Dragonmuffins on the loose

Another fun thing from inspire me thursday

2007-01-29T16:18:00.000-08:00

http://www.zefrank.com/scribbler/

the site is so fun... if you haven't gone to check it out, you should, and go again and again and again, cause it always changes. this is on their site and is one example of something fun to play with there :)

next project.

2007-01-29T15:44:00.000-08:00

http://www.blurb.com/

i want to play here.

found this on inspire me thursday. thanks:)

Knee

2007-01-24T08:25:00.000-08:00

So the saga of my knee continues. It has never been addressed here, but it is continuing anyway.

I went to a sports medicine doctor yesterday, and he feels it is very likely that I tore my acl long ago (skiing about 7 or 8 years ago) and we will have an MRI to confirm

I have never had such an encouraging doctor though. I began at one point to reassure him that I had no fantasies of ever competing in judo again... I just wanted to be functional. He addressed each of my concerns... Age, weight, joints.....And I felt a bit like he really thought the only thing holding me back if I got my knee fixed was the training I have missed in the last 12-14 years. He didn't push too much... But now I have that goofy fantasy again

maybe not national levels... But a little competition maybe. We'll see. We'll see what the mri shows, and there is still the meniscus tear on the left knee... Lots of little things... But maybe I can be more active than I thought. Scary

I had just about began to be ok with just working towards coaching and eventually refereeing. I think those are still my main goals, but I loved competing. See how distracting that thought is?

it would be atleast a 9 month recovery after surgery before I could seriously think about it any way. And I like the idea of kata competitions too. Maybe better. But he redefined to me what the 9-12 month recovery means. It isn't till I am up and about and functional on a daily basis. It means till I am ready to start really athleticly using my knee again. Which maybe I never did after the left one was fixed.

we'll see what happens.

Judo tournament

2007-01-24T08:16:00.000-08:00

Miss m had another club tournament last night. I never pay enough attention to know when one is coming. She won her pool this time. I was very proud of her. She fought a girl she is good friends with and won the first 2 of 3, and s won the last one, and I was very proud of both girls. All the throws were nicely done, and all the eukemi was well executed. I am trying not to make too big a deal of it, but it was lovely to see how proud she was of herself. Go girls!!!

snow pictures

2007-01-24T08:05:00.000-08:00

banner pulling little j ( he loved it)

Truck... Stuck. Stuck truck.

so, here are the pictures to illustrate the story below :)

the fam

2007-01-23T15:17:00.000-08:00

here we are at christmas, for those who haven't seen us for a while.

snow

2007-01-12T15:25:00.000-08:00

we ( loverboy, miss m, banner and I) went up with my friend Debara and her son(miss m's friend) J. debara and the kids rode in the backseat, and banner was in the bed of the truck with the snow gear.
we went up to a place called emmigrant gap ( which is one exit past nyak, which comes into this tale later) emmegrant gap is a nice place to camp in the summer, and we have stopped to play in the snow there before. As we were getting closes and closses, we became concerned that rather than feet of snow which we expected to see at this elevation, we were seeing inches. several inches, but still inches not feet.
so when we got off at emmigrant gap, we saw that there was a large painted plywood sign at the spot we usually play, saying: PRIVATE PROPERTY<>NO SNOW PLAY
even though that sign was probably always there, it was usually buryied in snow, so we had never seen it before. we decided to respect the newly visible sign and play elsewhere
that was fine. the other attraction at emmigrant gap is the camp ground. we decided to drive down the road towards the campground till we found a likely place to play. and drive we did, slowly, passing other families parked at the side of the road playing. as we drove, down into the ravine, the snow gradually got deeper, and the road narrower and less traveled, untill loverboy made the determination that if he didn't turn around now, he might not be able to. he decided to use a convienint drive way off the main road as a place to make a Y turn. as we turned off the road, we slid down the little drive way incline. our wheels spun and we could not make it back up the grade in the snow. we were stuck 6 feet off the road on an unused driveway.
at this point, we unloaded the kids, dog and Debara so they could all play. they all had a wonderful time while josh and i tried to get the truck back up. but no amount of reverses, rocking, branches under the wheels for traction, pushing or pulling on our account did more than slide the truck further down the driveway.
so. we asked debara if it would be ok to leave her with the dog and kids and truck and food and stuff while we walked back to see if one of the families we had passes could help us. It was maybe a mile hike back up, and the weather was lovely. the dog was not pleased at being left behind, and my husband was rather grumpy about the whole situation, but it was pleasant none the less. we found a family with 2 toddeler girls, mom, dad, teanage son and little boy. mom offered to drive me back to nyak with the girls, while dad and sons walked back to debara kids and truck with lb.
At nyak there is a shell, a small service station, a convienience store, a burger king, lots of parking, and a large open space with picknick benches and hills (popular for sledding in the winter) When the mom dropped me off, i went in the convienience store to ask about a tow truck. a fellow with his daughter over heard me and offered to help instead. I said no, i would hire a truck, it would be fine, at which the clerk at the counter informed me that no one got away from the tow guy for less than $300. and a second offer from the good samaritan with the truck was readily taken up.
after his family had finished their lunch, he drove me back to my truck, and he and his buddy, with the help of josh and the first guy got our truck up and out in less than 5 minutes. we spent the rest of the day at nyak, sledding, building snowmen, drinking coco, and making the dog tow the kids on the sled ( which he seemed to think was very exciting)
it only took about 30 minutes of not being stuck in the snow for loverboy to decide that he was having a good time too.and it was a really wonderful day. we actually stayed till dark ( and had burger king for dinner)which we have never done before, always being to tired of the snow by about 3 to stay anylonger.

Broken family

2006-12-21T08:59:00.000-08:00

I am sad. My nativity scene was not well enough secured, and it fell forward, and both Joseph and Mary's heads broke. Since it is just particle board it really isn't repairable. My husband suggested I start over with nicer wood, but I just am not in the mood for it right now. They will last the rest of this year ( you can't see the breaks from the street) unless there is a rain that will swell the wood in the cracks... And then I will probably toss them. I am rather disappointed. I liked them. Oh well.

Merry Christmas

2006-12-19T11:16:00.000-08:00

This is the nativity set I made this year. I cut out the silhouettes last year, painted and lacquered them this year, and came home one day to see that my husband had assemblers them and set them up with lights in front of the house. Thank you honey,
Merry Christmas
Dragon

Veteran's day Camping trip

2006-11-12T20:38:00.000-08:00

It was a camping trip full of surprizes

for example, my blog's refusal to upload pictures in the order they are provieded...

The wind was cold, but the day was beautiful
The dog ended up breaking both his retractable leash and his halti ( more irritating than surprizing)

This is the finnished grub box. I am very proud of it. Love boy did all of the hard work of sanding smooth the rough joints from my less than accurate carpentry. but, it heald everything, and worked rather well I think.
There were ripe beautiful blackberries all around our camp. Miss M was a regular little bear in a berry patch.

And, as predicted, it rained (rather hard, friday night) but Loverboy was well prepared, and our comfort was not compromised in the least.

Current projects

2006-11-06T14:15:00.000-08:00

1) i am buiding ( with the help of melissa and Ken and loverboy) a grub box ( kamping Kitchen)
this has multiple goals:

finish it for camping this weekend
it should be functional
I want to sand and seal it so it won't warp or absorb water
I kind of want to eventually decopague/paint it with images of camping. THe wood looks nice so i want some of that to show through. Decorative grub box?

2) i need to paint the lawn nativity set that i cut out last year so i can set it up this year.
now you know so you can bug me to see how these projects are going

What I am reading

2006-11-06T13:19:00.000-08:00

Strangers on the train in the morning ask me what i am reading. It is a little strange. But I really like the books i am reading ( in general). It is a good opening for conversation, 'cause i will almost always talk about it.

I have been on a historical fiction kick lately. It started with a random book from a used bookstore that caught my eye. Lots of good things start that way. The Sunne in Splendor http://www.sharonkaypenman.com/sunne.htm by Sharon Penman was excelent. I then serched out several others by her. . All excelent. These were all clearly well reserched Hiistorical Epic Sagas. I cried and fell in love with the charactors. They are long. She included notes about resources and things she changed for story purposes. Her more recent stuff had less apeal for me. It was a much shorter format and much more fiction (mystery) in a historical setting. Still interesting and a decent read, but it didn't have the same grip for me that her older works did.
So i went looking for more...I have been through several authors at this point (can't remember them all). Right now I am enjoying Margret George, but I must say, I havent caught myself sobbing over the fate of a charactor yet. Decent, hard to put down, but not the shout it to all friends and family and own several coppies so I can share them kind of book. (last one of those for me ( prior to Sunne) was Tad Williams Otherland series. I think we had 3 copies of the first bookin that series)

Loverboy's camping trip

2006-11-06T13:12:00.000-08:00

Loverboy and his brothers went camping. Here are pictures. Everything i am going to write is second hand information as Miss M and I had our own busy weekend at home. Hopefully we can camp next weekend with daddy.

So, aparently there was no one near the camp area ( as it is November and it was supposed to rain, and apparently this was a remote, primitive camp).

Hiking was the activity of the day(s).

As a result, the dog had the unprecidented luxury of a significant amount of time off the lead. Apparently, he can catch more than just moles from my dad's back yard. Loverboy said he returned to them periodically with smallish birds that he had caught and then proceded to eat, and at least one squirrl. ewwwww. no more doggy kisses.

Holoween

2006-11-06T13:11:00.000-08:00

Holoween was fun. I wanted to post some pictures. not much else to say. Can you guess what i was?

Here are Miss M and the adorable A at Arden Mall's Trick or Treat street. It was a chalange in a number of ways. Miss M suffered through the stress of having to talk to numerous strangers. And, she was thirsty. The crowds reminded me of Disneyland before fast passes with no ropes or mazes. The kids working retail that were passing out the candy did a great job of trying to interact with their trick or treating public ( that is a cute costume... look it's Jack Sparrow... and what are you?) but the public was just interested in grabbing as much candy as possible and shoving on tho the next stash. Adorable A did a great job, and had the best spirits of any of us. A's mom and dad took the girls to Chuck-e-cheese after. More people . More noise. More crowds. I couldn't handel it. Thank you to her... better her than me.

Ok. I admit it, I am a wimp.
I also dressed up at work. Latex from 7:30am-7:30 pm.

Getting back to the heart

2006-09-18T10:13:00.000-07:00

Getting back to the heart of worship,
it 's all about you.
It's all about you Jesus.

We sang this in church Sunday. It isn't one of my favorites... I didn't grow up with it, but rarely does a Sunday pass that some part of the service doesn't speak to me. This week it was this.

I am sorry for the thing I have made it,
but it is all about you.
It's all about you, Jesus

This Sunday was my first as a Jr. Youth group leader. In the past, I have been a Sunday school teacher for the kindergarten and 1st grade kids. This year I was asked to help lead the Jr. youth group. I am excited and somewhat nervous. Like I said, Sunday was my first official meeting with them.

It's all about you, Jesus

At the outset of the meeting, along with some get to know you, I asked what they liked about Sunday school. The responses fell into two categories. Think/ talk about Jesus/ scripture, and Crafts. I didn't have a Craft planned. The curriculum I planned to follow had several points about Genesis to read and discuss. That is what we did. My only concern came later as I reflected. It had started out fine, but somewhere in the middle, I had become too focused on getting through the curriculum, and the kids had become to focused on looking good/getting the right answer. I knew something had gone off track. It wasn't till later, reflecting back, that I saw what had happened.

I will work on being focused on the heart of worship. It is all about you Jesus.

Pictures form Melissa and Ken

2006-09-14T15:03:00.000-07:00

Poker for the most valuable prize of all... chocolate!

Homwork at a time like this?
Do you fondu? I do!

More Birthday Camping Pictures

2006-09-14T14:42:00.000-07:00

Girls and Boys

Ron and Whites+1

Pat, Linda and kids, with some scenic shots.

birthday camp

2006-09-05T20:45:00.000-07:00

we went camping for my 30th birthday. thank you to every one who braved the bad directins and long drive to join me. I had a great time
lol
dragon

2006-08-29T22:17:00.000-07:00

I finished. I like it. Josh hung it in the front window, but i don't think i have a picture of it up yet :) I ment to post this for the open chalange. still getting the hang of the blogging experience, and working about a week behind. just started the paint chanlange, but i am enjoying it... we'll see if i finish it in time to submit it at all... i doubt it, but oh well.

2006-08-21T22:17:00.000-07:00

getting ready in the morning. what do you think of the poncho?

2006-08-21T22:14:00.000-07:00

first day of kindergarten must have been exausting, but i heard good reports :)

2006-08-16T07:49:00.000-07:00

Last night was Miss M's first judo tournament. It was rather a surprise. It was a club tournament ( which I found out they do about once a month) and I was just showing up expecting the regular Tuesday night class. At first I was concerned that she isn't ready for a tournament yet, so I went and talked to Mac. He told me that she was welcome to do news (mat work) matches only, or just watch if she would rather. I gave her the choice. She was extremely nervous about the whole thing and said she would rather watch. I agreed we could do that.
After a class warm up, we went to sit at the side and watch the other kids compete. She liked it, but didn't like the idea of falling hard. Then a little boy (also 5) showed up. His mom had the same concerns, but M was now ready to try if she could play with him. I talked to Mac and he agreed it was a good match.
Her first time up, she was rather uncertain. He pinned her 3 times and she escaped all three times, but he won by decision. She was ready to cry, but she got lots of praise from me and the other sensis made her feel better. Matches 2 and 3 she did a good job of trying hard, but A was just a bit stronger and faster at the starts. She left with a good feeling about the whole thing though, so I am very proud of her. ( when am I not) I'll add a picture of her in her gi when I get home.

Dragonmuffins defined

2006-08-15T11:14:00.000-07:00

"look at those raggamuffins in the back seat"
R "what is a dragonmuffin?"
M " i think it is a pet dragon"
R "are you scared of dragons?"
M "no. they breath fire"
R shivers" maybe they burn muffins"
M "a dragonmuffin is a muffin a dragon burned"
R " no. we are dragonmuffins. we are in the back seat"
M "are there any muffins back here"
R "no"
M"Roar!"
R "ROAR!!"
"quiet back there"

Frustration on Saturday

2006-08-13T06:51:00.000-07:00

I wanted to rant about my frustrations yesterday with editing postings, getting new glasses because mine broke and whatever else, but as I wrote, it all seemed pretty petty and insignificant. Maybe this is why people journal.

Inspire me Thursday

2006-08-12T07:50:00.000-07:00

So I have decided, at least for the moment that this is really quite addicting. Here is the Black and White that I wanted to submit for inspire me Thursday. I have been looking at the site for a while now, and finally got the urge to start my own blog so I could submit stuff. That is the real impetus behind this new hobby. If you scroll down farther, you will see the photo I drew this from.