One of my clients who is going on the mexico trip with me has a plastic surgeon for a father. This plastic surgeon father did Michael Jackson's first 3 surgeries. Interesting.


Yesterday was yoga p90x - very fun. Working out with Adam makes us happy.

Have the urge to go home and clean showers.

Lost 1.6 pounds since my last weigh-in at weight watchers.

Disneyland with A2A this sunday. people are very freaked out about the rain, even though it's supposed to be sunny that day. and then rain will commence again on monday. WANT SUN. WANT SUMMER.

that is all. Had a fantastic lunch of chicken from costco, guacamole from chipotle, and salsa that my coworker's mom made.

Adam and I started doing P90X together - an intense 60-90 minutes of exercise a day, for 90 days. Yesterday was day 2 - I love doing this with him. We work hard, we giggle, we get damn near hysterical with how sore we are and how crazy it is. But it's good, very good. I am thrilled to have a project with him again. We took before photos/weighed measurements...can't wait to see those slim down. yeesh.

It's been raining here like crazy - we actually had a tornado touch down in the two cities next to where I live. Can I reiterate that I live in Southern CA, and other than the occasional earthquake, I've never experienced any weather heavier than a drizzle? This is crazy. Everything's flooding, kids are on lockdowns at schools, and while I was driving home yesterday, I was following a path of tornado-induced desctruction....downed trees, hurled dumpsters....madness.

Adam and I have a date set for our wedding! I went with my sisters/becky to try on bridesmaid dresses Monday..but alas, bridesmaid dresses are proving to be difficult. Everything I like, they're not so fond of. I think we'll just procrastinate until the weather gets warmer and boutiques start selling sundresses again.

The Walk for Independence happened on Sunday, and happened well. We raised a ton of money, and a good time was had by all. I am proud of myself for certain things that I don't want to write about here, but I felt a shift in my own ability to handle one particularly debilitating emotion - defensiveness.

A few medical things have been popping up for me this week, which has taken a toll on my energy that I hope no one else notices. I want to sit on only the cushiest of couches, while covered by the softest of blankets while drinking the warmest of teas. It's another little bite of evidence of growing up....dealing with stuff even when it's inconvenient, even when you just don't want to. I'm a little discouraged about some things, but called and made two separate appointments today, and hopefully these things will start to improve. I am tired of being in pain, though. That exhausts me. I've never been good at pain. It's especially inconvenient because it's not something that anyone could just see and understand - you know, when your arm is broken, you've got a cast and people don't expect you to lift boxes at work. Nobody knows about mine, though, and I feel awful for having to succumb to it publicly, sometimes.

Anyways, I got in a nice little venting session to Adam last night - and was able to cut it off when I got tired of feeling sorry for myself. I tend to go on and on whenever given the chance - and Adam always gets wiped out of emotion before I do, which makes him not want to get me started...so this was nice to get to vent to him, get support, and then find my end before he reached his.

I have two orders for knitted hats I should get started on! I need to get myself to a yarn store - I don't have any of the yarn I will need for this. Excited to start on it. Excited to make a little bit of money for the honeymoon fund.

Wanting to renew my efforts with my etsy site. I have a lot of half finished items in the closet..once I am done with the two hats, I'll get those out and see. I want to get going on my aunt's chair project as well, but I don't have any space to work when it's wet and raining like this. But that is my number one top priority as soon as I can make it happen.

Adam and I talked finances the other day, and realized that he's just not eating at home so I should stop cooking like he is. It frees up a fair amount of my time...and although I am sort of missing cooking, I am liking the time, and it's way easier to keep the kitchen clean! Hah. I still cook for myself - well, cook is a strong word - I chop and gather for myself - I have been living off of assorted salads, and the cereal equivelant. What I mean is that I chop up almost everything I can to put in my salads - 3 types of lettuce, sprouts, cucumbers, carrots, onions, cranberries, apples, pears, pine nuts,


to be cont. later

SUSS

Nancy came in with her 8 month old niece today - the one that was almost born during the A2A Cinco de Mayo event. I want to hold a baby that looks like me the way Klohee looks at Nancy! I want to belong to the thing. :P

Yesterday I made rosemary steak with potatoes and green beans, mooshu pork, and a kale salad. I had a fantastic time buying produce at Sprouts, listening to Tom Russel on my ipod, standing in line looking at the photos of babies in knit hats on the cover of hippie-dippie mothering magazines.

Theme?

yes.

Went to an unschooling symposium over the weekend - really interesting now that I am engaged how much I felt like I was split between younger and older generations of unschoolers. There was a time where I physically didn't know where to go - play games with the "kids" in one room, or play games with the "parents" in another room. I did a little of both. Ended up in the parent's game room for most of the night because I was knitting and they were playing a sedentary word game, rather than a jump-around-and-switch spots game.

Adam has been fantastic the past few days. Know the secret to my happiness? Think frequently about how I can make him happy. Really pays off. Wish I'd thought of this before. :) He suggested that we go look at wedding bands on Saturday (the ring kind, not the music kind) - and we will paint the rest of the fence we built, and figure out what we need to start P90X so we can start on Monday! I love projects with him!

Living with a bunch of families for a weekend in Santa Fe and seeing the Dodd's house made me think about the kind of home I want.

I worked 2.25 extra hours tonight, because I am going to Stuart's mother's memorial service tomorrow. I am not going to talk much about that right now. It's happening tomorrow, near Griffith Park. I will pick up Salvador, and maybe Adam will be able to leave work for a little while. I invited KJ.

Tonight I am going to fold my last load of laundry, feed the dogs, make the bed, run at 9 with Rosie, work on my camp, do some bootcamp videos, do some dishes, and knit!

unschooling symposium

Spent the weekend in Santa Fe, New Mexico at an Unschooling Symposium. We stayed at this rad compound up on a hill above Santa Fe's plaza...we had a bunch of separate condos, and a big common room where we ate, presented, and played games.

It was fun meeting a bunch of unschoolers I'd heard about through my mom, but I especially love just getting to hang out with Dodds for extended periods of time. Unfortunately, I flew in too late to hear my mom or Sandra speak, but I did get to participate in the show and tell, and the young adult pannel yesterday.

When we went down the hill to Santa Fe we found not one, but two yarn stores. I bought sock yarn at the first, and I am making my first cabled project! I love it. I bought a ton of merino roving at the 2nd place...I am going to save it and dye it myself, and then spin it for whatever project I want later.

So right now people are herding cats - trying to decide what is happening and who is leaving and who is staying and where we are going...I think the plan is to stay here and play games for a little while longer, and then head to albuequerque to see the Dodd's house, and then to the airport for a 6:45pm flight. We get in around 9something, I drive Roxana to UCI, and then head to home for sleep so I can get up and go to work in the morning. Kind of sad to think that tomorrow, life resumes as usual. I miss Adam - I always miss Adam, but I always want him to join ME where I am, rather than for me to go home. :P

Anyways - time to go knit and play games.

Sitting in Phoenix airport en route to Santa fe for unscoolonv con. Ready to be there already! Boarding now! How cool is of that I can update from the airport

gratitude and my life

I love days when I feel recharged by work, as opposed to drained by it. I wasn't terribly thrilled to get up out of bed at 6:30am this morning - Adam's been having some deep-coughing issues for the last few days, and his coughing and wheezing woke me up on a pretty regular basis last night. I have a new phone, and the unfamiliar alarm sound was jarring. But I did it, I got up out of the house only 15 minutes after I'd intended - and still made it to work 15 minutes early. I had time to DO things before my morning meeting, and at the meeting I created an actually manageable to-do-list, rather than an overwhelming list of vague wants and desires.

The reason I am recharged is because of the Walk for Independence - this has been both the most frustrating project AND the most rewarding for me. We had some issues getting up off the ground - all stemming to my vision being distinctly different than the executive director's vision. I felt like I wasn't being trusted to run a good event - and she felt like I was letting what was important to HER slide through the cracks. But now that we've got some stuff decided, we have momentum, and we actually have people registering, both of us have relaxed and can just enjoy the show.

I am personally gratified that my pleas to my friends on facebook have come through in such an amazing way. I wanted to raise $260 - because I couldn't quite get all of the food donated, and I felt bad about that. $260 covered the cost - I asked them to donate even if they could only donate $1.00 - and some people did just that. I received several $1.00 bills in the mail - which actually DOES provide an entire lunch to someone, and is a very helpful contribution. On the other end of the spectrum, in the last hour, I received 2 $100.00 donations. I've received everything in between, and have basked in the funny little notes and well-wishes that have also been included.

We have 59 people registered now, with many more people saying that they are *going* to register, so I am feeling better about that too. I was afraid it would just be us at the park...but it looks like we will have some company. :)

Because of this walk, too, we even got an elevator donated to our building. We still have to raise $100,000 to install the thing, but the elevator could have cost us as much as $75,000 - and it was DONATED. All because of the walk.

I've been interviewed by newspapers, we're in the AAA magazine, we have an inter-departmental competition here, we made a fantastic video of our clients, we've harnesses the amazing support of PI staff, clients, board members, family, friends and strangers... I'm inspired. Really and truly inspired today.


In other news - yesterday was a good day too. I went to a Bridal Expo with my sisters and cousin...it was intense, and made me really glad that I am not planning a wedding like that. I am glad to have had the experience, though. We got bored wit it after a couple of hours, so headed to the MAC store at South Coast Plaza, where we did makeup trial runs for my wedding! My cousin in law has a discount there, so I got to purchase a bunch of stuff and not break my budget. She's going to be doing my makeup for the wedding, too, so I won't have to pay a makeup artist.

After that we stopped by my aunt's for a goodbye dinner for a friend of the family's - played Pop5, the BEST PARTY GAME EVER, and then I went home and did a 10 minute sparkpeople video for day 1 of my new bootcamp. I realized at the last minute that I needed to cook chicken, and all I can say is - God Bless the Crockpot. I threw in chicken with some broth, a few carrots, half an onion, a bunch of mushrooms, some garlic, and a cup of dried lentils..and this morning had stew ready to take for lunch. After I did that, I fed dogs, crocheted most of a hat, wrote in my journal, and fell asleep watching The Office once Adam came home.

Today at 4:50 I will put on my gym clothes and head to the Brookhurst gym, where I will do 20 minutes on the exercise bike, and 42 minutes of walk/jog combo (5 walk, 5 run, 2 walk, 5 run, 2 walk, 5 run, 2 walk, 5 run, 2 walk, 4 run, 5 walk). Then I'm going to go to Walmart to use my gift certificate to buy a stability ball, go home, do my 10 min. bootcamp video, take Juno for a walk, make lunches, spend 10 minutes working on my camp-to-be, write in my journal, pack for santa fe, and take my bag/spinning wheel/rosie's yarn over to my parents.

Tuesday, work and working out, Wednesday work, Thursday work til noon, then Santa Fe til sunday! When I get back I need to remember to call Adam's dad for some Juno training sessions.

I am very tired. I am looking forward to habit getting me to the gym, and the gym waking me up. I need to increase my liquid intake over the next few hours, and head for fruit if I get snacky. Luckily, I brought a bunch of oranges, grapes, and an apple with me.


my backyard lemon tree, the inspiration for my wedding!