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Yesterday was our ten year anniversary.  My mother-in-law graciously offered to watch the kids so that we could go out for dinner, which was both a wonderful meal and a wonderful date.  (Knew there were a lot of reasons I married him: marrying into his family was actually one of the things I thought was pretty cool at the time, and have only been convinced more and more of over the years.)  I know some folks make a HUGE deal about ten years, but I was pretty torn about how to handle it.

See, the thing is, we love each other each and every day.  I love the life we’ve built.  I got to see Jason really enjoying bouncing around the church on Thursday night, leading the kids in the VBS parents’ night.  I get to wake up next to him, or see him rock our little guy, or dance around with our girls, or enjoy him geek out about which Linux flavor to install on our home systems.  (MY answer: whichever one has a UI which lets me find the ‘Switch User’ button quickly, and whichever one doesn’t barf on Samba or connecting to our home printer.)  We’ve been through thinking we couldn’t have kids, to having 3 kids (!), through two bouts with cancer, each with two associated surgeries.  We’ve gone places, and done things, and still have lots of places to go and things to do.

So, the upshot is, I look at ten as, interesting.  Not wow.  Not amazing.  Just, interesting – hey, we’re ten years older than when this all got started.  But it’s not monumental, in the same way that getting to something you didn’t think could happen is monumental, or working through something hard and then getting there is monumental.  This, this is just – hey, it’s been ten years already!  Boy, hope we’ve got lots more than that left, because it’s sure been good so far.

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We’re in the midst of a home renovation project.  Essentially, we decided that it made more sense to add a little bit more elbow room to our current house than to increase and reset our mortgage payment.  We’re pretty happy with the crew that we chose to do the work – they’re folks we knew already through church who happen to have a home renovation company.  But we’re now slightly over our original schedule’s end-date, with likely another couple of weeks of work left to go.  We’ve been without a kitchen for weeks now and have subsisted on whatever we can cook in the microwave or on a hot plate or on the grill.  Consider your life without an oven, a stove, or a dishwasher.  I’m dreaming of baked goods, and Jason swears that the first week where the oven’s in play, we’re going to roast a different cut of meat every night.   Ham, chicken, duck, …  heck, if there’s a way to roast tofu, I think it’ll be in our oven that week.

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Kudos to Monica Hesse for structuring her article on using Google Trends (about link here) to investigate community values such that she got to end with the closer:

“Using Google Trends to ascertain community standards? Well, that’s just comparing apples and orgies.”

Delicious.

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My sister’s getting married in a few months, so in typical sibling fashion, I want to show up in a stunning dress that’s, oh, a size or two smaller than I am now, with abs of steel to show off in the hotel pool.  That’s probably a bit too lofty a goal, but hey, I’ve been professionally trained on “being the best by any measure” and “bold and audacious goals”.  These are definitely bold and audacious.

In pursuit of those goals, I grabbed a copy of the South Beach Diet and spent two weeks in the first Phase of the diet.  No bread, cereal, rice, etc.  No fruits.  Eat reasonable portions, and multiple snacks.  Outcome listed in the book: up to 8-12 pounds in that first two weeks.  Outcome of mine: 1-2 pounds.  Not very inspiring.  One of my snack breaks, I ate pistachios (up to 30 is a snack serving) and roasted pumpkin seeds.  Closest to eating like a bird I’ve ever done, and end result was 1-2 pounds??!

Beyond South Beach, I’ve also started taking a class at the gym called Group Power twice a week.  It’s an hour of continual weight training to your basic cardio-pumping music.  The class is probably broken up into 6 or so segments, with maybe a minute or so break between them.  You take a bar and then add weight, depending on the basic body area you’re working on (biceps, triceps, back/shoulders, legs, abs, warmup, cooldown).  I always know that I’ve done the class afterwards, and the first time or two I did it, I knew it for up to 3 days afterwards.   I’m also adding some running back into my routine, with hopes of doing the Baltimore half-marathon in October, and then a trail marathon in November.

Becky’s wedding is in September: I’m hoping a few months of watching my diet (more gently than formally), lifting weights in class, and running regularly will give me some noticeable results.  Nothing like a little motivation to kick me up a gear.

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Three cultural experiences of late worth mentioning, one or two of ’em I’ll probably blog more about.  In chronological order…

1. Disney World with the girls!

2.  Miranda Bailey going into a total Star Wars geek-fest to soothe a patient in Grey’s Anatomy’s season finale.  What made it even better is only a few minutes earlier she had disavowed all knowledge of SW.

3. The latest Indiana Jones movie, in full screen $10 per ticket glory.  (I’m spoiled by RedBox: after I paid for the ticket, I immediately thought: is seeing this in the theater tonight worth 10x the cost of a RedBox rental?  Answer: probably not, but I needed a night out.  Badly.)

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We get lots of mail from charities. We have a select few we donate to regularly, which we’ve chosen on the basis of their mission, their effectiveness, and frankly, where we feel specifically called to contribute. I’ve always assumed folks do something similar, based on their own conscience or conviction, and thus have never felt an interest in fundraising for a charity. I’d even put it more strongly that I was averse to fundraising for a charity. Who am I to tell you that you should send your money somewhere?

I’m looking at that a little differently tonight, and figured I’d get this out there before I retreat into my self-righteous conviction (or fear of being thought overbearing/silly/ineffective/yada yada yada…). On June 7, Bello Machre is holding their Every Step Counts walk. Its purpose is to raise money for and awareness of the relatively overlooked community of developmentally disabled individuals. This organization seeks to let these individuals participate as fully in the community as they are able or willing, including such items as providing group homes to let adults live semi-independently, or extra hands to help families dealing with the challenges of day-to-day living. The need for these programs is great, and the waiting lists are long: see the article ‘Judge a Society By How it Treats its Weakest?‘ from the Capital Gazette for a great writeup of what the program does, and what its needs are.

As a parent, I pray for the health of my kids, and celebrate their growth and accomplishments. I also look forward to the day when I can celebrate their accomplishments as adults in our society. The developmentally disabled, and their families, deserve those same opportunities and need a bit of assistance to make those opportunities happen. My faith tells me that each of us is created for a purpose for the days we spend here on earth. On June 7, I’ll be walking in celebration of the purpose and opportunities God has given these people who we tend to overlook, and raising funds to help Bello Machre help those opportunities happen. If you’re interested in sponsoring me, please contact me either in person or via email at coleman—-serious…gmail/com. (Remove the dashes, and punctuate appropriately to make a reasonable email address.)

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I’m refreshing the Washington Post front page every few minutes, looking for the latest score in the Caps versus Flyers, and Hillary vs. Obama.  I’m rooting for the Caps and Hillary, for the record, but am really enjoying the stick it out battle both sets are having.  The Caps have had to fight through to get to a game 7, and Hillary is fighting to remain in the race.  Contests that are real contests, that challenge both parties to give it their all and prove why they deserve the win, are worth watching and rooting for.  Whoever wins I’ll respect, because the contest was well-fought.  The Orioles game hasn’t yet started their game against the Mariners (they’re out on the West Coast tonight), but I’m enjoying rooting for the underdog doing good, the team proving that you shouldn’t count them out yet, that they’re here to play ball.  May I always be here to play ball.

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I just saw the final score of the Super Bowl on a news site.  I had been watching the game, but the parental thing kicked in, and bedtime for my kids called.  After that, the urge to watch the rest just wasn’t there, not when I could get near real-time score updates through the local paper.

I had been rooting for the Patriots.  Hey, the idea of completing a perfect season has a real ring to it.  And this wasn’t just some cocky team from New York.  Not that the Giants were cocky, but being from Baltimore, I have a problem rooting for somebody from New York.

I have to give New York their due, though.  The parts of the game I did see were impressive.  I was still rooting for Brady to come through, but it was to come through after the beating that the Giants were giving him.  Nearly every play it looked like he was getting dinged by somebody.

My husband was talking with his mother this evening, who was watching the game live.  I had the game on Tivo-pause, on the theory that I’d go back down and continue (this was early in the whole kid-to-bed process).  She said that the Giants had just scored a touchdown, but that the game wasn’t over.  From watching the scores on the news site, looks like it was a good head-to-head.

There are doubtless sports writers now scrambling to throw away paragraphs of preconceived outcomes of the game.  More power to the Giants for coming through, for showing that they weren’t just showing up.  I still would’ve liked to see the Patriots get the perfect topping for the season, but I guess they’ll just have to take the records they did win, and use the loss as fuel for next year’s run.