Ageless Passions by Karen Putz

Category: Uncategorized

  • World Barefoot Center Day Three and Four

    I’m blown away.  The gals who are at Women’s Barefoot Week at the World Barefoot Center are nothing but phenomenal.  A breast cancer survivor/dentist who does a front-to-back effortlessly.  A gal with a broken neck who’s back on the water after a two-year hiatis.  67, 66, 61, 60 and 58 and 50 year olds, all doing toe-holds, backward barefooting, tumble turns and more.  A bunch of younger gals– some relatively new to barefooting and others who are pros.  What a great mix of women!

    Swampy, Keith and David gamely joined the fun.  They got in touch with their feminine side this week.

    As they came out of the house one by one in their pretty, pink “Handle Boy” t-shirts and skirts, the laughter roared on and on.  At first, it was clear they weren’t too comfortable in their dainty wear, but they soon loosened up and pranced around.   Take a look at the sexy legs on these guys:

    On Day Three and Four, I focused on learning the backward deep water start.  I had this start on my vision board at home– a picture of Judy Myers skiing backwards.   Yesterday morning, I got up on shoe skis for a very short time and fell.  In the afternoon, I tried again.  On my second try, I found myself staring down at the water and thinking, “Wow, the water’s quite a ways down there…” and I realized I was up and skiing backwards!

    What an amazing feeling!  As the boat idled back, the whole gang was standing up waving some deaf applause and signing “awesome!”  I’ll treasure this day forever!

    I finished off the set doing doubles with Judy Myers.  Most of you know the story– I was inspired to get back on the water after seeing Judy  on the Today show.  So it was a great honor and pleasure to ski with the gal who helped me unwrap a passion that was buried long ago! Thank you, Judy– you’re awesome and you ROCK!

  • Women’s Barefoot Week, Day One and Two

    I headed to the airport to pick up Val Shinn and we arrived at the World Barefoot Center in the late afternoon on Sunday.  We quickly changed into our suits, grabbed our wetsuits and headed out for the boat to join the other gals–Sharon, Judy, Joann, Claudia and Lauren.  Swampy Bouchard, the center’s Elite Coach was our driver.  The plan was for each of the gals to take a ride on A. J. Porreca’s back– while he was barefooting backwards.

    What a way to start of Women’s Barefoot Week!  A. J. was a trouper!  There were seven ladies and a few false starts, but everyone got the chance to experience a backwards barefoot ride.  What a thrill!  A. J. had a smile on his face every time and he even did some one-foot barefooting with a gal on his back.   Judy Myers and A. J. attempted a forward ride and Judy ended up hanging on the rope upside down while A. J. barefooted.  The rest of us were laughing in the boat.

    We are staying at a beautiful house down the street from the World Barefoot Center complete with a pool and hot tub.  After skiing all day, the hot tub is a welcome blessing for the sore muscles.  Barefoot Wine sponsored the week with wine, t-shirts, bags and hats.  Vibram Barefoot Shoes sponsored shoes for the “Most Improved Barefooter” for the end of the week.

    Yesterday was day two and what a blast!  We did two sets in the morning, took a break for lunch and then back out again for two more sets.  I was in awe of these gals and what they can do on the water.   In one day, Keith St. Onge had me doing one-foot on the short line, slalom on the long line (yes, I got up on the deep-water start– the thing I had been battling all summer!) and I’m learning how to plant my feet for a backwards start.

    Joann O’Connor and Judy Myers are my volunteer interpreters for the week so I’m in the boat with one of them all the time.   During yesterday’s preparation for learning the backward start, Keith called me to the front of the boat to practice the start.  I laid down on the hull and Judy sat in front of me.  As Keith instructed me from behind and showed me what to do with my feet, Judy repeated everything so I could lipread her.   It worked out well, as I was able to do what Joann calls “cockroaching”– planting one foot at a time at 12 mph.

    I can’t wait to hit the water again today. We’ve got more ladies coming today, tomorrow and Thursday.  Off to don my suit!

  • Happy Birthday to My Girl!

    A little over 15 years ago, the ultrasound tech said, “It looks like it’s a girl.”

    “Are you SURE?” I asked.

    “I’m about 90 percent sure,” he said.  “There’s always a little possibility that it’s a boy.”  He smiled.

    My heart danced.  I had always dreamed of a little girl.  Pink dresses.  A pink bedroom.  Barbies, dolls, and a little kitchen set.  I couldn’t wait to meet this little one.

    “It’s a girl!”

    Sure enough, the ultrasound guy got it right.

    I painted her room pink.  Bought loads of pink dresses and pink outfits.  Pink socks.  Pink hair bows.  Even Barbie had a collection of pink stuff, including pink plastic shoes and a pink purse.

    Then one day, she came home from preschool and announced, “I hate pink.  And I hate dresses.”

    Thunk went my heart.

    I did everything I could to cajole her.  “Honey, we’re going out to dinner with Grandma and Grandpa, how about you wear your pink sundress? Or the blue one?  Or the cute purple one?”

    No, no and no!

    She went through several years where she never donned a dress.  Or anything pink.  “I hate pink!” she would remind me.  She stopped asking me to braid her hair.  She borrowed her brother’s clothes and held her own when roughhousing with them.  I resigned myself to the fact that I birthed three boys.

    Then she became a tween.  Pink was suddenly vogue. I got my little girl back!

    And the arguments began.

    “That skirt is too short!”

    “Those heels are too high!”

    “You’re not going out in public wearing that!“

    Lauren’s favorite way to pass the time was to grab a gal pal and go shopping.  They would try on dresses.  For hours.  And snap photos of the two of them pouting and posing, pretending to be famous models.  I would view the pictures with amusement when they uploaded them to the hard drive.

    Today, my little girl has blossomed into a beautiful, amazing… girl.  I’m not ready to say “woman” just yet, because every single time I look into her eyes, I see the baby that arrived fifteen years ago.

    Happy Birthday, Lauren Marie!  I love you!

  • Life is Too Short to Pout All the Time

    Many years ago, I began writing for a website that produced product reviews and I had to come up with a personal tagline or quote to reflect something about me.   Mine was simply:  “Life is too short to pout all the time.”  That line came to me years ago, when my kids were four- and two-years old, and my youngest had just been born.

    As you can imagine, life back then with a four-year old, two-year old and a crying baby included days where the kids would pout and whine.   After juggling everyone’s needs, keeping track of who was fed and who needed to be fed, refereeing two fighting toddlers, all this on top of attempting to keep the house in some semblance of order–by the end of the day, I was pouting myself.  As soon as the hubby arrived home from work, I whined and unloaded on him.  Then one day, after a particularly trying day with the three kids, I said to them, “Come on, guys, life is too short to pout all the time.”  We took off for the kitchen and made brownies together.  Soon we were all happily chomping away on warm brownies.

    I learned a valuable lesson from those younger days with my kids:  life is meant to be enjoyed with your family and your friends.  The toys on the floor could wait to be picked up, after all, we were busy playing and learning.  So what if the house was in shambles– it was more important to connect with my neighbors over a pizza while the kids played together.

    There was another lesson to come.  One day out of the blue, (that’s usually how it happens, doesn’t it?) my husband learned that his close friend, Tod, was dying.  Diagnosed with cancer at Christmastime, he only had a few months to live.  We talked about taking a dream trip somewhere together with our families, but Tod was too sick to travel.  So we called up a bunch of his friends, piled them all in a van and drove down to see Tod.

    We spent a magical weekend together filled with laughter as well as tears. “Remember this? Remember that?”  We asked each other, as we relived memories and fun times together.

    That night, the snow fell, covering the trees in a glistening white.  We had a quiet moment gazing out into the backyard and seeing the moonlight bounce off the snow.  Tod’s wife came up to us and simply said, “Thank you for this weekend.”  We knew what she meant, because we were all feeling it:  happy, sad, connected, and at peace.   Just weeks later, Tod passed away.   He gave us a gift: a gift of appreciating life, of appreciating family and friends, and the gift of appreciating love.

    After Tod died, I reflected on what I wanted to do with my life.  How did I want to be remembered when it was my own time to go?  I had three deaf and hard of hearing kids that I was raising—what could I do with my knowledge, my skills and my journey?  I took on projects, volunteer work and paid work that brought meaning to my life.  I have to say that Tod’s death raised a lot of questions inside of me and drove me to appreciate life more.  Just weeks after he passed away we made some changes in our lives and did some things that we had been putting off.  We quit decorating the house and bought the used boat that we had been talking about for years.  We took cheap vacations with other friends.  We spent more time up in Michigan visiting my parents and the in-laws.

    Of course, I still have some days when things go wrong and I’m about to tear my hair out.  I had a day like that not too long ago, grumbling and venting to anyone who would listen.  My daughter took one look at me and said…

    “Mom, life is too short to pout about this.”

    Originally published on Chicago Mom’s Blog, April 2009

  • Women’s Barefoot Week at the World Barefoot Center

    Way back in March, when I first met Judy Myers, she casually mentioned that she was going to organize a Women’s Barefoot Week at the World Barefoot Center this fall.  “We never do anything for the ladies in barefooting, so we’re going to have a whole week devoted to us!” she said.

    Women’s Barefoot Week is set for November 1-6 and coming up quick!  I still haven’t found my ugly hat for the Ugly Hat contest but I know that Joann O’Connor has been madly scouring the flea markets and intends to win.

    I’m looking forward to seeing Judy and Joann again and meeting lots of new gals from all over the U.S.  Back when I was a teen, I only had the guys to barefoot with on Christie Lake (not that it was a bad thing!) but there’s something about having another gal role model that just does wonders for the soul!

    Speaking of guys, we’re going to teach Swampy, Keith St. Onge and David Small how to tap into their female sides all week. They’ll learn to embrace pink nail polish and some lovely women’s wear.  Yes, we’ll be sure to get photos.

    It won’t just be a week of fluff, we’ll be out on the water working on deep starts, tumble turns, toe holds, backwards– the goal is for every gal to learn something new and have a blast on the water.  My goal is to conquer the darn long-line deep start beast that I battled all summer.   My other goal is to learn to barefoot with my heels leading the way– that is… if the Master (KSO) determines that I’m ready for it.  Judy and Joann, my cheerleading team, have over-ridden KSO’s expertise and have signed me up for some backwards barefooting–starting off on shoes, of course.

    The World Barefoot Center is discounting their pro shop items just for the ladies that week.  After a day of skiing, we’ll be kicking back with some Barefoot Wine and fun activities.  At the end of the week, the gal who is the “Most Improved Barefooter” gets to go home with a pair of Vibram Five Fingers Barefoot Shoes. A big thank you to our sponsors!

    We have a few spots left for Women’s Barefoot Week so if you want to join us, come on out!  It can be for a day or two or the entire week.  Call the World Barefoot Center at 863-877-0039 to reserve your spot on the boat.  After all, it will be the only time of the year that Swampy gives out foot massages.

  • Aspire–Are You Living Your Life’s Purpose?

    The friend notification appeared like so many others.  “Kevin Hall wants to be friends on Facebook.”

    Kevin Hall?  The name wasn’t familiar to me.  I went on the internet to find out more.  A short time earlier, I connected with Chad Hymas, and discovered that they were good friends.  Kevin Hall, I learned, was a business consultant, speaker and the author of Aspire: Discovering Your Purpose Through the Power of Words.

    Intrigued, I accepted his friend request and shortly after, Kevin left a comment.  “I tried barefooting and ripped off some toenails in the process,” he wrote.  Of course, anyone who barefoots captures my attention these days.  I began visiting his page on a daily basis, buoyed by the positive quotes and sharing that he put forth.

    “Can you tell me more about you?” I asked in a direct message.

    Kevin wrote back, “My purpose in life is help others discover and fulfill their purpose. That is the objective of Aspire and we have been receiving some wonderful feedback on it. Please don’t hesitate to let me know how I can serve you. Namasté.”

    I don’t often order books since I prefer to use the library, but something inside of me told me to order his book.  I asked Kevin what made him reach out to connect with me on Facebook.

    “Probably just destiny,” he wrote.  “We are all connected Karen and we are all in this together trying to do our best to contribute and make a difference. Excited to hear your thoughts as you read Aspire.”

    I brought the book with me on my trip up to Wisconsin to barefoot with Joann O’Connor. There was no time to read, as we spent three days on the water.  After working a picnic for ZVRS, I woke up early the next day and decided to read the book and nurse my sore muscles with a hot bath.  Hours later, I finally emerged and I knew I was in the middle of a book that I would treasure for a long time.

    Kevin wrote the book centered around eleven words.  In the foreword by Stephen R. Covey titled “Finding Your Bliss,” he writes:

    The more you understand words and the layers within them, the more it helps you understand your path and purpose.

    Right after reading the very first chapter, I knew that it was indeed, destiny, that connected me to Kevin Hall.  Within the first chapter, I found a word that I wanted to share with my audience at the Family Support Conference which took place yesterday.

    “How many of you have heard of the word, ‘Genshai’?” I asked.

    Not a single hand went up.

    Genshai (pronounced GEN-shy) means simply that you never treat anyone else in a manner that makes them feel small.  This includes yourself.  Kevin kindly gave me a speech lesson via an interpreter on the videophone so that I could confidently pronounce it during my presentation.

    This word struck home with me because growing up, I measured myself against folks with normal hearing– simply because all of my friends and role models were people who could hear.  Thus, I felt small in some ways.  “If only I had normal hearing, I would do this… or do that…” I thought.  That view was occasionally reinforced by others who felt I couldn’t or shouldn’t do certain things because I was lacking the full sense of hearing.  In college, I wanted to become a labor and delivery nurse.  The counselor that I consulted gave me a hundred reasons why that profession was not right for me: the communication challenges would be too great and it would be hard to find anyone to hire me.  What a message! Of course, I felt small after leaving this session and this partly lead me to chose another profession.  A few years later, I met deaf doctors, deaf dentists, deaf lawyers… and of course, deaf nurses!

    I wanted the professionals, the parents, the deaf and hard of hearing adults in the audience to walk away with this word and incorporate it into everything they do when working with deaf and hard of hearing children.  The field is strife with communication wars, short-changed expectations and opposing camps who cannot sit down and connect with one another openly.  When you practice Genshai with everyone you meet, your mind is open to new possibilities and your heart listens.  You blaze a kinder path in your wake.

    After I closed the book, I had to ask myself, “Am I living my life’s purpose?”  I know I’m still the process of discovery with my life path.  I’ve done some wonderful things, but there’s a sense of so much more ahead– more that I want to experience and share.  I’m excited at the possibilities that lie ahead and I’m filled with joy at the things that I’m doing now.

    Thank you, Kevin, for reaching out on Facebook.

  • Writing for the Chicago Tribune TribLocal

    The email came out of the blue.  It was titled, “DeafMom Tweets.”  It was from Amy Alderman, a staff reporter and producer from the Chicago Tribune TribLocal.

    “Dear Karen,” she wrote. “I just wanted to write to say I really enjoy your tweets. By any chance, are you based in the Chicago suburbs? I work as a reporter and producer for the Chicago Tribune’s TribLocal online and print news, and I’m looking for new bloggers for our sites.”

    Would I be interested?

    I love when new opportunities like that pop up.  So I said yes.  I was a little scared to take on more work at a time when I was completely overwhelmed, but writing for the Chicago Tribune TribLocal has been fun.  I have been writing online and in print for various publications for years, but there’s something about being able to pick up the newspaper on a Thursday morning and see an article in there that I’ve written–well, that just puts a smile on my face.

    This week, I wrote about how Facebook and Twitter have brought me many wonderful opportunities to meet people online and face-to-face.  I had a blast barefooting with Dan Tanis and Jeff Hoekstra on Cedar Lake:

    Here are the three articles printed so far:

    Karen Putz Debuts on TribLocal

    Barefoot Water Skiing with a Senior Citizen

    Adventures with Facebook and Twitter

    More to come!

  • Officially a Mom of Three Teenagers

    Today’s a big day.  This is the day that Steven turns thirteen.

    It’s official.  I’m a mom of three teenagers.

    How did the time go by so fast?  I can remember his birth as if it was just yesterday…

    When I was pregnant with Steven, I had the brilliant idea of ripping out our bathtub and putting in a large soaking tub so that I could labor comfortably in it.  Joe went along with it.  It was only a few hundred dollars for the tub and we figured we could do most of the work ourselves.  Never mind that it involved removing half of our double sink and putting a toilet in that space.  Such a simple job, we thought.

    The work was moving along slowly.  Joe framed the bathtub and we hired a plumber to do all the pipe work.  A friend helped tear down the tile and we hired someone else to tile up the side of the tub and walls just days before the birth.    When the midwife and naturopath arrived, Joe was working on the floor.

    I was a bundle of nerves and I couldn’t quite get settled that week.  I had no doubts about doing a homebirth, but there was an unease inside of me, a lot of it had to do with concerns that I didn’t recognize until much later after the birth.  Someone had advised me to pray to St. Therese for this birth and I learned that this saint answers prayers with “a shower of roses.”   As we got ready to take a walk that evening, the midwife casually mentioned that she received a beautiful bouquet of red roses from a mom who had homebirthed with her.

    I knew that was my sign.  From that point on, I was enveloped with an amazing, calm feeling.  I simply focused on each breath and dove into the hypno-birthing from that point on.   During the pushing, I was using Christie Lake as a focal point in my mind.  At one point, the naturopath was applying fundal pressure and I saw a sparkle of blue lights.  It was as if I was floating on the lake on a beautiful summer day and the lake was twinkling in the sun.  I recently learned that it’s a sign of Mother Mary being present.   There definitely was some divine intervention for Steven’s birth, because I was given Cytotec at the beginning–which can cause ruptures and is very unsafe for VBACs.   I did not know this at that time.  I later wrote an article about the dangers of Cytotec which was published in Midwifery Today and DON’T CUT ME AGAIN! True Stories About Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC).

    The day that Steven entered this world was an amazing one and I do have lots of good memories of his birth.  Despite the medical aspect, the midwife and naturopath tended to me well.  They sang, they cooked, they did laundry, they soothed and they supported me.  If I could do it all over again, without a doubt, I would have homebirthed all three kids.  I was fortunate to attend several births since then, including a home waterbirth and a winter solstice birth.

    So here I am, thirteen years later with a house full of teenagers.  You know all those horror stories that everyone has about teens?  Hogwash.  The teen years are the best years.

    “Mom?  Can I go to Buffalo Wild Wings with my friends?  I need some money.”

    “Sure, honey.  I’ll give you fifteen bucks.  But first, mop the kitchen floor, clean the upstairs bathroom and do a load of laundry.  Then you can go.”

    Happy Birthday, Steven Michael!

  • Driving a 1952 John Deere Tractor

    I was winterizing the jet ski when Dad came out of the garage.  “What happened to your trailer?” he asked, pointing to the wheel crank. The handle was bent.

    “I jackknifed two years ago when I backed it up for the first time,” I sheepishly explained.  “I left the back door up on the truck and I couldn’t see the end of the trailer when I was backing up.”

    He threw his head back and laughed. Because you see, I have a history of “accidents” with motorized toys.   I once broke off the handle in the back of the snowmobile while whipping Joe on a sled in the middle of the lake.  A couple of years ago, I backed the ATV out of the shed and forgot about the snow plow attached in front.  The plow caught the door frame and I pulled the entire front of the shed off the foundation.  Fortunately, Dad didn’t lecture me too much as we pounded the shed frame back into place.  Another time, I was pulling the pontoon out of the barn with the ATV and forgot to put it in four-wheel drive and I snapped off the hitch.

    “Let me go get some wrenches and I’ll fix the crank for you.”

    In two minutes, he had the handle straightened out and the crank working again.  He went back in the house as I continued to winterize the jet ski.  I ran the anti-freeze through, fogged the engine and shut it off.  I went in the garage to look for a socket wrench and after a few minutes, I found the size I needed to remove the battery cables.  I went back in for an adjustable wrench to remove the battery from the housing.  If there’s one thing you should know about my Dad, he has every tool imaginable.  However, finding what you need when you need it is a challenge:

    I went through every drawer, but I couldn’t find the adjustable wrench in the size that I needed.  So off I went into the house.  “Where’s the small, adjustable wrench?”  I asked.

    Without missing a beat, he said, “Second drawer.”

    It took a bit of digging, but sure enough, I found the wrench buried deep in the second drawer.  I finished up with the jet ski and drove it up to the barn to put it away.  The neighbors had put their boats away earlier and I slid the jet ski in the empty slot in the back.  I noticed that Dad’s tractor was sitting outside.  The neighbors had dragged it out of the barn but there was no way to put it back without starting it.

    “Hey Dad, the tractor is sitting outside,” I explained when I arrived back at the house.  “I think it’s time for you to teach me how to drive it.”  Dad raised one eyebrow, but he agreed to teach me the next day.

    Dad received this 1952 tractor as a gift from Tom Pursley, a local builder who built my parent’s house.  The tractor was one of the first two-cycle diesel engines with a gas pulling motor. The pulling motor stopped working, so the only way to get the tractor started was to tow it until it kicked into gear.  I hooked the strap up to the hitch and hopped into the truck.  “Put it in low,” Dad reminded me. “Tow me toward the road and when it kicks in, you can take the strap off.”

    I moved the truck forward and tightened the strap and then gave it some gas.  Nothing.  I tried again, and the wheels spun.  The tractor stayed in place.  I backed up a bit, gave it some more gas.  The strap tugged the truck back.

    Turns out, Dad left the brake engaged on the tractor.  Score one for me!  At least it wasn’t me messing up this time!  I pulled ahead and the tractor rolled forward.  We hit the road and the tractor started. But I celebrated too soon.  I had moved the truck to the side and put it in park and jumped out to release the strap just as Dad let the clutch out too fast.  The wheel ran over the strap.  The strap was too tight to remove.  Dad ended up putting the tractor in reverse to release the tension and I unhooked the strap.

    I parked the truck and hopped on to the tractor for my lesson.  It turned out to be pretty simple to run a tractor.  Put it in gear, release the clutch and off you go.  Pull the clutch along with the brakes and you can stop the thing.  I had fun driving it around with Dad hanging on. I think I’m ready to chop some corn down in a field.

    Well, kind of ready.  I let Dad put it back in the barn.

  • From Waterskiing to Barefooting

    Ann C wanted to know, how does one go from water skiing to learning how to barefoot:

    As a kid, I’ve water-skiied and slalomed on water to the point I could do a quick turn-’round and jump the wakes, also slalom with eight other ppl on ski’s, weaving in and out under and over the ropes. The latter stunt required a boat with a lotta horsepower. Also powder skiied on slopes for several years. I’ve had my share of flat-facing both on water and snow, heh.

    Gotta ask ya, how does one start at a barefoot, off a dock or pulling outta the water literally? Hey, pulling outta water on slalom ain’t easy, takes a lot of balance and knowing if the boat has got enough horsepower. If one were to go from skiing to barefooting, how’d one start?

    I gotta tell ya, Ann, the easiest way to learn barefoot water skiing is off a boom, from an experienced teacher.  When I went down to the World Barefoot Center this spring, I used a boom for the first time and my first thought was, “Wow, this is a lot easier than behind the boat!”

    You can move from the boom to learning a deep water start off the five-foot rope extension strapped to the boom.  To do a deep water start, you grip the handle near your hips, place your feet on the rope and lie back in the water.  As the boat picks up speed, you sit up on the water, place your heels gently and stand up. Once you master the extension, you can move the deep water start to the long line behind the boat. Take a look at Joann O’Connor (61-years-young!) doing the start:

    To learn to barefoot behind the boat with a 75- or 100–foot-rope, you can either start off on a wakeboard/kneeboard or by kicking off a ski.  I learned with a kneeboard and I never really mastered barefooting off a ski– I face planted half of the time!

    I highly recommend the World Barefoot Center if you’d like to try barefooting for the first time.  The WBC team is great to work with and they even have a swing to sit in off the boom for first-timers.