So, after playing mediator for an hour or so last Saturday, my father calls me on Sunday and is like, “no, this isn’t going to work, and this is why, even though it is blatantly obviously that I am lying to stall the process.” Basically, he claimed he can’t put up the money to get my mother out of the house until we sell the property they are currently on, which ISN’T TRUE! I’m pretty sure our ACCOUNTANT, a friend of the family, who talked this over with my father, and then spoke to me, would know that the money existed. Grr. Lots and lots of grr. So now I’m not sure what I am going to do. I was so mad on Sunday, I seriously wanted a drink. Which is not in my personality, I usually only drink during holidays or with friends…basically a social drinker. So instead, I called my good friend and asked if I could come visit…her children, my “niece” and “nephew”, make everything better. So I went over their house Sunday night, played with the munchkins, talked to my friend, and felt a little less like someone tipped my world over. I had rough week as a result, because I didn’t have any of my stuff prepped for the week. Uggh. I kinda felt like I just waded through last week and did emergency triage as things came up. As a result, neither my nutrition nor my exercise was particularly up to snuff. Hopefully this week will be better. Some time this week I hope to call or email the accountant and see what our next steps could be. Yuk.
Category Archives: Life
I need a degree in negotiation
OMG. Holy negotiating.
So, we are trying to get my parents to move off the property they are living on. There are two houses and 4 acres….and my parents are elderly. It is further complicated by…well a billion things, which I’m not really ready to share in a public forum at this time.
In any case, I am visiting the family this weekend (I live an hour and a half away from my parents and brother), and this morning my brother also came over to hang out for a while (he lives about 15 minutes from my parents) when my father walked in the house. I capitalized on all 4 of us being in the house at the same time to start the conversation.
Oh boy. Needless to say, I officially think I deserve an award for my negotiating skills. Just saying.
Woah, it’s been a year since I posted!
Hi! Is there anyone out there?
I have to be honest, I had completely forgotten about my blog, until last week someone commented on one of my posts and I received an email notification. Oh yea, that blog I used to write…so I approved the comment and then I promptly forgot again. Then this morning, as I lay in bed, enjoying sleeping in (I am a teacher in NJ and we have off this Thursday and Friday for a teacher’s convention) I came across a blog for a writer that I really like and wanted to follow.
Since the end of Google Reader I haven’t really been reading a whole lot of blogs…but then I remembered that Word Press had a way to add blogs you followed, even non-Word Press blogs. So…..I dug through the dusty remains of my memory to find my username and password and sign myself in. *sneeze* There is a lot of dust in there!
As I scrolled through the sites I have subscribed to (but haven’t read in a year or more), I remembered why I started blogging in the first place: To find more female BJJ people. Because I was concerned about doing BJJ, a typically male sport, and I was a girl. Was there something wrong with me? And, I was greatly relieved to find this giant community of female BJJ bloggers out there that let me know I was not alone.
In the past year, I’ve gone through a bunch of life changes. (I know, this is out of left field, but if you are still with me, I promise it connects. Eventually.) I was accepted to a science teacher fellowship program for “teacher leaders.” I made a huge decision to stop teaching the marching band I have taught as my side job for the past 10 years so I can have more time for my niece, nephew, and training. (Time is more precious then money. Lesson Learned). I received my advanced brown belt in my karate classes, and I am hoping to be able to test for my black belt April 2015. There has been an ongoing fight in my family to get my parents to move into a smaller, more manageable property (they currently live on 4 acres of land, and are 84 and 78, respectively).
There are a lot of things occuring that I would benefit from reflecting on and sharing with others to help gain perspective. And maybe there is something I am going through that might help someone else know they are not alone. (See, I told you to hang in there!)
So, I am making a resolution to get back into blogging. I really enjoyed it when I was posting on a regular basis, and I think that now is a good time for me to get back into the swing of things. So I am putting “write blog post” in my Any.do calender, and see what happens. Yay!
See You Soon!
Welcome Back!
I’m not sure if I am welcoming readers or myself back, but here we are, either way.
The past 6 months or so have been insane in my personal life, and as a result anything (and everything else) ground to a complete halt. This mainly was due to my finishing my masters degree (in biology, of all things). My life was consumed with writing a paper and giving a presentation, taking my last grad class, and taking (and passing) my exit exam. Oh, yea, and I had work, too. And that insanity finished just in time for the holiday madness. So, here I am, finally feeling somewhat recovered, and trying to remember what it is like to have extra time.
It finally occurred to me a few days ago that I like to read..I hadn’t read a non-science related paper/article/book in I don’t know when…so now I am devouring books on my Kindle like the written word is going out of style.
I am getting back into the swing of things training wise..since August, I have only been at karate once a week, and BJJ not at all. The 6 weeks prior to the holiday I started a fitness program being held at our gym, called MAX fitness. If you are in the NJ area, you can check it out at http://www.10weekfitness.com. It has both a nutrition and exercise component, and I need both! I enjoyed it, so I am continuing it into the new year. And by enjoy, I mean, I am willing to get up at 4:30 am to go to a 5 am class 5 days a week. One of the best things I like about it is that the exercise program is the format: MWF cardio; Tues arm strengthening; Thurs leg strengthening. I need the strengthening desperately, I have little T-rex arms!
I have been saying for over a year I wanted to do extra workouts beyond my martial arts training, but I just am not motivated to do so on my own. Exercise/training is definitely a social activity for me, and now that I have learned this, I am more successful then ever in the past. I hope I will be able to stick with the nutrition program, that is the hardest part for me. I like food. 😀
Anyway, I hope now that I have time again, that I will be able to devote some more time for blogging, I have missed both writing and reading and commenting on blogs. Well, once I remembered that I used to blog, cause I forgot….LOLS 😀
Rediscovery of the importance of having a goal
About a year and a half ago, I started on a journey to loose weight. I made a goal with my karate instructor that my next belt would be one size smaller. It worked. I lost 10 pounds, got a new belt, it is a size smaller and the world was great. Since then, I have not been successful in loosing any additional weight. I know that part of the reason is because I have gotten stronger, and so when there is an easier option, my lazy self does the easier option. In a way, it was a lot easier when EVERYTHING was hard.
So, I decided to make my next tourney a goal. It’s the first tourney I’m going to do as a blue belt, so I kind of feel a little more pressure to perform well. During karate class, we usually end with a 5-10 minute workout of varying types…usually some combo of situps, pushups, squats, burpees, etc. So I imagined that I was on the mat during competition, and every time I felt like pausing, I thought “if I were competing right now, if I stopped I would get choked out. I would keep pushing.”. And that prevented me from “letting” myself take a break. Did I have to slow down? Yes. Did I stop? No! Did I push myself harder then I have been? Yes!
Note to self for the future- HAVE A GOAL!
Cool quote….
I thought this quote quite bjj appropriate…
Sometimes I feel like I am living in a movie
As I sit here and write this, I am laying on the couch and my 1 and a 1/2 yr old niece is using me as a couch for her nap.
If someone had told me 10 yrs ago, when I first met Maddy’s mother, that we were going to become the best of friends, and one day her daughter was going to be the center of my universe I would have laughed in their face.
Even if that mysterious someone told me 2 yrs ago that when Maddy was born, she was going to become the sun in my life, I still would have laughed.
See, I don’t like little kids. I was the youngest in my family, and my brother never had kids, so there were never any little munchkins running around in my life. Babies were just goo factories, as far as I was concerned.
And then Madelyn was born. I’m still convinced that when I went to see her in the hospital, she laid a spell on me. Cause, well, I still think babies are goo factories. Except for Maddy. Maddy is NOT a goo factory. She is the single most coolest thing that has ever happened to me.
I feel so lucky that Maddy’s parents trust me enough to let me spend time with her. Cause, truely, I am learning as I go, not knowing a thing about little kids.
And sometimes, I feel like I am in a movie-because I can’t believe that my life has been so blessed with such an amazing gift.
I hope everyone out there had a great holiday and an excellent new year.
See ya on the other side!
I didn’t fall off the planet…
I haven’t posted in a long, long, time. Due to a number of reasons- mainly busy with various things, and low interest in posting. I had been thinking about starting again, and then WordPress came out with a new app for Android that actually appears usable, so hopefully I can get back into the habit of posting. In any case, hope everyone has a great holiday
An (impromptu) New Years Prayer
Dear God,
I can’t sleep tonight. For whatever reason. But mostly this: I worry a lot about my parents. They are getting older and I worry about loosing them. This year, two of my friends have recently lost a parent–Please keep giving Dani and Kim strength and perserverence–and last year’s scary trip to the hospital is still very near in my memory.
I don’t know if I’m ever going to be a mother. But I have become an unofficial aunt to the beautiful glorious and wonderful Madelyn Leigh, and I worry about her all the time. Please keep her and her family safe, I don’t know how I would survive without them.
I am so lucky and blessed. I have family and friends who love me–and whom I love right back, a job, a warm house, food to eat. There are so many people out there who are missing one or more of those important neccessities in life.
In this coming year, and all the years to come, please give me the strength to continue to grow as a person and to get over the hurdles that will come my way. Help me to learn from my mistakes and guide me to make better decisions. Help me to protect the people I care about and keep them safe.
Most of all, keep safe all of my family and friends–strong and healthy–for this new year and all of the years that have yet to arrive.
Thank you so much for everything.
Love,
Regina
Karate Girl 