One's death isn't something often realized in the day-to-day living of most people. Sure, they can comprehend the vague notion that one day this will be gone, but I'm not sure how many people actively think about it, think, oh, crap, my days are numbered.

Crap.

Oh, yeah. Mom arrived to day to visit me for a number of days. I'm so happy she's here.

Okay, people, the next spelling and grammar lesson of the day. Today's lesson is with homonyms, or each of two words having the same pronunciation but different meanings, origins or spellings.

With that said, rain, rein and reign are all different words, with different meanings and, hence, different usages:

rain = water falling from the sky
rein = a strap used with horses
reign = the length of time a leader rules

Saying, "turn over the reigns" makes no sense.

Katie came into work today, back from a vacation. She, Keith and Alex were gone for three weeks or so, back on the East Coast. One of the topics of conversation that came up was relationships and parenthood.

After a while, I asked, "Who else is married and not pregnant or a mother?" I asked about our group of friends, our immediate and slightly wider circle.

Both Doyle and Katie paused for a few moments to consider the question.

"Just you," was the answer.

Part of me became quite sad with this realization.

I went to Velocity Sports this morning without Kris. He's taking the week off, so, if I was going to go, I was going to go by myself. So, off I went by myself, and, what do you know? This morning at VS, I did 210 pushups. Sure, I did 210 situps, too, but I'm more amazed at the 210 pushups.

The workout was a progression of pushups and situps such that the total number of the two done in each round was 21.

So, the first round was 20 pushups and 1 situp. The second round was 19 pushups and two situps. The third round was 18 pushups and three situps. The rounds continued until 1 pushup and 20 situps.

So, yeah, pushups. Can you say, "Not my forte?" Because I can. Bryanne warned us that at the end, we'd be wishing for more pushups and fewer situps. More pushups? Not likely.

Around round 6 or 7 I did figure out that I needed to rotate the position of my hands to change which muscles are used for the pushups. The first five or six rounds I did with the my hands in the normal, straight position and exhausted the chest muscles associated with that position. I noticed on some sets Bryanne rotated her hands in, others she rotated her hands out. When I duplicated this rotation, I was able to continue much stronger than I expected to be able to continue.

I'm thrilled to say, I was able to do the last five rounds with full pushups, not the wimpy from-the-knees pushups I had been doing in the previous rounds. Sure, it was only 15 from the feet, but that's 15 more than I expected to be able to do.

Especially having done 195 before those 15.

And Bryanne was right. At the end, I was wishing for more pushups and fewer situps.

I bought the house in Valpo for a sense of community. I felt I had lost that in California, but moving back to Indiana meant I'd be close to Dad, and the sense of community with that.

Hanging out with Andy this past weekend has given me a lot of that sense of community. Just heading over, working on his house, walking to Jamba Juice afterward was fun, relaxing, full of a sense of belonging to a group that I've been craving for a while now, pretty much since Mike and Kate moved, I think. I feel it when I'm spending time with Mom. I felt it this weekend.

I must be confusing "community" with "close neighbors," now that I think about it. We're not close to any of our neighbors where we are now.

Even if the neighbor community consisted of four dogs and only one other person.

Those dogs can be pretty cuddly when they want to be.