Pop culture

Yesterday MS and I went to see Avatar. We had both heard great reviews about the movie and its stunning effects. I’m always skeptical about these “must-see” movies because it seems like those are the ones I don’t like. I never made it through E.T. and I don’t remember much if anything about the Star Wars trilogy (and never saw the “first” three). So, I thought maybe it'd be good for me to once see one of these "must-see" movies. I'm glad I did.

I wasn't too keen on how they portrayed the military is being so...well, "militant". I know that probably seems wrong, but the military isn't always all "let's go blow things up and then turn around and go home." Sometimes, maybe, but not always, and it seemed to make this out to being such an evil empire.

I did like the Na'vi. Becoming one with the Earth and really centering in on how the whole ecostructure works together was amazing. I think that already exists, we just aren't open enough to see it.

But learning about the locals (indigenous) people made me think about how our first impressions about others are often misguided. One of my hometown newsmen has a blog now that he's retired and today I read about his recent adventure with first impressions. It's so true these days how we are so skeptical of one another, hesitant to step into anything and if you do jump in head first there are at least a dozen people trying to pull you back to so-called 'reality'.

So here's to giving people a chance before judgment. Here's to opening our minds to the wonders that are out there. Here's to loving life. :)

One year

One year ago today, at 4:45 p.m. exactly, I walked into Texas Roadhouse and met this man: MS. :) Granted he was much more suave on our original meeting. :) We had a wonderful 3 hour dinner then went to a local dive and had a couple drinks while playing cribbage.



Since then we have been almost inseparable. And it's been wonderful. We've worked on his yard, he's encouraged my running even helping during my marathon, we even went camping (where we played even more cribbage).



I love you, honey. I look forward to many more years together. *smooch* xoxox

Running, writing and something "r" related

I started running again last Tuesday. The first day felt pretty good, but day two hurt. So I took a couple days off and then ran again on Saturday. It was a nice run then...humid but at least I did better. I didn't run yesterday though I should have and I probably should today, but I'm going to hold off until tomorrow.

The bad thing is I have 3 weeks until the half marathon I signed up for back in January (thinking I would have been running more these past few months). And I should have been running. Between all the stress with Morty and then deciding to start therapy for my mental health, I haven't had a lot of mental strength to get out and run.

What's funny is yesterday I was surfing through some old running sites I have bookmarked and I found one for One More Mile running. And I found a great t-shirt that I really wanted to buy. I didn't but I wanted to because it's very true, "Running IS cheaper than therapy."

It makes me think a bit...maybe I just need to be running more. I don't mind therapy and yet I do. I've never been one to talk about myself and dredging up all this old crap that I don't want to dredge up is just making me feel almost worse than I did before. It's exhausting and going every week is getting to be a lot.

I suppose that would be giving up though and running away from my problems. I sometimes wonder though if dredging all this up is really as healthy as people say it is...it seems to dredge up more than is really necessary.

Anyway...I'm just rambling. I haven't written in a while. On a very happy note, I did finally remember that hulu.com has Glee available so I was able to catch up with the last two episodes and I'm all ready for tomorrow. :)

Glee!

I love lazy Sundays, and though I feel a little guilty about not really doing anything, I'm glad for today.

The church I've been frequenting since moving here had called a month ago asking if I would be a greeter one morning and today was it. I got a letter last week stating I had to be there 15-20 minutes before the service. They also sent a nice little nametag which I was so excited to wear (not).

Well, I was running late this morning because I had to make-shift hem my pants (double-sided tape and an iron) and it took a little longer than I planned. But I was there 14 minutes before the service and I got a fair number of people greeted. Mom had shown up for the service (supporting her daughter "greeting") 30 minutes before the service so she said I was late. Whatever.

We went out for breakfast after to catch up on a few things. That was nice...we hadn't had a good talk like that in a while. I'm working on being more open and direct with my mother because I know I struggle with that. I did talk to her about learning what voice mail means - and she was a little put out but not overly so at least. I think the fact that her current BF had said somewhat of the same thing (like interrupting him talking to comment about some random thing going through her head, which is annoying and makes it seem like she's not really listening) and I commented about her talking to me on one phone and then hanging up on me because her other phone starts ringing. Anyway...

So then I was going to go up to her place and mow for her ... that is until I realized that I'm on call today as a VA and if I can't hear my phone I'm not really going to be useful. This also kept me from feeling truly comfortable going for a run...which probably wasn't good either.

BUT...it did give me a great opportunity to watch Glee. I've been catching bits and pieces because it's been on at a weird time for me so I've known what's been going on but I've missed some things. Alison loaned me Volume 1 so I spent today catching up. I really love this show. I have to watch last week's yet so that I'm ready for Tuesday. The Madonna Episode. WOOHOO! :)

So today I had one of my, what used to be called, "normal days". I knitted, ate popcorn, watched hours of TV shows. I did take a break to run to a store to pick up MS's motorcycle battery, but otherwise, I just relaxed. It was nice.

Tomorrow we're planting the garden...probably a little late, but we're both novice's at this thing. Hopefully we can figure out enough to get some stuff to grow. :)

A lazy Friday

This morning's conference ended earlier than planned so SW, MM and I headed on the road...with plans to stop for food. We weren't in a real hurry to get back to the office (not that we had to go in, but still) so we stopped at a little restaurant for some breakfast. Well, I had a buffalo burger and fries. I was starving. This is what I get for not really eating supper the night before. But luckily neither of them had eaten either the night before, so we were all hungry.

But we got back to the office around 2, I finished up some vital projects I had to have done before Monday, and then I went home at 3. After some random stuff, I decided to veg and watch some Monk.

I really do love that show and you have no idea how upset I was when i realized I had watched the 4th disc of season 4 when I haven't watched 1-3 yet. Sheesh. That's not good.

But so I didn't feel like a total loser, I spent the time also updating my running scrapbook. I've had the pictures and stuff in there for awhile, but I hadn't written anything in about the races, so I did that. Some look better than others. My handwriting is not pretty and my original plan was to type and print it all up, but that would just take too much time (considering I don't have a printer). So I wrote on nice paper and glued them in. I'm happy it's coming together. I have the most recent Irishman to do yet, but I'm waiting to see if there are any decent pictures of me from the day per the race folks. I didn't get any taken which is against my nature.

So the best part of my day, besides chatting with MS who's at work, was just enjoying the relaxation of the day and the anticipation of a quiet weekend to come. I have three more days with not much scheduled, and I can't tell you how glad that makes me feel. After last week's intensity, a quiet weekend will be a welcome joy.

The Best Part

So maybe this will help my writing that I've been wanting to do for so long. Andrea at Superhero Journal, one of my favorite writers and if I can ever meet her a Mondo Beyondo dream come true, wrote recently about "favorite parts".

This really hit me tonight. Recently in our company we have suffered two losses, both to the sad act of suicide. One was a member of the company, another was the daughter of one of our workers. We found out about the latter as we were driving to a conference and Steve said, "This really puts all those little things into perspective."

And it really does. I think about this whenever I talk about the fact I'm trying to fix me with therapy. The things that bother me, and things that irk me to the point where I can't see the happiness in life, are so minor...so trival. I can't even fathom getting to the point in my life where I would want to end it. There's so much that I want to do, but for some there is so much they don't have hope for.

I have hope. I have faith. I have a wonderful life. So why do I let all these little stupid things weigh so heavily on me. Like this distance between remorse and repentance thing? Why is this so important to figure out in me? Why can't I just bury things down and forget about them and the rare moments they rise up, I just cry them out and be done with it? Why drag all this crap out in to the open which is just causing me so much heartache while I'm supposedly "getting better"?

But maybe i do need that help. And maybe if I take a moment at the end of each day to do what Andrea suggests - "What was the best part of the day? What was the highlight" - I can find the happiness and joy all the time and not worry so much about the rest of the little stuff.

So today - I had a fun moment where I was hanging out with bosses talking fishing; and the best part was talking with MS this morning, hearing his soft chuckle in my ear and him telling me that he loves me.

And the fact it's Nika's 2nd birthday doesn't hurt either. Love you, Nika!

So much for that

So I was going to write more but the last week has been absolutely insane. Last Wednesday I had a meeting after work; last Thursday I had a meeting after work; last Friday I had to do laundry and such after work; last Saturday I was actually able to leave work on time (by T-F standards); and last Sunday I had a meeting after work.

That left Monday to try to get my brain on straight and MS and I had errands to run and to take his mom to a doctor appointment. I will say this for the latter, it allowed me time to catch up on the Real Simple magazine which was nice.

But then again yesterday, I again had a meeting after work. And today, I had a meeting the last hour of work which was great because I actually got home before I should have gotten off work because the meeting ended early.

But this is just too much these days! I miss those days when I didn't have as much going on - of course, then I was bored and depressed most of the time so maybe this is better.

My meeting yesterday left me with a task, so maybe I will be writing more. I need to define the difference between repentance and remorse - and then figure out where I fall between those two. That should be interesting. Of course the intellect in me has already gone to that awesome resource: Wikipedia. hahaha Probably not the best but it it does have an interesting entry on repentance in Judaism.

So that's on my list of to-do's for tonight since MS is working. Laundry, packing for a work trip and repent vs. remorse. A riveting evening. :)

Where did the writing go?

I've been wondering lately if I haven't been writing because I've been avoiding things or because I just don't have time. The latter is true, although part of that is because when I'm at MS's place I don't like to take a lot of time on the computer at night because we get such few hours together in the evenings - especially during the week when I'm working all day.

But I really do miss writing. I miss doing NaBloPoMo every day. I miss 2008 when I wrote every day without missing, sometimes twice. I miss journaling.

I'm not sure why I miss it...if it's because I don't really feel like I have an outlet for my thoughts anymore or if I miss the completion of a task each day. I do like to complete tasks when I can and this is an easy one - sit down and write. I want to write. Someday I'd like to write a book, but to write you have to write. And lately I haven't been writing.

How can I fix this? Write more. I need to take the time to do it, just like I do for P90X or running or sleep. It's part of me and I need to acknowledge that and not push it away.

We'll see how I do.

What's fish?

Emmy said today, "I don't really like seafood. I just like fish."

Painting, Pizza and Pins

OOB, Mom and I took the niece and nephew (Em and Zach) out today. They had the day off of school and since their getting a new kitchen at their house, it was probably better if they didn't spend the day at home getting underfoot. And bonus: OOB was in town so what a better time than to spend some with their uncle they don't get to see very often.

So we had a day of adventure planned. We painted pottery (my choice) again! YAY! OOB and Zach never had painted pottery so Em and I gave them some tips. It'll be fun to see how everything turns out. I did a vase in the dottery genre made famous by Bethany Actually. It looks like it'll be pretty cool. I almost liked it dull; hopefully, when it's fired it'll still look good. Em did a mug for her mom for Mother's Day; Zach did a tumbler; and OOB did a mug for his wife since he's been away from her all weekend. They all did great.

Then we headed to MS's workplace to check out the firetrucks. MS gave us a mini-tour of the truck and explained some stuff. I figured this was at least some way for the kids to get some education, too, instead of just fun all day. :) And MS likes to teach people new things so it was his moment to shine a bit as well.

Food was next on the agenda as we were all starving. We hit CiCi's pizza and OOB and Zach had a mini eating contest. I'm not really sure who won. I don't mind CiCi's, but it gets to be too much food - more than I need. I was stuffed the rest of the day.

So we went to work it off at the bowling alley. This was a great time. The first round was a little rough for everyone (except OOB who consistently scored a 112 all three rounds). Em was struggling a bit, but by round three she got a strike. The look on her face was so precious - pure joy and excitement. It was so wonderful to see. She had been a little quiet most of the day, but at that moment she lit up like a Christmas tree and was excited after that. We played another round and she got a 10 pin spare (guttered the first roll, then all 10 the second - so a mini strike). I did well too, getting several strikes which made me happy. I need to practice a little more though.

Then it was time to go home and meet up with the kids' folks. We had dinner and talked for awhile. The OOB came home with me to see my apartment and Mom picked him up. It was so good to spend some time with him. It had been a great weekend but we didn't really get time to talk. We usually find time to do that alone at some point during visits wherever we are. We have always gotten along well, and it was rough when he first moved East. But we've done well keeping in touch over the years.

Love you, OOB. I'm really glad you made it here.

Prodigal Son

It's Good Friday in the Lutheran world and I'm mixing up my Bible a bit. The Prodigal Son has returned; that is, my OOB has returned home for the weekend.

It's always fun when OOB visits. He's a riot and we get to have our religion debate just for fun (he's Catholic). He's just great to have around; we get along very well.

And he got to meet many of the newbies to the extended family - my MS, mom's boyfriend, Kevin's new girlfriend (though he intro'd her as "friend" so I'm not sure). And then since there are a ton of b-days in the family this time of year, we celebrated those as well.

The bad thing is his arrival required killing the fatted calf - or at least going out for a huge meal. We went to Olive Garden (mom had a coupon) and ate way.too.much. I love their salad and breadsticks though. Their b-day cake left a lot to be desired. TOO sweet, and I like sweets.

Tomorrow we do the Moe family Easter. Then Sunday MS and I repeat our Thanksgiving tradition and will make up the other turkey we have in the freezer (well, it's in the fridge thawing now). OOB and my mom and MS's mom are all coming out. That will be interesting...entertaining. hmmmmm

For now, I'm stuffed and need to rest. Tomorrow will be a long day. :)