3rd Kyu

Whew! All done.

I tested at the beginning of last month and, just like the last test, it pretty much was a blur. What do I remember? I remember my jo hitting the mat during the 20 jo suburi, doing tsuki kotegaeshi instead of the called out tsuki iriminage. I remember the mistakes. I suppose it's the perfectionist in me that chooses to dwell on what I missed rather than on what I got right. (Why does this sound just like my third grader? Augh! He must get it from me, poor kid!)

I also remember the first day I stepped on the mat, in jeans, no less, and joined in class. I remember the welcome I felt from the teacher and the students. I remember the confusion about what to do with my feet and my arms.

It's been three years and though I've come along, I still think a whole lot about what I'm doing when I'm doing it. The techniques are more natural than they were before but I still find myself struggling with them. I suppose that is the way it will always be - there is a constant process of learning and improvement.

But there's also a heck of a lot of fun.

Last Thursday's class brought a whole bunch on newcomers to the mat. We warmed up as usual with the basic blending exercises, slowly progressing through some very slow throws into back sit falls and then deconstructing katate dori shihonage, the four-directional throw. At one point while we were practicing, our instructor came up to me and asked, "Can you take a high fall from this?" I grinned and said, "Can we do a practice one first?" We did and then he called for a break and called me up as uke.

"Now we shall work on the fall," he said, and proceeded to throw me into a high fall right smack onto the mat. I landed with a resounding thud.

Cue: bug-eyed newbies.

"No, not really."

Aw shucks. Well, we do want them to come back so maybe next time.

New Look

OK, so it's one of the 10 or so defaults that Blogger provides but I thought it was time for a new look on this blog. Maybe it will inspire me to write more often.

So while I'm here, here's a silly haiku:

Cookie dough to sell.
No trans fat I do proclaim.
Little League does well.

Spring is Coming

Conversation last night:

Papa: "See the tree outside? There are two flowers that have already bloomed. In a few days, that tree is going to explode with flowers."

thirty second pause

P: "Mama, I want to see the flowers go BOOM!"

Third Grade Grammar

(A) Earth is one of the nine planets that ORBITS around the Sun.


OR


(B) Earth is one of the nine planets that ORBIT around the Sun.


My son's teacher: B
My son: A
Me: A

The American Heritage Book of English Usage: waffly, but either appears to be accepted, with "...92 percent of the Usage Panel preferred the singular verb in such sentences."

I shall not raise this point with his teacher. Or should I?

Last-Minute Dinner

This week we ate a lot of chicken and rice. By Thursday night, none of us could look a grain of rice in the eye (plus we didn't have any left) so I surveyed the fridge and the larder and came up with:

Sausage Frittata

Ingredients:

3 frozen mild Italian sausages (left over from last week), thawed out and cut into pieces
1 large Russet potato, cut into small dice
one large onion, diced
7 eggs, beaten
garlic salt
pepper


Saute sausage, onion together in little bit of olive oil in an oven proof skillet. Add potatoes. Cook stirring until potatoes are done. Season with a little bit of garlic salt and pepper. Add eggs, stirring gently into the meat/potato/onion mixture.

Preheat broiler to high.

When eggs are almost done, and just a little bit runny on top, place skillet under broiler. Cook until top is lightly browned.

Slide out onto serving plate. Slice and serve with a nice green salad.

YUM!

New Year, a month later...

No blog posts yet this year, eh? Well, it's been kind of busy. Plus when your laptop is on top of the lap of your four-year old and he's on your lap, it makes things a little more, shall we say, challenging. And you've just made dinner and cleaned it up. And you've just made muffins with said four-year old and haven't cleaned up that mess yet. And your eight year old is upstairs with his daddy, stressing out about his spelling homework. And your four year old wants to do a puzzle of the United States of America RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!

On the exercise front: NO swimming (still too cold for me), a teeny bit of biking, some running (say, 2-3 miles, 2-3 times a week). Haven't picked my next event/race. I'm contemplating Bay to Breakers (early reg deadline: April 30th, race date: May 17th). I'm still practicing aikido twice a week and just found out that I should be testing for 3rd kyu sometime in March. Eeek! I thought I was all over test anxiety. Guess I was wrong.

I've got a presentation to do for work on March 6th that I'm already starting to worry about (hey, it's never to early for that).

In the meantime, I'm folding paper airplanes. Lots of paper airplanes. See, we (read D) got a paper-airplane-a-day calendar for Christmas. P is obsessed with it. Never let's me forget to fold one. It is February 5th. You do the math, that's a lot of airplanes and it's only the first week of February!!! But they are a lot of fun to fold and they are a lot of fun to fly. I bet it will make me popular with the below-5 set.

Ramble, ramble, ramble.

50 seconds to muffin time!

Got to go.

Musings on Clothes, Dirty and Clean

It's strange how there's a certain peace in folding laundry. In finding the partner for a sock and stacking the folded shirts in a pile. I figure I must do about 6 loads of laundry a week, more if it's time to do the sheets and towels. Dirty clothes in, clean clothes out. They don't fold themselves. They don't go back to their closets and drawers by themselves.

Whoever said that there's nothing certain in life but death and taxes left out laundry.

No sooner do I empty the hampers are they filled again.

Yet, I don't really mind doing the wash. Thank goodness for the washer. I'm sure I'd have a much different attitude if I had to do stuff by hand. In my life, if it can't survive the washer, it does not deserve to be worn. Also, ironing is a VERY SPECIAL OCCASION ONLY deal. Sometimes I wonder if people look at M's pants sometimes and wonder, "How can his wife let him leave the house in those?" Little do they know that 'his wife' hung them up on the hanger in that condition, ready to do.

I guess I have this false hope that hanging will help straighten out the worst of the wrinkles.

I sit here typing, glancing over to my mountain of folded clothes and at the basket of whites staring me in the face. Lots of socks need homes.

Time to go find them.

Yes, I know. 'She finally decides to blog again and it's about LAUNDRY?' What can I say? The muse came upon me and I had to sit down and go with the flow.