January 25, 2009 @ 11:33

Miles:  34

Hours of other fitness pursuits:  3, does supervising yardwork count?  Then it’d be like 8. 

Pounds lost:  3, guess it was a week three curse for me. 

I’ve got the best friends ever in the whole of the universe.  Yesterday, as my birthday gift, they all came to my house and cleared out the sadly neglected back yard and set fence posts for me.  It was a huge undertaking.  I’m not a yard person.  I do not have a green thumb.  Plants, like elephant’s to their mythical graveyards, come to my house to die.  When I bought this house six years ago the yard was beautiful.  A little crazy, climbing roses trained onto the power line, clematis left to trail along the ground, but beautiful in a haphazard way.  This suited me.  But my general gardening ignorance, less than enthusiastic desire to dig in the dirt on a daily basis and having a new born baby boy quickly led the yard further into looking like the Secret Garden.  A couple of summers ago some friends came to visit and gave the back tree line a working over, along with working over the front yard.  Last summer I planted containers of flowers and veggies and herbs and it was lovely, but the other side of the yard was still languishing.  Privet hedge and trumpet vine and morning glory and a half dozen other vines I have no names for and dozens and dozens of little scrub trees had created a blanket of foliage that nearly obscured the view of our neighbor, not a completely bad thing, there.  This morning, though, it is all gone.  The peach tree stump that still stood where it had died four years ago, gone.  The curtain of vines that rolled over the edge of the carport’s roof, gone.  The little scrubby trees that were crowding the beds, gone.  Perdiodically throughout the day, someone would call out my name and I’d look up to find them standing, looking very lumberjack cool, with a hand on a smaller tree trunk with that look in their eyes.  Can I take this one down?  I would always nod my head yes, bemused expression on my face, and maybe repeat what I’d said to them all day.  Do whatever you want.  I am in awe of the offer, I will not argue a single point of the execution.  It was just surreal to watch these people work their butts off for me and act like they liked it.  Janet swears she could spend all day every day in the garden.  All I can say is wow.  They left my roses and a dozen small trees and my mimosa tree, which I know some people call trash trees but that I love.  I could not be happier.  Thank you. 

January 10, 2009 @ 09:44

Weekly Stats

Miles:  4

Hours of other fitness pursuits:  2

Pounds lost:  7

Honey, I’m home . . . 

December 14, 2008 @ 09:15

Last night was my annual friends’ Christmas party.  I started the day at work.  Then dashed around buying what we needed and tried not to lose it in holiday traffic.  Seriously?  What is wrong with people?  Not losing it was greatly aided by a nice long talk with Puppy’s daddy when I met him to give him some things that I’d forgotten to send for the weekend.  Then I headed to the grocery store to buy the food for the party and the week.  You just can’t skip the weekly grocery trip when you’ve got kids, no matter how badly you don’t want to since your grocery store is a Walmart and it’s two weeks ’til Christmas.  Saints preserve us.  I cleaned house like a mad woman, partly because I’d been a bit neglectful lately.  I cooked entirely too much food.  I remembered to recharge the battery to the camera and then promptly forgot about it for the rest of the night.  I was still cooking when the guests arrived and nearly burned the phyllo wrapped chicken and beef.  Because I was still hovering in the kitchen at the party’s start time I spent the whole night with my hair in the pony tail I’d slapped it into that morning and only a thirty second slap of make up that I applied after everyone had arrived.  Oh, and mingled with my beautifully dressed guests in my favorite Serenty tee shirt.  At least it’s Christmasy. 

I did what I always do and jumped from one clustered conversation to the next trying to get to talk to everyone and in the process didn’t get nearly as much time as I wanted with anyone.  I forgot to put the gift game in the invitation so two of us exchanged a gift instead of a roomful of noisy present chasing.  In short . . .  it was perfect.  The guest list was smaller this year.  Some work drama has had many of us on edge so we settled in with our nearest and dearest instead of expanding the guest list as I thought we might.  Old friends that I hadn’t seen in months came.  And I had the best margarita I’ve ever had in my life.  Elderflower, seriously who would have thought, but it was excellent.  Now I’m going to go make a savory bread pudding with some leftovers and go to work, at the job that even with the drama I still love love love.  This has been a very good weekend.  This has been mostly a very good year.  Thanks to everyone of you who’ve partipated in those good parts. 

 November 05, 2008 @ 07:11

The costumes are delivered.  Praise was recieved for them.  If I had known everything that was going to happen, I never would have taken the contract.  I lost just shy of a full month of production time because of the lumbering university’s financial system.  They did not pay the advance until 30 days after having recieved my estimate.  And I don’t know about you, but I don’t have thousands lying around in case of brocade emergencies.  Oh, how nice that would be, right fellow SCA folks?  So, by the time the university wheels ground out the advance, it was too late for me to say hey, you guys, I can’t do this.  I was not the original costume builder.  The first was forced to leave the project when her grandchild was diagnosed with cancer.  How horrific.  And I hope her family is making it through such a terrible time.  The director searched for weeks with no luck finding a person crazy enough to think they could pull off the project.  So it came to me late already.  And anybody who knows me will tell you what a sucker I am for a sob story.  I’ll give away the farm.  So, I could not in my version of good conscious leave them hanging in the wind like that.  The set design was already scrapped for the same reasons.  The company said no check, no set.  And who could blame them?  A minimalist design was chosen in the original plans stead.  Just a scaffold on the set.  That’s a lot of pressure on the costumes to carry the visual theme, no?  So what did I do?  I spent every waking moment outside of my boys’ needs and my job in front of the sewing machine for the last six weeks.  Plus a couple of vacation days.  My fingers bled.  My back ached.  My eyes blurred.  And I enlisted the aid of some family and friends that saved me.  Baby Sis and Stephie in particular.  They were delivered on Sunday.  And Thursday is the opening night.  There are things about them that I hate.  Shortcuts that could not be avoided.  A shocking level of skimping in some areas.  I hope that no serious costumer is present.  They’re fine for everyday.  Not fine enough for Sunday, that’s all I’m saying.  I’ll post more pictures if I can get them. 

Not too bad for 30 costumes in 27 days, I suppose . . . 

And I’m happy that the election is done.  And happy for the results.  I think McCain is a good man.  I personally am a mostly liberal / sometimes conservative Christian.  Even a registered Republican, if you can believe it.  But I can’t remember the last time I voted for one.  Each year it seems the gap between what I believe and what the Republicans deliver widens further and further.  I am absolutely sure that the Republican Party has abandoned all but lip service to the matters that I believe in.  Caring for people above corporations, our evironment, and the list goes on and on.  I am sorry for those within it that still struggle to do what is right.  However few they may be.  So I voted for hope.  And thank god, hope won. 

So despite my one very bitter disappointment with the banning of some very qualified families from being able to foster children in need, I’m happy.  Hope you have a happy day today, too . . . 

October 05, 2008 @ 07:47

I got the most awesome letter in the mail on Saturday.  Bear’s violin is finally paid off.  I don’t acutally know much about musical instruments.  I took piano lessons for two years when I was a girl but that is it, the sum total of my time as a musician.  Any lingering yearnings, I believe, have been killed off quite recently by Charlie having chosen a little stuffed duck that plays “In Your Easter Bonnet” as his new favorite toy.  He walks around the house with it in his mouth, somehow cleverly pressing down the little magic button inside continuously.  At first I couldn’t figure it out.  I would just suddenly hear this tinny awful music and not be able to pinpoint where it was coming from.  Sometimes it was in the kitchen, sometimes in the living room.  One night it even woke me up from the foot of my bed.  This was not my best moment.  It was compounded by my usual October mistake.  Watching haunting television.  I know I’m not good with it.  I know I’m a fraidy cat that will watch one or two episodes of A Haunting (complete cheese, if you don’t know, btw) and end up a basket case in the house alone on the boys’ Daddy weekends.  But, I’m drawn to it.  I’m interested in it.  And it’s HI-larious!  Come on, admit it, you’ve watched Ghost Hunters at least once and thought, What Crap!  Except for that one in Eureka Springs.  Dude!  So anyway, being awakened in the middle of the night by phantom music?  Not. Fun.  Then on Friday night, alone on a Daddy weekend, I’m doing some math for the opera project and the music walks by me.  And then it jumps into my lap. 

The Culprit . . .  Think that’s cute?  It used to be a stuffed dalmation that is as tall as he is. 

And he won’t give it up.  Note the little warrior’s stance.  At some point today I’m taking it from him and tossing it into the washing machine.  Because it’s getting icky.  If I’m lucky, the music wil go away.  Wow, I really drifted off point, which was that for the last two weeks I think I’ve only listened to NPR and no music at all.  And I’m blaming the financial crisis and Charlie.  Back to the violin.  I’m no musician, but I was so happy for Bear to be interested that when the Orchestra teacher and the salesman at the school’s “pick out your instrument” night two years ago both recommended that we get him the nicer instrument, I said okee dokee.  Two years of payments later, it’s finally done.  Yay!  Along with the statement  was a letter recommending that I buy an extended “peace of mind” plan.  Now I don’t ever buy extended warranties.  Not on cars, not on appliances.  I buy Hondas to drive.  And I research all other major purchases.  If I thought I needed an extended warranty, I’d go back to the research.  But as I entertained that first knee jerk reaction to the letter, an image of Bear, the boy who has been known to trip over his socks, flashed across my mind.  I could just see the violin splinters flying.  So, yeah, I’ve already filled out that form.  Thankfully, it’s pretty cheap.  So one simple payment and done.  So now we just pay off the car, that’s coming soon, and then the mortgage, not so soon, but still . . .  I can see light ahead! And I’m pretty sure it’s not the Lady In White. 

September 21, 2008 @ 10:14

Yesterday I drove over five hundred miles to buy fabric for the opera costuming project.  There is a fantastic fabric store in Bossier City, Louisiana called Best Fabric.  They keep natural fiber fabric in stock year round, linens, wools, and at real people pricing.  So for 17th centurey costumes, I had to go.  And with the added bonus of going on a weekend when I knew most of the people I knew there would be gone.  I had been dreading it, but the timing worked out perfectly.  No fear of bumping into an ex or otherwise unpleasant person.  So I was able to spend some time there dread free and appreciate all the things I do love about the place.  And I love Shreveport/Bossier.  I mean love.  Sincerely love it.  I never lived there, had a job there, or did anything other than play while I was there.  It’s in my head as an almost mirror to home, but with none of the pesky get up and go to work stuff.  From here, it is a four hour drive.  You take the intersate all the way to Hope, the halfway point.  No good radio to speak of after Hope, so your own music collection is a must.  Two hours of interstate, good NPR reception the entire way and then at Hope, you leave the interstate and hang a left.  It’s a complete polar shift between the two sides of life here in the South.  Like hurtling down some great long launch tube from your day job-professional-high speed-don’t have time for that-life and out into the rural South. 

For the last two hours of the drive you are on classic Southern two lane highway.  And on a day like yesterday, when the weather is perfect, oh, it is my favorite drive.  You pass through several speed trap towns.  So it’s best just to slow down and accept the fact that you cannot be in a hurry here.  For much of the drive there are huge trees that completely overhang the road.  You’ll pass cow pastures and chicken houses and you’ll smell them while you are passing.  So if you’re a snob or a priss, I wouldn’t recommend this drive to you.  I’d probably recommend you remove the stick and try to get on with your life, but that’s another post.  Just as you leave Hope there is a long straight stretch of road with deep ditches on either side and tall dense pines along the length of it.  If you drive it after dark you’ll recognize it as every stretch of threatening highway you ever saw in a slasher film.  But during the day, it’s long tunnel of cool shade and quiet.  I almost always turn off the music on this stretch and open the windows, if the weather is right, and pay real attention to the place.  From there you pass through about a dozen small rural communities.  Some so small that without a reduced speed zone, you might not ever notice them.  You’ll go through Lewisville, the home of Burge’s, an old fashioned drive in with soft serve ice cream and the home of perfectly smoked turkey, I recommend it.  You have to jig a bit through downtown, don’t miss actually looking.  I love the old buildings.  At Christmas, the court house will be covered from earth to roof with lights.  And then from there you continue on at that same quiet, thought provoking, peace inducing pace. 

About halfway between Hope and Bossier, there is a railroad crossing seemingly in the middle of nowhere.  You round a curve with dense forest on either side and there is a new speed limit sign, then railroad crossing signs.  And there, with no other signs of civilization except for the road and your car around you, you will occasionally sit and watch a bit of industry suddenly hurtling by you, rumbling and angry and loud.  It is a wonderful juxtiposition.  It always makes me smile when I have to wait for that train, thinking about the oddity of it’s placement.  At home, how often do you find yourself smiling at being caught by a train?  Just over the train tracks, you cross the state lines into Louisiana.  Years ago there used to be a roadhouse there.  Late on Friday nights you’d pass and be able to hear the blues pouring out of it, more cars and trucks packed into the parking lot than it should have been able to hold.  Now it sits empty, weeds growing up where the honky tonkers used to park. 

Then, gradually, little town by little town, you make your way back into the big city.  But by the time you do, or well, by the time I do, I feel like a different person.  Relaxed, calmer, better.  This trip, I had a lunch date with loved ones waiting for me on the other side.  I could not have taken that drive at time when I needed it more.  Today I feel ten years younger than I did just 48 hours ago.  And I am thankful for that. 

September 14, 2008 @ 21:28

I love it when somebody ignores the same old same old.  I know as cakes go, this is pretty tame.  But it’s not a big pink cloud, either. Even if it was plain vanilla . . .  

September 07, 2008 @ 11:15

I have a great job that I love love love.  But I’d really rather be doing laundry at home than going to it today . . .  *sigh*  Does anybody else love doing laundry?  I just really really do.  No, really. 

August 31, 2008 @ 12:36

This morning Trixie and I went out to Bell Slough.  We went early enough to beat the heat and it was beautiful.  What I enjoyed more than anything was how beautiful everything was.  I hadn’t taken my camera, but kept snapping pictures with my camera phone (read: wasted time pointing my phone at pretty things making blurry digital images of them).  There were mushrooms everywhere.  Pale white, deep brown, gold, half a dozen shades of red and these pale ivory ones with slate and violet blues streaked in their flesh.  There were flowers blooming all along the trail.  Giant golden colored locusts, dragon flies, and of course spiders everywhere, too.  Trixie bent down to look into a deep web funnel that must have been a foot across.  She said she could see the spider inside and that he could probably have carried off a field mouse.  I took her word on that . . .  We even came across a turtle, sunning himself beside the trail.  He was totally brave with his neck craned out into the sunlight, front legs splayed out enjoying the sun.  He barely moved his toes and blinked lazy eyelids at me when I leaned in to take a picture, if it had been the good camera I would have showed you the bright tangerine spots running down his neck.  The trail has two loops, if you take the first, you do two miles.  If you add on the second loop, you can up your trip to about three.  My old running path was long loop, short loop, long loop again to make five miles.  Today we just did the long loop once.  Because of the last wildlife encounter we had for the day.  At the top of trail just before the end of the long loop, we heard rustling in the leaves above us on the ridgeline.  Trixie saw them first and slapped me on the arm, pointing silently but very very urgently.  They were about fifteen feet up the ridge from us.  Two of them.  It took me a minute to register what they were, as their markings were so slight.  One looked completely black and the other just had one bright white spot on the top of it’s little head.  Are you beginning to feel Trixie’s urgency?  If you are, then you are totally invited on our next hike.  Because I was slow on the draw.  And that’s really bad, because as you might have already guessed, it was a couple of these . . . 

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Did you have the same slow reaction as me?  Because of the initial cuteness?  Yeah, not smart of me, was it?  But there I was, thinking, oh, wow, you know in person they are totally cute, when one of them looked right down at me and opened it’s little mouth and started to squeal.  Just then a third, much larger one topped the ridgeline running towards them.  The second of the smaller ones lifted his tail and rear . . .  Trixie found her voice and yelled. 

“RUN!!!” 

Which we did.  It’s a shame really, that we couldn’t have clocked it.  I’d bet we totally obliterated our previous personal bests.  A few seconds and several yards later we got a whiff of it.  Oh, holy crap it was a close one!  We ran almost all the way back to the car, laughing so hard we were crying, thankfully, instead of eyes tearing from the smell.  This could have been a very bad day indeed.  We kept thinking of all the “could-have-beens” on the drive home.  Having to call Miss Weight Loss to come hose us down in the middle of a wildlife management area so that we could get back in the car?  Or riding home in the back of Dano’s truck while they drove Trixie’s little VW bug back to keep it from being tainted.  Whether or not our phones would have survived!  How inneffective the whole tomato juice thing is.  Because it is, you know.  More positively, I’d have had the number one call in excuse of the year at my office.  But, instead, I got a a really good story to tell and a totally great kick start to pushing myself out of the slump and back into running, eh? 

August 24, 2008 @ 09:19

Okay, first, thanks for the support and a small back track to the dark moment yesterday.  I am better today than I was yesterday.  I will be better than that tomorrow.  I might collapse a little on Wednesday, but I’ll be back.  You know those feelings you get.  The ones that sit on your skin.  And you can’t shake them off.  Eventually they run up your spine and you shiver and it’s over.  That’s what self loathing is for me.  It hangs out, surreptitiously, in my head, until I shake it off.  Not to dismiss it.  Just . . .  shaken, thanks, moving on . . .  But I think I’m best not talking too much about it, I spook easy. 

Puppy first week of school was brilliant.  Perfection.  How is it possible that we got so lucky?  I’m almost afraid to say it out loud.  But I think we may have gotten his medication right the very first try.  And apart from that one day where his teacher did find it necessary to explain to him that yes he was going to sit on the story rug with eveyone else even if she had to drag him there . . .  My sweet boy.  Every afternoon after that his teacher has told me he had a great day.  Bear has settled in from the summer away from his friends and hd a great first week, too.  I always feel like Bear gets the short shrift around here.  But he is so . . .  untroubled.  And really that’s 75% of what I’ve been doing lately.  Here, another short backtrack to the yesterday.  Trixie called me and told me something Bear had said to her the a few days ago after reading the post.  She had come over to the hosue and we were watching Big Medicine.  A show about beyond morbidly obese people.  It ran past Puppy’s bedtime and I had gone to put him to bed.  A segment about a bedridden man and a mother of two about to undergo some seriously scary surgery was on, I believe, and Bear looked over at Trixie and said “That will never by my Mom.  She’s a runner.”  This boy is a miracle. 

Oh what else, randomly . . . 

Go by some music from Jukebox the Ghost.  It’s fixing me this week.  I love this album. 

I had the most incredible and unexpected dream last night about a friend.  I’d tell you all about it, but this isn’t that kind of blog . . . 

I miss roadtripping.  Damn big oil . . . 

I just ordered about a million prints from the photos Janet took last weekend.  They are all incredible. 

I want to go to New Orleans or Salem for Halloween this year.  Anybody else wanna go? 

And here, two perfect things to start this week off right . . . 

One, music . . . 

Jukebox the Ghost - Good Day from Eyestar Pictures on Vimeo.

And two, the sweetness of the boys . . . from the incredible pictures Janet took . . .