Juggling Life

Time Warp Tuesday: Glory Days

Saturday (in a game I am bummed to have missed, but I was busy doing something really important and also sort of top-secret, so such is life) the Scripps Ranch High School Water Polo Team won the CIF Division II Championship. For the second time in four years. Ahem.

Danger Boy in the run-up to CIF DII Championship his senior year.

I would have to say the thing I miss most about parenting teenagers is water polo. The game, the camaraderie among the kids and parents and the fact that for us it was very much a family thing. Oh, and the winning. I do miss the winning. Also? Out-of-town tournaments with our peeps.

I remember blogging about what a special group we had--I've been part of many teams over the years, so I know special when I see it. I'm pleased that all of us moms felt the same;  we've kept our group together--Happy Hours, Ballast Point nights with husbands, Starbucks coffee dates and a newly-formed book group, as well as Facebook have us solidly in touch. 

I am really looking forward to flying back East next fall to see Danger Boy play one more time before he hangs up his Speedo--though, he could join a Master's League . . . and who knows, maybe one day there will be another #2 in the family.

Be sure to visit the other Time Warp posters this week--Heidi and Susan.

 

Time Warp Tuesday: Day before Day before Yesterday

My friend, and former student, Michele

Kayaking is my number two choice for self-care. Kayaking with a friend is my number one. It's no surprise that a woman described by a co-worker as freakishly efficient has managed to kill two birds with one stone--I can do for myself and my friends at the same time.

Michele had put off kayaking with me for some time because she knows it's something her kids would enjoy as well and in the way of most mothers felt bad about treating herself to something that would leave the kids disappointed. And then one day she didn't feel bad about it all (ah, sibling rivalry) and off we went. She's hooked. Saturday was an almost magical day on the lake with a temperature, breeze and sky that could best be described as "perfect."

Sunday, my friend Heidi had Michele's seat. And girlfriend was in dire need of self-care as her adult daughter has had to have multiple surgeries after being hit by a truck in Ecuador in late June and was once more in the hospital. It is at once crazytown and at the same time it is simply doing what needs to be done.

What else?

Grandkitties! Salsa and Chile (brother and sister and belonging to the Drs. Grownup)

And in news so positive it makes my heart swell several sizes, Team Jenny (formed by a group of like-minded women who couldn't stand by and watch someone who wanted help not get it) seems to be making headway in getting Jenny some real help. In the meantime, we have discovered the joys of Skype mealsand the power of love as healing. We'll keep taking prayers and good juju if you are so inclined. 

 

 

 

Time Warp Tuesday: Who Let these Babies Get Married?!

I was going full-on Clean Sweep on some closets yesterday and we all know that kind of activity sends ripples out and I ended up cleaning out a bureau that sits in the entry way and holds things like thank you cards and office supplies. In the process, I found this photo tucked away.

Us: I was 23 and he was almost 24.

This was snapped by a friendly passerby on our honeymoon in the Bay Area in 1987. I've been out-of-sorts about the cleaning job because of the way it transpired, but now that it's done I'm very happy to have it crossed off my to-do list. The impetus for the purging and organizing was because Mr. Fix-it took everything out of the closets in question and put them on folding tables in Danger Boy's bedroom. About six weeks ago. I've been busy and also probably a bit mulish because it felt like a passive-aggresive move on his part. He maintains that there never was an intent to pressure (except of course the mid-December deadline of DB needing to sleep in his room) for me to do this. Still, it felt like pressure to me.

Anyway . . . Friday, MVP's high school girlfriend was talking about student teaching on her FB page and another one of his friends chimed in about her student teaching. I joined the conversation and 24 hours later hs gf picked up five crates chock full of teaching supplies and books. Good thing everything was easy for me to get to, sort and pack up. Thanks to Mr. Fix-it. Yep, I can eat crow when I need to.

I'm pleased to have all my serving platters, baking supplies, etc. neatly sorted for the holidays. The shelves are very deep, so I took a photo of the back contents before I added to the front so I can see where a particular seldom-used item is--my mother was an avid collector of all things cooking related, so I have a lot of really cool things; creme brulee torch anyone?

 

This will make holiday entertaining easier.

 

How did I get so much done with Social Butterfly visiting? Because like any college girl worth her salt she was sleeping all day and having fun all night. It was a delight to see these girls crashed out all Saturday, only to rouse themselves to get ready to go out and have fun all over again. I love, love, love that SB put her halloween costume together for under $10 and involving sewing and paint.

 

A Runaway Bride and a Sunflower (this is what passes as conservatively dressed for an 18-year old on Halloween, FYI).

It was defintely a productive and fun weekend--full of cooking, cleaning and lots of laughter as we helped our summer roomie celebrate his 25th birthday--and his first away from home. It makes me happy that it makes his mom happy that he has a San Diego family. Plus, now I know all about the awkward turtle hand motion and that is some good knowledge indeed!

Be sure to pop in to see Susan and Karen (I think). And enjoy this last week of early evening sunlight before it disappears until next spring; it's always tough for me to say goodbye to daylight savings time. 

 

 

 

Time Warp Tuesday: Earlier this Day

Did you every write a totally clever intro full of wit and verve about how busy you are and how you get everything done by making time in your day to simultaneously run on your trampoline, respond to emails and texts and watch a DVR'd episode of Criminal Minds and/or to edit photos for posts at stoplights and then lose the whole damn thing because you were so tired you stupidly answered yes to the question about navigating off the page without saving your changes?

Me neither.

This has got me hot enought to be tweeting at Yahoo as the site sponsor for at least one site that sells this costume.

 

This would only be more disgusting if it was sold alongside a cancer patient costume consisting of a bald wig and an IV pole on which the hot patient was dancing.

I'm not going to bother identifying the other brouhaha that's got me worked up.You'll figure it out. I snapped this picture after work because I don't have hair days this good very often and I wanted to memorialize it. Then I thought . . . this would look even better if I held a sign over my head that said, "I've got a graduate degree, a challenging career, a 25 + year marriage, I've raised four good people and I volunteer about 20 hours a month . . . What's YOUR (expletive deleted) excuse?" 

Not that it will come to news as anyone that I'm over standing by silently while the damaging and unrealistic expectations of our society brainswashes women into trying to fulfill impossible stereotypes, but really, you could stick a fork in me.

I was originally joking about the sign over the head idea (which I must credit to Cassie via FB), but now I kind of like it. If I wanted to do something with it, could I get volunteers to do it with me?  Maybe just pick one accomplishment that has nothing to do with looks, make a sign, have someone snap your photo and email it to me?

Thoughts?

Also on the feminism front . . . Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg. Loving it.

 

Time Warp Tuesday: This Past Weekend

That handsome fella--aka Danger Boy--had quite a tournament this past weekend. 

The 16-goal win was the Golden Knights' widest margin of victory this season, missing out on the program record by two goals.

Junior Jake Ouellette (San Diego, Calif. / Scripps Ranch) led the Golden Knights with four goals for the second time this weekend. Four Golden Knights record three goals each including Sophomore Adam Wolf(Worthington, Ohio / Thomas Worthington), junior Raz Yuval (Kibbutz Yagur, Israel / Carmel Zvulun), senior Daisuke Takagi (Tsukuba, Japan / Namiki) and Nathan Bean (Houston, Texas / Cypress Creek). JuniorLouis Weyand (Erie, Pa. / McDowell) and freshman Michael Squeglia(Erie, Pa. / Cathedral Prep) had two goals each with sophomore Xavier Augustyniak (Erie, Pa. / Cathedral Prep) and senior Tommy Nimrod(Glenview, Ill. / Glenbrook South) adding a goal.

In his first career start, Nick Fagen (Saint Charles, Ill. / Saint Charles East) collected the win for the Golden ­Knights with six blocks.

The only way I can stand having missed this is that next year Mr. Fix-it and I are flying back East for a tournament. So, after a ticket-buying spree which included a ticket for Social Butterfly to come home for a long weekend on the 26th and then her Thanksgiving ticket and Christmas tickets and (because I realized I alreayd had DB's Christmas ticket) tickets for MVP and Mandy to come (for a week!) at Christmas, we should start hoarding points because we'll be needing to get a few people to Pennsylvania for Danger Boy's graduation next in 2015--which sounds like a long time away, but is like 67 seconds in child-rearing years.

Oh, the busy, people. But good busy. Truly. 

I will write more about the busy as soon as I have a break from the busy. I miss you all and am glad we have Facebook.

 

Time Warp Tuesday: Way, way back

This photo turned up on FB a few days ago. I'm going to go out on a limb and say you can recognize me.

I was jazzed to see this. There are not a ton of pictures of me when I was a kid (hence, possibly, my desire to memorialize my own family so completely).

Anyway, I'm pleased to have it. My friend, Leslie, with the dark hair, I reconnected with on FB a couple of years ago and we've met a couple of times--once in Laguna Beach and once her. I owe her a visit to Santa Monica (where we met and where she still lives), so I need to get on that.

Leslie's sister (who I don't really remember and she doesn't really remember me) is also in the picture and we are with a family that we used to hang out with and help with the kids. Cool memories. 

Time Warp Tuesday: Summers Past

This is a terrible picture from a technical standpoint, but it's what I was looking for from a memory standpoint. Remember, this was pre-digital, so we never knew what we got until we developed the film. Knowing a bit more about photography, it's pretty darn difficult to take decent photos in a pool--especially with a mix of full sun and full shade.

Scripps Ranch Swim and Racquet Club, circa 1995

Last week I posted the photo of the kids sitting under a tree, reading (kudos to Gary for noticing a not-yet-born child's absence). This week's photo is from the club where I started spending my summers from the time I was 12. It's kind of cool to have shared it with my own children.

A summer day for us when the kids were the ages they are in this pic would have been for us to hit the pool by 9 a.m., spend the morning, come home for lunch and naps, go back in the afternoon and have pizza on the pool deck with Mr. Fix-it joining us after work. We might not get home until it was time for bath and storytime (we did nightly baths as a matter of our evening routine--clean wasn't always the point).

Grownup Girl did a lot of summer camps, so there were many days I was on my own and I remember one memorable occasion from the very summer this photo was taken when I kept one hand resting on Social Butterfly's leg as she was mid-diaper-change on the lounge chair and stretched the other just in time to snag the ankle of a pool-bound Danger Boy just before he hit the water. 

Of course, there were other mothers and families who spent their days the same way we did (and I am in awe of the privilege this was for us all), so there was always conversation and camaraderie and adult beverages once in a while. Even for a mom, summer had a magical cast. Until the last two weeks when you weren't sure you had what it took to get to the back-to-school-day-summer-finish-line.

Sunday, Mr. Fix-it and I had a friend of mine and her daughter over for swimming and dinner and a game of Apples-to-Apples. For the first time this summer, I sat on the deck of the pool where I used to be a fixture. It was a sweet life. Not that I'd still want to be doing it, but it is fun to contemplate being an occasional visitor in that world--I would love for a third generation to grow up swimming there. 

I'm gearing up for a short, but very busy, work week after a great last-one-of-summer weekend. A concert in a friend's backyard--Steve Poltz; sooo much fun and a wee bit overly-drinky, the movie Elyseum on Saturday, the aforementioned pool and BBQ, and kayaking in the Big Bay today. And STILL I had time to watch most of Season 2 of Brothers and Sisters. Tonight it's homemade chocolate chip cookies and Breaking Bad. Mr. Fix-it is staying in San Diego for a work week for the first time in several weeks, and that's a nice change.

I'm still about six weeks from being able to pull out boots and tights weather wise, but it's beginning to feel like another changing season.

Be sure to visit Karen, Heidi and Susan to check out their Time Warp posts for this week.

 

 

 

 

Time Warp Tuesday: Dog Days of Summer

We've had an unusually pleasant and mild summer, but we're finally getting some weather. Hot and humid--by our persnickety standards anyway. I was thinking of where I had a picture at the pool--we used to do that twice a day, every day, but instead I chose the first summery one I happened upon. 'Cause Brothers and Sisters on Netflix. I'm addicted. 

Plus, I did take an 8-mile bike ride, prepare myself a healthy dinner and get my kitchen and floors into tip-top shape since I can enjoy the glorious-ness that is not. a. thing. out. of. place. 

My mother's back yard, 1993. Danger Boy is 4-6 months here. That's a green sippy cup, I am sure because I know I wasn't serving him Mountain Dew. If I had it would have ended up on the news as a baby run amok story. 

The sweet rhythms of life as a stay-at-home mom; post-nap story-time in the cool grass with plenty of time for everybody to just be. 

Karen, Susan, Heidi and Gary are playing this week--be sure to pay them a visit. 

Time Warp Tuesday: Fun in the Sun

MVP and cousin, circa 1995

Karen had an adorable cousin picture up for TWT last week. That photo, combined with the ridiculous sunburn on my shins (just the shins; I forgot my lower legs when applying for sunscreen pre-kayaking Saturday morning), made me think of these cousins--MVP and my sister's older son; they were born 11 days apart.

One wouldn't necessarily think that my nephew could actually get burnt, as you can see he's one to develop a deep tan, but with enough sun exposure, anyone can burn. In this sunburn story case, Mr. Fix-it took bothy boys--probaby 6 or 7 at the time--to Raging Waters water park. Of course he applied sunscreen. Once. At the beginning of their 10 hours of riding every water slide there was.

I practically bathed the boys in aloe vera gel to the point they were walking around with outstretched arms with small flying insects slowly dying in the viscuous coating on their small, fiery bodies.

Good times. Very good times.

Be sure to visit Susan who is back from vacay this week. And Gary, of course.

 

 

Time Warp Tuesday: Growing Up, Up, Up and Away

MVP at about three years old. It's the details that get me, like the teeny, pudgy hands.

This past weekend, MVP and Mandy moved into their first apartment. MVP has been refinishing furniture and made his Dad's day with a "thanks for making sure I grew up handy" text and photos. I spoke with him Saturday morning and the agenda he laid out for his weekend was so ambitious that it was apparent he also inherited Mr. Fix-it's almost superhuman work ethic.

I have had occassion of late to say to a new mother, "You know how grandmas are always telling you how fast it goes? What they're saying is IT'S REALLY FAST! LIKE UNBELIEVABLY FAST!" 

Parenthood . . . where the days are long, but the years are short.

Yes.

Mr. Fix-it and I decided on a trip to Fort Collins as our anniversary gift to one another (purchased on points because college tuition x 2) and are ending up making our visit over Mr. Fix-it's birthday weekend in mid-September. We can't wait!

Be sure to see what Karen's blast from the past is this week--and don't forget to visit Gary as well.