Sk8r boy

To top off the weekend, because yoga, show shoeing and hockey aren't enough, I went ice skating today. Bubba was invited to a ice skating birthday party so I hung out too. (He's loves to go to parties but hates to be left alone. He doesn't really need me there, just there.) It was a lot of fun and I wasn't nearly as embarrassed as I thought I would be. Maybe I will try the women's hockey league after all?

After the party Bubba and I met up with my new hockey pimp. Kidding, it was just a guy selling tickets on craigslist. Row 3. I cannot wait! The selfish part of me really wants all the tickets to myself, but we agreed to let Bubba go to one of the 4 games. Poo, I think I regret that now! I have a month to come to terms with it.

I also cleaned, and I mean CLEANED yesterday. It had been awhile. I haven't had company for a month or so... :) You think I am kidding? Not that I am expecting any but the living room was just so bad. The dog sheds, the dirt from outside, all that yuckiness. Glad to be rid of it. Although, I leave the house for a few hours and you'd never know how clean it was yesterday!

Oh yeah! The big news of the weekend is that Bubba pulled out a tooth! Notice the window in his smile. He has been pretty excited all weekend. Anyone and everyone has been shown where he pulled it from! He also got a too-short haircut. Oh well, its just hair. It will grow back.

Found the snow

Just because Yoga wasn't enough, we went snow shoeing yesterday. WOW! It can be a lot of work! I think my hamstrings are sore from Yoga, but my hip flexors are screaming from snow shoeing!

We went up to Mission Ridge, which has always seemed really far away to me, but its only 20 minutes, where they have a lot of groomed and un groomed trails. Unfortunately they are all uphill to start at quite an incline. The road took us near the chair lift which is FOREVER-high off the ground. I can't believe I ever rode that thing. As we made our ascent we saw lots of people on the chair lift including our nephew! How odd -- shouldn't he be in school? Nope, he told us he had the day off.

It was very fun. Foggy, but good to be out in the grey weather doing something. I have let the grey, foggy, blah weather get to me. Time to get back at it! We ate in the lodge at Mission Ridge (we weren't cool enough for the boys though, they wanted to eat with their buddies) and then came home for an afternoon nap before the kids got out of school.

Later My Honey and I went to the hockey game. Hopefully they will play better tonight!

UPSIDE DOWN

AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH.

I went to Yoga for the first time in years tonight. AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH. Oh, Yoga, why have I forsaken thee? Well, lets see. First, my instructor extraordinaire was killed in a car accident, then ... well, I never got back into it.

I have no idea what my instructor's name was, but she was great. Just what I needed tonight. She started with telling us about being intentional. Setting a goal, in yoga, and being intentional. Of course, I set my goal as courageous. I wanted to be courageous. What that looked like was yet to be seen.

Turns out, it looks upside down.

My intention was to be courageous. Shoot, just being at the class was courageous. The last yoga class I went to Jen taught, in the same room. There was a lot of emotion for me. The only instructor I have ever had was Jen, would this new girl measure up? Could I still do it????

Miss Yoga was all about inversions tonite. Doing stuff with our heart below our head - upside down, not like head stands (although she did ..) but just, well, upside down. I LOVED IT. I love being upside down. I remember my first or second class with Jen, she was walking us through shoulder stands (one of my all time favorite poses. I love shoulder stand!) and *whoop* my legs just flew up! Jen's comment was "your body LOVES to be upside down!" Anyway, it has been nearly 4 years, maybe longer, and *whoop* my body still loves to be upside down. It loves yoga. The mind-body connection is indescribable. Think I will go back next Thursday for more! It felt so good. My shoulders and low back are a tad bit achy, I hope I am not too sore tomorrow, but its all good. And, I got up in a shoulder stand. AAAAAHHHHHH.

So I was courageous in being there. In trying everything. In listening to what my body would and could do. Yay me.

:)

:P

Bummer, I had hoped to get something done today. Then the phone rang. At 7:30. Yeah, that's never good. Work. Can you come in anytime between 11 and 7 today? Ummm, maybe, let me check with a babysitter. Dang. She'll do it. Okay, be there from 11-3. Can't work any later than 3.

Yeah, I am too nice. It's my "long weekend" I have a day off with My Honey tomorrow, hockey tickets for Friday AND Saturday night so why the hell not? Four hours of overtime won't kill me.

My first Technology Committee meeting is today at 3:40. Turns out, Bubba's teacher is on the committee (YAY!) and she gave me a little background information that could be useful. Thanks Mrs. P!

I feel a little out of sorts the past couple of weeks. A good out of sorts, but still. Here's the short story: My Honey picked up a few of my little chores and as a result my schedule is a little disjointed. In a good way, but still, disjointed. Its working out really well, just taking some getting used to! And I wouldn't trade it! No way!

Things that could be done: Awwww, why would I do that to myself? The list is too long and it starts with clean so never mind!

Done

I just finished a really good book. I have a lot to say about it, but its all kind of jumbled because the book covered SO MUCH. Its called THE HOUR I FIRST BELIEVED and its by Wally Lamb. I thought it was well written, I was very thought provoking and well researched. Very interesting.

Anyway, I wanted to get the name of it down before I forgot. I am sure I will have more to say about it in a few days or so.

1-877-99-Haiti (2484) Hopeforhaitinow.org

What can I say?

One of the things I like about my job is being removed from what is going on, yet knowing what is out there. When I was in Haiti in 1989, I was in the thick of it. The far away from civilization, thick of it. We assisted with a medical clinic in a remote village. I wonder how that village fared?

I only spent a couple weeks in Haiti in and I have known people since who come and go as short-and-long-term missionaries. But I cannot get the images of those I met out of my mind. Many, many times, yearly, in fact, if not more often, I have thought of returning.

I remember huts on stilts to keep critters out of food supplies, I believe the people slept in them during the wet season. Otherwise, they slept in huts made of clay and palm branches. On dirt floors.

I remember a sea of black faces.
I remember pre-washing all our food in bleach water. Even fresh-picked stuff.
I remember puking my guts out because I ate something that wasn't sterilized.
I remember a very rainy day, working kitchen duty that day. Man how it rained.
I remember assisting the dentist. Pulling teeth. Lots of teeth. "Pull them all, they hurt too much" they would tell us. It was easier to be without teeth than to deal with the decay.
I remember assisting the doctors. We gave out more aspirin and advice on how to carry a jug of water or a basket of laundry to help them with back pain than anything else.
I remember the orphanage. The small kids in cribs. I remember being startled by the number of kids at the orphanage. The number of staff, and yet there were still kids in tears. There was a body of water nearby. Lake? Pond? Stream? I don't remember, but that is where they washed clothes and played.

There were a lot of things that happened that were ... well, it was like parables and stories from the Bible came to life right before my eyes. Not that I need proof to believe, but those images have stayed etched in my mind. It was the beatitudes (blessed are the ...) in real life. There was a group (family or friends I don't know) who carried a very sick person in on a blanket to get medical attention. There were people helped, there was death. An infection, easily cured by antibiotics in the US took the life of a young pregnant woman (Annette) and her unborn child. What a night that was.

I don't know, I am moved to tears over and over by the news of the devastation in Haiti. It touches a spot that is so tender, sometimes so fresh for me inside.
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I started this a couple days ago. Tonight I am sitting watching Help For Haiti Now. It is a marvelous thing that well-known's will come together to support what I believe to be a worthy cause. Beautiful.


"He is in very serious condition and ... we don't even know his name."
1-877-99-Haiti (2484) Hopeforhaitinow.org

Courage

Instead of resolutions, I try to work on a characteristic or a quality, a theme I want to work on each year. Some that stand out are contentment and "quit your bitching", I worked on being more social one year, last year I worked on simplifying ...

My theme for 2010 is "courage." I don't have a great story about how I came about it or why, it just is. It's just a word that kept bouncing around in my brain during the last few weeks of the year and so I just adopted it as my 2010 deal.

It's interesting what happens when I put something like that down on paper (or whatever). I become more aware of my courage (or lack of it) in different situations. I start to see that maybe I'm not as un-courageous (what is the opposite? afraid?) as I thought I was. For instance, those tickets I got from the gal on craigslist? We were trying to set up our "meet" and I just flat out made the arrangements - a few years ago I would have agonized over suggesting where and when, I might have just given up. Monday it just popped out of my mouth.

Another thing happened today. The principal at Bubba's school happened to be in the "hallway" and said he had thought of me for a couple of committees. So, instead of saying, "oh really?" and letting it go, or waiting for him to tell me more, I was a little more forward, asked a LOT more questions, and made plans to talk with him about them on Friday. At 9am. As I walked away, I thought of how that conversation would NOT have happened 6 or 7 years ago (or in high school **).

I've tried to get involved in some other committees but my work schedule didn't allow for it, so he knows I am interested in that kind of thing, and I am actually pretty darn excited that he thought of me - or at least he said he did when he saw me today. What do you think, safety or technology?

Anyway, there are some areas I am already courageous in, or bold I guess might be a better word, and there are some areas where I still need to work on it.

** note about the principal: he's a guy I went to high school with, class president or some such thing, always in leadership roles - even as a student, great athlete, smart, smart, smart. The polar opposite of me. We ran in the same crowd for a time, but never really connected as "friends", probably more me being afraid of him than anything else. **

Weekend

Well, my plans to go west were a bust, but it all worked out well. Lotsa down time, a short overtime shift (although the stress of THAT took a few beers), and the kids got to go to a movie today.

We have plans for this weekend to go to a hockey game (duh) so I checked out Craigslist for some tickets and found a pretty good deal for Saturday night, saved $10 off what we would normally pay and I think they are better seats; 6 rows from the glass (that's right near the ice) and directly behind the pipes (the goal). We watched from the same area the last game we went to and loved it so I was pretty stoked to find cheap tickets!!

Hmmm, I thought I had more to say. Just excited for the tickets I think!! Speaking of tickets, I get to go to another Nickelback concert in May :) They're playing at the Tacoma Dome so my dad's wife and I are going again. I'm excited for that, but its awhile away. Hmmm, yeah, that's it.

Profound

Ahhhhhhh, a little fresh air.

Me and My Honey and Miss I took the dog on a walk. (I know, the dog??!!) It was nice to go out and get a little fresh air. These gray days are getting me down, its good to get out.

Miss I was cute, she kept blowing the fog out of the way. She was pretty sure it was working too until she turned around and looked behind us and there was still fog.

Winter weather has the greatest phenomenon of all time. Snow. I mean, really? Just the right conditions to produce these little individual flakes. And what makes it sparkly? We were at the Ridge last night for some music ("Red Means Go" pretty cute little band from Ellensburg) and it was snowing sparkly snow. It was very pretty.

And fog. I don't even know how to explain fog to my kids - "um, its like condensation, only not really, sort of like when you breathe on the window, but not exactly, its caused by moisture in the air, but ..." Yeah, I should have paid better attention in school. Not skipped so many classes.

Other than that, I haven't even gotten out of my jammies today. A lazy day is a good one. An 8 year old slave boy is good too! Now if I could only summon a cleaning lady, a cook and the money to make that lifestyle a reality! Maybe I just need to start looking for a bottle with a genie in it, give it a little rub and get my three wishes? Buy a lotto ticket? :) Learn to enjoy my life as it is ... oooh, that's profound.

Right now it is quiet: the kids are occupied with Nintendo DS, My Honey is downstairs killing things in some computer game and I get to sit here and write.

The fireplace has s rip-roaring fire in it, my feet are up as I sit in a rocking chair just chillin'. No TV, no music - other than the Nintendos going on and the kids occasionally break out into song. Random shit like "The Star Spangled Banner" and "Jingle Bells". The dog is snoring (yeah, snoring) just a few feet away. The bills are paid, the house is presentable if someone showed up (I am not presentable, but that's okay, I could throw on a hat and call it good) I have my health, as does my family.

I enjoy my job, and I was able to take tomorrow off since the kids are out of school, plus, I get to leave early on Wednesday afternoon.

I was able to go out with My Honey for fun last night, we get to go out again on Tuesday. I have two great kids. We are going through some growing pains right now with the kids, cracking down on a few things and it makes us all cranky, but it will be worth it in the end.

Pretty much I got nothin' to complain about. It's all good right now. All good.

Hoo

Miss I loves to have her hair done. I don't mind doing it if there is time and if I understand her wish. Recently she wanted "Cindy Lou Hoo Hair" from The Grinch. When I asked her what that would look like she said "a hump here and here" pointing to the sides of the top of her head "and a big, huge hump in back."


So that's what I came up with. She was pleased as punch and I was pretty impressed with myself.

Its been a long-ish week. I started my new shift and days off and, of course I have some overtime. I have an extra day off this weekend!!! So I think we are going to head west, although there is winter weather due in so that all might be quashed.

So off to bed I go.... After a little Wii bowling :)

Time

*sigh* it's about time

I needed a hair cut and color SO BAD! So. Bad.

Found me a new girl named Rosa that I think I will like. What was most interesting was her salon. Office, really. She works in a building with 5 other stylists, but they each have their own office-type space. I am not sure if I just liked it or REALLY liked it. Her space was great, dark grey, red and black. Very clean, very minimalist. Sort of art-deco-y. I am kind of art-deco-y I think. More than I thought. I have always thought I was sort of traditional or maybe country-ish. But no, maybe not.

She did a great job, cute, shorter cut than I have had in awhile, lots of bold streaks. Took out the last of the off-color from my home color last spring. Glad to be rid of that!!!!

It's the start of my new schedule, new days off, back to school and all that this week. Shew! It's been a little hairy. Next week Bubba is out of school early on Friday and no school Monday, and I took the day off so we are going to head west. We should be able to leave at noon Friday, and then take our time coming back Monday. Hopefully the weather holds (no snow). It will be nice to spend a few days at my Dad's or my sister's ...??? Hmmmm, maybe. What say you sis?

And cold .... its cold again. Have me a fire burning as I write. Glad I have a fire place for burning in!

Ringing in the new year

We're doing hockey games this weekend!!! You know that doesn't excite me in the least ... hahhahaha

We are taking Bubba tonite, Miss I gets a special night at Grandmas. Tomorrow we are taking ... someones. We have two extra tickets and a babysitter so we are going to invite a couple friends of ours and see if we can poison them with the hockey bug too!

It should be a fun couple of nights, I am looking forward to it!!