Birthday Love

My beloved chosen daughter celebrates a trip around the sun today, and I get to write her a public love note.  Let me tell you about the baby of my heart:

• Sweet Pea is a being of light, but she doesn’t always recognize that.  The energy that she radiates, even when she’s struggling with her buoyancy, is of a sweet and ethereal kind.

• Every 20 or so steps she takes, she skips.  I don’t think she does it intentionally, either, which makes it all the more endearing.

• When I look at her face, I simultaneously see an adorable little girl and a singularly beautiful woman.

• Sweet Pea has a funny streak a mile wide.  She knows how to laugh, and to make me laugh alongside her.

• She’s a wicked thinker.  I sometimes feel a little bad about that – like me, she gets wound up about things that she thinks are important to get right that everyone seems to be getting wrong – but I’m confident that her ability to see the world critically is going to be much more a benefit than a hindrance.

• I have NO idea how to shop for her.  Her style is eclectic and entirely foreign to me, but she always manages to look cute (even when she’s wearing something that made me say “REALLY?!” when she pulled it out of the rack).

• Sweet Pea loves with all her heart.  She has moved right in to all our lives and now makes no distinction between us and her family of origin.  I cannot tell you how honored I am that this is true.

• Today is not only her birthday, but is also an important anniversary; we’re marking an entire year without any self-harm of any kind.  There are not words to say how proud I am of my daughter for finding her way out of her darkness, and how grateful I am for her continued and ever-present place in our lives.

I love you, Baby Girl.  Happy birthday, and many more.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

All my words are here.

Ten Things Tuesday

Ten things on my to-do list.

1.  Text REDCROSS to 90999 to give $10 to Red Cross disaster relief.  You should do that, too.  Right now.  (if you want options, I’ve got them: STORM to 80888 gets $10 for The Salvation Army USA;  FOOD to 32333 is for the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma.  Each text charges $10 to your phone bill.  Kizz also suggested donating to Team Rubicon; you can do that here.)

2.  Renew my Red Cross CPR certification.  My appointment for the challenge test is tomorrow (and, no; this wasn’t inspired by yesterday’s disaster in Oklahoma.  My certification expired a few months ago and I have to have current credentials to work in the gyms).

3.  Meet with the events coordinator at a function hall at Local U. to plan Punk’s big 16th birthday celebration.

4.  Sub a yoga class tomorrow night and Thursday night.  I can’t forget…

5.  Go grocery shopping.  I need to remember to add frozen fruit and some yogurt to my list; we’ve been making a lot of smoothies lately.

6.  Celebrate Sweet Pea’s birthday.  I’m working REALLY hard to not relive the nightmare that was my life this time last year (and to not renew my disdain and anger at the people who participated in making it a nightmare; I’ve been making good progress at letting that whole mess go) and instead am focusing on the fact that my chosen daughter is whole and healthy.

7.  Write a recommendation letter.  Mike is applying for a job and has asked me to write him a letter.  This is something that I am singularly delighted to do.

8.  Exercise.  Yeah, well, that’s always on my agenda.

9.  Water the plants.  This is actually about a half hour job; I have a lot of house plants, and some of them are starting to look a little thirsty.

10.  Sign Bean up for camp.  I have to sit down with her and the calendar to make sure that she can actually do camp this year; she’s been cast as an ensemble orphan in the theatre-in-the-park’s production of Annie this summer, and I want to be certain that we’re not overloading her schedule.
What are YOU up to today?

Quick Hit: Politics

I’m seeing a lot of people calling for a suspension of political discussion around the Oklahoma tornado.

While I understand and respect the sentiment, I don’t necessarily agree with it. Politics is responsible for a lot of the complications we face during disasters like this. “Representatives” vote to decimate (if not outright eliminate) relief programs. Politicians and others continue to deny climate change and to subsidize and support mechanisms and practices that continue to put the planet at risk. The people we rely on to help us through these kinds of nightmares are vilified as union “takers” and are not respected as the professionals they are. Systems that value short-term profit over long-term sustainability are a big part of why we’re in these messes in the first place.

I don’t agree with sensationalizing others’ misfortune, but let’s stop kidding ourselves that we had nothing to do with it.

Less of Me

As of this morning, I’m down 17 pounds from where I was when I got serious about regaining control over my body.

Back in Feburary, I bought myself a fitbit, I signed up to myfitnesspal.com, and I committed to exercising in some shape or form every day. With the exception of a few days of vacation (and some of them don’t count because, in D.C., I literally walked for miles every day), I’ve kept that commitment. I moved an elliptical machine into the basement, I’m accepting every sub gig I can at the gyms where I work, I’ve added strength training to my rotation, and I’m taking myself out for combination walks-runs around my neighborhood when the weather allows it. I get in at least an hour of sweat-inducing movement every day, and it’s starting to make a difference.

I executed the Great Clothes Switch this weekend and found myself having to try on damned near every bottom I own. I’m able to fit into things that I’ve had stored for years because they were too small, and I had to put into storage things that are too big now.  I bought an adorable little dress a few weeks ago and wore it to my sister’s graduation on Friday; something I never would have even considered putting on last spring.  A few days ago, I found myself regretting not taking a “before” picture so that *I* can see the difference in my shape, but I’ve had several people comment that *they* can see a difference, and I’m taking their word for it.

My only concern is that I’m finding that this effort is occupying a lot of my energy. I find myself getting a little anxious if I think I can’t fit a workout in, and I’m spending a little too much time thinking about food and what I can “afford” to have. I understand now, a little better than I did before, how this can become an obsession for some people. To that end, I’m making SURE that I have SOMETHING every day that I want, but that I maybe “shouldn’t” have – some chocolate, for example, or ice cream (in fact, Mr. Chili and I shared a hot fudge sundae after lunch today). I’m trying to stay centered; I don’t want this to be my central focus.

The upshot, though, is that some of my confidence is coming back.  I feel good, and I feel like I look good, too, and that’s helping my self-esteem a lot more than maybe it should.  Now, if I can only land a good job….

Quick Hit: Busy

Today was a busy one.

I started with my usual Sunday routine of an hour on an elliptical machine prior to teaching my weekly yoga class. After that, I zipped home, took a shower, and donned medieval garb to attend the state Renn Faire that Bowyer organized for the first time this year. I gather, from his reports, that it was a complete and total success, and I couldn’t be happier for him.

I had hopped to spend some time celebrating Auntie this weekend – she graduated on Friday and while I was able to make her commencement, we couldn’t go back to her place for pizza because Bean had a trip to NYC to see Annie on Broadway with her middle school drama club and had to be at the bus at FOUR-FRICKIN-FIFTEEN the next morning – but that didn’t happen. I’m blaming that on Bean again, though; she had her first rehearsal for this summer’s theatre-in-the-park production of Annie tonight (she’s an ensemble orphan in the play – that’s the role she had in her middle school play this spring, too).

I’m finally home, it’s 8:30, and I’m wrecked. I’m going to bed. I’ll try again tomorrow.

Six Word Saturday

Great Clothes Switch is in progress!