Productive Week

When I quit work at the beginning of the summer, I had lots of grand plans for things I would do around the house. You know, decluttering, organizing, doing some of the things around that house that have needed doing since we moved in, oh, three years ago.

But anyone who has kids at home would've laughed at my ambitious thoughts. 'Cause really. A 5 year old and a 6 year old don't give a damn about your ambitious plans; they just want to a) go to the park; b) watch a movie; c) go to the toy store; d) eat; e) all of the above.

So very little got done.

But now, they are back in school. And in the last week and a half, I've finally made some progress around the house. Crowning achievement: the garage. It's clean. Now, it's not yet organized, but it is CLEAN. As in, you could probably get two cars in there - and that hasn't happened since about an hour after we started moving things in the house. And in other news:

• Kiddos clothes are organized.
• Multiple goodwill runs have been made.
• The last few pieces of baby equipment are being donated to friends who can really use it.
• A budget has been made (now we'll have to see about following it).
• The yard is mowed, and a few nagging tasks out there have been completed.
• The kitchen has been organized and is getting used more often (see: homemade bread for kiddos' lunch sandwiches).
• J's and my bedroom has been cleaned and decluttered.
• Master bathroom - ideas for updating / renovation are in progress, and I'm starting to look for materials. Still not sure of a timeframe, but it's getting closer. And one of the big impediments (at least in my mind) was that we had nowhere to stage materials when we started gathering them. See: a clean garage!!!

So yeah. I'm finally starting to see the results of the last week and a half, which is nice. I'd hate for J to think I sit on the couch eating bon bons and watching tv all day. But he knows me better than that. He knows I don't like tv. Now, where's my book...

(Tooth) Fairy Tales

Saturday night, J and I went out to dinner while the kiddos stayed with my mom. At some point in the middle of dinner, Benjamin called us. He was terrifically excited because he had his First Loose Tooth. He had just discovered it while brushing his teeth, and he had to tell J and I about it immediately. Another reminder about how big he is getting.

He showed me the tooth on Sunday when I picked him up, and I had to agree - it was quite loose. How we'd missed it until Saturday is beyond me; that thing wasn't hanging on by much.

Aaaaand sure enough, the first thing he said in the car yesterday was that he'd lost his tooth while he was in Spanish class. And that he had to go to the nurse, and that it had bled a little but hadn't hurt, and here was the tooth, and wasn't he going to get a visit from someone that night? 'Cause you know, he gets money for this tooth!

Sure enough, the tooth fairy came through (not without a little angst between J and I on the subject). B came downstairs this morning and told me that he'd gotten a bonus last night from the tooth fairy. Not only had the she left him a few dollars for his tooth, but she'd left the tooth, too!

The tooth fairy remained conspicuously silent on the issue. Indeed, when the kiddo's head is firmly nestled on the pillow under which said tooth rests, and it is 11:30 at night, and the tooth fairy is dead ass tired, she's not about to risk waking up the kiddo with a few bucks obviously showing in her hand. Instead, she's just going to put the money under the edge of the pillow as gently as she can, make up a story about why the tooth might have stayed behind in the morning, and get the hell to bed.

But let it be known - had J not remembered to call (ahem, wake up) the tooth fairy at 11:30 last night, there would have been a LOT MORE STORIES made up this morning.

The Help - A Few Thoughts

Friday night, several members of my book club saw The Help. We read it several months ago, with a very interesting, lively discussion being the result. The book club is actually quite racially mixed, and it's been something I've truly enjoyed. There have been book club meetings when I have been in the distinct minority in terms of race - and if I said I was 100% comfortable with it in the beginning, I'd be lying. Those gatherings were very much outside my comfort zone, but in all honestly it was exactly where I needed - and wanted - to be.

I grew up in the south, in Arkansas. School desegregation and racially divided city lines were stalwarts in my early education. I didn't attend public school until 7th grade, and few of my friends were black. The ones who were were those individuals who, for one reason or another, easily mixed with white crowds. My crowd of friends has never been 100% white, with the other races usually being Hispanic and Asian. Black always felt "different" for some reason, and I'm sure a big part of that was not having any frame of reference for what those friendships should be like. Why they should be any different, I'm not sure.

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I can remember being warned off a close friendship with a black boy when I was in high school, because of the "complications" that could occur. Yeah, that message came through loud and clear.

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The crew that saw the movie on Friday night was 50/50 mixed. And I do wonder if I would have viewed the movie differently had I been with an all white crowd. In the back of my mind, as I watched the scenes flow by, I wondered what was going through my friends' heads. One of the ladies had brought her mom, who is probably in her 60s. I wondered what was going through her head, what memories something like this might trigger. Maybe nothing. But probably much more than I could imagine.

And for me, one particular scene helped me sort out one of the more frustrating things (to me, anyway) about race relations. The scene where the main character, a young white lady who is proposing to write about the lives and stories of black maids in 1960s Jackson Mississippi, is sitting in the kitchen with the one maid who has agreed to tell her stories, taking notes. A second maid comes into the house, realizes what is going on, and absolutely lays into the white lady. What right did she have to come and ask for their stories? How could she, this privileged young white girl, possibly know what they, these downtrodden black women, were going through, how could she possibly understand.

How, indeed.

And maybe she couldn't, maybe we still can't. Maybe that's a large part of why we don't talk about it, why we try to sweep it under the rug. It's embarrassing that we would do something like that, it's entirely out of our comfort zone, but it's more than that. It's frightening that a group of human beings was capable of behaving like that - with some still believing that that sort of behavior is ok. But how do you even begin to go about making something like that right? I have no experiences with racism of that magnitude (or probably at all), and I can't even begin to try to understand. Even trying to understand seems laughable, and likely to result in exactly what you see in that scene - derision and incredulity at the notion that you, a white person, might be able to understand what these black women - blacks in the United States - went through.

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An acquaintance of mine (http://thedramatic.com/) wrote a very intriguing, thoughtful blog post about the movie as well. She referenced a black lady's review of the movie here: http://www.artscriticatl.com/2011/08/film-review-the-help-a-feel-good-movie-for-white-people/. Reading the lady's review made me feel as though I had watched a completely different movie.

A feel good movie for white people.

I'm not sure where the article's author got that. The only way you could see it as a feel good movie was if you conveniently ignored the history of our country, and took it to be 100% fiction. And if you are from the south, you know that any single scene in that movie could have easily been played out in real life, and many far worse were. White people might hope we would behave more like the heroine of the story than the villainess, but the movie also showed the social pressures and customs of the time. Chances are, precious few of us would have bucked custom. If you are from the south, you know these things.

I had most of my thoughts put together for this post before I read the article; as I was typing this post, I decided to give it a read and reference it. The review's tone, which felt somewhat ascerbic to me, confirmed the fact that the one scene in the movie probably does give some insight into why race relations can be so hard. Most likely I can't possibly understand, although I can still try to find common ground. And not being able to understand will always be an impediment - there's nothing I can do about that. But I don't necessarily think the movie was a "bad movie" because it wasn't perfect and it didn't address all issues of racism during that time. And I still can't possibly begin to understand how it is a "feel good" movie. It was thought provoking and illustrated some of the injustices that were done at the time. And it shed some light on why race discussions, even today, can be so incredibly difficult.

I'm not sure I can agree that we are a nation of cowards, as the article's author so strongly asserts. I think we are a nation that still hasn't figured out how to effectively communicate on racial issues. Maybe that does make us cowards, maybe not. But I do think it is something that comes down to an individual level. How and what you teach your children, what you show them is "ok". How you yourself behave, how you confront your comfort zones and break out of them. No, these aren't hugely obvious, public, in-your-face ways of addressing racial issues. But they are still instruments of change that I can use. And if a movie helps remind me to continue using those instruments, it was well worth the ticket price. And then some.

Random Notes

A few random things from the weekend.

• Saturday, I ran 6 miles at an average pace of 11:00 per mile. I was tired, and it was around 90 degrees when I stopped, but I wasn't completely exhausted. This bodes well for increasing mileage in the near future.
• Sunday morning, I played doubles with some friends. On the plus side, I wasn't in the least bit sore from the run on Saturday. But on the negative, even though I didn't use my left hand at all during the match, my wrist still hurts and is swollen. Suckage.
• Tonight I baked a couple loaves of bread for lunches this week. Have I mentioned how much I love the smell of fresh bread and yeasty dough? So yummy.
• My kids totally cracked me up tonight. Benjamin has such a fantastic sense of humor, and he has his first loose tooth! And he ate 3 hot dogs for dinner tonight, two of which were chili cheese dogs. Even though he looks nothing like you, J, this PROVES that the boy is your son! The kid can EAT. And Alyssa, even though she was tired, hammed it up enough at dinner that I had a hard time trying to stop laughing. She was snorting like a pig, and for some reason, it was funny as hell. And before you ask, no. I wasn't drinking at dinner.
• I might be a bit tired from all the activity this weekend, but I'm having a hard time settling down tonight. Go figure.

Toilet Humor, or Evil Parenting

Lately, J has caught B leaving the toilet seat down while he uses the bathroom. Now, B probably isn't as messy as he could be, but he's still a little boy. And we all know how clean and tidy they are...

So J told him earlier this week that the next time he forgot to put the toilet seat up, he was gonna have to clean the toilet this weekend. And, being six years old, B forgot. Twice.

So today, he got to clean not one, but two toilets in the house. Oh the agony.

I wasn't here for the first tutorial on toilet cleaning, J covered that. But I did get to supervise the washing of the second one. Hehehe. I didn't make it fun, and I made sure he got it pretty clean before I let him go. And he actually did a surprisingly good job at it, but he was definitely not happy about doing it. I'm pretty sure he won't forget again any time soon, which is a damn shame. I kind of like the idea of a few more people cleaning toilets around here!

Saturday Fun

Ahhh, Saturday morning. It's just past 9:00, and so far the following has happened at my house:

• J discovered that his bike is out of commission. He was supposed to do a ride with a friend this morning along the River Trail, but one wheel is completely broken - the hub somehow managed to get cracked so the wheel doesn't turn. Not good. That's gonna require a trip to the bike store.
• B wants to go see Spy Kids 4, so he's already cleaned up all of his toys and messes from the week. He also wants to earn money right now, so he's learning how to vacuum. I think he's also having fun with the attachments, but I'm not ready to venture in the playroom (currently being vacuumed) to find out.
• The kiddos paired up to sort the laundry for the weekly laundry run. I'm kind of liking this kiddo labor thing...

I went and saw The Help last night with some book club friends. It was a terrifically enjoyable movie, and very true to the book. The group I went with was racially mixed, and I have to wonder if I didn't view the movie somewhat differently than I would have if our group had been all white. I may or may not write up a post on that, it needs to percolate a little more.

So anyway. Next up for today: a long run for me. Right now, I'm hoping that'll mean about 5-6 miles today. It's been a while since I've gone that far, but my legs should be up to it. We'll see.

And then? Well...who knows. We don't have a ton of stuff planned for the weekend, so maybe we'll all be able to relax a little for a change.

$%##@#%

Well, dammit.

The wrist has not healed. Three backhands into warmup last night, my left wrist was screaming bloody murder, even though I've done nothing with it since I injured it nearly three weeks ago. Dammit. Time to go see the doc, I suppose. Crap crap crap. It's nicely swollen again this morning and hurts to move. Back to advil and wrapping it; doc's appt next Thursday. Dammit dammit dammit.

On the plus side, my mixed partner played the backhand side terrifically well last night, I played forehand decently, and we managed to pull out a win even with my crappy, ineffective one-handed backhand slice.

I also remembered one of the reasons I do NOT enjoy mixed doubles - male egos and attitudes. Sorry to generalize, guys, but it's usually the males that make these matches difficult. I can remember lots of male temper tantrums on the court, but very few (if any?) female temper tantrums during mixed doubles matches. I've damn near walked off the court on my own partner when he was being too much of a dick. I'm NOT saying they are all like that - the partner I'm playing with now is awesome. But the few that are pains? Are serious pains. Lucky me, we played one of those last night. Joy.

I've played a lot of matches this year, and I don't remember verbally questioning a single call. It's just not that big a deal to me most of the time, and the match shouldn't hang on one point; one bad call should not change the outcome. But last night? Holy shit. The dude on the other side called one of my shots out (in the middle of a tense game, at deuce) that was oh-so-clearly on the line and in. Serious jackass.  I questioned it and he completely ignored me. Obviously he wasn't going to change his call, but from his behavior, he knew he'd made a shitty call. Not that he was going to change the call or anything - that'd have too much sportsmanship to it. So yeah, an obviously crappy call, after my partner and I had been overly generous with our calls throughout the match. This guy had even complimented a call I made early on, where I SHOULD have called a ball out but it was just too close to feel ok calling it out. Really dude? Really? This is repayment?

I think he just got tired of me making him look bad. I'd passed him while he was at the net more than once, and he couldn't win a point off my serve to save his life. So maybe he just didn't want to get passed yet again. Whatever. My partner and I won, crappy call and all. That's always the best revenge.

Random Activity

Three mile run today, treadmill style. The first mile was slow (treadmills are always slow to start), so it probably ended up being around an 11:30 pace. But the last two were at a 9:30 pace, which I'm quite happy with. I'm shooting for a six miler this weekend, we'll see if that happens.

More on the exercise front, I've got tennis tomorrow night, a couple of mixed doubles matches. I have literally no idea how that is going to go. I haven't touched a tennis racket since Mobile over two weeks ago, and my wrist still bugs me here and there. It's possible that I could get on the court and not be able to hit a backhand. If that's the case, I sure hope my partner (who I have yet to meet) can play the backhand side!

I also broke out the guitar tonight for about 45 minutes. I hate to admit how long it's been since I picked it up, but I apparently needed a break. I promised myself that once the traveling was done, I'd get back to it, and I thoroughly enjoyed playing tonight. I still had a surprising amount of muscle memory (surprising to me anyway), and despite the lack of appearance of callouses, my fingers didn't kill too badly. I have no idea how musicians manage to play and sing at the same time. I mean, I'm sure it's second nature to them (just as a forehand or a serve is to me), but it seems like an amazing feat to a beginner.

Anyway, not too much else going on today. Pretty quiet day, I'm starting to feel recovered from all the traveling, thank God. At some point I'm gonna have to answer the question of "what's next." But I'm not ready for that yet. I'm gonna bury my head in the sand for a bit longer...

Morning Tales from the Kiddos

As we were pulling out of the driveway to go to school this morning, B pops out with the statement that "there are six states that border Arkansas."  Whah?  Ok, what states are they? "Oklahoma, Texas, Tennessee ... Mississippi... uhhh..." That was as many as he got, but I was pretty impressed. We talked about Louisiana and Missouri (how he could miss Missouri, home of his beloved Cardinals, is beyond me, but whatever) being the last two states, but I was pretty impressed that he learned that yesterday and was recalling it this morning.

THEN, A gets in on the action by wanting to know how to count by tens. So I spent the short drive to school listening to Benjamin teach Alyssa how to count by tens. Awesome.

By the time they got to 100, we were pulling into the school driveway. Until today, I've been parking nearby and walking them in. But they were both up going through the dropoff line this morning, with the understanding that B would walk A to her class and make sure she got there ok. The walk is very short, and they literally walk in the school door 10 feet from her class room, so I'm not really concerned, but it made her feel better to have him watching out for her.

As they were both getting out of the car, I hear B ask A if she had her backpack - "yup!" - and they were off. I watched as long as I could as they went in the building, and then drove away. What a good morning - it's so much fun to watch them get older. 

Dragon Tails and Other Assorted Nonsense

I managed to get in a four miler yesterday at the community center before I picked up the kiddos. It was a terrific run, with the third mile at an 8:34 pace, which is fast for me. I'm sort of tempted to try out a 5K somewhere in the near future, just to see what I can do. When I started running, breaking 30 minutes for a 5K (3.1 miles) seemed laughable; that would mean running under 10:00 miles, which is daunting when your average pace is between 12:00 and 13:00 minute miles. But now, sub 30 minutes is virtually guaranteed. I'm not sure exactly how fast I could run one, but breaking 27 minutes would be fantastic.

Anyway. It was good to shake out the legs, and the Shuffle cranked out some stellar tunes. Rage Against the Machine, The Veronicas, Silversun Pickups, and other assorted crazy loud music with a fast beat - awesome.

I've got just a bit more to write about North Carolina, before I leave it alone. I managed to get the kiddos to go on a hike Saturday afternoon - we did a three mile walk with our friend Chris and the four of us. I use the word "hike" loosely, because it really was just a mildly hilly walk on a well groomed dirt path. The kiddos did a lot more strenuous hiking when we climbed Pinnacle, but it was still fun to get them out there. Alyssa gathered flowers along the walk, we stopped and threw rocks into the lake we were walking around. We looked at spiderwebs, leaves, kayaks, boats, and other assorted things nature throws at you. All in all, a nice quiet afternoon, followed by some outstanding barbecue - yummy!

Other than hiking and playing on the deck, there wasn't necessarily a ton of stuff to do. The kiddos were all too young for rafting or anything like that, but when they get a bit older, I think they'll enjoy the hell out of something like that. We did a lot of eating, a lot of drinking, and a decent amount of sitting around talking. The weather was really nice, the kiddos all behaved, and it was actually pretty relaxing. The 10+ hour drive back on Sunday was uneventful and fairly easy, with no hiccups or bumps or anything.

OH! I almost forgot. On our drive out to the mountains, I let google maps choose our route. The one it chose looked a bit mountainous on my small blackberry map, but I didn't really look too hard at it, thinking that all of the routes were gonna be hilly and curvy. Yeah. Should have looked a little harder, maybe.

We turned off I-40 somewhere south of Knoxville, and started what looked to be a 2 hour trek through mostly two lane roads that had lots of curves. About an hour into it, we started seeing shop and gas station signs that had the word "dragon" in them.

Dragon. Hmm. J starts wondering whether this is a section of road that is notorious among motorcyclists for an ungodly number of twists and turns (I had never heard of it). As we went further along, we figured out that we were, indeed, on the "Tail of the Dragon" drive - 318 curves over 11 miles. Fucking insane.

J eventually said he felt like one of those drivers in the old movies who just moves the steering wheel back and forth but couldn't possibly be really steering - except he was. The switchbacks and curves and hills were incredibly beautiful and amazingly NONSTOP. We kept telling the kiddos to look out the front window - so the only one who seemed to get even mildly nauseous was me, and I think that was because I'd looked at the map so damn much. But holy hell it was a crazy ass drive.

Needless to say, we took a very different route on the way home. I'm not sure it was any faster, and it was definitely longer in miles, but the puke factor was drastically reduced. This is always a good thing, but especially so when you have someone who might or might not have woken up that morning with a slightly upset stomach. Can't imagine how that happened...

Home Again, Home Again

HOME. Finally.

What a great trip, even though it was a LOT of driving. We made Nashville on Wednesday night with a bit of low flying (5 hours, even though google maps said it'd take 6...), and we were in the mountains by 2pm on Thursday. The group of friends on this trip are all friends from our Houston time, even though only one of the five families still lives in Houston. But we've known most of these folks for nearly 10 years, some of them for longer, so we've got some pretty good history with them, and lots of good memories.

So. A total of five families made this trip, making 10 adults and 8 kids, aged 6 years to 4 months. It was a FULL house, but for some reason it seemed to work ok. The house was three levels, and noisy as hell, meaning that if anyone was on the main level (kitchen, main room, etc.), you heard them both upstairs and down. Mostly wood floors and wood ceilings through the entire house, and I don't think there was any insulation between floors, so just walking across a floor was noisy. Our kids were older, so we probably had the best end of the deal - no babies waking up, and ours are a breeze to put to bed. I'm pretty sure it was not as easy for everyone else with younger kids, though.

But once the kiddos were in bed at night, everyone that was still awake trooped out to the deck (which was huge), turned on the baby monitors, cranked up the blender for margaritas, and sat outside in the nice mountain air, shooting the shit, reminiscing, and generally having a fantastic time. There was an outdoor fireplace that one of the guys got going each night for s'mores and a bit of heat, 'cause it was quite a bit cooler at night than it is in AR. It was awesome.

The last night we were there, we finally managed to get all ten of the adults on the deck at the same time. One of the crew hadn't ever seen a shooting star (she called herself a "shooting star virgin"), and it was the first really clear night we'd had, so we all spent about an hour craning our necks at the stars and counting satellites, airplanes, and finally, shooting stars. To give you a flavor of the evening conversation, she "popped her shooting star cherry." There were many worse jokes than that, especially as the margaritas got stronger and the bottle of jack emptied. At some point, we even cranked up the 80s music (I'm sort of embarrased to admit that one). And of course, it was completely dark on the deck, so hilarity ensued when folks tried to move around (see: glasses kicked, things dropped, and lots of laughing). Stories were told, lots of bad jokes were made, and we eventually realized this was the first vacation we'd managed to get all five couples (well, now it's families I suppose) together. That was pretty amazing, considering how many trips the crew has taken over the years.

Plans were definitely tossed around for the next trip like this one...we'll see what happens. Getting 18 people together in the same place at the same time was a feat that I think every person expressed surprised at pulling off. Everyone was waiting to see who would back out of this one, but no one did. I'm guessing no one wanted to deal with the shit that would be thrown if they were the couple that backed out ... He he he. But yeah. Five different cities, four different states, and we managed to pull it off better than we did when we all lived in one city. Fingers crossed the next time works out just as well...

Pursuits

One more trip to go...and then we can find a routine that might approach normal.

Managed to get in a 3 mile run yesterday, which helped shake out the muscles. I hadn't run since last Wednesday, and was starting to feel slug-like. J and I are starting the training cycle for longer races this fall and next spring, so it's time to kick it into gear. Of course, I don't really intend to run in the mountains of North Carolina, but I may try to do some hiking and walking while we are there. The kiddos will love that...I can hear the complaints already! Cue evil laugh...

I queued up my running podcast yesterday, and totally enjoyed the topic of the most recent podcast - "The Pursuit of Happiness." The guy that produces the podcast is on a philosophical jaunt right now, and it's very satisfying because it's something I don't get much of in everyday life. It's a little hard to go looking for philosophical conversations at this stage in life, I think. Most folks are too busy trying to keep their reality together, let alone musings on stuff that might or might not exist! And I'm not much in the way of a debater or anything, but I sure enjoy giving my brain something to think about every now and then.

Anyway, the discussion was something I needed to hear right now; it helped put a few things into perspective and got me thinking about how we view happiness in our every day lives, and how we define it. His discussion centered on ancient philosophers' ideas of "happiness" and how they defined it, contrasted with how it is viewed in current life. I haven't finished listening to all of it yet; the podcast is an hour, and I only ran for about half an hour, so I've got something to look forward to next time I run, but here are my thoughts so far.

One of the things that stuck with me was his use of an ancient Greek word that is commonly translated to mean happiness - "eudaimonia." The word actually breaks down into two parts: "eu" meaning good, and "daimon" meaning spirit. A more accurate translation is probably along the lines of "human flourishing." I think his point is that happiness (or eudaimonia), rather than being a discrete notion (e.g., this thing makes me happy, or that event makes me happy), should be viewed as much more all-encompassing. It should be looked at as more of a journey, rather than a goal to be achieved or a static state of being. It is a process, and a way of living. It is having certain principles in your life, and following them as closely as possible. For what it's worth, I think exactly what the principles are is up for debate, depending on which philosopher's camp you are in - but that's an entirely other debate.

It resonated pretty deeply with me, though. It was a good reminder that the bumps in life - and there will always be bumps, some larger than others - are usually such minor blips, they are not worth worrying about. They are the static, the discrete. They are, by and large, unimportant and over quickly. The journey, the process, the pursuit, the things that make you flourish as a person - that's the fun stuff, the stuff you can sink your teeth into, and come back to when you need to rebuild.

I love running - especially when it helps me clear my head and refocus priorities. It's amazing what a few miles of pounding the pavement can do for you sometimes. And food for thought from a podcast? Total indulgence.

Judgmental

I dropped the kiddos off at school yesterday, and then made a quick trip up to NWA to have lunch with a friend who was up in that area for a visit with family. She's become a very good friend over the last few years, and I feel pretty damn lucky to have gotten to know her.

We went to lunch today, and she brought her mom along so I could meet her. The three of us had a great time chatting for a few hours and eating gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches (I know, sounds strange - try Hammontree's in Fayetteville). At one point in the conversation, my friend referred to me as being nonjudgmental.

In the past, my response would've been along the lines of some self-deprecating "I try really hard at that" or "I do my best" or some other such bullshit. Not that that's not true; I actually do try pretty hard to not be judgmental. But as I've been mulling over the events of last week, I've really started to question whether that's as true as it could be. So instead of the normal response, my response yesterday was along the lines of "no, I'm pretty damn judgmental sometimes."

There are some areas where I have no problems with it. People's beliefs in religion, sexuality, and other social issues are easy areas. I think people should do what makes them happy, believe what they believe - as long as they aren't hurting anyone else or imposing their beliefs on other people. Pretty straightforward stuff.

But I recently called someone judgmental on a particular topic while I was venting to a friend. What I said stayed with me, and has been nagging at me. I started wondering whether you can have strong opinions on topics and not be judgmental. Or whether you can even claim you are trying to be nonjudgmental if you call someone out for being just that.

I'm also now wondering where I might be being judgmental and am just not realizing it. Because without a doubt, I am; I'm not sure it's possible to live and not be that way sometimes. But if you don't look for it, you sure as hell won't find it.

Best You Can Hope For

Alyssa started kindergarten today. She's been in childcare since she was 3 months old, so she's used to going to "school" during the week. Morning dropoffs are routine in our house, even though we've had a three month vacation this summer. Still, this is kindergarten, not daycare. She said she was a little nervous, but she seemed to settle in to her new room pretty easily, and as far as I could tell, she shed no tears when I left for the day. Some of the kiddos did cry, as did some of the moms, and I can't blame them. This is a big step for our kids, a serious move towards independence, and a long day to be responsible for themselves. It's a big deal for a five year old. And the five year old's parents!

I feel a little more at ease with her, though, because Benjamin is only two doors down from her, and will be seeing her off and on throughout the day. He's pretty good about helping out when she needs it, so I feel ok about her being there.

They are also in a brand new building this year. We have them enrolled in a charter school near our house, and last year I think the entire school was housed in trailers and portable buildings. It made leaving Benjamin for kindergarten a little harsher; the rooms weren't very nice, regardless of how much work the teachers put into them, and everything felt very run down.

This year, they are going into a brand new building, with new classrooms, bathrooms in every classroom (they didn't have that last year), and a much more suitable environment for learning. I felt so much better leaving them this year than last, although part of that is probably having gone through it already with Benjamin.

Anyway, we did the dropoff this morning with arms full of shiny new school supplies, and I picked them up this afternoon after school let out. Of course the pickup line was a nightmare the first day, but I suppose it'll settle down pretty soon. They spotted me coming down the line of cars and were all excited to get in the car. And the first thing Alyssa said was, "Mommy, I had a fantastic great day at kindergarten!"

Really, what more can you hope for? Both kids had good first days, and my girl is ready to go back tomorrow. There's nothing else to ask for.  I'm happy.

Not Dead

Heh, been quite a hiatus. School starts tomorrow, we got back from the beach late last night, and I just haven't had time to stop and write. Plus I have something on my mind that I'm trying to figure out how to write about, but I'm just not there yet. Maybe tomorrow. It seems to be impeding my ability to put much down on the blog right now.

I did have an interesting conversation over the last week that got me thinking about what I write, and how much of "me" that I put into it. In other words, the balance between "what I did today" and "what's REALLY on my mind" posts. I've leaned more towards the "what I did today" posts for a while, and there are a few reasons for that. But I'm not sure I'm happy with that, and I'm wondering whether I need to shift the balance. Who knows - I've been in a strange mood, and this has not been the easiest week I've ever had, so whatever. I'm just feeling at odds with damn near everything right now. Bear with me, it'll get better eventually.

Some Days...

Ya know, I woke up this morning feeling pretty damn good. We're spending the week at the beach with some other families, so we're being lulled to sleep with the sound of the waves. This morning, I slept until around 8, which was heaven. I didn't realize how crappy I'd been feeling the last few days until I woke up and felt decent this morning. The tennis matches I played over the weekend took a pretty good toll on my body, which was not unexpected - post tournament days are often challenging. I just remember it usually lasting for a day or so, not THREE, but whatever. I felt better this morning, and then it sort of went downhill from there. Should've just stayed in bed...

Started out the morning with a slight confrontation with some friends, which was not a big deal in and of itself, but still stressful. I suck at confrontation, and anything like that just stays with me for a day or two. It also reminded me of how frustrating life can sometimes be. Balancing self, kids, spouse, and friends is just challenging all around, no matter what you do.

Then I managed to get myself stung by a jellyfish while wading in the ocean. I wasn't even in over my knees! I sat down in one of our beach chairs, cussing like mad at the sting, and promptly got whacked on the head when the tarp we've got set up on the beach blew down. There's a rather large, painful bump on the top of my head now, but at least it didn't bleed, right? Sheesh.

And this evening, I totally lost it after the girl had one too many arguments with another kiddo in the house. In truth, there probably wasn't any great reason for me to lose it - I just ran out of patience and energy, and the day's frustrations built up to the point where I just was done.

I hate days like this. I know that they are gonna happen, and it's just part of life, but they still suck.

Overheating

So at the beginning of this tennis shindig, I had a vague wondering about when my age would start to become a factor in my tennis matches. A lot of the singles players are probably still in the early 20s, and some younger than that. And while I don't yet FEEL older than early 20s, I'm absolutely in my mid 30s. And many of the other singles players are not.

So Thursday, I played two matches. Both were pretty easy, and I won them pretty quickly, but I was still on the court for at least 3 hours that day, with heat at or above 100F.

On Friday morning, I played a 9:30 match against the other team's best singles player. We started the match out probably in about 85 degree heat, and I knocked out the first set pretty quickly. The second set, however, was long and painful with some crazy intense points. I was icing between games (wiping ice everywhere I could), dumping ice water over my head, back, and shoulders, and drinking water and Gatorade the whole time. The temperature was over 100 by the second set, and you could FEEL the sun.

Towards the end of the second set, I was so focused on winning the match that I think I must've not been cooling as much as I should have. The last game took probably 20 minutes, and she staved off probably 10 match points before I finally closed out the match. It was a great win, but I paid the price for it.

As I was gathering my rackets and water after we finished (the match lasted over 2.5 hours), I noticed that my hands and legs were shaking really hard, and I was having a hard time making them do what they needed to do. That has never happened to me before, and I started to wonder if maybe I wasn't hotter than I realized. After I reported my score and sat down with my team to watch another match, I started to feel really really bad. I felt like I was going to pass out and throw up at the same time - not a good feeling. I had a friend walk with me to air conditioning, where I sat coating myself in ice for about 15 minutes. That helped marginally, but I still very bad. Eventually I wandered over the medic tent to have my vitals taken and make sure everything was ok (it was). An hour or so later, I finally felt normal, but the whole experience was really frightening and humbling.

The scariest part about it was the fact that I didn't even feel it coming on. I tend to check in with my systems (heart rate, breathing patterns, muscle cramps, etc.) when I'm on the court in hot weather, and I think I was doing that on Friday. I was well hydrated (even when I felt the worst), fine on nutrition, never had a single muscle cramp, and was doing everything right. I've played in the hot summer heat nearly my entire life and never had an issue. I've played longer matches than that, although I probably haven't played in any heat worse than that. And I still could easily have stayed out there and gotten into serious trouble without even realizing it. I was very lucky the match ended when it did.

And the real kicker was that the match didn't really matter much - my team lost every other match we played that day. Dammit. And insult to injury? In the match I played on Saturday (and I played it VERY carefully mind you), I think I tore a tendon in my wrist on a backhand towards the end of the match. Right after I'd found out that we were definitely out of contention for the finals.

Oh well. I've been saying I was going to hang up the rackets for a few months after all this is over. Guess I really get to do that now, seeing as my wrist hurts like hell and I couldn't hit a two handed backhand to save my life. On the bright side (because there always has to be a bright side), it's just my wrist and not a leg, knee, or foot. So I can still run. And I did just that this morning - 4 miles in Gulf Shores heat. Hello marathon season, nice to see you again. I personally don't want to look at my tennis rackets for a LONG LONG time.

Hotter 'n Hell

Wow. Just wow.

My team played at 9:30 this morning. By the time we finished, it was over 100 degrees outside. But the worst part about this? We have another match at 3:00 this afternoon. Holy hell.

I played singles this morning, and won pretty easily. My reward for a fast match (under an hour) is that I also get to play the match at 3:00. Somehow, I'm not feeling very rewarded.

But, on the plus side, we won our first match. It's a miserable feeling to go to sectionals and lose right off the bat - it sorts of negates a lot of hard work that went into the season. We play 5 matches for each team match, 2 singles and 3 doubles. The doubles team that won the match for us was on the court for nearly 3 hours.

And you listen to the weather folks and the news talk about the dangerous heat and the nasty conditions, and you wonder why the hell they play these damn tournaments in the summer. In-freaking-sane.

So. First, keep your fingers crossed none of us ends up at the ER. And second, keep your fingers crossed we win again this afternoon. It would be awfully nice to make a trip to Phoenix for nationals later this year - if we can just keep winning...

More With the Damn Packing

I'm leaving tomorrow for Mobile, and will be gone for another 10 day stint. This time, though, there's a washing machine and dryer, so I know I'll be able to do some laundry along the way. With at least three, and up to five, tennis matches on tap for the next five days, this is a very good thing. Sweaty workout clothes that sit around a while get pretty damn nasty.

I've written before about feeling like I'm just hanging on to the handlebars, careening down the road at breakneck speed, holding on for dear life. That's sort of how I feel right now. I'm not really stressed, but at the same time, there is zero sense of normalcy about life right now. We're going to spend next week at the beach, though, and I'm hoping we can all slow down a little and just enjoy being together. The kiddos are so much fun right now, even though they fight like friggin' cats and dogs. They are very much looking forward to the beach and hanging out with friends, and so am I.

At the same time, though, it feels strange not to be coming back to something. I haven't yet started looking for a job, and probably won't until after we finish our last trip in a few weeks. It feels really odd to not be coming back to work, but at the same time, I'm not sure how I would've managed this summer and worked at the same time. I'm sure I could have, but I know the stress level would have been high.

The kiddos had a really good summer, I think. They've learned how to occupy themselves much more than they could at the beginning of the summer, and we've not spent too much time in front of the television. They've learned to swim, climbed a mountain, spent time with friends, and had long, lazy summer days.

Of course, we've also had our share of temper tantrums. The girl threw a classic one this morning when she refused to get out of the shower and walk 4 steps to the cabinet to get herself a towel. She wanted me to bring her one, and I was in the middle of something else and couldn't do it. I told her to get out and get her own towel. Apparently the thought of getting cold on the 2 foot trek to get the towel inflicted mass pain on her psyche. So instead, she screamed inside the shower for about 20 minutes. During which time she got cold. Go figure.

Oh well. The honeymoon period ended sooner than expected after the Ireland trip, but that's ok. After the next few days in Mobile, I don't have any more trips away from the kiddos for a long time. That'll be more than enough time for us all to get sick of each other again, right? 

Home Again, Home Again - For a Few Days

We finally made it back home last night about 10:00. I was actually a little concerned that I'd sleep for 3 hours, wake up around 1am and not be able to go back to sleep, but that was completely NOT the case. I went to sleep around 10:30 and didn't wake up for good until around 7:30 this morning. I feel surprisingly great, considering how much traveling I did yesterday.

So today I have to hit the ground running. I leave on Wednesday morning to head to Mobile for a tennis tournament, and J and the fam will join me there on Friday. That means there's a lot of packing and a lot of laundry to be done in the next few days (although the laundry is just my stuff; J took care of everything else). I think my mom's gonna help me out with the kiddo packing, thank goodness. So I've just got to figure out what all needs to go to the beach, and what all I need to take for my tennis tournament. Beach towels, sweaty socks, and tennis rackets - oh my!

The trip back yesterday was ok; there were a few bumps here and there (both in air and not in air), but in the grand scheme of things, we made it back to LR on time, and with all of our luggage with us and intact. So all in all, a successful trip. I've hardly even glanced at the pictures yet, but once I get some done I'll put them up.

I've got a few more substantive posts rolling around, but they're gonna have to wait. I've got laundry to finish, 10 more days worth of packing to do, and just a few other things to take care of. But at least the rest of the trips are driving, instead of flying. That makes for much easier packing. And holy cow, I came back to a totally neat, clean  house. J and the kiddos put a lot of work into making sure the house was in great shape. Man, it is very good to be home.