Graceland

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Letting Go of my Ego (aka Getting Older)

I've never minded birthdays or getting older. I feel like each year consists of me learning more about myself and how to be happy and I wouldn't go back for anything... almost. While the aging process is positive for my mental and emotional state, physically I'm left wondering who I am.

I think it started with my plantar faciitis. The pain knocked me out of commission for a couple of years and, when I came back, I seemed to have transformed from the body of my youth to middle age. Everything is harder and everything hurts. It's frustrating dealing with physical limitations that I've never had before.

I was very excited to go back to Bikram yoga, but found my body didn't want to do things that used to be easy or fun. It wasn't just being stiff, something had shifted and I physically was unable to do things. I've always been someone who liked to push myself. If I do something, I want to be good at it, and I'm usually willing to do what I need to be at the level I want. So after a few weeks of yoga, when things weren't getting easier, I figured I'd just push through the pain and get my body over whatever was holding it back. Huge mistake. I ended up injuring my back and being out of commission again for several months.

I'm back again, but with a new - and let's call it more mature - attitude about my body. I'm trying to listen to my "old" body and not push it beyond what it's telling me is it's limits. It's hard. I want to do everything in class, even the stuff that hurts. My inclination is to suck it up and push through the pain. I'm learning that is my ego. Yoga (or anything - I'm also having a reality check with biking) isn't about being the best or pushing my limits (at least not my old limits). It's about being fine with where I am and being aware of my limitations. Ugh. I don't even like the way that sounds. Maybe this is my mental/emotional lesson of my 40s that will make me much happier in my 50s. We will see if I can actually convince myself to believe and act that way.

Monday, August 12, 2013

Life is Good

This is a series of posts I did last week on Facebook/Instagram. One per day.

What I love about Monday: Riding my bike to work

What I love about Tuesday: Playing tennis with my girls. (However, tennis was canceled at the last minute last week so these aren't my girls.)

What I love about Wednesday: When I decided to do this, I was in the YW Presidency and spent every Wednesday at a youth activity. However, as of last Sunday, they changed my job. I had a picture from the previous week (ice blocking) that I used. The YW brought me flowers on Wednesday night, which was so sweet. I also used my unexpected free time to do a favorite bike ride (airport) with some work friends.

What I love about Thursday: Bikram Yoga with my sisters!

What I love about Friday: I get every other Friday off work. I usually sleep in until 8:00 or so, but really slept in this past Friday. I had a great day getting the house clean, school shopping with the kids, then having a date night with my hubby.

What I love about Saturday: I can't single out something that happens regularly on a Saturday. This Saturday consisted of attempted tennis (it was really windy so we gave up after 15 minutes). We went to the Alpine rodeo in the evening. Rick and the boys had never been. It was fun being with the family, but I'm fine never going to another rodeo.

What I love about Sunday: Going to church together, down time, the boys clean up dinner every Sunday and sometimes make us a treat!

Life is good.

These daily posts were fun. I'd love to see what other people have as their "love" of each day.

Summer's Winding Down

Here are few pictures from the second half of summer.

My adorable and talented niece, Krista, had her senior piano recital. It was amazing. She had a half hour of music prepared including two original compositions.

Ice blocking with the youth. Isaac had this down!

He was one of the only ones who could make it all the way down the hill without falling off the ice block.

I went to one of Isaac's horse riding lessons. He has really enjoyed these this summer. Horse riding lesson was "Grandma Day" this summer. Grandma paid for all the kids to learn to ride, then they'd have lunch at her house.

Monday, August 5, 2013

The Best Advice I've Ever Received

One of my favorite people in the world is my friend Leina. We met the last day of our freshman year at BYU and have been "bosom friends" ever since. There are several funny, yet poignant, Leina quotes, but my favorite was some advice that changed my life.

One evening she called me to see if I wanted to go out. I informed her that I needed to stay home because I was sure a certain man of my dreams was going to call and want to get together that evening. (This was before cell phones, so I had to be home to get his call.) Leina was very frustrated with me and said, "Quit living your life as if something great were going to happen!"

There were a few moments of stunned silence, then we both started to laugh. I'm not sure what I decided to do that night. I hope I went out with her and had a good time.

Fast forward a couple of years.

Leina was leaving on a mission and I went to the airport to see her off. We were reminiscing and laughing about her telling me to "Quit living your life as if something great were going to happen." As I was driving home from the airport, I was thinking about my life. I was stuck in that same mindset, not just for that evening, but for my life. I was going to school, a bit aimlessly, and waiting for something fabulous to drop in my lap and make my life exciting. I made a decision right then and there to take Leina's advice and start making my life happen instead of waiting for it to happen. I put in my mission papers a week later.

I think about that advice all of time. I use it to check myself to see if I am taking control and responsibility for what's happening in my life. It's helped me overcome fears of the unknown and encouraged me to jump into adventure and experience many things that life has to offer. I hope I've maintained the attitude of seeking adventure and going after the things I want in life instead of hoping they will somehow just happen. I can give credit to Leina for a lot of fun memories, both with her and without her, because I took her advice and stopped dreaming and started doing. Leina, you're awesome (TMA to be precise). I love and miss you!

As a side note, here are a couple of other Leina gems.

"When scriptures are rustling, satan is hustling."
"Why don't you pretend you have some morals."

Monday, July 29, 2013

Weekend Report: Zane's Birthday

Zane turned 17 on Friday. We had an all day celebration.

It started with presents and IHOP for breakfast. I decided we needed to see how many people we could get to sing to Zane on his birthday. Here's the IHOP crew singing.

We then headed up to Ogden to iFly. It's a sky diving simulator (giant vertical wind tunnel). Here's the staff singing to Zane.

We're all geared up. This is after we finished. If you look closely, you can see hair sticking up through our helmets. That was some strong wind! That's the wind tunnel to the right behind us. It was a lot of fun. Everyone had two turns. Isaac did exceptionally well and learned how to control his movements and height. We couldn't take cameras in with us, but we did get a video of the experience. You can come over and watch it sometime. :)

We kept the party going by heading to see a matinee of the new Wolverine movie. It was a fun movie (review in sidebar). Unfortunately, we got there just as the previews were starting. I had grand plans to get the theater to sing to Zane for his birthday.

After the movie, we bought pizza to take home. Here are the pizza workers singing to Zane.

We also stopped and bought an ice cream cake (love those things!). They also obliged and sang to Zane.

Then it was the family's turn to sing.

We were babysitting my two nephews for the night, so we all decided to take a trip to the park after dinner. Isaac - Ninja tennis player.

We found some neighborhood girls hanging at the park so I had them sing to Zane.

My nephews really really really wanted to sleep in the backyard, but they couldn't convince any of us to sleep out there with them. We compromised by pitching the tent in the living room. This worked out well as they could watch Shrek (Trick, as Mason calls it) through the open tent door.

I couldn't believe how hard it was to get them to smile for the picture. I have about 8 pics like this, none of which has two smiling kids!

It was such a fun day. The remainder of the weekend consisted of lots of yard work, errands, and a little downtime.

My Movie Reviews

Quiet Earth. B-. Another SciFi recommended by Netflix, although this one was actually interesting and enjoyable. A guy wakes up and everyone is gone. Made in New Zealand, it claims to be one of the top ten movies in the US in the year it came out (sometime in the 1970s). After it was over, we agreed that it was good, but the ending was a little confusing, so we watched the ending again with the directors comments. Lame. Apparently the whole movie was supposed to have an anti-nuclear message and the director takes credit for his movie making New Zealand nuclear free. So.... pretend you don't know that and enjoy the movie.
Sunshine. C-. Netflix. That's it. We are not trusting Netflix's rating of sci-fi movies again. The sun is dying so a crew is going with a nuclear missle to "re-start" it. I kept hoping aliens would show up or at least something would happen to draw me in. A lot of things almost happened, but when they did, it did not make much sense.
Warm Bodies. B. Red Box. I was surprised by this movie. I'm a fan of a good zombie flick, but when I heard about the plot, it seemed a bit too much. It turned out to be very entertaining. I'd rate it pretty high on the must see zombie film list and very high on the cheesy teenage romance film list.
Wolverine. B. I'm a fan of the X-Men movies. I'm also a fan of Hugh Jackman. It was hard to go wrong going in with those two biases. The fighting sequences were too long, but that was expected. If you've like the X-Men movies, you should like this one too.
The East. B. I forget how much I love the indie flicks at the Broadway. This also had an environmentalist-based plot, but was written well and I liked how it ended. A women goes under cover in an environmental terrorist group. It goes with the obvious plot of her having sympathies for members of the group and trying to balance that with her personal beliefs. Worth seeing.
World War Z. B. I was in the middle of the book and didn't want to see the movie until I finish, but I couldn't help it and saw it opening weekend. Not a big deal as they are very different. This is a different kind of zombie movie. While most are horror flicks, this was more of a suspense movie. They cut out the gratutious gore associated with most zombie movies and gave it more of a plot. Fun for zombie fans and non-zombie fans.
Silent Running. D. Netflix. I have no idea why this is rated so well on Netflix. Sci-fi movie made in the sixties with blatant environmental message. Forests have died on the earth so they are growing them in a space station orbiting Saturn. Earth decides to abandon the project and for some reason that means they have to blow up the forests. One man understands the impact of losing all our forests so he kills everyone. My description made it seem way better than it is. At one point, he programs his robot helpers to play cards and you watch them play cards for about 10 minutes. Skip this one!

My Book Reviews

The Rent Collector. B. I loved this book while I was reading it. Then the author's comments on the back disappointed me. It was fiction! I was so inspired by the "true" story of this woman living at the dump in Cambodia and learning to read. The whole way through I thought it was true. I was mad when it wasn't. Although toward the end, it started getitng a little unbelievable. It was based on real people which bothers me wondering how much is true and how much is fiction. I still recommend the book, but know what you're getting into.
Divergent. B+. Fun, quick read. YA fiction. Your basic strong female in post-apocolypic world fighting to make change. Even though the story's been told over and over, this one was very engaging. I can't wait to read the next in the series!
World War Z. B+. For staters, this is very different from the movie. It's 10 years after we won the zombie war. The book is a series of interviews with survivors. I was hesitant about the way it was written and that I wouldn't stay involved without a central character. However, the book created a very real world. So much so that when I was getting off the freeway one morning and saw some homeless people waking up under a bridge, for just second, I thought they were zombies. I also wanted to bring it up in conversation. Like when someone was talking about North Korea, I wanted to say, "Did you hear how they handled the Zombie Apocalypse?' It was a fun book. I've never read a zombie book before and I may never again, but I'm glad I read this one. It also was welcome to read a book that isn't a strong female character overcoming incredible odds. I'm seriously weary of that plot line.
Waiting to be Heard. B+. I've followed the Amanda Knox case for several years. I thought, since I knew most details of the case, this might be boring. I was surprised at how engaging and well written it was. She is a quirky girl and, while the complete lack of physical evidence makes me sure she is innocent, I can see why people think she is hiding something. The book was haunting to think the someone who doesn't understand a culture coupled with a corrupt prosecutor could put an innocent person in jail for years.
Girl Gone. C-. Maybe it was called Gone Girl. I don't remember. Book club book. I've never gotten into mysteries. This one took a while to get into, then I couldn't put it down, then it ended and I wished I never picked it up. Ridiculous ending.
The Kitchen House. B-. I have no idea how to rate this book. It was slow to start. Once things started to happen (murder), I found myself sucked in and not wanting to put it down; however, once I did put it down, I didn't look forward to picking it up again. I'm not sure why. Maybe because it's similar to a bunch of other books I've read. I'm just getting weary of the genre and need to mix it up a little. Overall, an interesting read. The story of a young white girl who is indentured when her family dies on the boat from Ireland to America. Her relationship with her new family (the slaves whom she is sent to live and work with) and how her life is different from them because of the color of her skin.
The Happiness Project. D. I'm reviewing the book, but I'm not going to finish it. I knew this wasn't my favorite genre, but it was the book club pick this month so I thought I'd give it a chance. I didn't see the point of reading someone's goals. I sometimes feel like these "self-help" books are an excuse for people to feel like they are doing something to be happier, when really they are an excuse to avoid working on yourself by living through someone else's experience. Instead of reading the book, how about spend that time working on your own "happiness project". As I read, I kept thinking it should have been a workbook for readers to complete their own project while reading hers. I'll be interested to hear how others in book club liked it.