a shit blizzard

Dej & Luke came over Thursday and Friday nights to hang out for a while. It’s rare that I get two nights in a row, especially including a weekend night! One of the nights we chatted and the other we chatted while we watched Trailer Park Boys (god that show is funny, and I Love Lehey!). She’s excited and ready to get back to school. She goes back on the 25^th, and I start teaching on the 26^th. I’m not quite ready to lose my T/Th evenings again, but I’ll have fun once I get into the groove of the semester. The bummer of it, though, is that I will not be able to watch L's gymnastics class on Tuesday nights, as it is during my class time.

Saturday my mom and I attended my friend’s Lia Sophia party. Unfortunately, I can’t afford to buy all of the things I admired, but it was fun to look. It was also nice to see my friend, Danelle (and her husband & baby too), as it’s been waaaaay too long. She has a beautiful family and home, and they are all happy and healthy, and it really made my day to see her in such a great place! She's another strong woman who has worked so hard for everything she has.

I squeezed that into the day between the epic weekly herbivore room/cage cleaning and moving more furniture around to accommodate L’s continuing bedroom switch. I think we have everything done and set in her new room, except the walk-in closet that is full of Hunter’s salvaged electronics equipment/parts and the computers he’s building. Once I get the closet done, the bedroom change will be officially completed.We are all done with the furniture moving at least (until next spring when we have to clear everything out again to get her floors refinished).

Sunday L reached a milestone in her Bharatanatyam class. She completed the last (step 15) of her adavus. Each of the 15 steps has many moves to it—some of them have more than 16 movements (on each side—right & left)—and the technique and execution must be completely correct. She will have a test this coming Sunday on her nat adavus(steps 8-15), so she will need to practice hard this week to get step 15 perfect. It’s not as difficult or complex as some of the others, but for some reason she struggled with it. It took a lot of work and practice, and I’m proud of her for sticking with it. And I still don’t have to argue with her to get her to practice every day. She loves it. I wish I could say the same for her daily piano practice!

I was also really proud of her tonight in gymnastics, because she finally got her one-handed cartwheel. Dej had mastered it at a much younger age, but gymnastics as a whole came much, much easier for her than for L. She has to work really hard for every skill she masters, and I really appreciate the effort she puts into it.

Sunday night was family movie night. L (or maybe Mark, I think) picked out the movie, 9. It was ummm…different. The plot was weak and full of holes—seemed like an afterthought to the graphics. It didn’t really blow us away, though L seemed to enjoy it. Fortunately it was only 80 minutes long. Truthfully, L probably enjoys the experience of family movie night moreso than the movie itself. She always has to have popcorn (even if we’ve just finished dinner) and an assortment of other snacks.

The three of us and the three dogs all piled together on the two small couches (love seats, really) down in the family room. Lots of family togetherness happening and lots of re-situating, thanks to the dogs. Chloe prefers to either have the small couch to herself or to be between M & I on the bigger couch. There wasn’t room to accommodate all six of us on the bigger couch, though the dogs kept trying. The dogs are always very concerned with having a more desirable position or toy. The more desirable position or toy is always one that is possessed by another dog. It’s a constant reshuffling of toys and location, which can get a little annoying after a while. Before it reaches the point of annoyance, it’s pretty entertaining to watch the three of them scheme, manipulate and blatantly lie to one another to get what they want.

L & I enjoyed staying home yesterday. I had the day off (state required) but she didn’t. She got her Monday homeschooling work done. When I wasn’t working directly with her, I was able to be productive as well. I got my rosters/schedules/materials for my class ready, so I’m ready to go on the 26^th. We had a pretty good day. Although almost any day that doesn’t involve me having to get up early is a pretty good day!

These are thimbles that L made for me out of her sculpting clay. She painted and decorated them after the clay dried. They were a surprise gift for me. I have a little case hanging in the hallway upstairs that contains my childhood thimble collection. My grandma thought I should collect something as souvenirs of our travels. How thimbles were selected, I’m not quite sure, but that was the decision. As I traveled, we picked up thimbles from each location. She got me a collectible case for them. Had my grandma not been so involved with it, the collection would probably have disappeared along with my other various childhood collections (there were many, but I have no recollection of what happened to them). I haven’t added to the collection for ages. L likes to look at them and we talk about where they came from and my associated memories. I love the thimbles she made and am so happy to add them to my collection. As always, she put a lot of thought and time into selecting colors/designs that I like. She’s such a thoughtful girl (most of the time anyway)!

I am holding myself accountable by publicly checking in on my fitness resolution. That way, if I fall off the wagon, I have to humiliate myself by admitting that I'm a lazy quitter. I have worked out at least once and sometimes twice a day, every single day of the new year. I don't have a scale, so I don't know if I've lost anything (though I seriously doubt it at this point), but I am definitely feeling more energetic, stronger, healthier. I like the feeling. I remind myself over and over every single day of all the reasons why I need to get off my ass and exercise, and then I pat myself on the back quite liberally after I actually do it. I'm feeling optimistic about my body and hope to be able to actually SEE results soon!