Ready for the Weekend

I can not wait for this day to be over. I had a very busy morning, capped by a presentation to all of our physicians. Part of me feels excited that the darn thig is over, but the other part of me just wants a nap!

This is my last day at work for a whole week! Many months ago, we decided to take the girls on a cheap cruise to see how they like it and the cruise is Monday. I am so excited about that. I hope we all have a good time, but I am really just happy not to have to go to work!

My Celebrity Morph

Okay, so I was goofing off at work and came across this website. I have to admit I do not routinely spend any time thinking about which celebrity I look the most like. I don't really think I look much like any celebrity and especially not like the beautiful women below, but hey the website was kind of fun...

MyHeritage: Celebrity Morph - Black and white photographs - Family history

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities

My First Born has a Rite of Passage

Emma lost her very first tooth! It has been loose for weeks but chose today to fall out at school on the playground. Apparently, her friends helped her find it and she is proudly wearing it in a little tooth necklace someone gave to her at school around her neck! Now, we enter the world of the tooth fairy. She has already proudly told me that the tooth fairy apparently leaves a dollar! (I guess I am lucky her friends do not have crazy parents who leave outrageous amounts.)

I Have to Admit I am Way Out of Touch...

Okay, I think for the first year ever, Oscar night passed in my house without any knowledge it was occuring! How is it possible that I had no clue it was Oscar night until sometime today when people began to ask me if I had watched them??? I am truly out of touch with popular culture. I have no clue who was nominated and I have a feeling I never even watched any of the nominated films. Should I be admitting this?

The Meaning of Blogging

It is strange when you begin to blog. I am trying to find my voice. Alas, when I reread my prior blogs, I find my blog is as disorganized as my life. I seem to blog about mom things and children, bitching about work, and extraneous crap I come across from time to time. However, I aspire to have a more inspiring blog!!! Is that fake? I guess my life is currently all over the place and chaotic and torn between home and work. So should your blog reflect your life? Some people have blogs as real as their life but their lives seem interesting and inspiring. Some people have fascinating blogs about interesting topics, like their search for the meaning of life and happiness.

I guess I am still finding my voice and I should not be so hard on myself. At least my current blog is real and about things that are real to me at this point in time.

The Days are Long, But The Years are Short

I had a day today that reminds me that life is about spending time with those you love. My favorite aunt is in the hospital and we visited her today. She was supposed to have an angiogram this week but had a small heart attack during her stay in the hospital instead. This led to the discovery that in addition to a blocked artery she has some heart problems and today the doctor told us she needs a pacemaker before they can complete the angiogram and determine what other treatment she may need. I can't imagine life without my aunt. I don't want my cousins or their children to be without her either. I wonder why it takes life-threatening events to make me take time out to just spend time with her. I want to learn to do less and allow for more time to just be with those I love.

It reminds me of a website and video someone sent me recently:

http://www.theyearsareshort.com/

TGIF!

What a long week, and I only had to work three days! I caught a cold last Thursday just as we were leaving for Mammoth. Thanks to Ibuprofen and Claritan D I survived the ski trip but still felt kind of crappy all weekend. This week at work I felt worse and developed another sinus infection. Here is to hoping the antibiotics kick in soon.

It is raining again this weekend. On one hand it adds to my depressed mood, but I guess I also have to be grateful for the rain when I drive through the hills into Simi and see how beautifully green they are. Usually they are kind of tan and rocky. I wish I had a picture to post but I am usually in my car when I see them the best!

My Tarot Card

I am not sure exactly what it means but it sure seems much more mysterious than my life warrants. I followed a link in a friend's blog. Perhaps I need to let this sink in a bit to see whether I chose to accept any personal meaning.

You are The Moon

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Moon is a card of magic and mystery - when prominent you know that nothing is as it seems, particularly when it concerns relationships. All logic is thrown out the window.

The Moon is all about visions and illusions, madness, genius and poetry. This is a card that has to do with sleep, and so with both dreams and nightmares. It is a scary card in that it warns that there might be hidden enemies, tricks and falsehoods. But it should also be remembered that this is a card of great creativity, of powerful magic, primal feelings and intuition. You may be going through a time of emotional and mental trial; if you have any past mental problems, you must be vigilant in taking your medication but avoid drugs or alcohol, as abuse of either will cause them irreparable damage. This time however, can also result in great creativity, psychic powers, visions and insight. You can and should trust your intuition.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Mammoth Memories...

Well we are back from Mammoth and pretty sad to be back to normal life. I never really aspired to live in an area up North with cold weather and snow, but I can now see why it appeals to many people. Mammoth was beautiful. Gorgeous mountains with so much untouched white snow and beautiful majestic trees.

The drive up was easier than I thought. All highway, no need for chains at all. No twisting mountain roads or carsickness! We found the condo easy enough and it was right by the main street of Mammoth. It was beautiful and pretty spacious. We got settled and did some shopping and spent the night in our temporary home.

Saturday, we spent the day playing in the snow. We found a big hill and did some sledding. We made a snow Shrek. We took a hike and explored the area. The girls had a blast!

Sunday was our ski day. It was chaotic but still lots of fun. The girls and I had an all day ski lesson and Carlos took off on his own to get in some quality ski time. I never really was able to see what Sofia's ski lesson was like since my lesson was held in a different location. However, I did run into Emma on one of my runs down the hill.

Monday, we had some adult time with some snowmobiling and I was a little terrified but it turned out to be fantastic. The scenery was gorgeous and speeding through the snow was exciting. I did need some time to warm up and I know Carlos was thinking, "How can she go so slow?"

Tuesday, we were supposed to go dog sledding, but the man who ran the dogsleds injured his back, so we ended up taking the girls out on the snowmobiles. It was clear that both my girls are built for speed. Neither had a bit of fear and both would have been happy to spend the day speeding through the snow.

Sadly, after our snowmobile adventure, we had to run back to the condo and pack up and head out of town back to home. Back to reality and laundry!

Prelude to Mount Whitney

We passed Mount Whitney on our way to Mammoth. All I can say is that it looks even more intimidating in person...

2 days to Mammoth!!

I am getting excited about our trip to mammoth this weekend. The girls and I are all booked for a ski lesson. Our friends have arranged for us all to go dog sledding. Carlos and I will also be going snowmobiling one day. My main concern is that we have too many things scheduled and besides going broke, we will be running around all weekend. I hope not. I just want to have fun with my family in the snow.

I am trying to keep a positive attitude about the skiing. I have limited experience with downhill skiing and it is all bad! I vaguely remember one ski lesson as a child. No negative or positive memories really, just the knowledge that I had some sort of group lesson. My only other experience skiing was at Big Bear, I think, with an ex-boyfriend. I had no real ski gear and had to wear jeans. My ex offered to teach me to ski, and boy was that a mistake. He was not helpful and I think he disappeared after a while leaving me to navigate down the mountain with limited knowledge on stopping. I just remember making my way down the hill using calculated falls to stop me when I began to go to fast and felt out of control. I just remember making it to the bottom of the hill, with soaking wet jeans on, and spending an hour in the bathroom in my attempts to peel off the wet jeans and then get them back on my body. Needless to say, that trip was a clue to the end of that relationship. Lesson learned, never have a boyfriend or relative teach you anything important! (A lesson I should have learned after having my parents attempt to teach me to drive a car!)

Not the Best Day for Work Satisfaction

I am not feeling very motivated to blog today. I think that is because I am a bit frustrated at work and I think I would prefer to avoid thinking about that subject for a while. Alas, avoidance rarely makes anything easier. I actually just typed out a long description of my work environment but feel that it just is not the way I want to use my blog! Let’s just try to sum it up as having a boss who is not supportive of what I do, has this need to control even over issues he has no knowledge, and seems to enjoy making people feel stupid. I have designed and run programs more complicated than my current one, and yet, this boss seems to enjoy the fact that I have no control over most major decisions affecting my work, yet feels the need to tell me to take ownership and make the program my own. How can I do that when I have no say in structure of the program, location, resources, or even how patients are referred to my program? I have never worked anywhere with this little support. Oh well, I continue to put up with this for lack of other viable options that work with having a family and repeated attempts to remind myself that no job is perfect. But today, is definitely one of those days I wished I worked anywhere than here. Hopefully, tomorrow will be better.

Me and Mount Whitney???

I am having a bit of an anxiety crisis. During my recent weekend at Big Bear, one of the other moms asked me if I wanted to join a group hiking Mount Whitney in August. I thought, hey pretty cool. The other women going are all pretty cool and I have always wanted to do more cool outdoorsy things so I said sure, why not. Anyway, it is not until August so i have plenty of time to prepare.

However, once I started reserching Mount Whitney and hiking it, I started to realize this is a huge monumental hike!!!!! Oh my gosh! I have since discovered that this is an 11-mile hike most of it at high altitudes. Altitude sickness is mentioned in most of the websites I visited and I even read about a number of deaths on Mount Whitney (now I need more details on this major fact). Basically, you can't just decide to hike Mount Whitney and do it, there is tons of preparation and gear involved. Camping out under the stars, eating dehydrated food, pooping in the woods and saving it to bring back to civilization...am I crazy?

I would say that when I was younger I think I would avoid many tasks that i did not think I would succeed at ahead of time. I think now that I probably passed on some exciting opportunities. So, as of today, I am still committed to the hike. However, I see a lot of work ahead getting my body in shape for this 3 to 4 day hike!

So far, I have been reading up on the internet about Mount Whitney and hiking/camping. I already spent some money at Amazon.com on a few books as well on Mount Whitney. I have to start locating my gear, but luckily do have some more experienced friends who have promised to help. I think the toughest part will be convincing myself to work out more to prep my body! I can not believe I signed on for this.

A Small World Encounter...

I had to blog tonight about my pilates class after putting the girls to bed. My mom was nice enough to watch the girls and I dropped them off and went to the 6:30 p.m. class instead of my usual. The class was great but pretty hard tonight. I really sweated! However, after class, one of the other students comes over to me and says, "Are you Lisa?" I was looking at her and said, "yes," but frankly, I had no recognition of this person at all. She was beautiful and fit, but I had no idea who she was. Anyway, she proceeds to tell me she is my old friend Cathy from elementary school. I had not seen her since high school I think, but a number of years ago, we somehow got back in touch via email and have been trading Christmas cards over the past 10 years I think, while never actually being in the same place to meet. Anyway, she currently lives in the San Fernando Valley but has been attending this pilates class for about 4 years. Somehow, in all that time, we never took a class at the same time. I guess I should be amazed that she recognized me as I would never have recognized her! I am looking forward to getting to know her again.

Absence Makes the Heart...

grow fonder? Well it does for me. Another business trip for my husband and another week of living like a single mom. I don't know how single moms actually do it. I do have help a lot of the time from my mom. Without her, there is no way I could keep up my pilates class with Carlos out of town every other week. She even feeds the girls dinner while I exercise!

I always have these big plans on the things I will accomplish alone with my husband out of town, and they rarely get done! Although I did print out family photos and update our photo albums through January 2008. That was a big accomplishment for me. Last night however, I just wanted to sleep myself, after putting the girls to bed!

Seeking Feedback

Okay, I picked up Sofia from day-care this afternoon after work. I was driving over to the laundromat to put the pee comforter into a large capacity washing machine before running over to Emma's school to pick her up. Sofia starts to ask me for food. She then says, "Mama, you did not pack me anything healthy today!" I start to think something is not right. I stop the car and check Sofia's back pack and find her lunch still perfectly packed in the paper bag with her name written on the front! So I am confused as to why she did not eat her lunch. I call the day-care, but no one is there from lunch time and they have no idea what happened. Sofia is starving and eats her entire lunch in about 15 minutes.

This evening I begin to unravel the events and I find myself still frustrated with the day-care, although my husband feels it is not their fault. Please feel free to share your opinions below!

So, the suspects and their contributions follow:

Myself: This morning when I went to pask Sofia's lunch box, it was nowhere to be found. Once I stopped looking, I packed a sack lunch, labeled it with her name, and placed it in her school backpack.

The Husband: Now he tells me that when he took Sofia to day-care, he noticed her lunch box sitting on the floor of the classroom so he attached it to her backpack and hung both on her cubby hook.

Sofia: I am told that the children are asked at lunchtime to go get their lunches and bring them to the table. The day-care feels that since Sofia brought back her regular lunch box even though only filled with ugly banana and old cookie, it was fair of them to assume that was her lunch that day.

The day-care teacher: Okay, not exactly first-hand facts, BUT...Sofia was sick for over a week, so that lunch box was sitting on the floor of the classroom for a full week since her last day at daycare was a week ago! They apparently supervise lunches, and did not think it strange that I would pack an old brownish banana and a oatmeal cookie for her lunch! She apparantly ate the banana and left the cookie, which when i saw it was a hard week old oatmeal cookie.

Okay. So please share your opinions. Am I unrealistic to expect that a day-care teacher would supervise a 3-year-old's lunch and even if she did not think to check the backpack for her real lunch, would supplement the supposed crappy lunch with something else and/or contact the parents to inquire/suggest a banana and cookie is not sufficient? They did not even give her a drink!!!

Thank you for your feedback.

Super Bowl!

Okay, I have to admit that the last half of the Super Bowl was actually exciting. Frankly, my opinion of the Super Bowl is that it is a great excuse to spend time with friends. Our friends did throw a great party! The girls ran around with all of their friends all day and now are sound asleep just minutes after their heads hit the pillows! (Definitely, a huge bonus!) The food was great and the company was better. I had a chance to talk about many things, parenting concerns, exercise, our upcoming trip to Mammoth, Sofia's day-care, and also just some fun frivolous topics. I wish we had Super Bowl once a month!

TGIF but I am still Grumpy!

I really wanted to post about something positive but I don't think I have it in me at the moment. My husband just called to let me know his flight has been cancelled due to ice and he can not fly out of New York until tomorrow, meaning he won't be home until 11 p.m. tomorrow. Ugh, I was so looking forward to a little help after a long tiring week. But I refuse to whine in this blog today! So let's think of a few positive thoughts...

Well, I can say they finally fixed my lights this morning so I am no longer in the dark at work! (Although I must admit my office is very very very bright! Thank you flourescent lighting.)

Another positive thought is that it is almost the weekend and Superbowl weekend at that with a superbowl party to look forward to.

I have completed 4 full weeks of Pilates with no absences and this week did manage to walk about 6 miles. So I can say my exercise plan is progressing nicely.

Theonly other positive thing I can think of at the moment is that my headache appears to be responding to Motrin and soon will be only a memory.