Flatline.

It's about time I lowered the standards in this joint and pulled together a disjointed, entirely random post. Lower the curve and all... What? It's already a straight line around here? Huh, how about that?!

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Once again, I was on the road this weekend bringing derby goodness to a neighboring league. Busy, busy, busy and lots of fun as well. I have to say that I'm not really used to being away from my kiddos this much -- I'm glad that things will settle down shortly, cause it's hard on this Mommy's heart to wipe the tears away from her little guy's eyes the night before she leaves. The logical side of me is all, "He's pulling out the stops, now..." but the softy part of me pretty much was reduced to quivering goo. Which The Kid sensed like a shark within a mile of blood and only made him amp up his assault (sorry, I calls em like I sees em) to record levels of PatheticHeartwrenchingSadness. *sigh*

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I have been a faithful, workout machine for... ummm... err... two weeks, now. I know, right? This was not a good trend for me. Not the new working out trend -- the sitting on my butt trend that preceeded it. Gosh, that trend felt so GOOD at first. Telling myself it was "off-season" and I could eat cookies. (mmmmm....cookies.) But it kinda ended up kicking me in the teeth and making me hate myself for getting a lil bit plushy. Luckily, it's all good and changeable, so change I will.

I've got one of my girlfriends who is on mat. leave coming over in the mornings and we're working out together in my basement. Let me tell you, I am loving these Insanity workouts. Besides being a terrific workout plan that is whipping me back into shape, the trainer is totally jacked and says the most awesome things. Like, when at the end of the workout everyone is dying and crumpling to the floor in a pukey heap (including him) he says, THIS SH*# IS BANANAS, YO. Best. Workout. Line. Ever.

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Last night I finally had the chance to observe the Kid at his Hapkido class and I loved every bit of it. He really has taken to this class and the instructor working with him was totally awesome with him. I've never seen the Kid work so hard and be so FOCUSED at something before. He really, really wants this and I have to say, he is pretty awesome at it, thus far. The dojo Master even noticed and commented a week or so ago that he has never seen a kid that age be so persistent and committed to perfecting the work as the Kid has been. You know, I've said and believed all along that every one of those intense qualities the Kid has also has a positive spin. It was really, really, REALLY nice to actually see it, though. And I'm so happy for my boy to have finally found that thing that he ROCKS at!! Gosh, I'm tearing up just typing this and thinking of him doing his thing. :)

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In related dojo news... I believe I further confirmed the fact that I have the impulse control of a small child when, arriving at the dojo early and finding it entirely deserted, I was rendered brainless upon seeing the array of Muay Thai kick bags hanging from the ceiling. I promptly set up for a killer roundkick. Which promptly almost broke my foot in half. It didn't help that mid-kick I remembered that Muay Thai bags are much more solid than a heavy bag and are supposed to be hit with your SHIN and not the topside of your foot/ankle as you do when doing blocker drills or heavy bag work. Nice work, Poseur. Luckily my foot is OK, if just a bit on the sore side today. I pulled back enough in that split second to not break anything... just not soon enough to not look really, really stupid when I had to take a couple hopping steps and blink back tears after cracking my foot against that bag. Good thing the gym was empty.

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And yes... I still have the martial arts bug. I wanted to train with the Kid's class. And, when his class ended and the next group of Muay Thai fighters came in... yeesh... I wanted a piece of that action SOOOOOO BAD!!! Nevermind the fact that I like my face in one piece. Nevermind that cauliflower ears don't look so hot on girls. I wanted to be working drills and kicking and hitting stuff again. And you KNOW that I most definitely wanted in on that BOXING SHORT action.




Sweet!

Interweb, I love you.

I love the random bits of Stuff that get passed around the internet. This morning I found somethingin my inbox that just may Change My Life.



See? How awesome is that? Am I the only one who has labored and cursed over peeling boiled eggs whose shells just wants to STICK to the eggs like they were superglued on?

Unreal. I think I'm gonna go make some egg salad. Right now. Just cause I want to try this out. :)

Need You Now.

EDIT: Decided to forego the competition. Funny how putting something in writing kinda reveals your true feelings about it. Not my thing right now, I guess.

But I'll keep Lady Antebellum's song up cause it's pretty and moving and I love the duet harmonies.

This Road Trip Brought to You by the Letter "W" and Orange TicTacs

Yesterday I set out on the open road to bring a Wheel Demo Event to neighboring derby league. Well... "neighbors" who are about 500kms east of me. It really was a whirlwind of a trip. I packed up and loaded the truck down that morning and was on the road by noon: the event went from 9pm to midnight or thereabouts, I caught about 5 hours of sleep and then was back on the road to come home.

But I have to say it. I did have fun.

At first I was a little grumpy about not being able to take my very own Rocket. I love that car. But Rocket did not love all the STUFF I had to take along.


It was a lot of stuff. And Rocket just wasn't meant to haul the payload. I was really feeling kinda crabby about driving Mr F's SUV. Not that it's not nice, but it's weird to park and back up and just didn't feel at all the same as my peppy and familiar as my lil Civic. But, I soon found myself warming up to the old truck... Mostly because of this bit of Saving Grace.



Oh yes... the dance party was kicked up in thurr. I got all low and gangsta with X 20 and then hit the way back tracks on XM 8 and a little bit of 9. And the Hair Band station was a quick stop in between a little bit of Country on XM 16 and the "good" music on XM 32. I am officially a HUGE fan of satellite radio. NO COMMERCIALS!!! How sweet is that? Let me tell you, it's about as sweet as the Sweetness That Saved Radio. Cause commercials make me want to stab myself in the eye with a dull pencil. True dat.

(See, we's got all gangsta for realz, brah...)

Here are some highlights from my trip; in pictures.


This was actually the first picture of my trip. The point where I got so bored that I thought of the camera in my purse and had the trippy little thought that I should document the boredom. Good idea, Flutterby. Let's drive dangerously while smiling for the camera and see if that picks up the excitement level any. I am genius.


And this my dear readers... is why I was bored.


These babies are MINE, now!! Part of my trip involved a quest for decently priced socket/rachets/whatever they're called. Cause I needed 10 1/2" sockets. I scored a sweet deal at Peavey Mart on double sets of 3/8" and 1/4" drive rachets. Problem was... good luck finding 1/2" sockets for a 1/4" drive rachet. Two cities later I found the adapters I needed at a Princess Auto (and I won't even tell you how freakin cool I felt when I figured out what I needed). I know, I amaze even myself.


I may or may not have eaten 100 orange TicTacs on this trip. Yummm... me loves some orange TicTacs


I also may or may not have sorta trashed Mr F's truck. I promise I will clean it up. (Special thanks to Mr. Tim Horton for helping me not eat icky fast food this trip. FYI, I am not counting the Boston Cream donut as fast food cause all the icing stuck to the bag and everyone knows all the bad stuff is in the icing. The inside is pure, healthful goodness... just saying)


More boredom. Sortof. I actually enjoyed the drive. It's nice, kinda curvy highway which makes one feel a bit like a racecar driver. (*SIGH* Rocket, come back to me...) Just could have done with a bit less of it by this point... 10 hours total on the road in less than 24 hours.


Officially have OD'd on the urban vibe. Throwing up hoods and gang signs at passing cars. I think I may have scared an elderly lady. Almost home.

OK... I will admit that things got dicey on the way home. A girl can only take so much open road on her own. I was on the verge of talking to myself.

The Wheel Demo was a huge success, though. Good sales and absolutely awesome PR. I really enjoyed my time with the girls and look forward to doing another one soon. Maybe just a little bit closer to home this time.

You win some, you lose some.

I am a compulsive hair-changer -- lately it seems that a hairstyle doesn't last on me for more than a month or two. But I may have done it this time. **EEK** Flutterby goes Thug Lite and WAY TOO SHORT for her chubby chipmunk cheeks.

Oh well, it's hair, right? I can always change it next time.

Now off to work to see what the grade 3's have to say about Lunch Lady Red. ha!

Hey, Soul Sister

Needed a pick-me-up today. Train's newest single is a little song that's put a smile on my face. Love the catchy melody and rollicking beat. And watching the lead groove to the lyrics is worth a second smile.

And with lyrics like "So gangster, I'm so thug.", how can you not love it? And have it stuck in your head all day...

Heavy Hearts

Sad news today of humanity's condition befalling a man I respect and admire. My heart aches for those touched by this news.

We all fall sometimes. I hope that this man -- a counselor who greatly helped me reach towards healing and reconciliation in my own marriage -- will walk once again. And I hope that somehow, the testimony of God's mercy and grace will win out over the destruction.

A wise man once said that there is good in the worst of us and evil in even the best hearts.

It can be scary to peek inside the dark places, but I think it's needed.

Deep Thoughts on a Friday Afternoon

This school year has gone by so very, very quickly. It seems that the older these kids get, the more time speeds by. I remember my Mom talking like this when I was younger. Those years, coincidentally, felt like they were CRAWLING along to my way of remembering. It seemed to take forever to get around to my next birthday, the next summer's holidays, etc. when I was young.

By and large, things have gone very smoothly. The Princess is truly a star at school. She LOVES her teacher and classmates and puts so much quality effort into her work. It really gives me joy to see her working hard at her projects and homework... cause I'm not so sure that I was like that at her age. I hope that school continues to be a place where she thrives and feels challenged, where she grows in confidence in her abilities and talents. So far, so good and I count my blessings that this is the case.

The Kid, however, is struggling. This has been a cause for concern for a while now. I think I perhaps even posted about things last year. He does very much enjoy his teacher. She is a lovely lady with a gentle disposition and he really wants to please her and do well. He has lots of friends (although I will say that the playground dynamics for little boys are sooooo foreign to me -- they're worse than girls, for sure!!!) and seems to be well-liked by the kids around him.

The Kid has always struggled with aspects of his temperament which nicely place him in the "spirited" category of children. He is persistent, distractible (and yes... those two qualities CAN be found in one child. I am a witness to it every day), emotionally intense, sensitive and physically active.

I have spent the greatest part of these past seven years growing in appreciation for my boy; as well as learning ways to help him master the difficulties of his temperament. It is a constant work in progress and some days we do better than others. He needs routine and sleep and rigid boundaries... all things which are easy enough to plan, but sometimes hard to follow through on.

He's experienced minor difficulty in the classroom since kindergarten, really; trying to get a hold of his predisposition to be distracted, to control his impulses to chat or blurt out whatever intensely interesting point crosses his mind at any given moment. But, as the years have gone on, the expectations of classroom behavior have risen. And his growing awareness of his internal struggles have increased, as well.

He's not a "bad kid" -- at least, I don't think he is, nor have I heard anything to make me question. He generally does not make poor choices nor does he treat other students with disregard or meanness. He is not mischievous or looking to create trouble for the teacher. However, he is one of those kids who is sitting at the front, in easy reach of the teachers eyes and ears -- positioned, with forethought, away from his friends who may bring extra temptation his way. And whenever I touch base with his teacher, she always makes mention (in a kind way) of his difficulty listening and how easily distracted he is... and I can tell that he is the student who challenges her the most in that manner.

Wow, I'm being long-winded.

Bottom line, is I am beginning to question whether or not it would be good to get the Kid some extra help, some diagnostic tools or whatever. It pains me to see him become aware that he is not the student he wants to be, that he has a sense of his inadequacies in the eyes of his teachers.

I fully realize that, outside of perhaps some special -- or "stronger" -- temperament issues, that mostly his biggest problem is just being a BOY in a school system that is designed to work against everything that makes boys the wonderful little boogers they are.

I guess that my question is simply where to draw the line. When does the benefit of striving to grow and change in an area of Challenge become diminished by the back-bowing crush of being disappointed in your best efforts?

I want my son to learn that personal change and growth is important. That people will have expectations of his behavior his whole life through and that he should be and *is* capable of working towards all kinds of improvements in life. I want him to become a productive, contributing member of society who does not make excuses for his lot in life or his behavior in it. But I don't want these lessons to come at the cost of his sense of person, his value or worth in my eyes or in the eyes of others.

We've decided to enroll the Kid in a Hapkido school in our city. I had a hunch it would be right up his alley. A Korean martial art which focuses on ground work and wrestling, joint locks and disarms... it plays right into my little guys' love for tearing around wrestling on the floor. And he has loved it so far. He is by far the youngest student in the class and he made us very proud with his respectful behavior and attention to his sensei. I hope that this can become something that will FEED his sense of self, instead of take away from it as school sometimes can. And, I hope that he doesn't follow in his Daddy's footsteps and become a street brawler... I trust that he will have better guidance in his life and discipline to handle his strength and temper than Mr. F. did.

And if not, his "reformed" Dad will have to teach him a lesson, I guess. ;)

I've started working with him a bit more intensively at home; trying to help him key into those moments of distraction before they hit his chatter-button.

And I've considered taking him for ADD testing, too... but I'm really hesitant to go down that road. I'm sure there's enough reasons to slap some acronym on him. But I have no intention of drugging my boy at this point; and so I'm not sure what good any kind of diagnosis will do.

Any suggestions, my internet friends? I'm all ears.