rain.

what do you do when its raining out?

do you sit on the couch with a book and a mug of cocoa.

what about when its snowing (if it does that where you live)?

stay inside... snuggle up with a blanket and a fire?

what keeps you in?

it seems these days that less and less is keeping me inside. over time i've gathered some decent rain gear. I have cold weather gear too and now with heated seats in the TT I plan to be top-down even when it's really cold (as long as it isn't raining). I've found the outside to be much more accessable since I've gathered (slowly) this gear.

what's that boyscout motto? always be prepared? I'm not usually very good at that one, but lately I've just sort of been prepared by default... and that's pretty nice. I've sort of inadvertantly made it possible to be outside in just about any weather... (mind crushing heat and humidity excepted), and I'm really enjoying that.

It may be gorgeous this week where you are... it may be crappy... but I personally challenge you to get outside for 30 minutes every day no matter the weather.

I will.

Baby's back

My son is back from Alaska and he seems older than when I let him get on that plane 2 weeks ago... mom says he ate like a horse... that he was in constant "feed me" mode. He caught a 14lb Salmon or three... and learned to fillet, cure, smoke and can 'em and brought home a case of canned smoked salmon. Gotta love the kid. He's growing up so fast.

School starts in a little over a week. Cultivating a child is so much harder than a garden... with a garden you can start over each year... if you made mistakes you can till the soil and correct them with compost and minerals... tho, if you listen to ol' T0mmy Cru1se all a kid with ADHD needs is vitamins... idiot.

So this weekend is "back to school" shopping. Clothes, supplies, lunch goodies... *sigh* I hope I'm doing all of this right... this mom stuff, tho I suppose my self doubt is fairly normal. I just hope he grows into a strong, confident, kind and caring man.

I'll do my best.

Gardening

I am, for the first time in many years, eating food I have grown myself. I have tomatos and pole-beans so far... I will have carrots, leeks and celery later on. But right now I am scarfing down a big bowl of greenbeans that I grew myself, picked this afternoon and immediately cooked. (cut into 2" pieces, steam for 5-6 minutes, sautee some sesamie seeds in olive oil till golden, add the beans, toss with salt and pepper, serve)

I am feeling very proud.

I have loved growing vegitables since I was a child. My grandmother always had a big veggie garden and she was fabulous about jarring things up for the winter. We always had beans, pears, peaches, bing cherries (my favorites), corn, pearl onions, tomatos, applesauce, jams, preserves and many other delicacies that we'd only get at Grandma's house. One of my jobs was to catch garter snakes to relase into her veggie garden to eat the mice that would try to feast on our veggies... I loved my job, hunting along the edges of the barn for snakes sunning themselves on the piles of scrap wood laying there... and I coveted my grandma's garden.

I wanted to grow corn taller than I was... and pull carrots out of the earth, brush them off on my pants, and eat them right there. Everything in Grandma's garden was organic... half burried bottles of beer served as slug and snail traps... snakes took care of the rodents, and she'd take me out to help her pick caterpillars in the mornings and evenings.

And everything tasted so very very good.

I finally have a garden of my own... I had small ones as a child, growing sweet-peas and carrots in the long Alaska summer daylight hours... and I had a garden that was mostly my boyfriend's when I was living with him the last year of college... but now, I have my own.

Its small by most standards, but the soil is good, and ammended with compost, and its flourishing... and I love it. I tend it about every other evening (its automatically watered with our sprinkler system), pulling little weeds, checking for ripe produce to pick... cultivating the soil to bring in more oxygen. I am proud of my garden, but most of all... I am sustained by my garden.

I know, thru inherited knowledge from my grandmother, and my mother, how to tend a garden. One of my earliest memories consists of me sitting in our families first home in Seattle digging in the black dirt of my own mothers garden beds... I don't think I could walk yet. I see the garden, and my mother bent over another bed digging, and my older sister in the yard behind playing. It's just a moment in time, but it is perfectly clear, and its in the garden. I may not know the specific PH a plant likes, or when precisely to plant it in my climate... but I know that veggies like GOOD SOIL, and I do my best to keep them happy.

I love my garden... I love everything it does for me... I am proud that I can feed my family good food that I grew with my own hands... from my own land.

I'd recommend it to anyone.

Now... I've got about 10lbs of tomatos... any one want some???

Don't Worry, Olivia is Safe!!

Well now that I've shared my surprise with you I'll give everyone a little background. Before the 2001 Audi TT Turbo (which you see pictured below), our family vehicles consisted of Olivia our Mini Cooper S, a Toyota Tundra V-8 gas-hog who never really earned a name, a 2001 Aprilia Mille motorcycle and a 2002 Aprilia R50 Scooter.

Olivia is still safe and sound in the garage.

We have been talking about getting rid of the truck for a while and getting a fun convertable of some sort to enjoy. The Audi TT has been my favorite 2-seat convertable since it first came out. I've mentioned them as an option several times but after discussing it we agreed that a 2 seater probably wasn't the most practical solution with 2 kids.

So we moved on to look at other things... 1998 BMW M3 convertables were on the list... as well as several 4-seat domestic convertables, but after going to see yet another over-priced BMW that wasn't worth what the seller wanted and wasn't willing to negotiate on, Mike was getting a bit frustrated.

Before I go much further we have a wonderful friend, D who recently got divorced and had a TT that he rarely drove (18k miles on a 2001 isn't very many) and while he and Mike were hanging out he offered it... at a very good price to Mike. D knows how I love the TT, but he also knew that we'd been looking for a 4-seater, so he hadn't mentioned it before. Mike doesn't like to buy vehicles from friends, but he knew the history, knew its value, knew I would flip my freaking lid over it, and he really wanted to get somthing that he knew I'd enjoy driving... and so he bought it.

Thursday night he brought it home and brought me out to the garage as he opened the door to reveal the car... I've been smiling ever since, and I already have seat-belt tan-lines. ;) (SPF 50 BABY!)

Its COMPLETELY impractical, but I don't care. YES we have probably the smallest "family car" on the market, and it works for us.

Olivia is our family car now, the Tundra is on the market, and I'm getting up at 5:15 to work out every morning so I can be a hot-mama in my Rock-Star car.

Stats: Metalic Black Audi TT Quatro Convertable (turbo) - 2001, 18k miles, leather interior, power everything... and its freakishly fast... I have to be VERY VERY careful with the turbo... it could get away from me if I don't watch it.

Wanna go for a Ride??

Don't know what I did to deserve it, but hubby brought this home for me on Thursday night.

100% impractical. (oh well!)

100% fun.

Holy Crap

Ok... GOOD ON YA, N1KE!!!

I may work for the competator... the one who just bough up R3bok... but These ads ROCK:

My Butt is Big

I Have Thunder Thighs

My Legs

My Knees

There is POWER in the above linked ads... there is empowerment, freedom, reality, truth.

I have a Big Butt... I have Thunder Thighs... My legs carry me and my knees carry my history in scars...

What do YOU think???

so...

guess who was at work until midnight last night?

you get three guesses and the first two don't count.

I got to work at 7am... I left at Midnight... that works out to one VERY LONG (15 hours!!!) work day, and one VERY TIRED me.

Luckily I got to sleep in... came into work at lunch time.

I'm doing well today, feeling more positive and hopefull again. I'll lay out the exercise plans for the next few weeks tomorrow. Its been quite a summer... quite a week...

cheers!

exhale

today was tough.

death is a very hard thing to process. death of the young is even harder.

but why? why is it so hard?

L wasn't affraid of death... she worried about those of us left behind. J said that she was the brightest star he'd ever seen and that the world was left dim without her.

There's a lot about her that I aspire to be in my own life. Kind, compasionate, honest, true... values most all of us aspire to. They spoke today of her grace... and grace in all things is probably one of the greatest things to aspire to have, and to be.

I am deeply, deeply sad.

the processing will continue until it is done.

and right now... for now, I feel that I am redundant, so I will stop here.

good night L. Thank you for being.

So you wanna lose weight?

Here's the only formula for weight loss endorsed by lexysmash:
eat right + exercise. That it... that's the only one!

However... if you want a quick drop of 5-7lbs in ONE DAY* there are other methods... take for example what I've been doing the last 24 hours.

There is nothing left in my intestinal tract. Vomiting and diareah took care of that... inability to consume anything without it comming right back up added dehydration to the mix. I finally was able to keep some ice chips and gatorade down around 8pm yesterday before I crashed for a fitful night of sleep.

I'm feeling much better today, but its very small bland meals and LOTS of fluids for the next couple of days... I'll keep ya posted. I'm assuming at this point that the issue was viral as my son had a similar illness earlier this week and I tend to get anything he does, so it was only a matter of time. Rest is also on the agenda as an electrolyte depleated system is not prime for exercise.

I will admit tho, that seeing a drop of 6lbs in 24 hours is a very wild experience... but I still don't think the loss was worth what my body has been thru in the last 24 hours to get it. UGH!

*Lexysmash does not indorse any weight loss plan that does not involve proper diet and exercise... please do NOT attempt this at home.

*sigh*

my first born is in Alaska with my parents for the next two weeks. I don't have a lot to say about that, other than I miss him already and the little shit had the gall to be completely cool about getting on an airplane WITHOUT mommy and flying nonchalantly all the way to Alaska with my baby sister!!! Brat!!! I, however, am proud that I was able to wave and smile and not completely loose my shit until I got all the way into the car and closed the door. (I am such a mama). Prodigal son is picking raspberries with his cousins in my mom's backyard, and getting ready to go fishing for salmon with my pops.

I am doing well on the health front... exercising, eating, etc... just not all that inspired to write about it at the moment. Sorry Y'all! I'm hoping that in a month or so I'll be able to put some focus into my workouts and my goals and come back with some really interesting things to say.

For now I'm preping my psyche for L's memorial on Tuesday... and just going thru the motions.

I know its hard to know what to say... but I do want to acknowlege that the comments and emails I've gotten have been really wonderful and I appreciate them more than I can say. Thank you all.

so I think I should update, or somthing...

August is, by my standards, a very very very very very busy month. July sorta kick starts it with my hubby's b-day and then my first-son's b-day and then we jump straight into August 1 with my b-day, and from there everything goes down-hill.

This year August will be made even more intense by the following things:

1. death and all that entails for those of us on the outside.
2. visits from inlaws, sisters, and my mom.
3. trips away from home without mommy for both of my kids (one just ended, the other begins tomorrow).
4. back to school.
5. filling out a myriad of university applications.
6. an IVF cycle.
7. selling off much un-used household stuff including vehicles.
8. attempting to ammend child-support orders.
9. filling out the paperwork necessary to complete the above.
10. finding preschool options for youngest son.
11. realizing preschools are waitlisted by a YEAR.
12. beginning potential move planning.

So yeah... there you have it. August in a nutshell... and in case anyone was wondering... the potential destination for said potential household move is Wisconsin. Fox Valley/Green Bay area.

The Lady Sleeps

I don't know what you're going thru, my friend. She was everything... she was it. You did so well, you were so strong for her, and she took your strength and ran.

I am so deeply sad.

Every ounce of my heart is sending hopes for peace to you and to the rest of her family.

She will not ever be forgotten.

my apologies

for the lack of posts this week.

there are things of great import going on right now... and I've prioritized them over blogging.

I will return in due time... please send your thoughts, prayers, support, love, hugs, and peaceful vibes to Thunderslug and L.

epiphany

had a bit of an epiphany today.

I have ZERO trouble getting up and exercising on the weekends. Saturday and Sunday are two of my most activity filled days (generally) with house work, landscape maintenance, chasing after the boys, etc... considering them "days off" is really pretty rediculous. By the time Monday rolls around I am BEAT. Dead tired and I am supposed to just be starting my exercise week... boy I'm clueless sometimes.

So what I'm going to do for the next few weeks is RECOGNIZE my weekends for what they are - Activity days - and add some structured exercise to the morning mix. THEN, I will schedule Monday and Tuesday as planned rest days and all will be right with the world.

yes?

well, its worth a shot, eh?

feelin' more groovy.

Thanks for the birthday wishes and pick-me-ups, folks!

I'm feelin more positive now. Alissa took me out for sushi at Mio and they thoroughly embarassed me by singing over a candle in a bowl of green-tea ice cream (which was lovely). I came home to some lovely gifts (pepper spray - which I asked for... its a lone-female-runner/biker thing) a bracelet hand-made by my hubby, a new paper journal with some lovely things written in it etc.

Time slips by so quickly... so much I want to do with my life and yet it seems I keep not allowing it to just happen. I've completed 31 years of fairly successful life on this planet... not too shabby for fat chick with low self-esteem. ;)

Now for a beer and a movie.

sing me a song...

tell me a story

or a joke

Today is my birthday. I'm 31 years old... and I don't feel much like laughing.