yoga x

Yoga was invented by skinny tall people for skinny tall people. And if that's off the mark, they at least didn't consider short fat people when designing the majority of these poses. I mean, really! Triple D boobs here and at least 3 full fat roll below them. Yet, somehow, I am suppose to roll up onto my shoulders from my back and be a straight line while not suffocating from the boobs on my face and the fat rolls right behind and pressing down onto my throat. Not to mention the laughable part of the "straight line." Then at some point, we moved from runners pose to some sideways twisted thing where the right hand fell behind the back and the left hand reach through the legs and up the butt and around the back to grab the other hand. Ummmm....... my arms are proportionate to my body and unfortunately, I'm not Gumbi-fied. how the hell am i suppose to REACH? And this whole balance pose thing??? Yeah, right! No way the designer of those consider people my shape. I'm top heavy, middle heavier, and so short I have no base and forget center of gravity-I'm ALL gravity. And what sadist came up with this crane pose? I mean, really? Forget that I would probably end up in the emergency room from a busted nose if I could even get into that pose, but how about the excruciating pain in my arms where my knee-caps dig in. Oh, and two skinny wrists cannot support all this fat and weight. Yeah, I said skinny wrists. It's probably the only part of me I can call skinny. Those and my pinky fingers. So, yeah, I think I believe this P90X will work, and I like the fact that in most of the dvds he shows you how to modify for your level, but I really think they missed the mark on this yoga thing. But whatever.... Tomorrow is day 5. That means only 85 more days to go. Ha! I think I'll shorten my goals. Let's be realistic. I'm aiming for a week. If I make it a week, then maybe I'll set my goal at 30 days. After all, I can take pictures again at 30 days. And most of the people who's pics I looked at showed some progress at the 30 day mark. So, yeah, maybe 30 days is my goal. I only have 25 more to go if I do it that way! :)

And not to change the subject, but to change the subject. I ventured out among the crazy shoppers today to do some shopping. Somehow, logically, I know that makes me one of those crazies, but I like living in my alternate reality, so just leave me be. Got some great deals! My bras usually run 30-40 bucks each. I had a gift card to JC Penneys, and they had a sale: buy two at regular price, get two free. And then if you spent over 25 you got 10 off. Well, what I didn't know until I got up to the register was that they were also on sale. So, I got 4 bras for $23!!!!! Talk about savings! Loving JCP the day after xmas! A belt, new black heels, and a yellow Liz Claiborne sweater topped it off. I could have shopped more because I still had $$ left on the card, but I just couldn't handle the crazies anymore. :)
Back to work tomorrow. Not a long day, but a day nonetheless. Then three days in a row of working on the CSP grant application and the appeals arguments and combing through the district's rebuttals. If I have to be at work at 10, and I leave here at 9 to do so, and get up at 8 to get ready, what time would I have to get up to do day 5 of my program since I know I wont have the energy when I get home? 7? 6:45? Yeah, I'll try it. 'Night all!

12-23-10

So, I intended to start blogging for the new year, but I figured, with so much going on, why wait? Going to copy and paste the old myspace blog onto here so I can delete myspace and keep it all on one site... But for the new one: Here we go. I guess I should start with what I am starting with today, which is P90X. My sister in law and brother in law use it and swear by it. She sent it to us and I tried the Stretch X part of it yesterday. It wasn't as bad as I expected, so I am starting the actual program today. I had my lovely daughter, Sierra, take the before pics and I am 151 lbs as of today. I'm not posting the before pics until I have the thirty day pics. To do so without them would be humiliating. Sierra is going to start the program with me, and so is my husband, Charles (or Chuck, for his friends). 


later in the day:
Ok. So I just did the first day of the Lean schedule: Core. Ugh! But I did it. and I survived. I can't say I did it well, or that my form was good, but I did it. I may not have done the full minute they did, but I did some of it. I feel extremely shaky now. I wonder if that's normal? 


On another note, I wonder if there is a way to link my blog to my facebook page and vice versa? 
Going to do some baking tonight and get a head start on xmas dinner since I have to work xmas eve. 

death

I will not go back to Kentucky but for funerals. It is a barren, godess-forsaken desolate black hole where all who enter risk being lost forever. Even those who try to escape seldom do. They end up living with their brothers and sisters in the homes of their parents or grandparents, sometimes as a high school drop-out, 17 with kids and no spouse; sometimes as a college drop-out, working two menial jobs with no real future. Sometimes, they end up on welfare, mooching from hard working taxpayers, pretending to be too injured to work or pay child support. To have a future, you have to get out. And that's hard to do. If you get out and you willingly return, there is often very little hope for you. To those who manage an escape, as I did, I raise my glass to you. To those who choose that way of life, I pity you.
Choice is a blade. Informed choice is a twist of the blade. The knowledge that one would choose to condemn themselves to no life, is a slow and painful death. My sorrow drowns me. Day breaks and it's still true. The last 15 years have been a wasted effort. Wasted energy. Wasted words. Wasted teaching. Wasted pain. Wasted time. Wasted tears. Oh, that I could just close my eyes and waste away...    

life

so... another summer comes to an end... nevada came home from vacation... yay. and dakota's honeymoon ended... he is home and has been since the 11th. things have been okay since he has been back. no major drama and pretty well behaved. i wonder how long it will last...
i have had classes, trainings, and taught retakes, currently running the retake academy, and have only had a handful of do-nothing days all summer. maybe i will take a break in the winter...
but right now, things are pretty blah.... spent yesterday shopping: groceries, school stuff.... and watching gilmore girls with my favorite daughter. and read 2 books. and went to the library. today: finish a book, finish g.g. season 5.  cook for next week. and maybe go to target to go school shopping some more. we'll see...

intermission

So, no record of him at the dmv... The state child support offices of Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky couldn't find him... Private investigators had no luck. Haven't been able to find him on myspace or facebook for the few years I've been looking. Then, one night, while surfing through myspace, I decided to look for his siblings. I found them. Two of them, anyway. I found one of his brothers and his sister. Needless to say, I started messaging her, trying to find him.... But, in the meantime, I found him on her page. After a few unanswered messages, I decided that he wasn't interested, and we should probably leave well enough alone. Then, on a Thursday night, while I am sitting in my night class, my phone starts ringing...incessantly. I don't recognize the number, so I didn't answer. When I check my messages after class, there are multiple messages from him. After all this time, he wants to be involved. How is it that I was never able to find his myspace page before? Just at the right time, he appears...

So, sitting across the table from Dakota, I lay out pictures of his father, aunts, uncles, cousins, step mother, and his brother and sister. He has a 14 year old brother and a 4 year old sister. He cried and said he wanted to go. After he promised to straighten up and get clean, and a week of talking to his dad on the phone, he was on a plane on his way to Montgomery. And for the first time in a very long time, there was peace in my home.
I talk to him almost daily and some days he sounds happy, while others, he sounds frustrated and homesick. The good days seem more often than the bad.
I wonder how long the honeymoon will last...

the search is over

So, the old addage "there is always a light at the end of the tunnel" turns out to be true after all. Sixteen years of searching... Who would have thought that after 16 years of searching that the search would actually prove fruitful? I thought I searched in vain. I thought I was just going through the motions, because if the search were going to yield results, wouldn't it have done so years ago? How is it that the Goddess seems to know exactly when to intervene? At the point when hope seems lost, when it seems there is nothing left to do but give up and give in... I found him. I found him in the same place I have been looking for years.... I found him basically right where I left him. Someone must have had him cloaked before. It's the only excuse I can think of. Why else wouldn't I have been able to find him before? And after 16 years, it was no longer even fathomable to me that he might have ever been looking for us, but evidently he had been... since 1996...

So, how do you tell your 16 year old fatherless child that his father has been found, and not only has he been found, but that he wants to make up for lost time, forge a relationship, be a part of his life? How do you tell your 16 year old that you can't even talk to, or even be in the same room with, the biggest news of his life?
You drive over to the hospital he is in and put a picture on the table in front if him. And you don't say a word. You let him look and you let him connect the dots. And you hope when it's time for you to speak, to answer his questions or confirm his assumptions, you hope that your voice still works. And somehow, it does. Somehow, when he asks who it is and you don't answer, somehow he figures it out. "Is this my dad?" he asks. I nod. "You found him?" he asks. Again, bobble head. "Does he want to see me?" This time, the nodding causes the tear ducts to well up. But he doesn't notice. His head is down and he is sobbing viciously into the crook of his arm. His whole body shakes. When he finally looks up, he asks how I found him and it's time to tell the story.

life sucks

Oh, how the mighty have fallen... Five months ago I was on top of the world... Now I'm wishing I could exit the world... 16 instructional days left until summer break... I can't wait. Maybe I was overly ambitious to think I could successfully raise my family, teach full time, direct an art gallery, design web sites, maintain a marriage and attend masters level classes... something had to give... it's a shame i sacrificed my kids... or maybe I didn't... Maybe they were destined to fall because they are mine. Maybe it was inherrent, inevitable, unavoidable... Maybe being mine predisposed them to a life of angst. I guess I shouldn't say "they/them" since it's really only the one. The oldest. The one I had way too young. The guinea pig. The one I screwed up the most. I'm sorry, Dakota... I am sorry for being the world's shittiest mother. I am sorry for thinking I could ever do you justice as a parent. I am sorry I made such crappy decisions where you were concerened. I am sorry I wasn't there for you. I am sorry I put so much time into trying to make life better instead of making you better. I did my best with what I had at the time. I am sorry I did a better job with your siblings. Maybe things will get better as you get older. That's how it happened for me... I guess somewhere close to adult-hood brains kick in...
I just wish for my sake and his that it had happened sooner...