We are having some upheaval at work, and my last few shifts have been stressful and fraught instead of the usual happy and energizing, and I am trying to think about other things so let’s do the requested photos of (1) Nutmeg the Mother’s Day horse from Henry, and (2) the Mother’s Day cat embroidery from Elizabeth.
The twins are home from college and looking for summer jobs, and neither has had any luck so far. One major issue is that we have two cars for five drivers, and Paul and I take both cars for our jobs many days each week, so it’s hard for the kids to look for any job they’d need to drive to. We considered adding a third car—but even a used car would cost way, way more than they could earn over the summer, so that seems like the wrong way to do things, financially-speaking. And we do live just a few minutes’ walk from the center of town, so there are lots of businesses they can walk to. Businesses that do not seem to be hiring.
My sister-in-law told me about this 7-minute strength workout, which I have now done one (1) time. And by “done” I mean “attempted.” There are quite a few areas in which I will need to gradually approach the goal. For example: I cannot do even one push-up, no not even the knees kind. I can lower myself down to the floor, and I can even do it slowly and with control, but I cannot get back up. But I could easily work ON that for 30 seconds: I just did little partial push-ups, to the depth I COULD push back up from, and if I keep doing those consistently I will get better and better.
But standing on a chair was a complete bust. I put one foot on the seat of the chair, and then stood there for the entire 30 seconds trying to figure out a way to PARTIALLY do it. My sister-in-law says she’s using a step stool, so I will try that. I complained about this to the children, and Elizabeth, maintaining eye contact, put one foot ON THE KITCHEN COUNTER and then brought up her second foot. That seems wrong in its own way.
Is Nutmeg a Breyer model horse? My sister collects those. Like, has whole rooms of her house dedicated to them.
Also I loveloveLOVE the cat embroidery!
I was about to tell you that it didn’t have any markings so I couldn’t tell—but then I looked online, and then I looked again at the horse under stronger light, and it turns out I missed the stamp with my middle-aged eyes: it’s stamped with “Hartland Plastics.”
I sent a screenshot to my sister to who confirmed it’s a Hartland horse/rider model she called a “head-down prancer” and said it’s actually not a cheap model. It’s from the 60s and she has a lot more to say about the plastic type and paint but apparently it’s a very nice old horse, even if it doesn’t have a rider anymore. And that the yellow paint they used back then has a tendency to get green with age. So that’s a lot of info from someone who prefaced all of this by saying “I’m not well-researched on those models.” LOL
It’s a lovely thoughtful gift even without knowing all this.
THIS IS SO FUN. Henry bought it at a consignment/antique shop. It has a chipped ear-tip, too. And that is interesting about the paint color! Thank you for this, and thank your sister for me too!
That embroidery is fantastic! And I very much enjoy the whimsy of the horse gift.
But what I really want now is a tour of all those house plants!
I too am impressed with all the cute little succulents! I have a lot of them but they mostly look very sad.
I adore your gifts. The horse is delightful. That Elizabeth is a person who can both produce such a detailed and charming piece of embroidery AND *step onto the counter* boggles my mind. Superhuman.
The seven minute workout sounds worthwhile. I cannot a pushup to save my life though. And I have practiced! I can finally do inclined pushups pretty well — after many month — but the incline is steep and if I reduce it AT ALL, I can no longer do the pushups. SIGH. I am guessing my success with a dip would be similar.
Both the horse and the embroidery are so delightful! Such sweet gifts.
Recently I was telling my own daughter that every day, I practice sitting down and standing back up without using my hands at all. (It sounds easier than it is!) I asked if she could do that herself, and she said, “Mom, I’m 22 years old, of course I can.” :|
That embroidery is darling. The eyes on the lower black cat are a tiny, perfect detail. Is the style of embroidery at all related to the personality of the cat? Like is the tuxedo cat a little wonky IRL? Is the other black cat floofy yet crafty?
Reading about Elizabeth and the counter I did a little chuckle and muttered, “showoff,” but that is from in front of my own computer screen. If I was in the room with my kid that had just done that, I think it would have inspired sticking out a tongue.
Yes, she really captured the cats. The black cat is floofy and he disappears almost entirely into dark places, seen only by the gleam of his eyes; the tuxedo has wide eyes and a weird walk that is sort of a sashay and sort of a robot walk. One of the orange ones is long and lean and derpy; the other is a fat queenly disapproving pineapple.
Love the cat embroidery!
I like this program https://www.hybridcalisthenics.com for progressing from easier versions of exercises through to harder versions.
I have had such drastic hip pain – like 9/10 wheel me into surgery pain – that I enrolled in PT. They gave me some easy exercises and it’s making a big difference:
– kneeling hip flexor stretch
– seated hamstring stretch
– supine piriformis stretch
– supine heel bridge
– sidelying hip abduction
– clamshell
Could the kids drive you to work so they can have your car?
Gosh, Elizabeth has such an amazing set of skills I can’t believe employers aren’t lining up to offer her jobs.
She’s captured the black void perfectly as well as the disapproving pineapple.
When my shoulder is sore, I sometimes do wall pushups. They feel a bit silly but I’d rather do some of them and feel like I’d had some movement than no pushups.
Wall pushups are great. As long as you are using those muscles you are strengthening them…whether on floor or wall. At least that is what I have been told. I think it is the resistance which works some magic. I say this because I can only do wall pushups!
I too was going to suggest wall pushups, and once you can do those I would suggest moving on to stair pushups, working onto lower and lower steps as you get stronger.
Ooh, I like this
You MUST have very short countertops. Otherwise I do not understand the physics of Elizabeth’s trick.
So glad you shared about the cat personalities!
I also have two teens who do not yet have summer jobs. We have a standing vacation week at the end of June and I think that is making both of them feel like they won’t get hired if they ask for a week off straight away. :/ But I feel like, a few weeks ago, everywhere I went I would see “We’re Hiring!” signs. Now, not so much. Well, best of luck to all of them.
This is my daughter’s problem too – we’re going out of the country on a mother-daughter trip for the last two weeks of July, so how does she tell potential employers “I’ll be available for the first two weeks of July, and then the month of August before I move away just before the end of the month”?
That embroidery is delightful, and so is Nutmeg!
Is standing on a chair supposed to be with no hands, because that seems honestly dangerous. A step stool, sure, maybe, but as someone who used to teach yoga for older people and was constantly worried that they would fall, that seems kind of alarming that the NYT would say that’s a good workout. Not that you are an older person, but all of us past maybe Elizabeth’s age should be wary of falls. Aiee, I am now anxious thinking about all my former students, I am literally sweating RIGHT NOW THINKING ABOUT IT. *immediately emails former students*
NICOLE IT MAKES ME NERVOUS TOO!! Like, even with the step-stool substitution, my sister-in-law mentioned she wedges it in a corner so it’s absolutely stable (and that would give walls for emergency balance, too). Just stepping up onto a chair feels UNWISE.
It reminds me of this little stand-up comedy bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzomfsMLHSQ
(It’s safe for work, I just watched it through to make sure there wasn’t any bad language.)
Yessssssssssss
Honestly for a lot of people stepping down would be even more fraught. Like, people can activate the right muscles to step up, but controlling the descent can be harder. My mother stepped onto the toilet to clean a cobweb in her bathroom and then stepping down her leg didn’t slow her down enough and she fell right into the wall. (Fear not: she got a bruise but was ultimately okay, Still, yikes.)
In my excercise class we do a lot of knee push ups.
You can work up to them this way. Don’t make a straight line from your knees to your shoulders. That puts all your upper body weight on your shoulders.
From the knee push up position push your butt up and back; it keeps some of the weight out of the push up. My teacher calls it ‘squaring the hips’ . It’s an easier version of the knee push ups. Hope that makes sense.
I’d do the pushups on the wall and the step up on a stair step. I’m excited to try this!
I love your gifts, they are so thoughtful and personal. It seems like a dream that my kids would ever do something like that, but a good one!
I am DELIGHTED by Elizabeth’s embroidery! It is SO SO GOOD! I keep coming back to look at it. I’m so impressed!
I, an ostensibly strong person who regularly goes to challenging workouts, have started physical therapy for my shoulder. I am now being constantly humbled by learning that I am only strong in very specific muscles.
Oh wow — I can see why she’s in art school, because she has a great design sense!
I have one in college (home for the summer) and one just graduated HS. I live in the Los Angeles area, and here, you have to start applying in March/April for summer jobs (even if you’re away at college, you interview via Zoom and give them a start date). And it seems like only seasonal places will hire for the summer these days. YMCA camp counselor, Universal Studios, Hollywood Bowl (which is summer concerts) kind of places. It definitely is more difficult to get summer work here than it was even a few years ago.
Regarding the car situation, I decided I would rent a car for short periods over the summer if necessary. But also, Ubers and Lyfts are easy to get here, so that’s another option for our family. My son is currently on jury duty in downtown L.A. so that’s really thrown a wrench in the works of family transportation, and it’s not even June, lol. Best of luck to all of us!
My young adult is running into the same issues. They applied online to job 1. Heard nothing so after a week or so, they applied to job 2. Got an interview. Interviewee said he had 4 more people to interview. Again heard nothing for over a week. Applied online to job 3. Got an interview. Was told at the end of the interview job 3 would let them know by the middle of the next week. The next day, the online app site sends a text saying that job 3 was having a difficult time contacting them and they now needed to reapply for the position if they were still interested. YA emailed the online app help people asking for clarification and got a canned replay stating they needed to talk to job 3 if they had questions. And then! After all of that job 1 contacts them and sets up an interview.
My friend said that she’s heard from other parents that getting a summer job isn’t as easy as all the help wanted signs would make it seem.
If Elizabeth ever opens an Etsy store, please let us know
Internships are scarce, too, so kids who might have been doing that are instead returning to their grocery-shelving and table-busing jobs from summers past.
It seems like buying a 3rd car for the 3 teenage drivers to share would be worth it simply for alleviating the congestion of only 2 cars. Then the 3 of them would have to work out and negotiate who needs the car and when, probably ending up taking and/or picking one another up from work. That might give them a nice taste of what it feels like to be the Family Chauffeur. I don’t think it’s strictly necessary for them to be able to purchase the car themselves — paying for its gas and each paying 1/3 of the insurance seems affordable on a summer job budget.
Would either of the twins be interested in working at an overnight summer camp? That’s how I made money in college and it never required me to have a car. Some day camps even have a bus to pick up campers and counselors. I was also a nanny for a family that lived nearby and gave me the use of their car when needed.
Does your library have any summer jobs open? Anything near your library so that they can get a ride with you on some days and Uber/Lyft on others to spread out the cost?
That embroidery is absolute perfection and I don’t even know your cats! And the horse?! Are you feeling quite pleased about having raised such creative young people?
LOLOLOL about exercising. This is what has been so great about the PT I’ve been doing: The most amazingly small increment of progress is applauded. I had one exercise where for most of the 10 PT sessions I was unable to get into the starting position, let alone make a single move on doing it. Near the very end, after attempting it religiously twice every day, I was able to stand, briefly, in the starting position. And I was praised.
Well, at least praised by myself. But … not a critical word was heard even at PT.
PS Long after PT ended, but continuing to try every day to do it, I now can do the actual exercise for one minute. Hard to describe the satisfaction of it.
The embroidery is lovely. Such a creative gift.
The suggested workout puts me in mind of why (among other things) I’ll likely never hire a personal trainer. I feel like they won’t understand what I mean when I say I’m starting at level zero. Like they think the suggested exercise is at zero, but it’s really at like 2-3 because they are young and fit.
When I pinched a nerve in my back I went to physical therapy and the first PT dude was like “activate your core.” Me: I am! Him: No, your core. Me: I AM. Him: did you have a c-section? Me (externally): No. Me (internally): NO! FFS, I’m just older and my core is shot to hell, which is why I hurt my back and came to PT!! Sorry, this is now rambling on, but I switched to a older guy for PT and he understood level zero and the exercises he gave me worked really well. I need level zero!
Right?? Yes. I feel like a lot of the “Oh this is SO BEGINNER, it is FOR BEGINNERS, absolutely BEGINNER LEVEL!!!” things are…neither empathetic nor compassionate nor aware.
I hope this will be encouraging (?) — a single, not-very-good push-up is still good! I had read/heard somewhere that being able to do a single push-up means you’ll be able to push yourself into a better position if you fall. I chase after my parents to make sure they can still do a push-up. I myself can do *two* because I am a paragon of physical fitness.