Sick Week Special

Well, this week has been an interesting one. I've been sick all week which is always fun. But this time, I had classes to teach and no one to sub for me plus I was already behind from being gone all weekend and being sick made it worse sooooo, yeah. If you've called or emailed me and haven't responded, I promise I will! When I'm sick Mike and I switch roles and I get all grumpy and antisocial. :P He apparently told my brother tonight that it was like living with a wounded wolverine. Haha. Annnnyway. Despite everything, we did get a lot done this weekend. The biggest thing Mike did was clean out the garage! We can fit both cars in now! The biggest thing I did was get most of the playroom in order, including putting together Autumn's table and chairs that she got for her birthday. Back in May.


What's that horrifying thing on top of the table, you ask? Oh, that's just the coconut monkey bank that my mom brought Autumn back from Mexico. Yeah. It's going to go into hiding because it is truly creepy. I swear the thing is staring at me right this minute. >.> I mean, how much more Temple of Doom can this get?


Yes. That's how much more Temple of Doom that thing can get. /shudder. Onto happier things, I've been reveling in my nerddom all week. I ate a bunch of cold medicine and managed to sit up and join my weekly World of Warcraft raid. Donnie, Liz, and I plus 7 other people having been working on this one thing for months and months. I knew we were getting close but I had no idea that dragging myself upright would be so worth it! We totally beat the big, bad guy, cementing my place in super nerddom.


Even better? We beat him while I was wearing my super awesome Hello Kitty snuggie. :D Tamara gave it to me for my birthday. I am actually wearing it now AND drinking a cup of hot tea (with local honey!).


Anyway, I didn't take a lot of photos this week so I decided to grab some off my new android phone. Sometimes I don't have time to go grab my camera when opportunities like this come up:


Or when Autumn is looking extra pitiful because in the middle of a bath she goes "OH NO I HAVE TO POOPOO!" Nothing like being dragged soaking wet from a bubble bath!


Oh, and this is craziness. Autumn is drawing mostly recognizable stuff. Mostly. But still! Here's a picture complete with text to tell you exactly what you're looking at.


And, last but not least, this is a shot I sent to my friends Shang and Lisa. Autumn's wearing a shirt they got her and demonstrating what a dragon says (the shirt has a dragon on it). Which is, in case you were wondering, ROAR. I'd like to think that her awesome posture here is her, like, innate kung fu ability making an appearance. Probably not BUT A MOM CAN DREAM!


Hopefully we'll be back and better than ever sooner than later. :D

"little girl, you're in the middle of the ride."

Well, friends, when we last met here in cyberspace, I was a merely a lass in her 20's. Today, one week later, I am, alas, a woman in her 30's.

/snicker

Not really. I mean, I really am 30 as of Wednesday but I haven't had a meltdown over it yet so I'm guessing it's pretty unlikely that I will have one. I've had kind of a birthday week which is pretty cool. Last Saturday was really my "celebration" because I had plans for my birthday weekend. My family banded together and got me a facial and a pedicure and that was awesome. I went to Juve Salon on Perkins--definitely recommend them! Tuesday-Friday Mike gave me a small gift every day: a card, chocolate, flowers, dinner all exactly what I asked for. Thanks for paying attention, Mike!! Too, Lainey and Papa D took me to Osaka and got me a cute outfit. I wore it to church and everyone who saw it had something nice to say. I thought about taking a picture (because, seriously, I have never gotten so many compliments), but I didn't have my camera. :/

Oh, funny thing some of you on facebook might have already heard: my mom? She totally texted me on my birthday. No phone call. Just a text. Hahahaha. She cracks me up.

Anyway, I thought about doing a 20's retrospective which I may still do but I am just way too tired. Why am I so tired? I'm glad you asked!


For my birthday weekend, I got to go to a knife and cane seminar. My friend Chuck Sullivan, who is also my acupuncturist and a really great martial artist, invited me to come along to this seminar taught by Chuck Pippin and Don Young of Innovative Martial Arts in Michigan. I had a very good time. The material was solid, well organized, and the whole approach appealed to me. Saturday's class had a wide range of people from complete newbies to a prison guard with a long martial arts history who was all kinds of cool and yet I think everyone got what they needed. I certainly did. And, my tender-hearted friends, no worries. Those bruises are superficial and I only have them because of repetition, not necessarily force. I get them from time to time in kali when we do forearm heavy work after not doing it for a while.

Today was the cane portion. Although I do kali which is easily translatable to a cane, I had never worked with one before. Dude. I am tempted to start carrying one. Chuck P. gave me one of their shorter training canes so I'm definitely going to continue to work on it. This class is where their teaching style really confirmed its appeal to me. Chuck and Don managed to take us (only 5 of us for this session) from learning the strikes in the air, to striking and blocking each other, to 4 count unstructured drills, to intense repetitions of the drills, to sparring, to street scenarios in about 3 hours and with no fear, dueling mentality (totally stealing that terminology!), or ego involved. Which is kind of amazing. I really could go on but I won't since I know most of you guys aren't dorky martial artists like me and have most likely checked out by now and are scanning down to see if there are any photos of Autumn coming (THERE ARE). For those of you who are interested, let me know and I'll tell you more!

Well, since I know most of you guys are here for pictures of Autumn and not stories about me getting beat on, have some Autumn:


She's hanging up her little craft from Sunday School. It's a door hanger.


Tonight, she prayed, "Dear God. Thank you my lainey my p'd and my mama my papa. Thank you for papa's office at work and thank you my orange band-aid amen." Her prayers tend to be kind of stream of consciousness and random and all kinds of awesome. I think that they must have written down what Autumn prays for at church because there was a list on the back. This time my mom made the list.


And, course, sheep (whose mama is a bunny, according to Autumn) had to be in the picture. I'm not sure who this Autman on her prayer list is. :P Here I try to give my kid a spellable name and her names still gets misspelled. You know my mom was spelling her name Autum for like 2 years?

So, yeah. tl;dr:*
I'm 30
a nerd
with bruises
and a missy who thanks God for her bandaids.

*too long; didn't read

Trying something new

Last week my kids classes at Mullins started up again! For anyone interested in getting in on this session, by the way, it isn't too late. :D I wasn't too worried about the class for the 6 and up kids, since it's pretty much the same set from the summer session. I mean, other than the whole "holy cow this is all me" nervousness. I've taught kids martial arts classes off and on since I was, like, 15 but never completely by myself and never using a curriculum almost exclusively created by me with a completely new set of students. It's kind of scary! But it's also really good because I've been doing a lot of thinking and research and note taking and trial and error which really can't be anything but good for my own personal training. Anyway. What I was worried about was the toddler class. Dun dun dunnnnnnn!


But, seriously, they are soooo cute! And there are a couple more that aren't in this photo who are just as cute. Even better? Autumn is in my class. And her best friend Angelee might be joining in, too.


We're doing some things like animal stretching and running. I'm using those stars on the mat as the spots where they need to sit in seiza or stand for the next activity. It worked out really, really nicely. Also, Autumn has been going around saying, "seiiiiiiiiza" and then kneeling (which is seiza). I'm also teaching them to say, "onegaishimasu" which is kind of like a before the fact thank you or a please and "domo arigatou" which is an after the fact thank you. And the director's kids have come to teach the kids how to sing Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes in Japanese.


As far as martial artsy things, the kids are doing different rolls. Too, they are falling onto me and then I "throw" them and they have to roll away. We're doing some other stuff, too, but nothing heavy duty.


To get the idea of circles, really one of the most basic aikido concepts, one of the tools I'm using in both classes is a ribbon twirler. :) They are super fun.


And, of course, we are playing lots of games to teach gross motor skills annnnnd to tire them out. :D Have a 22 second taste:


I'm looking forward to seeing how this class goes over the remaining five weeks. I'm also looking forward to getting used to my new schedule because, omg, I was soooo tired by the time I got home on Thursday.

Oh! And a special thank you to Penny! She came and helped me out on Thursday which is why I have such adorable photos. And one reason Thursday went so amazingly smoothly.

Blast from the Blackberry

I've been on a productivity roll all day. :) Mike, Autumn and I have been scrubbing, weeding, and organizing like crazy all day today. I sat down at my computer intending to chill out but ended up transferring my blackberry files to my computer since I got a new phone last month. Oh, man. Looking at the pictures I had on my phone has been so much fun. For example, this used to be the photo that came up whenever Mike called me:


Also, can you believe that not too long ago, this was Autumn??


From the same era:


I think that was her...first Easter? No, second. I just checked. This very awesome photo is from her first Easter.


I'm not sure of the dates of all of these but I really loved this one. It's so hard to remember when she was all chubby and had her short hair that just wouldn't grow evenly.


Although I do have to say that some things haven't changed. Her hair still gets all crazy. And she still likes to dress all crazy. Kind of like in this picture.


Which isn't as awesome as this picture.


I like this one.


I have a few photos in here of doctor visits and days that Autumn didn't feel well. I tend to send Mike pictures while he's at work. :) I send him the pictures on tough days so he can be glad he's not here and I send pictures of the good days to help him smile. I think this must have been one of Autumn's few days of pitifulness.


And this is just a photo of a spectacular lip poke. Or "pook" as my mom says. :D


Actually, I think I'll close out with some great face action...The Glare:


The Rrrrrrr:


And the OMG:


:) I might post a few more blackberry pics this week.

When I don't post on Sundays...

...I get emails and text messages which is actually really cool. :D Yesterday I had an excellent reason for not posting which I will go into later. FIRST THINGS FIRST:

Autumn's First Ice Cream Man Experience!

Over the weekend, we had an epic cleaning, sorting, and unpacking experience spurred by the tireless energies of Lainey and Papa D. Saturday when we were all kind of drooping, hungry, and aching all over, Papa D suddenly jumped up, grabbed Autumn, and leapt out the door. In the wake of all this activity, Donnie, Liz, Mike and I were kind of blinking in surprise while Lainey explained that he had heard the ice cream truck. So, I grabbed my camera, shoved it at Donnie who's a better photographer than I, and ran out the door.


Autumn got the idea pretty quickly and, of course, wanted the pink ice cream.


She was thrilled=understatement.


We all got ice cream, which was even better. Liz and I got orange dreamsicles which is what I now crave every time I look into my almost-completed orange bathroom (which looks awesome tyvm). Mmmm. Orange dreaaaamsicles.


Autumn's ice cream ended up being roughly the size of her head...


So it got transferred to a bowl.


Our ice cream ended up being our first "meal" eaten in our breakfast room! How cool is that? The weekend really was fantastic and exhausting all at once. We all banded together and got almost all the boxes unpacked and almost everything is in the room where it belongs. Is it all put away? No, hahaha. But it's almost all in the right general location. We've even gotten a lot of the outside worked on. Kurt the Amazing Landscaper came and worked on some of our horribly out of shape trees last week. Boppa and I got all the beds weeded and Mike sprayed them and mowed. Donnie took a few shots of the house that are pretty awesome.


The place is really starting to look more like a home and less like a jungle. This was Donnie's favorite photo. On the left are the crape myrtles that the tree people cut all the way to nubs right at the end of the time when it's safe to do something like that. We thought the trees would never be okay again but they came back just fine.


I wish I had a good photo of the backyard before all the work that was done. You wouldn't even recognize it. There's actually sunlight!


Most of the work that we did was inside the house. Probably my favorite thing that was done is this:


My first china cabinet!!! I am sooo excited! Those of you who have been around when I am setting up or taking down from a party know that I have a ton of entertaining equipment. In our teeny former home, it was in the attic, in cabinets, in the laundry closet...just wherever I could stash it. And it's all stuff I use! Now it can all go in the kitchen and breakfast area (it's still stashed in all kinds of places but at least it's all within the same area! and not the attic!) which is awesome. Lainey did all this and I am so thankful because I was looking at all the boxes and then looking at the cabinet and feeling really overwhelmed.

Anyway, it was a long weekend but so great. There's a lot to do but not as much as there was before, thank goodness. But, really, it was hilarious because last night, mike and I were so tired that we were delirious. have you ever been so tired that you laughed like a maniac at everything, no matter how stupid? That was us. :P

Now, I will close out this looong post with the little miss having her morning tea. She says, "hold it with TWOOOO hands, mama!"

Wedding days!

Well, everyone knows that Donnie and Liz are engaged and getting married in November. What you guys might not know is that Elizabeth's sister Michelle got married last Sunday! Crazy times for Liz's family! Here we are between the wedding and the reception:


I was excited because Mike actually dressed up and I got to wear my second coolest pair of shoes.


And, yes. Donnie took a picture of my shoe. :D I also noticed that my mat burns aren't so bad in this photo. For some reason, I always have mat marks on my ankles and the sides of my feet. It must be something to do with how I walk on the mats or what my feet do during takedowns. Who knows. Anyway. Autumn was pretty excited about the wedding. She spent the whole time wanting to dance the night away.


Oh, guess who was there not dancing quite yet? Baby Roxie! She sat at the table with a little help from her Uncle Mike...


While Autumn danced.


Guys. That face cracks me up like nobody's business. She's doing some serious dancing here. We got her to take a break long enough to take a pic with Liz and me. Liz was the maid of honor.


And then Liz and Autumn had to dance, of course.


Autumn paused for a brief second to take a picture with Michelle, who was a lovely bride. :) Her husband is like a foot and a half taller than she is so she looked even more doll-like than usual. So cute!


And then...Autumn was tired.


As we were leaving, she kept saying she wanted to dance some more but the poor kid was just done. So, one down, one to go!!