What if ????? And the questions go on and on!

Can you imagine yourself walking down this road?  Can you feel what it would be like to have a backpack on and walk everyday for 5 or 6 weeks?  How about meeting new people and making friends every single day?  What would you feel like if you didn't know where you were going to sleep tonight?  And furthermore if you could even get to a place where there is a bed?

These and many more things haunt my mind as I think that next year at this time I will be walking the Camino.  When I am out walking alone I try to think myself there and imagine what I am seeing and how I am feeling.  Most of the time it feels good but every so often fear and I mean real fear edges it's way in.  What if no one understands English.   I have never been that good at languages, maybe it is really the having to remember all those new words.  OOOOOOO! so scary.  I try to use a foreign language now and then and find myself whispering because I am so unsure of my self and fear no one will understand me or they will tell me I have it all wrong.  And it took me so long to just get what I managed to remember.

I have allowed myself to free flow with my thoughts in hopes that I will be able to move them along and discover a whole new set of thoughts.  Preferable happier more confident ones.  :)  This practice of letting go of all my negative thoughts and judgments has been very enlightening.  It is amazing how we learn to be judgmental or critical even when we are trying not to be.  It is like there is a little devil, you know like the one you used to see in movies on your left shoulder when you are about to get into trouble, in me that is hell bent to keep me from being and expressing from my heart only.  Hummmm! maybe he is real after all.  :)

Then there is the thought of this happening, since I am walking in September and October.  I have spent time thinking on when to walk, what time of year would be best for me?  How will I fair being out in the world day in and day out?  What does it feel like to walk in the rain for hours?  What if it snows?  Am I prepared for both heat and cold?  How good am I at suffering in the elements?  Do I even know how to survive?

Each picture brings up more and more questions.  Each picture has stopped the energy of preparation from moving forward while I try to solve all these thoughts.  Sometimes I laugh at myself and remind myself that millions have walked this path just fine and I will too, that is if I can keep my mind out of it.  :))))))))

WOW Walking and Lungs working

Amazing how quickly the lungs can repair after a heavy chest cold.  I went out this week (last 5 days) to try and build my lungs back up.  It happened faster than I would have thought.  By Thursday I went hill walking with my 6 year old grand daughter and I am happy to say I did not lose my breath.  No running or fast walking but I made it to the top of 3 hills without any stress.  Yeaaaaa

The hills were kinda like this one, only this one is in Spain.  I look at the pics various people put on the net and then try to find something like them locally so I can practice.  OOOOOOOOOO to be in my 20s again and just be able to go without all this work.  After 30 years behind a desk it has taken it's toll.

This is a nice pic tho isn't it.  Stop and just imagine what it would be like to just saunter up this hill, looking around at this great earth and taking in all the wonderfulness. And not have anything you have to do but arrive at your destination for the day.  I am excited and scared, and it is all bringing great  anticipation to me.
My grand daughter asked if she could go with me.  I explained that she is not quite ready for this big a trip but when she gets older if she still wants to do it then I will go again with her.  :)))

I have been diligently recording my exercise, food consumption and weight on an excel sheet.  This is not something that I am usually good at but this time I believe I must do this to stay focused and make my trip happen.

Tomorrow I am supposed to attend a Camino group's Shell Ceremony but it is threatening to snow up to 7 inches.  Crumb!  I have been looking for a group within a reasonable distance from me for several years.  I finally find one and now snow is threatening my chance to meet them all.  Maybe I will get lucky.  :))))

I will try to get a good pic if I make it and share it with all of you along with a full explanation of what a Shell Ceremony is.

Buren Camino
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And The Training has Begun - D-Day Sept 2015

Today I finally put together my training for the next 18 months.   That does sound like a lot doesn't it.  Well, I take care of 4 kids and have discovered that they  tend to take over my whole life.  I get up at 5:30am and return back home about 6:30 pm.  In the winter it gets dark so early I don't get to go out much.  But wonder of wonders, the time changed, and the sun is out past 6pm.  Yea!

So today I headed out for a good long walk.  I am getting over a chest cold that has left me still coughing up goo .  Yup that favorite part of a chest cold.  The walk was designed to clean me out as much as possible.  I discovered that I really got behind being in-door bound for 3 months.

I walked for 4.7 miles with a backpack.  The trip home was a push.  I just put one foot in front of the other till I reached my apartment.  The trip out was a bit easier and I was thinking about starting my new routine, getting the old excel sheet going to keep track of my walks and my food.  I use Strava to keep track of my hikes/walks.  It is great.  I am thinking of using it when I walk across Spain, if they have it in their files.

Half way out I stopped and had coffee, bagel and read from one of my current books.  I am reading everything I find about hiking.  Those books written by the hikers about their experiences.  Right now I am reading a book on the PCT (Pacific Coast Trail).  This is my second book about the trail.  Neither has swayed me to have any interest in walking it.  Interesting but definitely a trail for a masochist.  At least in my opinion.

I  first read about the Appalachian Trail (AT) a couple years ago.  It was the story of two sisters that walked it barefoot.  Yes I did say barefoot.  The books were called "Northbound" and "Southbound"  The Barefoot Walkers.  Both good reads and actually started a slight desire to walk it, if I had a very knowledgeable hiker with me to show me the ropes.

I find these books informational and intriguing.  I feel like this reading is preparing me for my walk.  Not that they are at all the same but in the fact that I read about their preps and daily activities and how they deal with difficulties.  Of course, they all take place in a country where they speak the language.  Nothing yet about what it is like to be in a country where I don't speak the language.  I must learn Spanish.

So, I now have my excel sheet started.  I have my training schedule typed in and started the details with today's food and today's exercise.  I found a training schedule on line.  It was designed for a 3 month train but I worked it out for the 18 months.  The first four weeks I will be doing until July of this year.  Then the next month will be for the rest of this year.  The last month will take me through to summer of 2015.  The summer of 2015 will be doing the last two weeks of the schedule.  By then I should be in great shape and much smaller.

Therefore, I am  back writing here.  I will find more pics to share and tell you all about the wonderful aches and pains of working out.

Thanks for reading.  It gives me a sense of friends that are sharing this with me as all the people I know think I am crazy and do not care to talk about this.  Hummmmm

Next Saturday 3/22 I will get to meet my first pilgrinos.   I am going to a special meeting of a Denver chapter of Camino Walkers.  The ones walking this year will go through a ceremony and receive their first Pilgrims Passport.  Just think, next year I will be one of the ones getting the Passport.  Yea!

Buen Camino
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I thought I would share what has been keeping me so busy

What a great world I live in.  I have the greatest of luck.  My grandchildren keep me very busy, filled with love and grateful for my life.  I take care of them plus two others.  They have kept me very busy and pushed me to my limits and then created new limits.  One of my readers said I am doing my Camino right now with all my preparation and she sure is correct.

One of the reasons I wanted to do this walk is because I have never done anything like this in my life.  I have never been as physical as the Camino will make me be.  I honestly don't have any idea if I can do it.  From one moment to the next I swing back and forth between I can and I can't.  In fact I work out and walk and begin to build my strength and longevity, then suddenly something happens that keeps me from going out and walking.  I fall behind and have to start all over again.  By now I had expected to be able to walk for at least 8 to 10 miles everyday.  But I was not able to walk all summer long.  Behind again.

So I have set another goal for accomplishing my walking goals.  I have just 2 years left to lose another 50lbs and be used to walking everyday for at least 10 to 15 miles.  The other big thing is to be able to walk up a mountain without severe panting as well as be able to get over the Pyrenees in one day.

I guess I am walking a Camino right now but this one has so many interruptions and crazy changes I can't wait to walk the Camino in Spain and just do the same thing everyday without all the crazy schedules I have right now.  My days start at 5:30am and ends between 6:30pm and 8pm.  I get home so tired and hungry I never make it back out to workout as I need a full 8 hours of sleep to keep up the pace.

 Hummmmmmmmmm  and I thought it would be easy to be able to work out if I didn't have a desk job and was out everyday with kids.  Wrong!!

Anyway, I keep going and keep trying and keep believing I can.

The four keep me quite busy and force me to be very creative to keep them all happy, at lease most of the time.


I am choosing to believe that this winter will be better than this summer.

Over the summer we had 4 weeks of summing lessons, 3 weeks of golf lessons, 3 weeks of pottery lessons and the oldest got his gokart license and did an archery class.  Sometimes it just felt like I was going from one thing to the next.  If being able to be flexible and be able to just push on is a trait I need then I can say I got that one down.

We had a very big fire in the mountains last year that kept us from being able to walk during the spring, because of all the smoke.  This year we had lots of heat and then a very severe flood, more like the Katrina Hurricane, with all the damage.  So mother nature has been putting this area through a lot in the last year or so.  I am beginning to think the world is on it's own Camino with all that has been going on.  Is it time for our world to rise up to a better place!?

Hope your "Camino" is going well and you are wading through your life with great success and if not, then may the hand of good fortune push you on :)))

Buen Camino
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Life Has So many Twists and Turns

I cannot begin to tell you all the things that have been happening to me since my last post.  It seems that at every turn another pile gets added to my life.  Just the thought of going on this trip puts up new and bigger walls to overcome.  Life doesn't seem to cut many breaks right now. I am finding my way around, over and through each of these events.  I even had strep throat and walking pneumonia, I am not usually sick except for small colds but this year has been a winner.  So right now, I am rebuilding my lungs AGAIN.  I haven't lost any weight lately as all this illness has me overeating.  On a light note, my daughter has lost 80 lbs since last September and looks awesome.  My turn now.

I am reading a book written by Cheri Powell called Seven Tips to Make the Most of the Camino de Santiago.  I love her tips, they help me to feel like I am beginning to know what to do here.  I am like the Goldy Hawn movie where she falls off her yacht and ends up as a 'mother' to a brood of country kids.  She is completely lost but eventually figures things out and ends up staying in her new life and leaving her past life style.  Cheri's book is helping me to figure out what to bring and how to do things and where to go to get them and what I should expect when I get to the store.  Awesome,  I now have my boots.  It took two trips to the store 3 months apart, returning the first pair as they did not fit correctly and finding a much better pair for my feet.  I have been wearing them around for the last couple of months and they are very comfortable. One thing done and many, many more to go.

It is very interesting to watch myself.  In my younger years I just did things.  They got done even if I didn't know how.  I was busy but life got figured out.  Now that I am more mature I find myself in the biggest quandary of my life.  I am suddenly having problems with figuring out how to get things done and when I decide a way the road seems to disappear. It is difficult to keep in the positive sometimes.  BUT, conversely, I am also manifesting in new ways.  These small successes have given me great hope for the future. 

My time for the walk has changed, yet again.  I will be taking care of my grandson until he is 3 and goes into the Goddard Preschool Program.  This puts my time out to fall of 2015.  I am trying to find an inexpensive place to live so I can keep my money for the trip socked away.  That is a huge feat here in Ft Collins where rent has doubled.

I am going out for my first long walk, since I got over pneumonia, this afternoon.  I am going to take a small trail and do a bit of uphill.  You all might hear me breathing all the way around the world,  chuckle chuckle!

I would like to use this post for a shameless promotion of a great childrens book written by a friend of mine:

Awesome book. Received it, opened the package and my grand daughter asked me to read it to her right away. She was completely focused on the story and when done she said she loved it. A real winner for kids starting school as well as moving. My grand daughter will leave her preschool and friends, moving to her elementary school without her friends, of the last 3 years, and starting a new school this fall. I recommend this book for all kids as all kids experience changes throughout life. It is a great story as well as a great mentor. Thanks Stacey for writing a book that is well needed in this mobile world of today.  

I am on my way out now and look forward to talking on here more often.  Thanks for hanging around and reading this.  I still expect to write my experience here when I walk and of course, as I continue my training to share my experiences.

Buen Camino

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