10-ish for March

10 things making me happy this month:

1. Paid off Christmas! Woooo whooo!
2. Had the stomach flu, but didn't ever have to throw up.
3. My tiny little new daffodils bloomed. They are the cutest things ever! 
4. I also have 3 crocus.  Am wondering what happened to my crocus?
5. Read 3 awesome books, including The Book Thief, Year of Wonders, and The Reapers are the Angels.  All read on the recommendation of awesome people I know in real life and on the internet.
6. Didn't spend a dime at Kohl's.  What an accomplishment!
7. Seeing almost all of my nieces and nephews in the space of a week.
8. I even had one of them sleep over.  I love watching my kids make memories with their cousins, and having my nephews around so they can remember me.  Family gatherings are hectic and it's hard to get a lot of individual interaction with them. 
9. That Thomas finished his science fair project. Man, the things I didn't know I was signing up for when I had babies....
10. That Ben's surgery on his tongue went well.  We got the pathology report on it yesterday and it was clean - what  relief!!

9 random things:

1. I have my own copy of The Book Thief.  I have never read this copy, but 3 of my friends have (2 this month!)
2. I looked out of my window while doing dishes today and somehow imagined my backyard looked onto Timpanogas the way my sister's does.  I seriously looked out and expected to see that beautiful mountain glistening in the distance.  It was a reality shock to see just houses and some very distant mountains.  It was weird.
3. I love allowing myself 1 (or sometimes 2!) cokes per week.
4. I really wanted to do Lent.  I made it through one day of my decided-upon Lent sacrifice.  Only 1. It's just a weekly goal, but last Friday found me not feeling it at all.  I am a Lent failure.
5. I dropped my visa in between the cash register and the twirly thing that holds the grocery sacks at Walmart.  I had to leave it there because it was impossible to retrieve.  My husband was so proud...
6. I spent copious amounts of time watching Biggest Loser season 11 on Hulu.  I really like Kourtney and Rulon.  I've never watched it before, but I really got addicted after a few episodes.  I'm all caught up now, which is awesome because Hulu doesn't let you skip past commercials the way my DVR does. Insert maniacal laughter.
7. Sometimes, I just wish we could turn off the Disney Channel.  Really.
8. My cat eats paper.  She walks around and meows crazily and tears it up into little pieces. It sucks.
9. Thanks to the Biggest Loser, I kind of want to take up boxing.  Anyone else?

8 Reasons today was awesome.

1. It was 68 degrees. 
2. The wind was in the perfect direction during my run.
3. My kids both had a friend come over.
4. I got to drive home an extra time from karate because my eldest forgot his karate pants. Yay!
5. I blogged twice today.
6. I saw my awesome friend Britt.
7. My other friend Melanie agreed to go to Costco with me so I can buy toilet paper.  We are pretty much limited to what is on the holders at this point.  Scary.
8. 4 different people came to my door and my cat didn't bit any of them.

6 things coming up April:

1. Running a free 5k with Salt Lake Running Company.
2. Training for Ogden Marathon Relay.  Going to try to keep running after our leg and finish the half marathon (pray for me!!  If the training doesn't kill me, the race might.)
3. A bridal shower
4. A relief society activity
5. A baby shower
6. A new nephew

5 songs that got me through March:

1. Black and Blue, Counting Crows
2. Landslide, Glee Cast
3. The Wall, Pink Floyd (not one song, but I listened to it nonstop.) 
4. Dog Days are Over, Florence + The Machine (I just downloaded it today!)
5. My Life Would Suck Without You, Glee cast (I feel so ashamed - it's so over dramatic, but I love it!)

3 things to be grateful for:

1. My kids
2. My knees
3. The laser hair removal groupon I just bought.  Sorry, TMI??

2 TV series we are watching a lot lately thanks to Netflix:

1. Lost
2. Man vs Wild

Didn't make it to 10.  But thanks for sticking with me!!  March was a great month.  Did anything good happen to you in March?

Book Review: Year of Wonders

As hard as I willed it, I could not draw up anything to follow: no formal supplication, no Bible verse, no scrap of liturgy.  All of the texts and Psalms and orisons I had by rote were gone from me, erased, as surely as hard-learned words written with painful effort onto a slate can be licked away with the lazy swipe of a dampened rag.  After so many unanswered prayers, I had lost the means to pray.

A few months ago when I was whining about not having anything to read, a commenter recommended Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks.   I felt a little flash of excitement when I read this comment; it is a book that I had considered rereading several times but just never actually picked it up and read it.

I read this book a long time ago, I think in about 2002 or 2003.  At that time, all I had was one chubby blond haired boy to take care of.  Anna, the main character in Year of Wonders, has two chubby blond haired boys.  The scenes with her boys and their short-cut lives just tore me apart the first time I read it. And really, it wasn't much easier the second time around.  It was too personal to hear her descriptions of the way a mother loves her sons.  And to lose them and have no control; oh, I can't imagine.

If you've never read it, Year of Wonders is about a village in England that quarantines itself off when plague arrives at its doorstep.  Anna has taken in a border to her home who is also a tailor.  One of the bolts of fabric he receives from London is infected with plague. He is the first to die, and so this terrible sickness takes over the town.  Their inspiration for their selfless act is a young rector in their midst, a man who seems as large as life, who preaches their quarantine one Sunday in church.  The entire town, minus the town nobleman and his father, agree to the quarantine, thus sealing their fate to become the Plague Village.  (Which, btw, really existed.  Brooks based her book on a true account of just such a village.)

It was heartbreaking to read about how people died from plague.  In the 1660's, people didn't understand infection or how it traveled.  Was it a curse from God?  Was it the devil?  Was it nature?  Was it witchcraft?  Their simple lives were filled with so many unanswered questions and concepts.  To read the scenes of children playing with dead rats in a woodpile and not being able to understand that the rats were dead from the very thing that would also kill them in a few days is terrible.  And yet there is such beauty in the book.

I loved watching Anna grow to fill the roles she was destined to fill.  Anna is much more than the rectory maid.  She becomes a healer, a midwife, a friend, a witness of the best in people and the worst in people.  She learns that life goes on, even when half of your neighbors are dead. She learns that people aren't always who they seem to be, and that no one really knows what is happening in a relationship other than the two in it.  Anna is such a strong character and I loved revisiting her story.  I enjoyed this book the second time just as much as the first.  Plus, I took my pen to it, SDBBE style, thus adding a different dimension to the reading.

Have you read this book?  Any thoughts? Thanks, anonymous commenter for the suggestion!

Letter to a friend.

Dear Friend,

It has been 1,813 days since we last were friends.  In that time:

• Two children have learned their sight words (t-h-e looks easy, but it's really hard!)  The one is reading Harry Potter now, and the other can do Hop on Pop (when he is motivated.  He has his days, like everyone.)
• Nine baby teeth have been lost.  That damn tooth fairy got credit for every. stinking. one. of them.
• One child has gone through more than half of elementary school (he even rode the bus for two years, one day getting stuck in a snow drift and not getting home until after 5p.m.  Terrifying for a 6 year old, really.  We are glad he can now walk or ride his bike or get rides from his mom when she's around.)
• (Oh yeah, they both learned to ride two wheelers, too.  You should have seen it!)
• Another child is almost done with kindergarten.  He thinks he's smart as the day is long. 
• Oh, yeah, he can talk now.  Boy can he talk!  But you missed that cute, baby-talk stage, and the day when he started to call the cat "Keetoe."  It was sweet, sweet.
• The other one has made friends and lost friends: to moving, to distance, to different choices.  He is such a good boy, and is learning so much about this world.
• One child remembers you, the other does not.  That's harsh.  For a lot of reasons.

It's impossible to list all the milestones in 1,813 days.  But anyway...

True, there were 5 days that we can subtract from our grand number.  In fact, there were 2 days in the same month when part of us saw each other.  Yeah, it was awkward, but we did it for someone else who isn't with us anymore.  At least he got to go to heaven knowing he had done what he could.  I wonder what he thinks of us now, still holding strong to our own suitcases full of Reasons.  They've gotten heavy.  I don't relish getting the contents out and showing them much these days.  They are a lot less shiny than they were 1,813 days ago, sort of sad and tired and broken.

And, I should probably thank you again for not running me over that one day in the parking lot.  Whew, that was awkward!

And also true, there are others who have missed days.  They don't get see all these milestones, either.  But if they could, they would.  They wouldn't have allowed all those days from that long ago day in April to this day to have elapsed in silence and wonder and eventual knowledge and resentment, despite what was said and what meaning was taken from what was said.  After all, children aren't the most reliable source.

And true, I have hoped for reconciliation.  Even prayed for it. But even so, steps toward reconciliation are hard, hard.  For every step, there are numerous other steps that are considered carefully, before a toe ever reaches the floor.  Because none of us can take back all those days, friend.  They are gone.  And we can't erase the endless rehashing of the events, or take back the dreams of conversations, the imagined reconciliations or (sometimes!!) imagined punches that surprised the dreamer with feelings of satisfaction.

We can't any of us change the days that have been missed.  And I have seen the days I was privileged to see and missed your days that of triumph and wonder.  But lets face it: 1,813 days when you are over 30 mean a lot less than when you are 1 and 4.

It feels like you are in the driver's seat.  Where do we go from here?

Regards,

Me.

Thought for the day

I am reading East of Eden.  The very copy I had my dad sign for me back in 2006.  I knew I loved this book, and I remember some of it, but I'd forgotten exactly how much I love it.

I'm only up to page 26, but I've come across a passage that I just can't stop thinking about.  Adam Trask and his dad Cyrus are talking.  It goes like this: 

"As they walked back toward the house Cyrus turned left and entered the woodlot among the trees, and it was dusk.  Suddenly Adam said, "You see that stump there, sir? I used to hide between the roots on the far side.  After you punished me I used to hide there, and sometimes I went there just because I felt bad."

"Let's go and see the place," his father said.  Adam led him to it, and Cyrus looked down at the nestlike hole between the roots. "I knew about it long ago...Once when you were gone a long time I thought you must have such a place, and I found it because I felt the kind of a place you would need.  See how the earth is tramped and the little grass is torn?  And while you sat in there you stripped little pieces of bark to shreds.  I knew it was the place when I came upon it."

Adam was staring at his father in wonder.  "You never came here looking for me," he said.

"No," Cyrus replied.  "I wouldn't do that.  You can drive a human too far.  I wouldn't do that. Always you must leave a man one escape before death. Remember that! I knew, I guess, how hard I was pressing you. I didn't want to push you over the edge."

It hit me in a place I didn't know I had.  When my kids are driving me nuts, when I'm trying to teach them something they don't want to learn, do I give them their escape route?  Even more, do I know the place they go to to retreat to, and do I allow them to go there?  Or do I follow them to that place, bullying them and attempting to push them over the edge?

I don't know the answer. But it gives me reason to pause and think.  What does this passage mean to you?  Do you see it from Cyrus' point of view, or Adam's?

The zen of running.

I read this article today by one of the Ragnar Relay cofounders.  I've thought about it all day, and I wanted to share my version and experience of the "runner's high."

I hated to run for the first 20 years of my life.  I remember a friend of mine decided to be on the track team in 9th grade.  This girl and I had competed our whole lives with each other, whether it be for grades or friends or gymnastics tricks or pages read in a night.  She started talking about how well she was doing at track, and naturally I decided to try and keep up with her.

I survived exactly one track practice.

After that, I maybe ran a total of 4 or 5 times until I was in my mid-twenties.  I once lost a toenail running in some hiking boots while I was at school.  I bought some 5-pound Pro-wings from the Payless and tried to kill myself running around my high school track.  I even suffered through an entire semester of the degree-requisite Fitness for Life class my college required for my associates degree, all without ever once loving to run. 

It wasn't until I moved to Salt Lake for my last year at the University of Utah that I started to like running.  I lived one block east of Liberty Park, which pretty much requires that you start to run (yes, it was in the same pair of Pro-wings I had attempted to run with years ago.  Shane loooooved to make fun of those shoes.)  Then when we got married, Shane and I carved out a little 1.5 mile run around our apartment complex that we did a few times a week.  I started to appreciate running during this time, but I didn't reach what I call "zen" running for a few years.


 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hector-lazo/
4532391988/sizes/s/in/photostream/

 For me, zen running is as rare as a windless day in my neighborhood.  It happens once or twice a year, but when it happens, you know it, you recognize it, you feel it in every part of your body.  The first time I reached my zen moment was when Shane and I did a 10 mile run down  Provo Canyon.  We had trained perfectly for the race, logging miles around the neighborhood for months.  My moment came about 6.5 miles into the race.  Suddenly, I wasn't gasping for breath.  Nothing hurt.  In that moment, I ran.  That was my whole purpose in life, to keep running.  I felt contentment with my singular purpose in life.  It was a moment that stretched on and on while the miles fell behind me.

The next time I felt running zen was when Shane and I were training for the marathon we did in 2004.  We were running on the Jordan River Parkway, and were way out on the trail in the wild fields between 7800 South and 9000 South.  The clouds were gathering in front of us and so we turned around to head back to the car.  We were 3 miles from our destination when the rain hit.  It hit us from behind, and the wind seemed to push us along in front of it.  Those last 3 miles flew by as my best friend and I raced the storm, laughing and running and wanting nothing more than to get somewhere warm and dry. 
My last zen moment happened last week during my long run.  That day, I had my lovely neighbor drop me off some miles from my house so I could run home.  I had picked a stretch of road that included a 20-block climb.  I reached my moment just as I crested the hill, about halfway through my run.  I had forgotten my headphones, so I had nothing to entertain me but my thoughts and the sounds around me.  Again, the running became easier.  Again, all thought of anything other than the road in front of me fell away.  I ran.

I wish these moments happened more.  Or, maybe I don't, because if they did, I probably wouldn't appreciate them as much.  It is amazing to me to be able to appreciate the feel of my body pushing itself to other planes.  It is as if the soul is as close to the surface as possible, giving i's peace to both mind and body.  I love it.  I'm addicted to it.   I'm grateful for it, and for a body that allows me to find these moments.  And I'm grateful that these moments have turned a once running-hater to a running-lover.

I no longer run to keep up with anyone other than myself.

Photo courtesy Hector Lazzo.

On pain...

When I was in school in Virginia, a few of us went to dinner in an adjoining town.  We all piled into cars and took off for Applebee's, a restaurant which had yet to make an appearance in my home state.  We arrived safely at our destination, and I was just about to get out of the car when I reached back across the car for something that was outside the open car door.  In the same second, my roommate slammed the door on my finger.  I yelled and they opened the door and I observed my bleeding fingers, all of which seemed pretty in tact, all things considered.

When I was sure I would live another day with 10 fingers, I got out of the car to walk into the restaurant.  A few steps from the curb, I realized (too late) that I was blacking out.  Splat!  I landed on the ground, hitting my head on said curb.  I came too right away and spent the rest of the meal in that shaky, almost-wanting-to-cry state that comes from a recent fall. 

That was my first experience with just one more thing that makes me a little freaky.  You see, it's happened again and again over the years.  I've passed out after hitting my leg on the bottom part of my desk on more than one occasion.  One morning while getting ready for work, severe stomach pain caused me to take the refuge of sitting on the toilet.  I fell flat on my face on the floor.  (Thanks to that fall, I now sport a slightly-off center nose, something that really bugs me if I let it.) I'm pretty familiar with this whole intense pain/fainting thing.  And most of the time it happens without much fanfare.  But....

Today, it struck again.  Whilst returning some paperclips to a co-workers desk (I hate paperclips. They multiply at an alarming rate, and I've had drawers full for years that never ever go away.  They are the bane of my existence and I refuse to house any more than I absolutely must.), my kneecap somehow caught on the handle of one of her desk drawers.  My leg moved to the right, my knee cap stayed to the left.  There was this horrible moment when I felt the complete separation of kneecap from knee.  In the very next moment, I immediately went down to the ground, the world already starting to go dark.  People came out of nowhere and everywhere, patting me, asking if I was okay.  I grumpily and rudely brushed off their offers of help and stumbled to my own cubicle where I took up residence on the floor again.  After a few moments, I decided that should the darkness that was threatening overtake me, I didn't want to fall over on the floor (I don't know if my nose could have handled it again...)  So I got into my chair and laid my head on my desk.

A sweet, dark dream took over...a dream that seemed to go on for hours, but couldn't have been more than a few moments.  I kept coming around only to have the intense urge to: 1 - cry; 2 - flex my leg for assurance that my kneecap was firmly back in place; and 3 - take off my heavy sweater because I was dying of heat and sweating profusely (lovely, I know!)  This went on for a while until I could finally muster enough strength to life up my head and get a drink. I kept trying to tell my well-wishers I was going to be fine, but all that came out was grumpiness (I get really mean when I'm in pain.  It's not something I'm proud of!)

Eventually I was okay, and I conveyed all my thanks to my coworkers for trying to help me.  I told them that I'm used to it, that I can't bonk a knee or slam a finger in the car door without passing out.  Another reason it's fun to be me, I guess.  And thankfully, my knee seems  to be okay.  I decided not to run on it tonight; how ironic that days after I feel my running mojo coming back, my clumsiness threatens to kill it all.

So, do you have frequent fainting spells?  Am I the only one who does this?  If you have a good fainting story to share, I'm dying to hear it.

Right now: The Last Day of Winter Edition

Excited: about the new weeping snow fountain cherry tree Shane planted in the yard today.  We had one in our old house and I've missed it!  Looking forward to seeing those popcorn-esque blossoms in a few weeks...

Stunned: that purple is back in style. I had a $10 off coupon to Gap today and what to my wondering eyes should appear but purple as far my eye could see. I found an awesome purpley shirt for $15.  It's very likely I'll be wearing it at church tomorrow.

Tired: from running.  I did a big run (for me) on Thursday morning, and then ran again with a new friend this morning. I'm finally starting to get back to where I was before last fall's disastrous blood donation.  Such a relief!  But yeah, tonight I'm sore.

Satisfied: by the Cafe Rio salad I just ate.  Mm.  And I hardly feel any guilt that I'm allowing myself my one soda for the week.  Cafe Rio has Vanilla Coke on tap.  Oh, yum.

Grateful: for Shane's grandma.  She crocheted a gorgeous runner for my mantle and brought it up to me yesterday.  She made it the twin of the one she made a few years ago for my piano.  She is so talented and I love having bits of her handiwork around my house.  They will be something I treasure forever.  I told Shane if he ever divorces me, the table runners stay with me.  He tried to argue, but I think I got him in the end.

Watching: Lost, Season One. It's fun to watch the beginning while knowing the end.  Maybe that is how God feels, watching us bumbling around this earth, making ruckus with the natives and finding buried hatches.

Wanting: to decorate for spring.  I still have snowmen and angels out, the leftovers from my post-Christmas decorating depression.  I bought some cute easter eggs from Tai Pan a few weeks ago, and I think they will look a lot better on my hall table than stuck inside my hutch.

Wishing: I was by the beach, or somewhere warm.  San Diego, where are you when I need you?

Disliking: the time change.  I would much rather go to sleep (and wake up) on the old, later schedule.  Although it is nice to be able to do something after dinner than sit and watch TV.

Needing: to get going on my sewing.  I have at least four more blankets to make for various babies who will entering the world soon.  Is it just me, or is everyone pregnant this year?

Enjoying: watching Ben learn how to read and write.  He's always asking how to spell things lately so he can write little notes, and sometimes he tries to spell things on his own.  Right now there is a sign on his door that says, "No girls allowed. Only boys awesome."  And last night he drew a picture for each of us and wrote that he loved us (he always draws a heart to say love.)  On the last one he wrote "I (heart) evrewunu."  I think the last "u" is to make the "uh" sound at the end of one.  So cute.

So that is what is happening right now for you?  And please, don't mind the migration of my verb tenses - it was harder to keep them consistent than I expected!

Earthquakes are my biggest fear.

Right now, It's 9:21.  In Tokyo, it's 1:21am.  That means it's been almost 11 hours since their devasting earthquake.

The strange thing is, last night, about 10 hours ago, I couldn't stop thinking of earthquakes.  Since the three small quakes hit Utah County a few weeks ago, I've been paranoid.  I keep thinking about my house falling in on itself, about horrible distruction up and down my street.  People stranded in the middle of the night with a moving, shaking, wriggling world beneath them.  It isn't new (I've always worried about earthquakes; thanks, Mr. Tulley for educating me so well on geology), but usually I don't spend this much time focusing on earthquakes.

And so last night, I was worried.  I should blame it on my washer, which needs to be replaced and has a tendency to vibrate the floor a little when it's on the spin cycle.  As I felt the vibrations from the washer, my mind turned to the (eventual) earthquake we will have in this valley.  I keep wondering how old I'll be, how old my kids will be, whether I will be at work and have to walk home (you know, just a 20 mile jaunt. I'll be fine.), whether I should buy some earthquake insurance.  My heart started to beat and my whole mind was filled with earthquake.  And now, today, when I do the math, I was having earthquake anxiety at the exact moment that Japan would have been having their massive earthquake.

I am FREAKED OUT!  Am I the earthquake-whisperer?  Do Britt and I have a secret pulse on the future Utah earthquake?

(Disclaimer: this post is not intended to minimize the suffering I know is going on in Japan right now. My heart goes out to those people who are lost or scared or hurt or in any way impacted by the devastation.  I'm hoping and praying that things can be cleaned up over there as soon as possible.  Stories like this one [about the restaurant giving out free curry and rice to stranded commuters] give me peace, knowing that there are good people all over the world who try to alleviate suffering.  God bless you, Japan.)

Dance teachers do not go gentle into that good night...

(Thanks to Dylan Thomas, the poet, for contributing to my title today.)

When you say the word "marathon" in our family, it means one thing. And it isn't the one you are used to.

For many years even before I was born, the yearly marathon was a dance recital that was indeed, very marathon-ey.  Three and a half hours for three consecutive nights marathon-ey.  You see, me, my mom, all my sisters, and 5 of my nieces all spent copious amounts of time being taught dance by not just a person, an institution.

Her name was Colleen Collins-Smith.  You had to add the Collins into the name, because she never moved past her maiden personality.  She had a yell that could wake the dead.  Her and her prodigious progeny all taught, demonstrated, choreographed, and showcased themselves over 4 generations on various Utah County high school stages.  Each class was peppered with at least on of her daughters or granddaughters, all standing front and center while the rest of the class bumbled behind.  Each year, the big show ended with line after line of dance classes turning their faces away from the audience, sitting, kneeling, stooping, or standing, to the musical version of The Lords Prayer. The culmination of this finale was when everyone on stage would raise their hands above their head, clasp them together, and then lower them into praying hands, right in front of their chest.  Every year, one smart-alek kid would clap their hands loudly.  They always thought they were the first one to think of it.

I first encounted Colleen when I was 5.  I danced with her for a year, and then spent the next 10 enamored with gymnastics.  When I broke my ankle in 9th grade, I didn't go back to the gym, but headed back to Colleen with my best friend Rebecca (who had been taking from her for a few years.)  My first class we learned a dance called Spanish, and it was set to music from The Nutcracker/Fantasia.  My second class, we learned a dance to Michael Jackson's Bad.  I still to this day know most of the steps to these two dances.

The thing about Colleen's dance classes that you had to get used to were this:

• No matter how good you were, there would always be a relative of Colleen who was better.
• The position you were placed in to perform the dance was directly correlated to how much you were liked/appreciated by The Family.
• You better pick the dance steps up right away, because if you missed one little section, you would be lost. For months. Or possibly forever.  So learn fast.
• Technique was more of a suggestion than a rule.

There were families within the circle, and families outside the circle.  My first day in class when I returned to dance, Colleen had my mom stand up and introduced her as one of her first students (which was totally true.)  So for a while, I had tiny bit of status.  Or at least I learned dance for a few years.

I ruined all that when I was in 11th grade.  I had been taking dance with Colleen, but also dancing at another dance school on the side (unknown to Colleen, but known to my other teacher, Ann.)  I decided to call in "sick" to class one day so I could sit in on a rehearsal with Ann.  It all went bad, bad, bad.  Colleen called back and got my dad on the phone instead of me and found out I had lied to her.  I admitted my lie in a subsequent phone call and the proverbial crap hit the fan.  In the end, I insulted almost the whole Smith family, and got myself kicked out of the partner dance I'd been chosen to do (I hated it anyway.)  In the end, it was about 2 hours of telephone drama between myself, Colleen, and my mom (who somehow got pulled into the ruckus.  Sorry, Mom!)  At the advice of my teacher Ann, I crawled back into the Smith family's graces enough to finish out the year.  But Colleen never, ever after that looked or spoke to me kindly.  I guess my saying that I no longer wanted to "cater to her son Tye" in our partner dance was unforgivable.

So, what is the point of this post you are wondering?  Colleen, the institution, the unstoppable, the beloved of many, and dreaded by more (she never was my dad's favorite, it seems!), passed away a few weeks ago (don't you love Facebook?)  I heard that she was in good health almost up to the very end.  I'm sure she had been in class up to the very last possible day with her record player, her enormous black bun and all black clothes in attendance.  And while we had our differences, I paused for  moment, and remembered her and her contribution to my life, and to many in my family. 

She may not have been the best dance teacher in the world, but she had heart.  She wasn't afraid to put on a show of recycled choreography from the 70's, 80's and 90's year after year and call it The Big Show.  She wasn't afraid to allow that show to go on for hours and hours over many consecutive nights.  She wasn't afraid to put 14 year old girls in markee-like costumes and make them dance to commercials for Mounds and Almond Joy and call them dances.  She wasn't afraid to yell at the smallest 4-year-old open-mouthed and perplexed grandson to pas-de-bourre a little faster.  She wasn't afraid to put a 29-year-old pregnant mom in a leotard and let her do a solo.  If it was for her one great passion in life - dance - she wasn't afraid.  Even if people made fun and called in a marathon behind her back.  It wasn't any skin off her back.

Rest in peace, Colleen.  I'm sorry for lying to you.  Teenagers do that. Thanks for teaching me dance.

10 for February

This may be a 10 list....or ten things in a list.  We'll have to see...

1.    No, I didn't fall of the planet.  I've just been working. Three out of the four weeks in February I got overtime.  Coming from a girl who usually works a max of 24 hours, 41 is a lot.  Especially when you consider all the extra hours were from home.  My family got really tired of seeing me in the recliner.  But we are done with our February project, and life is back to normal.  Whew!

2.    The thing about working a lot: for me, it becomes kind of like a contest.  In the 9 years since I've been part-time, I haven't once gotten 40 hours - much less 41 - of work in a week.  After I did it once, I kept trying to do it again.  I think I got a little obsessed.  But it was nice to pay some things off that had been lingering.

3.   I'm still having fun with Jillian Michaels and her Yoga Meltdown/30 Day Shred.  Shane likes to call her a Shim.  She is sort of manly, isn't she?  But that girl has done a lot to whip me into shape.  I can do push-ups now.  I've spent so much time allowing running to be my only sort of exercise over the past years that I've let my upper body go a lot.  I guess they mean it when they say you have to do strength training as well as cardio.  I feel stronger, which is really exciting.  And, these videos have kept my attention much better and made more of a difference than a lot of the others I've tried over the years.

4.  Back in January, when I was feeling horrible emotional changes from my asthma medicine, I went shopping for flannel for some of the myriad of blankets I will be making this year.  I went to one of my favorite fabric stores expecting to get 30% off of any sort of fabric I wanted (they have an awesome sale every January that I wait for.)  Well, I walked in, expecting a discount, only to discover the sale had ended 2 days prior.  To say I was nasty is an understatement.  I hadn't put all the dots together to realize that the world wasn't against me but I was against the world.  So, even though I had picked out some adorable flannel which I knew I would be sad if I missed out on, I left, empty-handed.  It sucked, but I just couldn't deal emotionally with not getting my way (lame, I know!)  (I'm getting to the good part.)  One February day, I headed back to the fabric store and found a singular yard left of the very fabric I wanted and had left behind the previous trip.  I was having a much better day, so I bought it and brought it home.  I was so excited; I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it and who I wanted to have it in the end.  I hope she likes it as much as I do when she gets it!

5.  My kids started taking tae kwon do in January.  They did their first test in February, and they both did well on their test.  I like the studio a lot.  It is only 2 miles from our house, which if you know where I live is not much short of miraculous.  The teacher/owner is strict but kind, and that goes a long way in my mother's heart.  I'm glad they are learning to discipline not just their wills but their bodies as well.  Thomas went to the sparring class for the first time last Thursday.  It was so cool to watch him engaging others in friendly combat.  I'm not much for violence, but I'm all for him having the confidence to defend himself in a conflict.  I'm liking our choice to allow them to start lessons.

6.  We entered the world of Netflix.  It's been fun to have different stuff to watch.  And though I threatened to cancel my satellite TV, I have yet to do it.  I'm just not ready to be in a 100% user-driven television environment yet.  I need to let go, but but but.  Yeah, I haven't.  I did get them to drop the price by $10 and give me free HD.  Big deal.  I should just kill it all together.

7.  I finished 2 books.  How sad.  And I finished my love and logic class.  (Writing the sentence "how sad" made me remember the class.  It's what I'm supposed to be saying when my kids make a bad choice.  I forget most of the time.)  I wouldn't say it changed my life, but it did give me some insight into my kids and what drives them that I don't know if I would have realized otherwise.  It was worth the $10.

And that folks, is it.  I didn't even get to 10.  But I'm glad to be back to the land of blogging again.  Was February kind to you?