Yoga adjustments

I started going to yoga a couple winters ago with my friend.  She knew of a local hot yoga class.  It was a very cold winter and she said why not try it; I would at least be warm for an hour a week.  LOL  I did and I liked it.  The class was what was called Yoga Fit.

Anyone who knows me in real life knows that I am kind of  very competitive.  I love being pushed hard.  I love trying to beat a book time or my personal best when I hike.  I like to sweat.  So this yoga class was a good fit.  There was a lot of sweat. A lot of pushing.  A lot of core work.  And though my balance was awful my flexibility was awesome so I did well overall.  People were friendly and I kept going, long after my friend moved on to something different.

Life happens.  My yoga teacher's relationship ended. She decided to sell her house (where she had her studio) and bought a small condo. While she is actively looking for a new studio space, there have not been hot yoga classes this summer. 

Summer is also the time I usually take zumba classes at the dance school. But that teacher is on maternity leave so that was also not happening.  I do work out with an on line program but I am a social person.  I really look forward to these times for chatting and connecting with others. So I started looking around for classes.  None of the zumba classes fit the times I had available.  I still have to get kids to things even in the summer and my wife still works in the evenings, so there are specific date and time windows I can do something.  So I sadly crossed off zumba but found a yoga class literally down the street.  At a day and time that I could absolutely do.  Off I went.

Initially I was underwhelmed.  No one was friendly.  Seriously, NO ONE said hi when I walked in. They all kept talking and I had to wait 15 minutes before I could ask where to pay, introduce myself etc.  Not the greatest start.  And this was not a yoga fit class.  This was, what I sarcastically called "woo woo yoga" when I got home and told my wife about it that night.  It felt like everything was about breathing. 

Um, I know how to breathe. I've been doing it for 60 years.  I wanted to twist and bend and work my core til it trembled.  Instead we moved gently, stopped to breath.  Moved gently while we focussed on breathing.  Put our hand on our centers while we breathed. . . you get the picture I hope.  There was a song you were invited to sing at the beginning of class and the end of it. Except no one teaches it to you. 

But because there was no other class I could go to that fit my schedule, and because I am stubborn, I kept going.  I figured there is always something to get out of an experience and I was determined that this was going to happen. 

And it did.  Gradually over the course of the summer I have come to enjoy this class.  I still don't know the opening song (though I did learn the closing one) I have managed through my very persistant overly friendly nature, to get people to talk to me.  (I have no idea why that is so important to me but it is)

I have learned that being more gentle and focussing on breathing is not a bad thing.  While I don't have that burn I crave at the end of class, I usually do feel a lightness and a feeling I can not quite describe.  It has been worth it.  There is something to learn from every experience even when it is not the experience we thought we wanted.  My summer yoga sessions end next week because after that our fall schedule will make it impossible for me to come. But I am glad that I had this opportunity and I am glad I kept myself open to finding the worth within it.

Garden glories

The most intensely purple hydrangea!

Early in the spring our side yards are so sere and bare.  The land looks depleted and I despair of it looking nice.  Sure I know there are a billion hosta that will come up. But it is my wife who loves the hosta,   Me?  Not so much. I love color. I crave it like some people crave chocolate when they have PMS!  LOL  And the reality is that we have precious little time to really garden.  Weeding is at best hit or miss.  And a lot more miss than hit.  Yet somehow, this happens!  A riot of blooms. Color for weeks!  Stunning phlox, hydrangeas and sunflowers.  The echinecea plants had a spectacular year too.  Ferns made a verdant soft counterpoint to the color. Spirea bloomed with abandon.  I have a couple of rose plants and they did well.  My trumpet vine decided it was not dead after all and bloomed its heart out!

I am storing up all this colorful goodness. I know that we are on the ever darkening side of the wheel right now.  So I share these pictures and memories so that I will be able to look back in the depths of December and remember summer.

A riotous display of phlox

Sunflowers are one of my faves!

KC decorates!

KC has been working hard on the decor for his room.  It has honestly been a couple years now that he was mulling over color palettes and styles. Creating pinterest boards and wish lists on A*mazon.  He informed me that his room would have a feel of Broadway with his personality shining through.  he was right.   He chose a deep gray, nearly black, for the bottom half of the walls. This is actually old panelling.  The top 1/2 of the walls he chose an off white with a touch of creamy yellow. Actually maybe only a hint of yellow.  It is not a combination I would have chosen because I like really intense colors, but it is really stunning.  He has a two windows and an open doorway which have burgundy black out curtains. 

So the wall repairs have been done. The ceiling repairs done. The paint applied.  And KC has begun to purchase the items that will help make the space most truly his.  He chose some floating shelves and this engendered a great deal of conversation.  Our upper walls are all lathe and plaster so floating shelves don't have tons of support despite using mollys or toggle bolts.  However he was clear that nothing heavy would be on the shelves so we put them up.  I did not know exactly what he wanted to display.  KC is my guy who has always saved momentos from all manner of things.  Here is one shelf;
I asked him about the shelves.  He told me a story about them.  One is a tiny Wiggles car that was on his birthday cake for his wiggles birthday party.  I think he might have been 4 that year.  He has one of his Robeez baby shoes, his favorite bath toy from when he was tiny (a frog that squirted water) and his grandfather's compass.  In KC's words, it shows his progression from infancy to guiding him into his future.  Sheesh.  I didn't think about thinkgs like that for my room when I was 15 I assure you!

I don't have a picture yet of his second floating shelf but he devoted that one to his Coming of Age experience and church and his Youth Group experiences.  It too looks amazing.

Theater is a big part of his life.  He loves musical theater and while he has not starred in any yet, i expect at some point he may explore this. He has many friends in theater and he found this cool and inexpensive grid to hang playbills and favorite pictures:


Then he decided that he wanted pictures of his roles in the dance recitals.  He had a character role last year and will have one for the next 3 years so he found inexpensive frames at IKEA and created this:
                                            If you can't read the  wooden sign it says "I hope you dance" and he bought it on a mission trip last year.  The top left frame is filled all ready; it has his picture of his role as Don Lino in the school's recital.

There is more to come--he has ordered a rug in burgundy with gold accents.  He has also gotten a bookshelf that I'll write about some other time when I regale you all with our maiden voyage to the land of IKEA! For now I am just smiling at the fact that my son seems to know himself so well and has such a vision of what needs to be in his space to give him joy.

Jacob's Pillow

Anyone who reads my blog knows my kids dance.  KC is especially passionate about dance.  He wants to dance on Broadway, and have his own dance studio.  On July 4th instead of having our traditional BBQ we instead travelled to the western part of our state to a unique venue for dance.  Both kids were able to take a class from Kyle Marshall Choreography.  This was meaningful in a multitude of ways.

It is important for KC especially to get the experience of different teaching styles as he has been at the same school since he was 5.  The class was led by a black man which is also important.  I like my kids to see who they are reflected in the things they care about.  Most of the troupe were black, and although our local school is diverse, it is not as profoundly diverse as that.

The class was open to anyone 12 and older.  My two were definately the only ones under 18 and maybe under 20, but they held their own.  Elisabeth got a little swamped with the speed with which choreography was taught out but KC was definately in his element. 

And of course, I forgot to write about the experience because I woke with one of the worst migraines I have had in a long time and struggled through the day in sun glasses and eating next to nothing so as not to embarrass myself in public.  We stayed to watch the troupe perform after the class was over but bailed before the question and answer period because we had a longish drive back and by this time it was harder to hide how utterly miserable I was feeling.

The next day I "friended" the instructor on FB and send a private message just thanking him for the experience my kids had.  They literally talked about it all the way home and KC talked about it for days.  I expected nothing in response.  I just think that when cool things happen and your life is touched in a positive way it is nice to let folks know that happened. 

This morning when I opened FB there was a private message from the instructor, saying he remembered the kids and that they did well and he was glad they enjoyed it so much.  I showed it to them when I got home from work as during the summer they are still in bed when I go to work.  Both of them were excited all over again.  KC wants to do a summer intensive at the pillow, not next year but probably the year after.  It would mean living there for a month but would offer him a chance to see 15 performances in a variety of styles, take a vast amount of classes, perform there and peruse the dance archives which he desperately wants to see.

Sometimes I am still so shocked by his drive and the fact that he feels so keenly that this is what he was meant to do.  I didn't feel that way at 15.  Heck I didn't feel that way EVER until I became a parent.  That felt like the big thing I was supposed to do.  But career wise, I am still working toward my managership goal, but not with the passion that exudes from every pore of his being.  I admire the heck out of that!

 Picture is us setting out for the trek west!  Lipstick shades and ball cap to hide the fact that I look like the walking dead! LOL  The Pillow does not allow picture taking during performances or classes so I got none of the kids while they were rocking the outdoor stage. 

Summer Frenzy

Well not a frenzy I guess. But definately not a lazy summer with camping get aways interspersed throughout.  Instead, this has been a summer devoted to house renovations.  We started with Chet's room.  If you have never done over the room for a man who likes everything to stay the same and believes that they should keep the receipt for every purchase they made since 2007 you have not lived!  (insert laughter and an eye roll here!)

Chet's room has not been done over since he moved into this room at 17.  He is 33.  The wall paper was curling, the trim paint was grungy and the room was chock full of stuff he did not use any more (not to mention the aforementionedoh so important receipts that were literally filling every.single.drawer. of his six drawer dresser.

Like all things for Chet I know this would be hard for him.  Change is evil to him.  Even if it winds up something that he likes in the end, the process is agonizing to him.  So I tried to make this as painfree as possible by having him help me sort things for 15 minutes at a time.  Literally 15 minutes, during which time I would channel my inner Kon Mari and ask him "does this give you joy?" as I held up the receipts. Initially there was a lot of bluster about how important they were.  I would ask him to share with me what was important about them  (all using the same low key voice) and eventually he would say he thought he needed them.)  Usually at that point I could suggest that if he did not *know* he needed it, then it would likely be safe to recycle it.  The first drawer there was lots of yelling on his part.  The second drawer there was some yelling and some tears of frustration.  By drawer 3 he was beginning to embrace the declutter.  By drawer 6 he actually laughed about some of the things he had felt were so important to keep.

Of course if it was only the desk it would have been easy. But I also had to convince him that the pile of old underwear in the bottom of his closet did NOT need to be saved and mended for future use.  Trust me, there are street people whose undies had more fabric left to them than those did!  He has good clothes, he just genuinely believes he has to fix mend and staple together everything and keep using it.

I had him help me box his actual belongings and we stored them in my room.  We did some editing aas we went.  With some discussion he decided that the Harry Potter mylar baloon from his 13th birthday was no longer necessary to keep.  And there were other edits of a similar nature.  With the room emptied of all but a bed, and a dresser it was so much bigger feeling.  I think that might have actually been the sea change moment for him, though I would dearly love to say that it was all my gentle and consistant parenting through this process.

He LOVED how big his room felt.  Also as the walls had to be stripped of all the old paper, mudded primed, and the trim painted and a small ceiling repair done, it was sort of empty for a while.  I think I hit the autism lottery for that as it gave him time to really get used to it feeling more open and airy. 

The top of his walls are painted a dusky rose that he chose. Chet loves pink and this is a pretty shade.  The panelling on the bottom is painted a medium gray. He likes to make cards and I helped him organize all those supplies (previously hidden under all the receipts) into clear bins and they fit on a shelf in his closet.  We painted a cabinet to coordinate and put a cork board on one side so he can put receipts there for the short time and then because they are visible, I'll see them and can help him edit more regularly. 

He has a collection of colored mini carabiners that he wanted to make jewelry out of. That didn't work when he tried it but he wanted to keep the carabiners.  My talented wife figured out how to use them to hold up a curtain on one of his windows.  He got new curtains, we put new wood cladding on his two stairs in his room and convinced him he only needed one set of shelves.  We gave away the desk as it really would have just become a catch all of horrors again and I could not face that.  So using how much he loved the open feeling we got him to agree to getting rid of that and putting a small desk with only one drawer in his room to mount his TV on.  He also got a cute little leather chair to sit in and new mini lights (those ones on wires that hte kids love) to put around his room.

He helped put the art work back in his room but I guided him a bit so that things were not just shoved every which way.  There is more of a feeling of calmness with it like this and I have honestly seen him act more calmly overall since the re-do.

I can tell he loves his space.  I felt bad at times putting him through the stress of the renovation. And sometimes, truthfully I felt bad putting myself through it.  It can feel a little thankless when you are trying to do something nice and someone is acting like you are torturing them.  But at the end of the  

day, he survived, and he is proud of the new look and his space. 

Recital's Done!

Recital 2019 is in the books!  This pic is actually from the Thursday night dress rehearsal.  KC is wearing his character costume.  He was Don Lino in Shark Tale and this was the first year that he auditioned for an acting role.  Elisabeth is wearing my favorite of her costumes in this picture.  She wore this for a tap number and it looked amazing!

There are lots of better pictures of my kids out there on the internet because lots of friends with mad camera skills took them. But they also have lots of other people's kids in them and it feels wrong to put that on my personal blog.  So you are stuck with this one folks!

But it really isn't about the pretty costumes anyway.  It is about how proud I am of the way these two have grown as people and dancers this year.  KC was dancing with the high school kids this year.  Much bigger expectations of him dance wise and maturity wise and he delivered in spades.  Dance is truly his passion and we are all ready experiencing the sadness of the 3 week nights that he won't be dancing.

Elisabeth also has made huge leaps in her dancing abilities.  More than that, she has deepened her friendships within the group of girls she dances with.  They all met for ice cream after the first show and it was great to see her take off with them.  My kids are social by nature but Elisabeth has had some of the "mean girls" experiences this year in other aspects of her life.  It could have caused her to isolate herself and for a while it looked like she was trying to do that. But dance and the friendships forged by years at the barre prevailed.

Both had at least 5 numbers they danced in--I kind of lost count after awhile honestly as with the acting bits added it, one or the other of them was always changing and heading to the wings.  I am grateful too that friends from all walks of their lives came to see them.  They had 8 friends and family watching on Saturday and 11 on Sunday.  The support meant everything to them.  Now, the costumes are packed away and suppers are more leisurely and life is very boring  calm!

Review Day

Today was our annual review meeting at work.  We set goals a few months back and then our managers reviewed our progress and achievements over the past year and gave us our "report cards."  I scored extremely well; the comments will be of great help as I work toward securing  a full managerial position elsewhere in the coming year or two.  I received a great deal of recognition for the improvements I made at the site during the year that we were without a property manager.  It was slightly awkward as my senior portfolio manager wanted me to have a chance at the job.  And I of course very much wanted a chance at the job.  Our new manager is a very nice person and I have spent the past few weeks teaching her the duties that I did as interim for the past year.  It is a good thing that I have an odd sense of humor because it strikes me funny that I am "not qualified" to be the manager but I can teach the new manager.  LOL

But, in the review I was also promised that my company will pay for education for the certifications that are recognized in our industry for property managers. That is a great thing and an expensive investment on their part.  I doubt very much that I will ever be a property manager for my present employer, but I'll get the certification and be in a better position to move elsewhere.  I feel that I have abundantly shown my abilities and they appreciate them but do not see me as a manager at this site. So, it will be time to move on when the classes I need to take are done.  I also got a raise and a bonus which are also very nice.  But it isn't all about them money and while that will help with bills, I have my eyes set on a goal that does not involve staying in this position till I totter off to the old folks home. LOL

I have begun to research other management companies. There are so many tools out there to help get a read on the culture of companies and since I am not in a crisis situation I am taking time to be thoughtful about this and when I make a move, it will be one that will benefit my career and my family.