Watched a proud mama

Today I was able to go see a young band director take his band to a contest. Don’t quit reading…it’s not about music again! Without getting too technical, I will say that his band received the highest marks possible and they were well deserved. The kids were focused, played well, and remembered all those things the director had told them 100 times. I completely enjoyed the performance and was proud of my young friend.
His mom was in the audience today. She listened to his kids play on stage and then followed them into the sight reading room. Again, I’ll need to give some background for those readers who don’t speak “music educator”. The kids and director are given a piece of music appropriate to their skill level (based on size of school and other factors) and the director has a few minutes to explain this piece that they have never seen. The students then play the piece one time for a panel of judges who then give them a score. No, they don’t get a “practice”. One chance and done. During the short amount of time the director is given to explain the piece there is a ton of vocabulary used that, if you aren’t a musician, might as well be Swahili (unless, of course, you speak Swahili)….very, very quickly spoken Swahili. My friend’s mom watched him with wide eyes give these instructions to riveted 12 and 13 year olds. Afterward, she told me that she was amazed at how he instructed the children and how proud she was of how well they were taught. She didn’t really just say it, she beamed it.
I think that at the end of the day, a year, or a life all we really want to do is make our mamas proud, or dads, or both. We long for that day when we can show them that they did a good job and made a good person and a successful person. That we are something or do something that makes a difference. Today I saw that in that mama’s eyes. It was glistening and unmistakable. I know that mine was proud of me. I miss that look, though. He’s a lucky kid.

Got to the finish line

The best things about vacation are eating and drinking more than you normally would, working out when and if you want to, staying up late, sleeping-in, and just shutting down a little. The worst thing about vacation is the first day after all that. Today was that day.
About 1am I decided that four and a half hours of sleep wasn’t going to be enough to complete an entire day of work (even if my job doesn’t include heavy lifting) plus an evening workout, so I turned off the lights and tried to get my head and body to believe that it was sleepy. Well, they sure enough believed it at about 2:30 this afternoon!
Well, I got past the 2:30 mark and started thinking about the aforementioned evening workout…yikes! Hey, I worked ALL day, how could I possibly do any kind of decent workout? Well, when it came time I did it…it was “half-assed” as my mother used to say, but it was a workout.
Next hurdle: dinner. Why am I eating at 8pm? And why, after I eat my normal non-vacation portioned dinner, am I starving only two and half hours later? Really, is this all I eat? Crap! No wonder I am grumpy when it isn’t vacation.
I can see the day’s finish line at this point but there is one more thing I haven’t done since I left for the beloved vacation. I gotta do it. I strip down, because it is important that my bra and jewelry don’t move me into a higher weight class, and I step on the scale. Shewwww…not bad!
So, the best thing about today, and I mean this with no real negativity, is that I got through it and did pretty much my whole routine. It was a sort of a normal day-lite. Like lite beer, it ain’t really the same but it generally gets the itch scratched. I’m hoping tomorrow will be sort of an amber beer day and by the end of the week, I think I’ll be back to a stout. Beer analogies…I need some sleep.

Spent time with people who got it right

Sorry for the long gap between posts, but it was vacation! So, to make up for it, I’m going to write about the best thing about vacation…well, besides the 85 degree weather, the relaxation, and the baseball!
As I wrote in my last post, we stay with my husband’s dad and step-mom when we go to Arizona for our spring vacation. Their “winter” place is in a retirement community. Sounds like a yawner, right? Here’s a run-down of the activities that the “old folks” had goin’ on…
Jeeping (like out in the freakin’ desert…seriously)
Hiking
Walking/Running/Biking (at like dark-thirty)
Panning for gold (like in the olden days, bending over with an actual pan in a stream or whatever)
Water Volleyball
Caring for pets and doing shelter work
Gardening, tree trimming, general upkeep of pretty little vacation places
And everyday at around 5pm folks head out to socialize with their neighbors. They have conversations, a drink (or two), maybe some snacks. They are all incredibly smart with interesting stories and lives. They are all so welcoming and friendly.
Sometimes, when I think about getting “old” I get really, really scared. Honestly, I’ve always thought that I would rather live a short life and not deal with getting old. Being around these people has changed my mind. They worked hard and now they play hard. They don’t sit around waiting for things to “happen” to them. They live and enjoy and engage. This is how I want to be. I never want to sit around and let things happen to me. I want to be like Bob, Mary, Dave, Mike, Bev, Debbie, Anne, Lindy, Lorie, Mollie…the list goes on. Thanks for letting me hang out with you and for making me want to get older…wiser…better.

Remembered

There were a bunch of awesome things about today…I’m on vacation, you see!! However, the best thing was totally unexpected. I might as well just tell you now, that from now until October there will be more than one post about baseball, specifically Texas Ranger baseball. I LOVE it. I grew up the child of a sports-crazed mother and I have always watched and enjoyed sports. My husband is a long time Ranger fan and so I, not surprisingly, became a fan, too. Every spring we take this trip to Arizona to visit Jim’s dad and step-mom (HI, DAD, my most faithful reader!!) but it just so happens that the Rangers have their spring training here as well. So, we spend almost a week hanging out with Dad and Mary, and watching the Rangers. It is totally fun and relaxing. Today we went to practice and it was great. I got my picture taken with CJ Wilson and Josh Hamilton…very cool…but not the best thing. The best thing was at the beginning of the game when the announcer said, “Please rise and remove your hats for the National Anthem sung today by Charlie Pride”. Woohoo!! Seriously, I love Charlie Pride. You know, “Kiss an Angel Good Morning” Charlie Pride?! He did a great job. It was nice and easy and he sang the right pitches. It didn’t sound like a “dude who thinks he can sing” performance like most of the national anthem performances at sporting events. Kinda like reading my blog vs. reading the blog of an actual writer…it just isn’t really the same thing. I know, I know, you’re thinking Charlie Pride…and I know there are many of my musician friends who will read what I’ve just written and cringe. Here’s the deal. When I was a little girl I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. I adored them and every second I spent with them. In the summers, I would stay with them and every morning my grandmother turned on the country station in the kitchen while she made breakfast. In the afternoons while she was sewing she would put on a stack of OLD country records on the stereo (one of those old console things that was big enough to have Thanksgiving dinner on) and they would play and drop one at a time, then I would get to turn them over and we’d listen to the other side of the records. I grew up listening to Charlie Pride, along with many much older and much “twangier” country crooners. Listening to Charlie Pride sing the National Anthem today made me think of my grandmother, the best woman I have ever known, and her saying “good morning sunshine” to me every morning of every summer I spent with my grandparents. Music is about making you feel, no matter who sings it, plays it, or its genre. Thanks, Charlie, for making me feel happy today.

Learned something new

I’ve gone to a mini-conference and a workshop in the last month. Honestly, neither one of them taught me much. They were vaguely interesting and a nice change of pace, but truthfully not very useful or engaging. I never go to trainings/workshops for those very reasons, but I really needed to LEARN something. I’m just nearly aching to learn something new. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I know everything, or even very much, but I’m a pretty quick study and I love to learn how to do new things.
I mentioned in a meeting the other day that I could create this form that would do this and that and go here and there and make spaghetti on Tuesday nights. Well, I knew it was possible (okay not the entrée), but I didn’t really have a clue as to how. I also knew I had a program that I thought I could use to accomplish this…again, no clue how to even begin. Today I had some time and dove in.
After about an hour of bumping around in the program, I decided a little googling might help. After all, it had been an hour and I still didn’t even understand how to populate one of the fields correctly…(turns out you click on an icon…I’m a freakin’ genius).
First google attempt, I can’t even understand what the author is talking about. All the words are English and I’ve heard these words before, but they make no sense to me in these combinations.
Second google attempt, still a little perplexing but it does guide me a little. I start playing around again and I start gettin’ it. I’m getting one element at a time, but I’m getting it.
So, now it’s lunch time. My boss suggests that I call his wife because she’ll know how to do it for sure. He’s totally right. I’m sure she knows exactly how to do it and could easily guide me through the process. I decide that I’m going to give myself a little more time, then I’ll ask her to help me (this is what a loser does…says my brain).
I come back from lunch pretty confident and rightly so! I knocked the rest of it out and sent it to a couple people for a test-drive. Worked like a charm. I realize that it would have been faster to get help, but sometimes it’s just about the challenge. We may not even use the form, but I learned something new today and that was cool.

Felt my age

Tonight we did two distinctly different things.
The first: went to a fancy-pants movie house to see the new Roman Polanski flick. This place was completely cool. Before your movie you can order a nice glass of wine and wander through the art exhibit. This month the featured artist is a local fellow and we enjoyed looking at his paintings before our movie. I notice as we are walking around that the clientele seems….mature. While you enjoy your film, you can have dinner and drinks. I had a wonderful turkey sandwich with a citrus and cranberry chutney. You know how when you go to the movies you always kind of eavesdrop on people’s conversations…okay, well, I do. I notice that all the folks around us are making very intelligent conversation, nobody is texting or playing on their iphone. Right before the movie starts, I decide to run to the ladies’ room. I turn around to face a sea of old folks. I look carefully and assess that my husband and I are easily the youngest couple in the joint! Well, we aren’t old, but I’m on blood pressure medication and he’s on cholesterol medication and neither one of us can sleep much past 7am anymore, that’s all I’m sayin’. After the movie we talk about how much we loved this place, how great the service was, how polite the clientele was, and how we will most definitely go back.
The second: met one of my husband’s co-workers at a bar/restaurant for a drink. He’s in his 20s and has been seeing a young lady in her 20s (as is the custom) and being the cupid (or nosey-rosey) that I am, I wanted to meet her. There was another couple there as well, both of them were in there mid-ish/late-ish 20s. Lovely couples. Intelligent young people. I had no idea what the hell they were talking about most of the time we were there!! Hulu? No cable?…watching TV somehow using a computer and this hulu thing. And lots of texting and looking at phones while they are talking to one another. I can’t keep up with the conversation between the technology and fast talking! I just felt like Ma and Pa Kettle. I really like to think I’m “hip” and “cool” but I’m pretty sure neither of these words will be used to describe me when the kiddos discuss meeting me! Although, “she looks great for her age” might creep in there.
The conclusion: Turns out, here it is folks, I AM OLD! And guess what? I really like it!! I like the calm and easiness of it. I like the slow conversation. I like just chillin’ with a glass of wine looking at art and eating a sandwich that has chutney on it! Reflecting on the evening, it’s possible that those people at the fancy-pants movie house weren’t THAT much older than me…nah, no way…hmmm???

Enjoyed the gift of coffee

This morning I went downstairs and heard this awful noise. It was the sound of our coffee maker NOT brewing coffee, but really trying. It was like it was in labor. I look at the coffee pot and realize that it is EMPTY. I bang on the coffee maker in hopes that something will shake lose and coffee will be born. Nothing. This is a horrible, horrible turn of events for me and for those who must spend any amount of time with me. So, I get these sample instant coffee packets that I grabbed at Starbucks ages ago and make some of that. By the way, this is after the cussing and grumbling. Well, not really after because that went on for hours. I guess “while” I was cussing and grumbling is more accurate. I thought the instant coffee tasted like dirty water and that made me even angrier. Here is where I write how at some point during the morning I realize that people have much bigger problems than no coffee for one day and I’m so lucky……Oh, wait, no it’s not…..I wanted my freaking coffee! I enjoy little of what I ingest on a daily basis, using food as fuel and not really eating things I love (enchiladas, ice cream, fried chicken, cheeseburgers….the list goes on, but you get it). Coffee is THE thing that I enjoy most about my eating day. I was so mad. I was a big jerk at work and over-reacted to everything. The day was a total waste. Then, in walks my husband with a big ‘ole cup of McD’s coffee in his hand! I’ve never had McD’s coffee, but it was like he had given me a diamond ring with a tiara to match! Oh, happy day. I love this man! I drank my coffee and it made me giddy. I know this is wrong and I don’t care. Thank you, my dear, for making my day!! Second best thing I did today: buy a new damn coffee pot.

Be a good American

Today I voted in the state primary election. Don’t you love that feeling you have after you vote? It makes me feel very powerful. I know that I am only one vote, but it doesn’t matter. Lately, politics have been so ugly and partisan and I really try not to buy into the cynicism of the masses. That’s why today is so great. I feel so proud when I vote. I am proud of my country and proud of my state. Making those choices makes me feel better about our future. Don’t get me wrong, I holler and scream at the TV about political topics and generally think that everybody besides me is so obviously wrong. If politicians would all just listen to me, I’m pretty sure we’d all be holding hands, enjoying perfect healthcare, paying equitable taxes, working at fair paying jobs, and saying please and thank you! But until I’m asked, I suppose I’ll just go to the polls and make those important choices. Yay, America!! Okay, so Canada has a really awesome National Anthem, but still….Yay, America!!

Decided to stand closer to the fire

This is going to be a difficult post to write. We all grow up with “stuff”. I don’t think things in my past were any harder or easier than anybody else’s. However, your experiences and the people around you can’t help but impact the way you trust and the way you build and maintain relationships. I have realized today that shielding yourself so fiercely from somebody or something negative might also cause you to shield yourself from people and experiences that could be really wonderful. I am not really a good relationship maintainer. I am friendly and I love people, but I’m not a great “truster”. I sort of figure that eventually everybody is going to let you down, so I don’t give many people the opportunity to do that. I’ve decided to change that. I’ve decided that maybe I should try to build some relationships that are right there waiting to be built…almost begging to built. That maybe taking a chance will open up that part of me that makes me stand just a little too far from campfire to get really warm because I’m a little afraid that a spark is gonna set me on fire. This is by far the most personal post I’ve written and it is a little weird to throw it out for anybody to read….or at least the 5 people who actually read my blog! But it is definitely the best thing I did today. Maybe it will be the best thing I’ve ever done. I won’t know if I don’t give it a shot.