Full day

It was Saturday, which meant more golf lessons.

It also meant we had tickets to see the Brewers game and sit in the Air Tran Landing Zone.

You get a window to the opposing team's bullpen, so there's a convenient sign telling you the proper way to heckle them.  I particularly enjoy the one with the father holding up his daughter to do the neener-neener.

It was a great spot to watch warmups and all the little stuff that goes out on the field during the game.

Despite a really sucky game, the Polish Sausage won.  He's my favorite, so it at least made up for something.

The day after

Last night was wine club at my house.

People wouldn't let me take their pictures, so I couldn't get any cool party shots. (I never understand peoples resistance to getting their photos taken. Photoshop can do amazing things, after all.)

So often, the morning after a party is such a drag.  But this morning, I woke up to a clean, quiet house.  I resisted the urge to mow the yard before everyone got home, and instead sat in my hammock chair, drank some strong coffee, ate breakfast and read the paper.  Then I had some quiet yoga time to myself.

It's a very brief respite, because the craziness begins again with golf practice to attend, a babysitter drop-off, and a Brewers game.  (Which I would be totally dreading since they're sucking wind, but we're in the Air Tran area, which means I'll be IN right field and should be able to get some really cool photos.)

But it was beautiful while it lasted.  Here's hoping you find some quiet beauty in your day, too!

Things are looking up

Lions Gorge Nature Preserve Waterfowl Production Area

Wine club is tonight. It's petite sirah at my house.  The pears are poached.  The old ratty hide-a-bed is taken outside (in the front yard, a la Sanford and Son, waiting for the village to take it away).  The outside lamps that burned out over winter have been replaced so people can identify my house. I had a nice breakfast with my husband today. C-man and Harry are thrilled to go hang out with Great Grandma tonight. And I'm heading to get my hair highlighted.  Overall, things are still firmly on the suck side of the spectrum.  But at least for today, they are definitely drinkinglooking up.

Thursday Thirteen: Reframing

View from Milwaukee's South Shore

This, admittedly, has not been one of my finer weeks.  It has rained non-stop, wreaking total havoc with my arthritic body, dulled my brain, made me clumsy, and done unmentionable things to my hair.  Work has all but exploded in my face on several fronts, and there's been absolutely nothing I can do to prevent or stop it. So to say I'm feeling a bit low might be an understatement.

So I'm going to try "reframing", like I have to tell all those suckers that come to my training classes to do.  So I'm focusing my Thursday Thirteen on 13 good things in my life this week:

1. I had a great dinner out with friends last night
2. I've been diligently keeping up with my 365 project (which forced me to stop on the way home and get the nighttime city shots last night!)  #42
3. The giant ammo box I'd ordered arrived from Cabela's yesterday so I can now hide my own geocache  #27
4. C-man was so happy when I told him he could play with the box that brought the ammo box
5. I've learned to tie three knots. Now if I ever have a horse, I'll know how to tie him up  #63
6. Wine club is petite sirah tomorrow at my house - woot! (You'd almost think I'd chosen it)
7. The recipes I've experimented with to serve at wine club have actually worked out
8. I'm getting my hair highlighted tomorrow
9. We have Brewers tickets for Saturday's game to sit in the Air Tran Airways Landing Zone
10. I'm going to be in Chicago next week, and should be able to check off at least one of my three Chicago-related tasks (#21 Take my picture in the Cloud Gate ball in Chicago's Millennium Park, #22 Go to the top of the Willis Tower, #23 Eat at Xoco)
11. While there, I'm also going to get to see a college roommate I haven't seen in ages
12. The regular good house cleaners came yesterday (last week it was someone else who did a crap job), and coming home to a clean house was divine
13. I've made an appointment for an ayurvedic consultation, which I've always wanted to try

Wordless Wednesday: Singing in the Rain

3 blissful innings

Last night was the first official baseball game. In the battle of the Tigers vs the Brewers, after 3 hard-fought innings, it ended in a tie. Good times.

A day's difference

Doctor's Park

Yesterday was a lovely Mothers Day.  We had breakfast, went to church, had a picnic in the park, and were stopped by a Fox Point cop because Harry was illegally on the beach.  (Seriously!)

Today, I woke up to a defiant kid who was screaming things at me like, "You're torturing me!"  Oh, what a difference a day can make.

On Being Mommy

5 years ago, I lost my real name, and gained another; Mommy.  Along the way, when the name "Mommy!" has been called, it meant everything from "Help me!" to "Love me!" to "Watch me!" to "Stop embarassing me" to "Please!" to "Where is my baseball glove?"  It has been at times, incredibly frustrating ("Mom, mom, mommy, mommy, mo-om!") to those many more times which are endearing.  But the most amazing thing of it all is that it has always meant me.

There are so many things I wish for and don't think I'll ever get.  But when it comes to being a mother to this amazing child, I've had wishes come true I didn't even know I made.

Happy Mothers Day!

Sports Superstar

Today was golf lesson #2.

But for me, it was one more striking moment where I realized how un-babyish my son really is getting.  He stands there and listens so intently to what the coaches have to say.  There's no whining or crying that it was cold or rainy like some of the others.  And when they tell him to move his feet like this, or to imagine a line drawn in front of his putter, you can see the wheels turning in his head to figure out how to get it just right.

But then it was time for a chocolate chip cookie that the Tiger Tots get immediately after the lesson. And his unbridled enthusiasm as his chubby hands reached onto the plate to pick the perfect one reminded me again that thankfully, he's still only 5.

Morning with Mom

It was Morning with Mom at school today.  We had ginormous muffins and some fruit.

He was very proud of making me a flower pen with a paper mache pot, which is going straight to my desk.

And he painted my portrait. Doesn't it look exactly like me?  My legs are totally skinny like that, after all.

Celebrating Spring

The colors and new life spring provides were too delicious not to try to capture. Enjoy your day!

Go girl, it's your birthday...

Today is my 34th birthday.  They say you're only as old as you feel.  And since I feel like I'm 54, I figure actually BEING 34 isn't such a bad thing.

In spite of all the aging stuff, I love my birthday.  I always have.  It's a new day.  A new year.  And it's always made complete with cake!  So today, I'm starting the 365 Project, documenting a photo a day for one entire year.  I figured I practically do it anyhow, that I might as well make it official.

Which leads me to the promised, and previously agonized about, "Jennifer's 100 Things" list.  They are in no order of importance, and have no timeline to complete, except that before death do I part thing.  They are just a list of things, both big and small, long- and short-term that I want to someday be able to say "I've done that".

1. Get one of my photos shown in a gallery
2. Manage to do the splits again
3. Whitewater raft down a river
4. Climb Kilimanjaro
5. Learn to speak German
6. Swim 100 meters in a pool without stopping
7. Taste the water of all 5 oceans (need the Arctic and Southern)
8. Step on all 7 continents (need Oceana, Asia and Antartica)
9. Visit all 50 US states (need Alaska, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Carolina, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut and Rhode Island)
10. Visit 30 different countries (17 done)
11. Be in a play
12. Serve food at a meal kitchen
13. Ride the train up Jungfrau
14. Successfully navigate a hedge labyrinth
15. Spend a night in a lighthouse
16. Own a cool car (read: not a momobile)
17. Write a book
18. Hold a rummage sale
19. Camp in the Grand Canyon
20. Watch the Kentucky Derby in person wearing a big hat
21. Take my picture in the Cloud Gate ball in Chicago's Millennium Park
22. Go to the top of the Willis Tower
23. Eat at Xoco
24. Visit the observation deck at the Shanghai World Finance Center
25. Take a cooking class with a famous chef
26. Deep sea fish
27. Hide a geocache of my own
28. Play in a softball league
29. Watch Casablanca and Breakfast at Tiffany's
30. Take a photography class
31. Spend Easter at the Vatican
32. Bike across the Golden Gate Bridge
33. Take C-man camping
34. Soak in hot springs
35. Build an exercise room in the basement
36. Take a boat trip through Bangkok’s floating market
37. Ride an elephant
38. Own a Vespa
39. Eat an apple from a tree I planted
40. Hike on the Appalachian Trail
41. Throw my arthritis into remission
42. Start and finish Project 365 (started 5/5/10)
43. Spend a birthday on the top of a mountain
44. See the Olympics
45. Take a mud bath
46. Renew my wedding vows with Beerman, barefoot on a beach
47. Learn to flamenco dance
48. Gather lavender from a Provence field
49. Sail the Greek Isles
50. Drink water from the Lourdes sanctuary
51. Host an outdoor party with white Christmas lights everywhere
52. Make a pie from berries I pick
53. Be a nude model for an art class
54. Take part as a guerilla gardener
55. Build a gallery wall in my house for any family artwork
56. Become a certified herbalist
57. Own a place in Switzerland
58. See a World Cup game in person
59. Taste 50 different sparkling wines/champagnes
60. Get First Stage theater season tickets for the family
61. Bathe in the Dead Sea
62. Bike the Tour de Farms
63. Learn to tie all those intricate Boy Scout knots
64. Tiptoe through the Dutch tulips in May
65. Take an Indian cooking class
66. Earn a promotion to Director
67. Learn how to tile a floor
68. Cruise the Nile
69. Find Great Grandpa Salzmann’s boyhood home in Moutier, Switzerland
70. Take a meditation class
71. Visit an Ashram
72. Spend a weekend on a houseboat
73. Send in a postcard to PostSecret
74. Eat roasted corn with mayo and chile powder from a street vendor in Mexico
75. Own a house on a river
76. Learn to make luxemburgerli
77. Live in another country
78. Learn to sail a boat
79. Own a zero turn riding lawn mower
80. Go meatless for 30 days
81. Eat at Felidia
82. Haggle at a bazaar in Morocco
83. Stand in two continents at the same time
84. Visit the Haglia Sophia
85. Attend services at a Jewish temple
86. Kayak down a river DUH! I've already done this. I'm therefore replacing #86 to be Go 30 days without eating out
87. Ride in a hot air balloon
88. See a fjord
89. Learn to snowboard
90. Harvest saffron I’ve grown
91. Eat a paczki in Poland
92. Learn to play the guitar
93. Read 10 classic books I’ve never read
94. Enter something into the Wisconsin State Fair
95. Take a cake decorating class
96. Learn how to properly use knives
97. Lay on the virgin’s altar on Machu Picchu (and laugh and laugh and laugh)
98. Ride the Trans-Siberian across Asia
99. Photograph Loy Krathong
100. Drive a car over 100 mph

And because I can never seem to get this song out of my head lately...

Batter up!

Things have gotten serious in our baseball world.  He now requires baseball pants and cleats.  Even for practice.  Last night, he was so excited to get them on, he raced home from school and started to put on his cleats... before his pants.  He finally figured it out, though.

Which is good, because this is some serious stuff.

Then again, since he has the only mom taking pictures of practice, and doing it with a 200mm lens, it's probably pretty fitting.

30 more to go

I've been working at my list of 100 things to accomplish in my life.  And when I say I've been working at it, I'm not kidding.  100 things is a lot.  I put down a few, and then sit there and just stare at my list, willing a few more to suddenly appear on it.  And it's getting a little streessful, because I'm stuck at 70 and I've set my birthday as the deadline for putting it out there to the world. And have I mentioend I'm totally stuck.at.70?

So I've decided if I can't come up with more than 70 things, then so be it.  What's the big deal with 100 anyhow?  Maybe my list will be a work in progress.

That's because somewhere in this process (this morning), I realized that this is a really great experience, and one that shouldn't be stressful at all.  Instead, it should be a celebration.  A celebration of all the stuff I've already done. Because when I pore through the lists of others, I can't help but smile, thinking, "check", "done that", "old hat". I've been so incredibly blessed to have had a variety of so many really cool, diverse experiences in my short time on this earth.  So yes, I still want to learn how to tie a clove hitch (and will still learn).  But for the next 2 days, I'm going to throw things on the list as I think of them.  And if I don't reach 100, I guess that's okay too.

"Lazy" Sunday

After all the work around the house yesterday, today we spent our beautiful Sunday in Lion's Gorge Nature Preserve.

Year of the Tiger

Apparently it's the year of the Tiger, not just in the Chinese zodiac.  His baseball team is the Tigers, and today he started his Tiger Tots golf lessons.

He learned how to drive.

And where the greens and fairways are.

And how to putt.

Apparently he did pretty well, because afterward he declared himself a "sports superstar".

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It's such a beautiful day, that after golf, the whole family took a great beach walk.

Everything is in bloom again.

May Day couldn't have turned out more beautiful than it did today.

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PS Happy birthday, Jeanine!