I’m not one for New Years resolutions, and to be honest I didn’t even think about them until right now as I am typing this, but my mind is still set on March 18th when I am to be running the Los Angeles Marathon in honor of baby Heath. I am sticking with that goal and will continue to set more as I get into the meat of the year and have a better idea of where my life is headed. Please see the sidebars to the right of this post to read more about how you can help me support Heath through running this marathon.

2011 turned out to be one of those years that makes me laugh, thinking back on it all. I have been put in circumstances that I never expected to be in, and have been living each day one at a time, because that is all there is room for in the thought process of everything that is happening.

July: After traveling home from a trip to Los Angeles and being awake at a late hour of the night that I typically am sleeping, it was jokingly suggested by my mother over the phone that I sign up for the Los Angeles Marathon, with the intent to raise money for Love Without Boundaries. (The “jokingly suggestion” being because I was not a runner.) I was just tired enough to say “ok!” And two days later my name was on the roster. Once again, please see the sidebars to the right of this post, or click here. I would love your support as I pursue this endeavor.

August: Moving from Lexington, Kentucky to Los Angeles, California was one of the biggest changes in my life this past year. I’m a country girl at heart, I prefer a slow-paced lifestyle, and I hate driving in traffic. But to LA I went, and by God’s grace I found a job just a month after arriving.

November: Watching my parents pursue another adoption, and traveling to China to bring Levi home was another huge change in my life in 2011. This was entirely unexpected by all of us, particularly the fact that my parents were called to adopt a 14-year-old boy.

December: Arriving back in Los Angeles from China, I found that my employers decided to move to Florida. Five days later, they were there, and two days after that, I found myself in Florida as well. I never expected that a move to Los Angeles would turn into a move to southern Florida, and I don’t anticipate this being a long-term move, but at the same time only time will tell where I am supposed to be.

With all the unexpected changes in 2011, I’m looking at where I’ll be in 2012 just a day at a time. I’ll keep on steadily training for the marathon, including heading out for a run in just a few minutes. That is all that is certain now, we’ll see what else the year brings as the months go by.

Happy New Year from the Witzers!

I was very happy to enjoy company on this run, in the form of my favorite border collie, Ty. He stuck with me as we conquered this run together. To say thanks to him, we ran by the creek at the end of the run and I let him play in the water- one of his favorite things to do.

He's always looking for someone to play fetch with.

He would not cooperate for the camera very well ...

I’m looking forward to exploring new territory in Guangzhou by foot and hope to not set back my training too much while I’m over there.

I also ran my first race yesterday! I ran the Abington YMCA Gobble Wobble 5k. I finished in the top 42% of the 1239 people who ran, and I am very, very happy with my time and the statistics that go along with it. Also, I might be getting hooked. I’m already looking for other 5k and 10k races to sign up for, I had so much fun with this one!

You can still find me, and the rest of my family, at witzerland.wordpress.com, while we are adventuring overseas.

Amanda and Mom are leaving for India on Monday the 21st, I’ll be arriving in Pennsylvania to help with the kids and last minute everything on Tuesday the 22nd, and Dad and I and the three little ones are leaving for China on Saturday the 26th.

Already posted to the family blog: our itinerary for in China travels, and a letter we received from Levi a few days ago (graciously translated for us by a family friend).

I have a week to brush up on the Mandarin that I’ve been intending to brush up on for the past seven months … we’ll see how well this goes. It took me looking in my Chinese-English dictionary to remember what characters represented “good bye” (as seen in the title of this post).

Until next time friends, witzerland.wordpress.com is where I’ll be!

Family dinners in our household feel “normal” to me, but I have some sort of idea that visitors to our dinner table could feel like they are in a different world. There are typically anywhere from four to nine people eating dinner together, and there is lots of movement, laughter, chatter, yelling from time to time, and a terribly untrained puppy running under all of our feet.

My parents’ dinners often get interrupted by Cody, who always seems to need to use the bathroom in the middle of his meals.

With that, here is a scene from one of our more recent dinners:

Cody runs into the bathroom, just down the hallway from the kitchen.

Cody: “I’m done!”

 (we continue eating)

Cody: “I’m Done!

 (again, we continue eating)

Cody: “I’M DONE!!!

Dad (sitting at the table): “What do you need, Cody?”

Cody: “Help me!”

Dad: “What do you say?”

Cody: “Please!”

Dad: “Please, what?”

Cody: “PLEASE CAN YOU WIPE MY BUTT?!”

Cody’s learning to use his manners, a little at a time, when he feels like it, but leave it to him to find a way around forming a sentence that’s appropriate for dinner time.

—–

in which I quickly update
I started working at the very end of September. This has been good on various accounts, i.e. a source of income, a place to live, something to keep me busy, feeling fulfilled in what I’m doing, and having my employer’s consent to take time off to go to China at the end of this month.

—–

in which I write (again) about vegan food
Recently I found a video on Ted Talks about being a weekday vegetarian. As has been previously noted, I’ve been a vegetarian for the better part of 2.5 years now. And I have no yearning to go back to eating meat. This video got me thinking, however, about my failed attempts at veganism over the past few weeks. The ideas spawned in my head from Forks Over Knives have still not gone away, and though every documentary needs to be taken with a grain of salt, I am trying to incorporate some of the ideas from FOK into my daily lifestyle (alongside my own research, of course). So for now, I am aiming to be a weekday vegan, and I allow myself non-vegan foods on Saturdays and Sundays (i.e. CHEESE!). Still no meat, simply because I really don’t want it. At all. I haven’t been 100% successful at this endeavor, but it is a step I am happy to be taking and will continue to refine it.

—–

in which I write about exercising and fundraising
Running is still happening, as I have 26.2 miles to run on March 18. I’ve been consistently running 3 miles at a time, 3 or 4 days a week, and my weekend runs are starting to get longer. This is the training schedule I have just started, with a few revisions so that my rest days are Sundays; sticking to it means I will be prepared to run that marathon on time. Of course, the circumstances I signed up for this marathon were that I would have $750 raised for Love Without Boundaries by February 1st. If I do not accomplish this fundraising goal, I am no longer eligible to be running the marathon. I can’t do this without other people’s help, and I will keep unashamedly including that little ditty in every blog post henceforth. The link to donate is to the right of this blog post, or HERE.

—–

in which I rant about healthy vs unhealthy food
I recently overheard a conversation between a child and a mom that flabbergasted me. The 9-year-old boy started eating a banana for an after-school snack. He was quickly reprimanded for eating the banana and told to put it in the trash can (including the portion in his mouth). The reasoning? Bananas are “the worst thing you could be eating right now”, there are 11 grams of sugar (other sources tell me 28 grams), and no type of sugar is good for you, eat some Cheez-Its instead.
Ok sure, no type of sugar is good for you. I’ll take it, but hey, I’d prefer to be eating natural sugar to chemicals. And while a guilty pleasure of mine is cheddar jack Cheez-Its, I eat them knowing full well that I am gaining no nutritional advantage with them sitting in my stomach. (This happens maybe two times a year.)

Let’s look at it this way:

The ingredients of a banana: a banana

The ingredients of a 100 calorie pack bag of Cheez-Its: Flour Enriched (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Iron Reduced,Thiamine Mononitrate (Vitamin B1) [Vitamin B1],Riboflavin (Vitamin B2) [Vitamin B2], Folic Acid (Vitamin aB)), Cheese Skim Milk (Milk Skim, Whey Protein, Cheese Cultures, Salt, Enzyme(s), Annatto Extract [Color(s)]), Vegetable(s) Oil (Cottonseed Oil,Palm Oil, Sunflower Oil and/or Soybean(s) Oil Partially Hydrogenated, with TBHQ), Salt, Flavor(s) Natural,Paprika, Yeast, Paprika Oleoresin (Color(s)), Soy Lecithin

Chemicals or whole foods? I’ll take the whole foods please. I eat a banana every morning before I run.

If people could realize that eating healthy means eating real food, their health problems could start diminishing very quickly. A good place to start is the rule of TEN: If what you are about to eat has more than 10 ingredients, or if any of the ingredients listed has more than ten letters, leave it alone and find something better to eat.

—–

in which there is a cute dog

This is Bella

Bella needs a home where her owners can give her lots of attention and retraining. She is a major trouble maker, mainly due to the fact that she doesn’t get enough attention during the day. I have become quite attached to this dog because as much as she is a troublemaker, she is also extremely friendly and loyal. She just needs a home that is suited for her. If you are this home, or if you know someone who could offer her this home, let me know and I can give you more details.

—–

in which I am happy
These past few weeks have brought about great things: a job, cute baby animals to play with, sunflowers, tea from Japan, a new book to read, pictures of my brother in China holding a family picture of us, a place to live, a church to get involved with, and of course, this guy. This girl is happy.

As previous posts have mentioned, I am a vegetarian. According to a former roommate of mine, I am (thankfully) a “normal” vegetarian. I’ve deduced that the term “normal vegetarian” means that I don’t go around making people feel bad about eating meat, I have no problem with preparing it and serving it to others, and my main reason to keep it out of my diet is that I don’t particularly enjoy any sort of meat (and because it is healthier to not consume the ridiculous amount of meat that the typical American does). (Amy, if you come across this, correct me if I’m wrong!)

I remember as a child being given steak to eat for dinner, and while I didn’t actively dislike it, I have memories of drowning the bite-sized pieces in steak sauce before putting them into my mouth, and then spending what seemed entirely too long to chew them up and swallow them. I never found any pleasure in that eating experience.

I suppose that’s the reason red meat was the first to go at the beginning of my foray into vegetarianism.

Forks Over Knives is not, however, about simply vegetarianism. It takes this diet to a level I have told myself I will never purposefully reach: veganism.

Giving up meat is one thing. I can still eat egg sandwiches with cheese, the tomato-mozzarella panini from Panera, my second-place-winning homemade macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese with pickles (a childhood favorite), feta cheese, sharp cheddar cheese, red leicester cheese (discovered it while in Scotland), cooper sharp cheese, port wine cheese, and all the other wonderful varieties of and recipes with cheese cheese cheese!

So what’s this vegetarian to do while she watches Forks Over Knives and slowly becomes convinced that switching over to veganism just might be the way to go?

She decides to give it a trial run.

Day 1: Went food shopping. Wanted something salty to snack on so I perused the chips aisle and found the Food Should Taste Good brand on sale (win!). Reached for the cheddar flavored … realized what I was doing … bought the olive flavor instead. Got home from the food store and realized that while I avoided the cheddar chips, I neglected to even think twice about the 3 boxes of Annies macaroni and cheese that were put into my shopping basket (they were on sale for $1 each, what was I supposed to do?!)

Day 2: Did not mix shredded cheese in with my morning meal of quinoa, black beans, and salsa. I can get used to that, it’s how I used to eat it anyway. Went to eat some broccoli soup that I bought the previous day and upon tasting it, realized that it doesn’t taste half as good unless I add cheese to it. Really now: broccoli soup + cheese = the only way it should be eaten. So, there went in the cheese.

Day 3: On top of having to finish my broccoli soup (with cheese) because I didn’t want it to sit in the refrigerator and be forgotten, I needed to start working on those three unnecessary boxes of macaroni and cheese (at least it was organic!)

Day 4: Quick food store run to buy more quinoa (the only healthy thing I’ve been eating consistently while homeless and jobless). I was once again struck with the urge for something salty (it’s all I want when I want to snack. I love chocolate, but that’s not a snack, it’s an indulgence. I need some salt!). I purposefully decided to buy the Pirate brand Smart Puffs. That’s right, purposefully buying more cheesey snacks. Also, I went to a friend’s for dinner and ate some delicious home-made nachos loaded with plenty of melted cheese. My favorite.

Day 5: Jeremy’s birthday. I was doomed from the start, as we intended to get Qdoba to celebrate (I suppose I could stop eating shredded cheese. And queso. And shredded cheese on top of queso). Those plans fell through and I thought maybe I could actually avoid dairy for the day … until, 2 minutes later, I suggested eating Panera. And a trip to Panera means the deliciousness that is the Tomato-Mozzarella Panini. (And a brownie. Because it was free.)

Day 6: I’m ashamed to admit it, but I ate more of the empty carbs that are called “Macaroni and Cheese.” On purpose. After going for a run.

Day 7: That would be today. One week into my exploration of veganism, and I have failed each day so far. This morning I snacked on a homemade fruit bun, and then realized it was made with milk. For a late lunch, there was one box of macaroni and cheese left, and the milk in the fridge was going to go bad soon. Sigh.

The vegan lifestyle: can I do it? I think my love for cheese is too high to avoid it altogether. However, after watching Forks Over Knives, this week has been a painful appreciation of how I could lessen my intake of that glorious processed food. I don’t think that I will be able to eat cheese again without thinking twice about it.

My loose decision:

Stop buying cheese. However, when circumstance calls for it, like I am being offered food at someone else’s house that contains cheese/milk/etc, or I am craving a slice of pizza (a guilty pleasure), or I am out to eat (which doesn’t happen too often), then I can make the exception to eat it. Instead of avoiding cheese altogether, I will do everything I can to drastically lessen the amount that I am eating. I really don’t think that the vegan lifestyle is for me, but I know that I (and the rest of us) can definitely benefit from the idea of it. Thoughts?

Give Forks Over Knives a look, let me know what you think. It’s instant streaming on Netflix currently, or you can buy it through the website.

Jeremy and I in our running gear ... do we look legit?

It’s true: running is certainly the cheapest sport to get involved in. However for someone who just moved clear across the country and still has no job or a place to live, investing in shoes and running apparel and my tricky little Nike+ sensor, it doesn’t seem so “cheap.”

But, you see, this investment is well worth it.

By the end of this endeavor, I will have accomplished something for myself and I will be in great shape. Yes?

Yes, and no.

I’m not running this marathon for myself. I’m not thinking about myself in this (except to stay healthy enough to do it). I would never have even thought to run this race if it weren’t for someone(s) very, very special.

The biggest meaning running this marathon has for me is knowing that in running it, I have the potential to help many people make a difference in the lives of children such as these.

These and so many other children. That’s what I’m thinking about in context of the marathon I have committed to run. Because on top of committing to run 26.2 miles through the streets of Los Angeles in March, I have committed to raise $750 for Love Without Boundaries, a foundation that has done, and is doing, insurmountable good in the lives of orphaned and impoverished children in China.

Friends, I am hoping you will help me in this endeavor. I can’t raise money unless people are willing to team with me in this effort. If anything, why don’t you look around the Love Without Boundaries website? See what and who they stand for, read stories about the kids, learn something new. And if you are feeling so inclined, you can also click here to donate towards the $750 I am raising for this foundation.

I could look at that as all negative.

But it’s really not.

“There is surely a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off.” Proverbs 23:18

We are all put where we are for a good purpose. Life doesn’t seem to make sense most of the time, but if we’re seeking WHO we’re supposed to be seeking, we’re each on a path to lead us to something great and fulfilling.

As much as I feel like I have no purpose right now, I am wrong.

I can’t understand living any differently than clinging to that hope. I’d have ran away from Los Angeles the day after I got here if I didn’t have it.

I’m here for a purpose. And I know that relying on GOD will lead me to fulfill that purpose.

Our trip took us from Bucks County, Pennsylvania to Lexington, Kentucky on the first day. A trip that we had made before in 9.5 hours took us 11 (a little rain, a little traffic) this time, but I was fine with it. We spent a day and a half in Lexington, enjoying time with the family I nannied for while living in Lexington, a gathering of friends into the later hours of the night, and plenty of Catan and Canasta with Jeremy’s family. (We also stopped by the local “John’s Run and Walk Shop” to buy shoes for our marathon training, see the link to the right to sponsor my running in the LA Marathon in March by donating to Love Without Boundaries.)

From Lexington we drove 6.5 hours to Springfield, Illinois to visit my roommate Laura from college and her husband Jeremy. It is always so great to spend time with the very friends who helped you become who you are today. The evening included an Irish pub, where the only thing I could order off the menu was a double-decker grilled cheese sandwich (no worries there, I love me some grilled cheese), watching their dog, Connor, fall asleep with excitement about carrots (have YOU ever met a narcoleptic dog?), seeing Jeremy’s (clearly Laura’s Jeremy, not mine) live sports broadcast on TV, and making some ridiculously fattening and ridiculously delicious apple tarts while “Failure to Launch” was on in the background (at least Zooey Deschanel’s character is fun to watch). I was sad to say goodbye (early) the next day, but a 16-hour day of driving ahead of us meant not enough time with some of those who we love.

Springfield, IL to Laramie, WY was our longest driving day of the trip. Luckily, it was on a Sunday, so traffic was not a problem. Driving through the states of Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska did not prove to be entirely exciting, but there’s always one of those days. We were still fresh and happy and not worn out yet, so it was a good day for those 16 hours on the road. And as we were on the way to see my best friend from college, driving 16 hours was the least I was willing to do. (And Jeremy was behind the wheel for 13 of them anyway …)

Wyoming is my “most favorite place in the world.” (Quotations due to bad grammar and a clichéd but true statement.) We got in around midnight and so were not able to enjoy its beauty until morning time. There’s something about the sky there. The reality of the world is so apparent. I love being able to see storms from miles away- storms that you may never even feel. To see an entire cloud in the distance light up with a stark lightning strike. Blue skies with white clouds for as far as you are able to see. The effect of a sky so large that you can see the shadows of the clouds rolling over the mountains. The wide-openness of everything around you. That is Wyoming and that is what I love.

A Monday spent with the lovely Becki in beautiful Wyoming was better than I could have asked for. Some hiking in the mountains, homemade ice cream in Centennial, WY (population 100), lunch at a vegetarian restaurant (in Wyoming, really?!), Farkle and Bananagrams. The hours passed by too quickly and the reality of a goodbye was not fun. However, I left my heart there, which can only mean that I will return.

Early morning goodbyes in Illinois

Wyoming storms

Wyoming sky

See, no lies.

Friends in Wyoming