latest endurance event?  Remodeling and redecorating the family farmhouse before we move in this fall. 
Work on the "new" house is going well.  The upstairs is more than half done space-wise.  The biggest holdup is the bathroom.  Dave has been working 6 days a week, leaving him little time to work on it.
I'm holding off on the hallway and stairs until we are done with the bathroom and have all our large furniture moved.  I'd rather avoid the frustration of getting dings in my newly painted walls & floor!

Today's project: moved that furniture to the other side of the room and painted the other half of the floor.  Next?  New baseboard (salvaged from another old house).

4. After having Liam gone for a week and eating a lot of quick, not-so-healthy food, I felt pretty crappy.  I've been back to my normal eating since we got back Tues night and, after only three days, already feel much better.  Let that be a lesson to me...

5.  The September Meditation Challenge is working well for me, also.  During the week of eating crap it was harder.  My brain felt full of cobwebs.  The last couple days I have set an intention with each morning's mediation.  Yesterday it was for energy.  It worked almost too well... I couldn't sleep last night and was wide awake and full of ENERGY!  So I did another meditation with an intention of restful sleep and drifted right off.  The power of the mind is amazing. 

*And a bonus sixth thing I saw just before I was about to post!
6. An article on competitor.com from Susan Lacke entitled "Out There: Be Happy With Your Body". I think I'm bookmarking this one for when I'm have "one of those days".  I forget that my aesthetically imperfect body has powered me through a half-iron triathlon, 3 marathons, about a dozen half-marathons, and countless other races.  Certainly, something I need to remember more often!

September Meditation Challenge

This month I will be participating in RunToTheFinish's Meditation Challenge.  This challenge is a little different than a lot of the blog challenges that are out there.  There are no set guidelines, no prizes... the goal is simply to progress over the course of the month.  And hopefully for me, instill a new healthy habit into my routine.

As a mother to a two-year old that keeps me going from sunup to sundown most days, I can definitely see how daily meditation could benefit me.  Taking time every day to slow down, to invite peace, to center myself, can only make me a better mother/wife/person.

Coincidentally, I saw this picture linked through a friend on Facebook the day I decided to commit to this challenge.  It speaks to what I hope to achieve by taking the challenge and making meditation a part of my daily life.  

I saw this on Facebook here, not sure about original photo credit.

I invite you to join the Meditation Challenge hosted by RunToTheFinish by signing up here.