When I Grow Up...

P: "I want to be a praying mantis. No, wait. I want to be a beetle-hunting wasp."

What do you want to be?

Aikido Fun

Though I haven't been blogging about aikido much lately, I have been in class twice a week, practicing, practicing, practicing. What's great about class is that it's familiar and yet new every time. We could be doing the same technique over and over again but there's always something different to focus on - where the feet go, how you move your arms, how you move your center, how you move your uke's center. Then there's the uke role itself- practicing rolls and falls. I'm trying to round out my corners. I still hear way too much thunk when I hit the mat and marvel at how others can almost float above it. More time is needed. I've got that.

Today's class ended with each person getting six consecutive katate tori (same side wrist grab) attacks. The response could be anything that came to mind (or body, as the case may be). I don't quite know what's going to come out when I'm up as nage so this type of training both thrills and scares me.

But it is always, always a heck of a lot of fun.

The Dreams of a Preschooler

Here's a snippet of P's conversation with me the other morning. He wandered into our bedroom, hopped into bed and without further preamble, told me this:

P: When you lose, you don't cry.

Me: Yes, sweetheart, that's right.

P: Somebody has to win and somebody has to lose.

Me: Right again.

...pause...

P: Do you want to sing the ABC song with me?

I wonder what he was dreaming about.

Ride Like the Wind, Bullseye!

Remember that ambitious training plan where I was doing something every day of the week? Well, two weeks later, I've mostly stuck to the plan.

Last Friday was my first venture back into the 50 m pool. I need to work my way up to swimming 400 yards continuously and it's a lot easier to do that in the bigger pool. There's nowhere to stop in the lake and hold on to the side. Last year, I had trained to swim 400 yds freestyle straight but, when the actual day of the race came, I found myself breaststroking for about half the distance. Even though I had been in the lake before, being in the lake with 50 other women all swimming in roughly the same direction at the same time was very different and disconcerting. My goal this year will be to minimize the amount of breaststroke that I do and maximize the freestyle. Oh, and not lose my goggles and not swallow too much lake water.

Last Sunday was my first 'long' ride of the year - 11.3 miles. That's about the distance of the triathlon bike leg. It was wicked windy for more than half the ride. I swear I was in my lowest gears and was still moving at a snail's pace. Still, I stuck it out by looking for a landmark that wasn't too far off and saying to myself, "Just a little bit further, just to that post/tree/hole/turn." It felt really awesome to finally turn and have the wind at my back.

As for running, I tried my first interval workout the Sunday before last - running a minute and then walking a minute. This actually pushed my total running time down. Will try this again this week.

At the end of the week, I'm off to the East Coast for five days to attend a conference. In addition to all my work stuff, I'll bring my running shoes and my gi. Training doesn't stop just because I'm traveling.

The Best Present Ever

It was my birthday last week and though I received a bunch of very sweet presents from my boys and my friends, the best one was something that cannot be bought - the news that my aunt's cancer therapy is working! After 10 weeks of treatment, the chemotherapy and radiation treatment are starting have an effect on those tenacious cancer cells. Her birthday email sounded happy and upbeat and POSITIVE. My spirits were lifted and I felt so happy.

Now I know that this doesn't herald a cure but it does buy her some more precious time - to spend with her loved ones, to enjoy the peacefulness of her and my uncle's little cottage outside of the city, to smell the flowers, to write email, to be a part of all of our lives and for us to be a part of hers.

Vacation is Over

Tomorrow it's back to work, back to reality, back to exercise! I've decided that this year's challenge will be to beat the time that I posted in last year's sprint triathlon. I've convinced one of my new colleagues at work to do the triathlon with me and we're going to train together which is absolutely awesome.

This means, of course, that I need to step up my training and start swimming and biking again. Right now, I've been running 2-3 times a week at a fairly leisurely pace and a fairly short distance and going to aikido class twice a week. I'm back to swimming laps once a week. Yesterday, I finally wired up my bike computer (which I've had for five months!) to my road bike and went out for a six mile ride. Got to start slowly.

My training schedule, leading up to race day will look something like this:

Monday: run
Tuesday: aikido
Wednesday: run
Thursday: aikido
Friday: swim
Saturday: run
Sunday: bike

Hang on, when do I rest?

Cousin Camp

Eight kids between the ages of eight and four. Three mommies between the ages of, well, let's skip that bit. :) Four summer days. What did we get up to?

Monday: Fun with Boxes Day! Who knew how much fun could be had with some moving boxes, a little bit of string, some masking tape and an adult wielding a box cutter? Just add creativity and you have some houses (with attics and garages), a tunnel and a pulley system for relaying messages.


Tuesday: Water Day! We've still got our 10-ft diameter pool up in the back yard and it was put to fine use as the eight kids were in and out of the water over the course of several hours. First, the splashers, then the non-splashers, repeat.

Wednesday: Field Trip to Coyote Point Museum. Admission was free as it is every first Wednesday of the month. The kids had a great time running around the exhibits, playing with all the hands-on projects, running around the exhibits, reading about spiders and hawks and snakes, did I mention running around the exhibits? Then we spent another couple of hours at the most awesome playground that the kids have ever laid eyes upon.

Thursday: Crafts Day! We made Cousin Camp shirts and decorated visors and flags. The mommies has as much fun as the kids with all the paint and glue and decorations.

I had a wonderful time with the kids and with my two mommy partners-in-crime. The shirts we made today for ourselves say STAFF on the back. That's us.

The best parts of the camp were seeing all of the children having so much fun with each other and becoming better friends in the process. There was very little conflict, only minor scrapes and bumps and not a single second of TV watched during the entire time. Truly amazing!

I hope we do this again next year. I really do.