Is It Me?

I'm feeling so much disappointment today. With people that don't live in my house. And, no one that I want to talk about because that's not what I want to do here. I know that when these feelings come, it's usually not the other person(s), it's just your own self inside your own head. I need to manage my expectations a lot better.

Do you ever have that feeling where you just want to cry really hard? I have that feeling today, but not with a good enough reason to back it up.

Is it me?

I don't know.

Maybe it's the weather.

Stepping Up.

Keeping strict to his training schedule, Tony ran 21 miles last Sunday! That's his maximum to date. He called me at mile 17 to pick him up because of pain in one of his legs. By the time I got to him, he felt better and ran the last four miles. I registered him for the Modesto Marathon on March 21. If you are around that day stop by the finish line and look for us so we can all cheer for him.



Here are the details: 3 hours 16 minutes. 21 miles. Average 9 minutes 20 seconds per mile. Average heart rate 160 beats per minute. Fastest mile 7 minutes and 24 seconds at 171 heartbeats per minute. GO TONY!

After a run like that he is exhausted but still moving. He stretches for a long time and then ices his feet for a good while.

In non running news, I have just registered Emily for 7th grade and Eva for kindergarten. I am trying to let that sink in slowly because it just feels so funny; my oldest in jr. high and my youngest starting school. Wow.

I think I mentioned that Emily is playing mini-season soccer [I think that's what you call it.] She had to try out for this team. They practice twice a week for two hours each day. It's brutal, especially in such cold weather! Her team lost their first two games last weekend. This weekend her two games are in Manteca and the weekend after that up near Stockton so we will be on the road a bit for a few weekends. Although I am thankful for the rain that we need, I sure hope the perpetual wet weather we have been enduring will give us a break this weekend!

Tony signed Sarah and Wyatt up for little league baseball. They are going to get to be on the same team, THANK GOODNESS! I don't know when it starts but that should be fun; a new adventure for us.

Girl Scout Cookie sales are in high gear right now for Emily and Sarah, if you want to order from the girls, give me a call. They have not been as successful selling them this year for some reason.

Hey, I made myself a planner for 2010 using my new fabulous bookbinding skills. I really like sewing these books and this is my second try. It took forever but I love it.



I also made a cute and easy heart garland for Valentine or anytime decor that turned out very nice, I think. It's just cut paper and my sewing machine and it took a whole five minutes.



I guess I'm finding the time to let out some of my creative energy and showing my true love for paper. It feels good. Along those lines: I am resolved to getting the kids working on their Valentines early this year and NOT waiting until the night before to ready them up!

Not just stepping up but growing up; a few recent of Miss Eva in the rain and on the soccer field.



The best part of my week: going to bible study on Tuesday morning. I had missed the last few weeks and nothing energizes me more or gives me more positive inspiration. Eva loves it because she has a whole other group of friends in the child care, it's so much fun for her. She says to me, "mommy, is today my child care day?"

I hope you are having a productive week and are looking forward to a wonderful weekend, like I am.

Peace.

Swindled!

Shockingly unbelievable news for you! When I looked at the mail I had just picked up from my mailbox last week I saw this one.



My immediate reaction was, "HA! I KNEW IT!"

The very next second after that I said, "#$%#@, I knew it."

Remember that I told you it was going to turn out to be a scam? It's not always fun being right though. Boo!

Tony bought into this "win-win" fundraiser from a co-worker. It was for the high school volleyball team who did in fact receive half of the proceeds from the scam of a fundraiser. So needless to say, the co-worker and the volleyball organization were both embarrassed to find that they had swindled all of us suckers into this too good to be true garbage. In all, we are out the hundred bucks that he gave the team, plus another $20 that TONY sent to this fraudulent organization to get the money rolling in.

The silver lining is that he promised me that he has learned his lesson. Next time, I told my wonderful husband to forget about the crap and just donate twenty bucks and be done with it!

January Is In The Fast Lane.

And is trying to pass me up!

Can it be mid-January already? Well at least today I packed up the last holdouts from December; our Christmas tree and the nativity set. I'm sad to let them go. Up until just two or three days ago I was content to light my tree morning and night without any strange feelings. So, it being middle January and all I figured that today it must be done. I think I will put up our tree in mid-November this year so I can enjoy it even longer!

I have also in the last week or so found some greatly needed motivation to de-clutter and un-stuff our house. I started with my room and worked my way into the little girls room. No, I don't mean the bathroom, I mean Sarah and Eva's bedroom. I made lots of good progress. I even put up all the Christmas tubs and cleaned the garage today. Yay for me! Hooray for the awesome motivation that I have found suddenly! I just hope it lasts a while so I can made some other big things happen around here.

Emily came home from school today and made pizza popcorn and it was pretty darn good. The kids are still obsessive about the Wii that my parents gave them for Christmas, it's Friday night so I am letting them get their fill of it now. Emily has two soccer games tomorrow afternoon and hopefully we will get to spend some time with friends on Sunday.

Don't tell Emily but Wyatt and Eva just ran over to spit into the trash can, they say they don't like the popcorn. I say it's just the unexpected rush of flavor that took them by surprise. Now Eva is trying to feed it to me. She has been so much fun today, I believe she is the happiest child in the world.

Here are some more of the photos Tony P. took of my kids on the 1st. I absolutely love these!

I think the older they get, the more they look alike.

Symmetry is Nice.

When will this happen again? I think I have the answer, is it 11-11-11? Then when? 02-11-20, 12-11-21, 03-11-30, and so on. I could be wrong, I have only been pondering it for two minutes. I know, who cares. But it's still fun to notice it, even if the day is mostly over. It was a good day.

Sure, go ahead and make fun of me because my font choice above is not perfectly symmetrical. I just thought it was pretty. I make my share of mistakes!

10-10-10 isn't symmetrical, but it's still quite cool. I'm sure they'll make a big deal about that one on the news.

Passing Notes.

O blessed Friday!

I still don't feel like I am functioning at a very high level, but I do feel better now. The headache part got worse before it got better, and is now gone. The cold part lingers but with much less force. I'm looking forward to a nice weekend, and a new dishwasher delivered tomorrow. Why do major appliances excite me so? I don't even know how my poor 12 year old servant lasted as long as he did; well past the days of two youngsters jumping on his open door as if it were a baby trampoline, which honestly surprised the heck out of me.

New subject.

My daughter Sarah is eight years old. My second child has a very sweet heart. She gives the longest and tightest hugs at bedtime and I look forward to them every night. Not that she can't be vicious once in a while, especially with it involves some conflict with her brother. They are, after all, only 19 months apart and these things happen from time to time [daily].

I found this little note laying around and I wanted to share it. It's just a 5x7 sheet of lined paper written in pencil. I kept her punctuation and spelling because I think it's like a time capsule of her right now. If she had written this in Spanish, her spelling would be near perfect but she has just recently begun to learn English grammar and spelling. I don't know why she put this little bio to paper, and I'm not sure when she wrote it but I think it was sometime last month when leaves and caroling were fresh in her mind.


My name is Sarah. I love swiming and my favorite toy is a yo-yo. I always have fun playing outside. I like school and I think shoping is fun because you can see all the things that you want and have fun with them! I like how my life is amazing my parents take me to fun places like the beach. I like jumping the waves and I love Christmas because it's fun to sing at church and do the Nativity. I also like seting up the Christmas tree and caroling to old people. I like those times. I love working in my yard. My most favorite thing to do in the yard is to rake the leaves. Thats wy my favorite season is fall. I like making crafts with the colorfull leaves. I usually make most of my crafts in Girl Scouts. I make seson crafts. Like if its fall I do crafts with leaves. If its almost Christmas I make snowflakes or stouf like that. Camping is a great experiance for me cause a like to go hiking and smell the beautiful scent of the pintrees. But my favorite place to camp is Pinecrest. I like to camp there because ther is a lake and you can go bouting in it! And I like swiming in it to. I love reading and riting. I love riting in cursive. Art is my favorite subject in school. I like my pictures just black and white.

Hello 2010.

Six days in. Right now I feel like I've been twirled around about a hundred times, and dropped. It's day six and I'm still laying on the floor. I guess I could blame it on a blah feeling that I picked up on day 3, sort of a cold + headache-y kind of a thing.

Anyway.

New Years was pretty wonderful. We escaped the valley and spent four days on the coast in Monterey with Tony's cousin Tony, his wife Monica and their kids Alex and Vicki. That's another story in itself; our ragtag gang of four kids and their two well behaved orderly ones, ha! They spent plenty of their vacation waiting on us just getting in and out of our car!

We left on the 31st and could not have asked for better weather. The sunshine and the blue skies were such a treat and highs in the 60's during the day made it feel like heaven. We walked the Cannery Row on New Year's eve with the moon so pretty over the bay.

New Year's day, we went to mass at the Carmel mission. Tony P. took some very nice pictures of the kids there with his camera, those I'll share in my next post because they're so pretty they deserve their own spotlight!

After the mass we went down to Carmel beach to let the kids get their beach fix. We stayed at the Embassy Suites and they take care of us like no one else. Between the breakfast and the manager's reception [aka happy hour(s)] you almost never have to leave! We crashed a party [or so we think] at the hotel Friday night where they served crab, shrimp, oysters, pasta, and fancy cheese. Actually it was a wedding reception that turned into a free-for-all party. The bartender told us that the bride to be had called off the wedding and had already paid for the room and the food so she had a party anyway. She seemed nice enough, so we ate a lot, danced a little, and even got desert and a massage! Seriously! There was a guy there next to the DJ with a massage table, how could we say no?

Tony's birthday was the 2nd and it turned out to be another fantastic day. Tony's youngest brother Rafi and his family met us at the Dennis the Menace park in Monterey and then we went over to Sapporo's for a birthday lunch. We ate seafood and sushi and watched Sarah delight in eating her rubbery octopus tentacles! We were entertained by the best happy birthday restaurant song I have ever witnessed complete with a taiko drummer and tambourines. The "cake" was a nice pineapple/orange carving with a candle atop it. As if that weren't enough, they also gave Tony a fancy set of wooden chopsticks in a seaweed box as a gift; such a fun birthday location! You can't miss Tony's smile at the end of this video.


There were no free weddings to crash that night so we enjoyed our happy hours and played cards. Such a great trip!

So where did I go wrong and why do I feel the way I do today? Like I said, it started on the morning of the 3rd and it's no fun, the fun stopped. I am going to try really hard starting NOW [with a vitamin and a smart dose of ibuprofen] to kick this funk and get back on track. Day 7 please be nice to me!