Thumbing my nose at Ma Nature

Yes, you read that correctly. Yes, that's the PG version of the original title that came to mind.

Disclaimer: If you're a runner, you'll totally understand what I'm about to say. If not, well, your loss. :-)

There is something completely empowering about running in bad weather.

As most people will attest, there's a general mark of dedication when you actually decide to speak of yourself as a runner. One of my college roommates was famous for yelling at people running on the street, "Hey, whatcha running from?!?!" Or the perennial person who'll comment, "I only run if I'm being chased and running for my life." Every runner's heard them, smiled, nodded, and thought, "Yeah, but...."

Then within the greater world of runners, there are those who are fair-weather runners. It can't be too hot, too cold, too dark, too windy, too anything, or they'll call off their run. Maybe it would be better to call them the Treadmill Types.

On the other end of the runner spectrum are the Die-Hards. These are the people who run 50K trail runs (No, that's not a typo, five-zero kilometers, or 31 miles and 120.6 yards on TRAILS, of all things!) Who can pick up and run a full marathon without much thought or prep time. Who must have knees and ankles of steel. I do not carry citizenship in this strange land.

I fall into a middle category of "Bring-It" runners. Take tonight's run for example.
50-degree weather? Bring it.
Rain? Bring it.
Complete darkness at 6pm? Bring it.
It's crazy, when I'm out running in the weather that sends most people scurrying into their house, where their fastest movement is to get out to the garbage can and back while getting the least soaked, here I am, voluntarily hitting the concrete for 35 minutes.

As a mom, I know I'm not alone in my many reasons for loving running. My friend over at ChambersMade, who I'm going to run a triathlon with in June (was that out loud?), has also discovered herself as a runner. RunningRachel amazes me with her dedication and discipline. For me, running brings silence. Running brings clearness to the brain. Running, by definition, means you don't have children clinging to your person. Running re-connects us to ourselves as women. Just women. Strong, powerful, graceful, vibrant, alive, WOMEN.

So, if Ma Nature wants to throw a little bad weather my way, so what? Not gonna stop my run. Bring it.

My gear, post-run. All wet!

~Me

Not one of 'those' Christmas trees

With the additional space in our schedule this Thanksgiving, we decided to go out the Friday afterwards and purchase our Christmas tree and put up the holiday decorations.

I KNOW!

Amazing, right? This from the family that used to forego putting up Christmas decorations because we were traveling for the holidays, and would be flying out as soon as we were off work. This from the family that scheduled an induction of birth (Thing 1) and calmly came home, put away all the decorations, and went to the hospital.

You mean we're going to have a tree up for an entire month?!?!

Yep.

There are a few hard and fast rules in our house (mostly enforced by me). Rule 1, Thing 2's birthday must be an event independent of Thanksgiving. Rule 2, no Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving. Rule 3, all Christmas decorations must be down before Thing 1's birthday. All in all, I think we're on track.

Now, to the title of this posting... I don't have one of 'those' Christmas trees. You know, the perfectly themed, fell out of a Martha magazine, color coordinated, picturesque representation of all that is perfect in Christmas tree-dom. Ours has white lights, a start that was given to us, and a hodge-podge of ornaments, each of which carry a story, and none of which match. My parents had this same type of tree for us growing up, and all of my Christmas memories are crystallized into those ornaments. And when I moved into my own house, my mom gave me my ornaments. Someday, when my sons move into their own homes, they will receive boxes of their own ornaments from across the years.

It's very cool.

So now the process of decorating the tree is a storytelling event of the lives of myself, my husband, and my children. My favorites this year were to explain to Thing 1 three sets of ornaments.

Set 1: Mom & Dad
Set 2: Mom, Dad, & Baby's First Christmas
Set 3: Mom, Dad, Thing 1, Thing 2

Have yourself a merry little Christmas!
~Me

Baby, it's cold outside!

...and inside, and in the car, and everywhere else!

It's funny, but I have to remind myself frequently of just how much my boys are California boys. We had frost on the ground Monday, and Thing 1 (my eldest) was convinced it was snow. Really? He then proceeded to convince Thing 2 that it had snowed outside, and they wanted to go play in the snow. "No," mommy says, "it's very cold out this morning, and there is no snow to play with, just frost." Thing 1 proceeds to waltz outside while I was loading the dishwasher, in his short-sleeved shirt and jeans and NO shoes or socks. Gah! Have you no idea?

I grew up in a part of Washington (state) that has four distinct seasons. My husband grew up in Seattle, land of rain and moderate, wet climate. We've lived in Chicago and Cincinnati, both of their own dramatic versions of weather. We currently live in a city with triple digit temperatures; our first day moving here the thermometer said 118 degrees. We can do almost every temperature.

My boys, however, being of the age of single digits, when every season is a completely new concept, are California boys through and through. Pants are optional. If they could, they would live their little lives in flip-flops. They like to ramble through the house in just their licensed character-themed underpants. And they think nothing of running the 100 feet out to their play structure on a frost-encrusted, 28-degree day.

"What, you mean I have to have shoes, mom?"
<sigh>

~Me

My husband, the boy scout

I love my husband.

He's an incredible man, and one of the things that definitely showcases the my weakness/your strengths part of our relationship is that he is such a preparation kind of guy. Make no mistake, when it comes to logistics and planning of life, I've got him aced across the board. BUT, when it comes to going places, traveling, general doing, I like to travel light. Really light. Almost too light at times.

Husband, on the other hand, is the preparation dude.
Water? Check.
Snacks? Check.
Meal? Check.
Chains? Check.
Toolkit in the trunk? Check.
Atlas of all 50 states? Check.
Coats? Check.
Hats? Check.
You get the idea....

On more than one occasion, we've been headed out on an adventure, and I'm sitting in the passenger seat, raring to go, and he's packing sandwiches and snacks. And I'll be honest, I'm not always the most gracious about that particular behavior.

Fast forward to this evening, in which we attended a concert of student recitals. In a most unfortunate turn of events, there was some metal object loose on the piano frame, and it buzzed, and buzzed, and buzzed. Every time a particular key or key center was encountered - buzz. Finally, husband had had enough, and went to discover the source of the buzz. Upon finding it, he needed an adjustable wrench to fix it. Never fear, adjustable wrenches are in the trunk! So, off he traipses to the car, brings in the toolbox, tightens the frame, and saves the day!

My husband is the hero! My husband the 'boy scout', who's never been a Boy Scout. Love that man.

~Me

Living life with an open hand

Today I experienced a significant shift in perspective. Having gone to college and graduated into "real life", I discovered that "real life" comes at quite a cost. Not that I wasn't aware that things carried cost prior to that point, but landing smack dab into that puddle of reality locks in the concept. Everything-in-life-costs. Welcome to adulthood 101, here are your student loans to repay.

In the (almost) ten years that I've been married, we've moved our home seven times, three of which were over distances of hundreds or thousands of miles. Again with the cost. We've had two lively aforementioned boys, which again, cost.

While feeling richly fortunate, I have also at many times felt starkly in the center of the "needing" bucket.

Coming to the present day, I find myself in a home that I (and the bank) own. There aren't exactly words to describe what kind of peace that brings to the center of the soul of a woman who tends to her family home. This is a big deal! Slowly, with that new reality settling in, I am finding myself in a new and different place. One of being able to fill needs. And it's amazing.

I spent time with a dear friend today, and in the course of our conversation, heard needs that I had means to fill, and proceeded to do so. I had things in my possession that I a) was not currently using, b) felt no need to find a way to use, and c) had no foreseeable conditions coming up in which I might in the future need these things.

After a decade of purchasing items for their versatility in fitting any home/floor plan/square footage/decor, I can clearly say, "Nope, I don't need that, nor will I ever need that in this house." and in turn, give those things on to those that do need them. This, my friends, is amazingly great.

~Me

This Day of Thankfulness

Today has been a wonderful day.

I definitely diverged from my original meal plan... It seems that when I have the mind-space and time to cook well, I tend to cook to my little heart's content. What we actually had:

Lunch:
Cheese-covered olives
Turkey breast
Roasted carrots & potatoes
Green beans with garlic and shallots
Pumpkin Cheesecake

Dinner:
The rolls I had planned (oops, timing error!)
Turkey mole with potatoes & carrots
Tortillas
More Pumpkin Cheesecake (hey, when you've got a good thing, you roll with it)

In between Lunch and Dinner, aside from dishes and cleanup, we all went out into the backyard and decided to perform a spur-of-the-moment, no-cost-solution fix to our backyard. We have a retaining wall that the previous owners built a staircase into using the cement bricks you see everywhere. Unfortunately, the construction wasn't the best, so I had stairs that were trying to reincarnate into a ramp. SO, we rebuilt the bricks and adjusted the remaining 12 feet of wall that were affected by the fix. FUN!

What does this have to do with anything? Well, it's my "what I'm thankful for" for this year. I'm thankful for my family of origin. We have a mom, a dad, and four girls, so in my house, there wasn't such a thing as girl-jobs and boy-jobs, there were just jobs to get done. And I love it. (Note the present, not past tense on that one.) I love that I can face life with equal comfort in cooking my little heart out, and rebuilding a rock wall, and think nothing of the differences between those two jobs. Short of the ibuprofen I will be taking this evening. ;-)

~Grateful Me

Just the breast, if you don't mind

It's Thanksgiving Eve, and all is quiet in my house. No stressing, no chaos, no stuffing, no panic defrosting.... For the first time in a LONG time, we will be just the nuclear family for Thanksgiving, and I've got to say, my feelings are mixed. We have a high-paced life, and most of the roles my husband and I play are leadership/facilitating/pouring out kinds of roles, and we need a break sometimes. But in the same breath, we love Thanksgiving and the time it presents for spending time with people.

In college, I would run home to my family for Thanksgiving because it was driveable. Husband would be 'adopted' out to families local to his college, as his college was two time zones away from family. Shortly after marrying, we moved two time zones from family, and there began a tradition of exploring what 'family' meant in the broader sense of the term.

Family is a group of close friends who are peers at church.
Family are my in-laws in-laws and their extended clan.
Family is a mentoring older couple.
Family is the students who we now get to 'adopt' for the holiday.
And family is the other families in our life that have come to be adopted as our 'siblings', the boys' 'aunts and uncles', and our dearest of friends.

So, on the eve of this holiday, we will be without all of those families. This holiday, we will learn in our new home, what it means to be just us-n's. Familiar, no. Comfortable, not quite yet.

Our menu is simpler, far simpler than our first Thanksgiving, which consisted of an entire meal cooked from scratch. Yes, EVERY SINGLE ITEM. (And as a follow-up, we were so burned out we didn't cook for about a week afterwards) We're going for something much more realistic.

- Pumpkin Cheesecake (which I've already cooked and is currently 1/4 short of a full cake - I did a good job)
- Turkey breast (we didn't need a whole bird for just us)
- Root vegetables (aka. carrots and potatoes)
- Green bean casserole (some things are non-negotiable)
- Homemade bread (other things are near and dear family traditions, and therefore a given)

Wishing you a very thankful, very joyous day.

~Me

Trying something new...

Hello again, great wide world!

If you've known me for any length of time, you'll know that this is not my first foray into the world of blogging. Blogging is not easy, nor is it for the faint of heart. At first, it's like shouting into a great big black hole, "HELLO, Hello, hello..." Your own voice echoes back at you. That's about as far as I've come in previous blogs, then stopped. And let's face it, Facebook is WAY more interactive, with people popping in to give their thoughts on, well, EVERYTHING.

But, there's only so much you can do in 420 characters.

So here I am, back at it again.

Some things you might know about me:
I am a woman :-)
I am a wife
I am a mother of two lively boys
I am a musician
I am a poet
I am a business owner/entrepreneur
I am a teacher
I am a counselor (unofficially)
I am a cook
I am an artist
I am highly opinionated
I am 51% introverted
I am fiercely loyal

There you have it, it's a start. Let's talk.

~Me