Learn something new…

I made spaghetti squash for lunch today with marinara sauce and some Parmesan and Romano cheese.  It was a recipe that I had found on-line and thought looked highly intriguing.

I have never prepared or witnessed spaghetti squash before.

It is by far one of the weirdest things I have ever seen and I recommend that everyone try it just because it’s super easy to prepare, does not have an overwhelming squash flavor and I just thought it was unbelievably fascinating.

So there.

S.

Remembering…

Two years ago today I was out skiing with my friends and my brother, and then that evening, at our home, my mother passed away while my family was surrounding her.

She was 59 years old and she had battled cancer for over 3 years.

I don’t want to talk about cancer here though… not today. Cancer is a greedy bitch. It doesn’t just affect the person it is invading… no, that is not enough for it… it also has to impact all of the surrounding loved ones, career, friends, family, hobbies, day to day life… you name it.

Cancer goes everywhere and impacts everything… it’s a dirty greedy bitch.

Today I want to remember my mother for who she was in her life before brain mets.

My mom loved life. She thought it was fun. She never stopped moving and she celebrated everything, no matter how mundane. She believed in setting the table with place mats and a centerpiece even for take out pizza. She was joyous.

She packed her life full to the brim from morning to night, calling those she loved every day to check in with her typical, “So what do you know?” greeting. I’m not sure if she knew how to start a car if she wasn’t dialing the phone at the same time.

She played cards and she liked to win, although she lost gracefully, she really would always prefer to kick some serious ass.

She filled her home with love and laughter and left the doors wide open so that friends were welcome to stop by freely, and they did.

My mother embodied compassion in a way so rarely seen in this self absorbed society. She loved and appreciated people.

She did not let anyone tell her ‘no’. She stood up for herself, believed in herself and had my dad trained to let her do what she wanted. She was a force to be reckoned with. She spoke with an underlying power, but also with grace and insight.

She was a best friend to many, and a good friend to many more. I envied her gift for building strong and lasting relationships.

She wanted to see it all and she was not afraid to be spontaneous in her life. Opportunities came up and she grabbed them… and usually convinced one other unsuspecting person to go with her along the way. She did not want to miss out on the adventure.

I read a quote about how in 60 years you will have few regrets about what you’ve done and many about what you did not…

my mother had very few regrets about what she did not do in her life, because she crammed her life full. She wore us all out at times.

She got that life was short and to be lived… and she lived it.

I wish that I had more means to have learned that lesson from her… the financial stress of wanting to do it all RIGHT NOW is something I have learned to live with. Oh mom, you have led me into a life of immediate gratification and a little bit of debt. …. thank you for that.

Thank you for all the mornings you took me to the ice rink at 5am. Thank you for cheering when I said I wanted to leave high school for college at 16. Thank you for lying for me when I wanted to be a camp counselor supporting disadvantaged youth when I was too young to apply.

Thank you for telling off that math teacher who accused me of cheating.. and thank you for believing me when I told you that I didn’t.

Thank you encouraging me to chase my dreams to Germany in college and thank you for raising me to have the inner self confidence to make major life choices, like buying my first home at age 22.

Thank you for all the times we snuck around dad’s back to do fun things he didn’t understand. Thank you for the schemes and the shenanigans. Thank you for loving me even when you didn’t always get me and supporting my interests even when they were not your own.

Thank you for loving me enough to send cards for no reason, and for taping articles about the harmful affects of smoking on my door.

Thank you for knowing I would love to see David Bowie in concert, even though you couldn’t identify any of his songs if you heard one.

Thank you for showing me what independence in a partnership could look like and how to have a mutually respectful marriage. Thank you for telling me at a a very young age that I don’t have to change my name or do what any man tells me to.

Thank you for exploring the world with me, including me and being my best friend.

Thank you for my strength. I learned that from watching you, and knowing that you and dad believed in me and supported me.

Thank you for giving me my relationship with dad. It is the only thing we gained from cancer.

On this day, as on every day, I miss you and am grateful for the time and relationship I had with you.

“The measure of life is not its duration, but its donation.”

Peter Marshall

And that is what I’m willing to say about that.

S.

Huge vent about women’s athletic apparel.

I’m pissed.  Seriously pissed.

Sadly, I’m pissed off about something that has been irking me for YEARS.

I want to know why it is that women’s athletic apparel is not nearly as high performance as men’s athletic apparel and why they only make it for small women.

I ski… a lot.  I love it.  I ski enough in enough conditions to warrent having some functionality in my gear.  Waterproof ratings, taped seams, wind resistant, powder skirts, arm pit zippers, you name it….

AND… I would like it to fit.

I’m tall and strong and little too big and I’d like to buy a women’s ski jacket that performs…

But they don’t even MAKE ski jackets to fit me that perform… and if I were small enough to fit into a jacket that peforms.. it would still not perform as well as a man’s jacket.

So only men get out on the slopes and shred?  No women will hit the back country or venture into powder?

I keep thinking that they will figure out that there is a pretty large market out there that is not being served and start increasing their product lines to include some plus sized products… but no.

I cannot buy a pair of ski pants that fit me and are designed for a woman, unless I buy a pair that are not designed for more than a day out sledding with the kids.

I ski in men’s ski pants.  I have since the first time I purchased pants.

I also ski a man’s jacket… that is too big in the shoulders and arms to make sure it’s big enough to go around my hips.

Put it on the list of pet peeves…and  for all you ski apparel makers out there….

GET A CLUE!!!!  I DON’T HAVE TO BE 5 FEET TALL AND 100 POUNDS TO REALLY RIP THE CRAP OUT OF THE SKI HILL!!!!!   START DESIGNING FOR REAL PEOPLE WHO ARE REALLY OUT THERE USING YOUR EQUIPMENT!!!

That is all.

S.

Sugar Cookie Candles….

are not a good gift for people who are dieting.

Smells great in my kitchen…

making me want to eat cookies every time I walk through there.

Great thought… not good for those of us trying to reduce the number of cookies in our lives.

Says me.

S.

So much to do…

yet I keep finding myself laying around and doing ab workouts today.

I am SO weird.

So I say it’s my birthday…

Something odd has happened over the past few months….

I actually became my age.

I swore I was going landmark birthdays only from 30 on out.  30, 35, 40… nothing meaningless in between.

But recently, when asked my age… I’ve fessed up.  Just said the awful truth, that I’m 33.  A few times I even just said I was 34, seeing as my birthday is so close.

This would be my last year to be 30, according to my life plan of aging only every 5 years… and yet somehow I’m considering the possibility of just being 34.

It’s not so bad I guess, this age which I have arrived at.  I keep forgetting that I have a birthday coming up, and people keep reminding me by asking what I’m doing for it.  It’s like they are hoping I will make plans.

I’m not sure that Monday the 12th is really such a hot night for partying.

Dad is hoping that we can do dinner this weekend to celebrate it with my brother and nephew.  I said that would be fine, but now that I’m thinking about it I would almost rather find a different way to mark the occasion.

Bowling maybe, or some other activity.  A night out with friends and family or just family.. or two separate nights… it’s really hard to say what is best when in many regards I would prefer the day just pass unacknowledged.

From a girl who used to rent party buses to celebrate herself, this is an odd turn of events.

I’m here.  In my mind that seems to be enough.

Maybe because of others who did not reach their next birthday.. maybe because of a mother who isn’t here to see me reach mine…

either way… to just be here seems to be enough, and to highlight the occasion,  sort of morbid.

I keep thinking about my fear of aging and how I wanted to hang onto that age of 30 for as long as possible.  I dreaded what it meant to be beyond 30 and living the life I had.

Is it possible that each year has more value to me than it did when I started turning 30 year after year?

I don’t want to negate this time for what it is to me.  Each year has held a wealth of experiences and with it growth… although that hasn’t always been so apparent.

Perhaps it’s time… to just be where I am.  In nearly every other way I live each day just as I am, so why not when admitting that I’m older and wiser than I used to be?

Something to think about for a few days more until it’s time to transition to the next age of my life.

Says me.

S.

Ice is fun… I mean dangerous…

Last week there was a day where it started to rain/sleet and everything in southern central Minnesota had a nice shiny slickery glaze all over it.

When I thought roads would be clear enough, I got the heck out of dodge and made tracks for less dangerous driving/walking/living.

Today I returned thinking the ice would be gone…

but no, dad’s driveway is still an ice rink.

I gingerly lifted my geriatric dog out of the back of my car to ensure he wouldn’t hurt himself jumping down (I do this even when it’s not icy.) and he promptly ran all over excited as heck at new smells.

Since I was in a hurry I shuffled slowly to the house calling the dog after me.  It was really like glass and with the sun on it, had taken on nearly impossible slickness.

I turned around just in time to see my dog pulling a cartoon slide behind me.  All four legs fighting in circles to gain traction until “THUD” the dog was down with one leg pointing in each direction.

There could have been those little “Whoop woop Whooop” sound effects, so long did he scramble before all feet went out from under him.

My response?

I laughed…

a lot… really loudly…

while bent over holding my knees for support…

stomach cramping, face contorted.

I am SUCH a bad dog owner.

Says me.