Happy Anniversary to my favorite guy.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Validating my daughter
The day I posted about friendships a friend of mine posted the article Make Little Girls' Voices Carry
on Facebook.
on Facebook.
I highly recommend reading it. In fact, I'll pause here so you can go do so.
Go on.
In case you don't have the time to read it, the short of the article is that we need to make sure we are validating our daughters - making sure that from a very early age they know we are listening to them and not dismissing their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
Go on.
In case you don't have the time to read it, the short of the article is that we need to make sure we are validating our daughters - making sure that from a very early age they know we are listening to them and not dismissing their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
The article struck something deep for me. Once I decided to have a child I knew I wanted a daughter. I'm sure I would have been happy with a boy or girl, but I wanted a daughter that I could make sure felt validated from day one and that grew up to be strong and independent and that felt unconditionally loved. And I wanted her to know that as strong and independent as she may be she always would have her family and friends to lean on when needed.
I didn't always feel that way growing up - you know, unconditionally loved, and so on. I was lucky that I had one stable person that did his best to validate my feelings and guide me through life (you rock, dad), but I had others who said and did stuff that made me feel less than valued.
I had a friend in my late teens that I admired for her confidence. Don't get me wrong - I didn't see myself as insecure, but I didn't know how to embrace life as fully as my friend did. In fact, I would say I was a little fearful of doing so after being knocked down so many times. She always stood as a model of what I wanted my future daughter to achieve - well before I was even convinced that I wanted a child.
I turned out rather well adjusted in spite of everything, but I never want my daughter to go through what I did. I was, and am, determined to make sure that Riley always feels like I've got her back. Even when she's wrong. It's not that I condone when she's in the wrong, but I support her as I guide her to appropriate behavior.
The article was a good reminder of one of the many things I want to accomplish as a parent. And it was good timing that I read it when I did as something happened yesterday morning that played right into the theme of the article. I was saying goodbye to Jesse and Riley at my bus stop, Riley shared that a couple of the kids at daycare were mean to her. Jesse said "no they aren't" and it made me cringe - not because I am a better parent who always says the right thing, but because I know I have my moments where I blow off what she says too. Stuff that's probably really important to her. I quickly jumped in and we talked about it a bit, but didn't have much time as I had to catch the bus.
Jesse and I talked about it later and both agreed that we want to foster this feeling of validation, that we need to be mindful of it, but we also recognized that we can't be perfect all the time. We're human, but we better be at our best when it matters the most. Jesse talked with Riley some more after he picked her up from daycare and apparently everyone was nice to each other and had a good day. But if she mentions it again I know we need to have a deeper talk about it.
And honestly, if I had a boy instead of a girl I would be preaching the same thing. There might be a different angle for boys, but in the end all children need to feel heard and respected. They need to be given options, and be taught how to treat others with respect. It seems like such a simple, common sense thing to want for our children, but far too often I see examples of the opposite. And sometimes that's me messing up, but I hope it's rare.
I hope in the end, Riley can look back at her childhood and say that we supported her and validated her feelings... and I hope that I can proudly send her out into the world one day as a confident young woman who eventually wants the same things for her own children.
I hope in the end, Riley can look back at her childhood and say that we supported her and validated her feelings... and I hope that I can proudly send her out into the world one day as a confident young woman who eventually wants the same things for her own children.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
How my friendships make my daughter a better person
I have so many other posts I've been meaning to write (Easter is coming, I swear), but my daughter said something yesterday morning that made me want to write about friendships and specifically, how my friendships are going to make my daughter a better person.
As we were getting ready to leave the house yesterday, Riley asked my husband "where's Tom and Sam"? Tom and Sam are a couple of my husband's friends that periodically get together for a game night at our house. It used to be weekly, but has been sporadic lately so I shouldn't have been surprised that Riley would wonder where they were. And yet, I was surprised. Surprised that she pulled them up out of the blue. Surprised that she knows who they are and wondered enough to want to know where they were.
A few months ago my husband went out with Tom. Riley kept asking where her dad was and when I said he was with Tom she then wanted to know where. "Are they at Tom's house?" She clearly wanted to know more details. What does daddy do with his friends? Where do they go if they aren't here? So much curiosity about her dad, but also about what dad does with his friends and where they would go if they aren't at our house. In essence, what do friends do together?
A few weeks ago I went away for a weekend with my friends. As I was explaining to Riley that I would be gone with my friends for a couple days she asked "what's their names"? She asked me this same question a couple other times when I talked again of being gone for the weekend and when I returned. You could tell that she really wanted to piece together an image of my friends and I regret that I did not pull out an actual picture to show her at that time.
Jesse usually gets to see his friends more than I do and Riley is probably aware of this. It's easier when the guys come to our house, but he still makes it a priority. I don't always feel that I do. My work hours keep me away longer than Jesse's so there is a fair amount of guilt when I do go out. I know it's important to get out and have friendships for my sanity, but when Riley asked about Tom and Sam yesterday morning I realized that it's important for so many more reasons.
My kid needs to know that I have meaningful relationships with other people. And it will help her to see me interact with people who are not family and yet are special to me. Every time she sees us interact with others she learns something about relationships and why they are important, and that close relationships are special.
She needs to know that mommy has friends too... not just daddy, but she needs to know that both of our friendships are important. She's incredibly impressionable now and copies so many of our actions (you should see how she talks to the cats) so teaching her these key skills (mostly by example) is important in how she treats others, but also herself.
So yes, my ability to spend time with my friends can make me a better mom because I get 'me' time, but it also teaches my daughter that friendships are important... it teaches her about how to treat people you care for... it teaches her self-worth, because if we treat others well we tend to treat ourselves well. I have great friends, and while we don't get to see each other as often as I like, we do treat each other respectfully. We are there for each other in times of need and laugh with each other in times of joy. If I can impart this seemingly easy lesson to my child so that she has valuable relationships with others I will feel like I did a little something right.
And just last night I saw a little glimpse of this when we were playing with her cars, Mater and Lightening McQueen. She referred to them as best friends and I was able to see how she had them interact with each other... and it made me proud to see one car help the other followed by some simple hanging out time because that's what people in friendships do.
As we were getting ready to leave the house yesterday, Riley asked my husband "where's Tom and Sam"? Tom and Sam are a couple of my husband's friends that periodically get together for a game night at our house. It used to be weekly, but has been sporadic lately so I shouldn't have been surprised that Riley would wonder where they were. And yet, I was surprised. Surprised that she pulled them up out of the blue. Surprised that she knows who they are and wondered enough to want to know where they were.
A few months ago my husband went out with Tom. Riley kept asking where her dad was and when I said he was with Tom she then wanted to know where. "Are they at Tom's house?" She clearly wanted to know more details. What does daddy do with his friends? Where do they go if they aren't here? So much curiosity about her dad, but also about what dad does with his friends and where they would go if they aren't at our house. In essence, what do friends do together?
A few weeks ago I went away for a weekend with my friends. As I was explaining to Riley that I would be gone with my friends for a couple days she asked "what's their names"? She asked me this same question a couple other times when I talked again of being gone for the weekend and when I returned. You could tell that she really wanted to piece together an image of my friends and I regret that I did not pull out an actual picture to show her at that time.
Jesse usually gets to see his friends more than I do and Riley is probably aware of this. It's easier when the guys come to our house, but he still makes it a priority. I don't always feel that I do. My work hours keep me away longer than Jesse's so there is a fair amount of guilt when I do go out. I know it's important to get out and have friendships for my sanity, but when Riley asked about Tom and Sam yesterday morning I realized that it's important for so many more reasons.
My kid needs to know that I have meaningful relationships with other people. And it will help her to see me interact with people who are not family and yet are special to me. Every time she sees us interact with others she learns something about relationships and why they are important, and that close relationships are special.
She needs to know that mommy has friends too... not just daddy, but she needs to know that both of our friendships are important. She's incredibly impressionable now and copies so many of our actions (you should see how she talks to the cats) so teaching her these key skills (mostly by example) is important in how she treats others, but also herself.
So yes, my ability to spend time with my friends can make me a better mom because I get 'me' time, but it also teaches my daughter that friendships are important... it teaches her about how to treat people you care for... it teaches her self-worth, because if we treat others well we tend to treat ourselves well. I have great friends, and while we don't get to see each other as often as I like, we do treat each other respectfully. We are there for each other in times of need and laugh with each other in times of joy. If I can impart this seemingly easy lesson to my child so that she has valuable relationships with others I will feel like I did a little something right.
And just last night I saw a little glimpse of this when we were playing with her cars, Mater and Lightening McQueen. She referred to them as best friends and I was able to see how she had them interact with each other... and it made me proud to see one car help the other followed by some simple hanging out time because that's what people in friendships do.
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Back up, back up, back up
My husband is pretty awesome.
And computer savvy.
In the seven plus years we've been together Jesse's built me four different computers. The first one was around six months into our relationship. The second was a couple years later. When he built the second one he commented on how the first one was quite crappy. When I pointed out that he was the one who built it, he replied with "I must not have love you yet when I built it". Ha. What a guy.
I had been having some issues with speed on my computer when I got the third upgrade, but I'm fairly certain that upgrade had more to do with his computer than mine. Many of my computer parts are those that come from his. He builds his computers to be optimal for playing video games, whereas I use mine for general computer stuff and storing pictures.
In the third upgrade, I also got a back up hard drive. Before then I tried to make it a regular habit to burn all documents and pictures to discs. I actually wasn't really that great about doing this on a regular basis, and probably got lucky that I didn't loose anything, but I did do it from time to time. And every time I got a new computer I sat down on the old one and sorted through all of my files... anything I wanted to save was burned onto a disc.
Last week, my husband announced that I needed a new computer. I haven't really had any issues with my computer so I was skeptical of his suggestion. However, he did point out that my power button was wonky and my mouse keeps disconnecting (at least a handful of times recently). He was right, but I wasn't looking forward to the manual saving of all my information and hoped to delay the rebuild if possible.
The next morning my decision was made for me when I attempted to start the computer. Attempted over and over. It just wasn't happening. My husband fixed the start button, and that might have been fine to keep using the computer, but this gave my husband the go ahead he was looking for to build me a new computer.
A couple days later I came home from work to discover that the husband had decided on all my new computer parts (and parts for a new computer he planned to hook up to the TV in the basement) and had them ready for pick up at a local computer store. He sat me down in front of the computer and I stared at the C, B, and E drives in front of me. Apparently, my main drive is split into two: C and E. B is the back up drive. Jesse walked me through the drill to save what I needed off the C drive. When he pointed out that the C and E were the same drive split I asked why there was soooo much more data on the C drive. He blew this off (lots of programs I probably don't need). We talked about having to reload Windows, but then said he might have a way around that. I commented that I would probably still save things to disc and he laughed. Apparently, that's old school and I should use my back up drive.
Since I had to work that day (it was a Saturday and out of the norm), I decided to go hang out with my kid while the husband went to pick up the new computer parts.
After Jesse came home from the store he went into our home office while I continued to hang out with the kid. I figured he was on his computer, but not long after I saw him walk out of the office towards the basement with my computer. Huh. I assumed he'd know that I didn't spend the last half hour clearing the C drive and that he figured out a way around me having to save all the files I needed to. Or maybe he was doing something else, right? I didn't know. But it turns out that he really was taking apart the old computer and putting the new parts in because a couple hours after our initial conversation my new computer was done.
After I put Riley to bed, I logged in and started reloading a couple programs and then I went to put my recent girls weekend pictures on Flickr (which I very recently started doing as an additional back up), but I could not find them. In fact all my pictures were gone from when Riley was 18 months on (she turned three in February).
Pit. In. Stomach.
I didn't know whether I wanted to cry or yell. No, I wanted to cry. Definitely cry. I told Jesse I couldn't find the pictures. "Please tell me you can retrieve these." He said "no" and then made some silly comment that they were JUST PICTURES and that I still have my memories.
OMG.
He started talking about something else, but I couldn't concentrate on this new conversation. I just wanted to cry and then yell. I know it sounds rather dramatic, but taking pictures is something I really like and put a lot of effort into... taking the picture, processing some of them, saving them in a large and resized format. I'm no photographer, but they mean something to me. They were mementos of my life (mostly my kid). Sure I could pull pictures from the blog, but it just wasn't the same Not all of my pictures are on here they aren't in a large format for printing).
I finally interrupted Jesse and asked again what we could do about the pictures. Turns out that the recovery places he contacted wanted $500 - 700. To be honest, I might have actually paid that, but he downloaded a program online for $25 and gave it a try.
And it worked.
There was a lot of manual clicking and sorting. It took days, and I actually want to go back as there are some that were saved in the resized format instead of the large and I think I can get the large ones yet. I had what I thought was an organized system in how I saved my pictures, but it created some confusion when pulling pictures from this program as both larger and resized had the same name... they were just saved in separate files. Back in the day I added 'print' or 'resize' after the name of the picture. Need to rethink this and determine how I should name things moving forward.
Jesse did a lot of the manual work in retrieving the pictures as I think he realized he jumped the gun when he should have let me take the time to save stuff from my computer in the first place. Apparently, he thought I was saving stuff on E when most of it was on C (which explains why it had so much stuff on it).
Months ago I tried saving everything (after reading about another blogger who lost all her pictures) on the back up drive to discover it was waaay too small. I mentioned it to Jesse then, but we both promptly forgot about following up on that. After this whole debacle Jesse pointed out that the back up drive was his old one, and fairly small, and probably ready to blow up... so potentially useless anyway. I wasn't sure why that wasn't included in this upgrade, but the next day he went out and bought me a new one that is over 5 times larger.
And just to be clear, this post isn't about ripping on my husband as we both could have been more careful. It more of a friendly reminder to all of you to go out and save all your pictures right now... all those ones you would hate to lose.
As far as how I organize pictures, I usually have a main folder (Riley) and then additional folders based on time or topic (3 - 3.5 years) where all the originals are housed. Within that folder I create two more folders (print and resize). How do others organize photos... especially if you have an obnoxious amount of them? What do you find works best for you? How do you back up your pictures and how do you remember to do it on a regular basis?
And computer savvy.
In the seven plus years we've been together Jesse's built me four different computers. The first one was around six months into our relationship. The second was a couple years later. When he built the second one he commented on how the first one was quite crappy. When I pointed out that he was the one who built it, he replied with "I must not have love you yet when I built it". Ha. What a guy.
I had been having some issues with speed on my computer when I got the third upgrade, but I'm fairly certain that upgrade had more to do with his computer than mine. Many of my computer parts are those that come from his. He builds his computers to be optimal for playing video games, whereas I use mine for general computer stuff and storing pictures.
In the third upgrade, I also got a back up hard drive. Before then I tried to make it a regular habit to burn all documents and pictures to discs. I actually wasn't really that great about doing this on a regular basis, and probably got lucky that I didn't loose anything, but I did do it from time to time. And every time I got a new computer I sat down on the old one and sorted through all of my files... anything I wanted to save was burned onto a disc.
Last week, my husband announced that I needed a new computer. I haven't really had any issues with my computer so I was skeptical of his suggestion. However, he did point out that my power button was wonky and my mouse keeps disconnecting (at least a handful of times recently). He was right, but I wasn't looking forward to the manual saving of all my information and hoped to delay the rebuild if possible.
The next morning my decision was made for me when I attempted to start the computer. Attempted over and over. It just wasn't happening. My husband fixed the start button, and that might have been fine to keep using the computer, but this gave my husband the go ahead he was looking for to build me a new computer.
A couple days later I came home from work to discover that the husband had decided on all my new computer parts (and parts for a new computer he planned to hook up to the TV in the basement) and had them ready for pick up at a local computer store. He sat me down in front of the computer and I stared at the C, B, and E drives in front of me. Apparently, my main drive is split into two: C and E. B is the back up drive. Jesse walked me through the drill to save what I needed off the C drive. When he pointed out that the C and E were the same drive split I asked why there was soooo much more data on the C drive. He blew this off (lots of programs I probably don't need). We talked about having to reload Windows, but then said he might have a way around that. I commented that I would probably still save things to disc and he laughed. Apparently, that's old school and I should use my back up drive.
Since I had to work that day (it was a Saturday and out of the norm), I decided to go hang out with my kid while the husband went to pick up the new computer parts.
After Jesse came home from the store he went into our home office while I continued to hang out with the kid. I figured he was on his computer, but not long after I saw him walk out of the office towards the basement with my computer. Huh. I assumed he'd know that I didn't spend the last half hour clearing the C drive and that he figured out a way around me having to save all the files I needed to. Or maybe he was doing something else, right? I didn't know. But it turns out that he really was taking apart the old computer and putting the new parts in because a couple hours after our initial conversation my new computer was done.
After I put Riley to bed, I logged in and started reloading a couple programs and then I went to put my recent girls weekend pictures on Flickr (which I very recently started doing as an additional back up), but I could not find them. In fact all my pictures were gone from when Riley was 18 months on (she turned three in February).
Pit. In. Stomach.
I didn't know whether I wanted to cry or yell. No, I wanted to cry. Definitely cry. I told Jesse I couldn't find the pictures. "Please tell me you can retrieve these." He said "no" and then made some silly comment that they were JUST PICTURES and that I still have my memories.
OMG.
He started talking about something else, but I couldn't concentrate on this new conversation. I just wanted to cry and then yell. I know it sounds rather dramatic, but taking pictures is something I really like and put a lot of effort into... taking the picture, processing some of them, saving them in a large and resized format. I'm no photographer, but they mean something to me. They were mementos of my life (mostly my kid). Sure I could pull pictures from the blog, but it just wasn't the same Not all of my pictures are on here they aren't in a large format for printing).
I finally interrupted Jesse and asked again what we could do about the pictures. Turns out that the recovery places he contacted wanted $500 - 700. To be honest, I might have actually paid that, but he downloaded a program online for $25 and gave it a try.
And it worked.
There was a lot of manual clicking and sorting. It took days, and I actually want to go back as there are some that were saved in the resized format instead of the large and I think I can get the large ones yet. I had what I thought was an organized system in how I saved my pictures, but it created some confusion when pulling pictures from this program as both larger and resized had the same name... they were just saved in separate files. Back in the day I added 'print' or 'resize' after the name of the picture. Need to rethink this and determine how I should name things moving forward.
Jesse did a lot of the manual work in retrieving the pictures as I think he realized he jumped the gun when he should have let me take the time to save stuff from my computer in the first place. Apparently, he thought I was saving stuff on E when most of it was on C (which explains why it had so much stuff on it).
Months ago I tried saving everything (after reading about another blogger who lost all her pictures) on the back up drive to discover it was waaay too small. I mentioned it to Jesse then, but we both promptly forgot about following up on that. After this whole debacle Jesse pointed out that the back up drive was his old one, and fairly small, and probably ready to blow up... so potentially useless anyway. I wasn't sure why that wasn't included in this upgrade, but the next day he went out and bought me a new one that is over 5 times larger.
And just to be clear, this post isn't about ripping on my husband as we both could have been more careful. It more of a friendly reminder to all of you to go out and save all your pictures right now... all those ones you would hate to lose.
As far as how I organize pictures, I usually have a main folder (Riley) and then additional folders based on time or topic (3 - 3.5 years) where all the originals are housed. Within that folder I create two more folders (print and resize). How do others organize photos... especially if you have an obnoxious amount of them? What do you find works best for you? How do you back up your pictures and how do you remember to do it on a regular basis?
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
I slept with Justin Bieber aka Yoga Retreat aka Girls Weekend
Last weekend was the second annual girls weekend with my high school friends, Joanna and Susannah. Last year we went to Bayfield in November and planned to get together in January this year, but we couldn't seem to get our dates coordinated until now. Since we had such a hard time finding a date it was probably good that we decided to stay at Susannah's house in Duluth because if we had to decide on renting a place we might not have gotten together until June.
Joanna lives about 5 minutes from me so we drove up to Duluth together on Friday. Joanna is notorious for getting lost, but this year she had her Garmin so she was brave enough to drive. No getting lost!
We arrived in Duluth around 8:00 pm and headed off to dinner with Susannah and her friend, Lori, We dined at At Sara's Table Chester Creek Cafe, a farm to table restaurant with a cozy atmosphere and walls covered with book shelves. As usual we talked so much that we stayed an hour past closing time (and probably would have stayed longer if we weren't gently told they were closed). In our defense, the waitress made it sound like only the kitchen was closing at 9 pm. At any rate, the food was fabulous as was the desert and the company. We had a great conversation and realized that we all have a lot of interesting things happening in our lives right now.
I'm fairly sure that we all woke earlier than we hoped too the next morning. I know I had big dreams of sleeping in, but it didn't really happen. We spent the morning eating and talking and deciding what to do. We had plans to participate in outdoors activities (one out of three ideas accomplished) and practice yoga (Joanna is a yoga instructor who has been learning about yoga therapy, Thai massage, and Ayurveda).
Once we ate we decided to squeeze in a 45 minute session of yoga nidra before we headed out for a hike.I almost made it through the 45 minutes, but must have fallen asleep for a short period of time. Why have I never done this before??? I've done a little of guided relaxation and a breathing exercise along the same line, but I now want to do this every day. All day long. So relaxing!
Once we were rejuvenated by our yoga nidra experience we suited up and walked out the door towards Lester Park for some spring hiking... in a couple feet of snow. What's up with the weather this year? Luckily, it was a nice day in the upper 30's. We kept remarking about how beautiful it was and then would remember that it's spring and should probably be nicer, but I loved being out enjoying the day regardless.
While Susannah mapped out our hiking path Joanna remarked that she wasn't very good at taking self portraits which led to a whole lotta self portrait taking...
From Lester Park we headed across the road to lake Superior and down to Kitchi Gami before heading back through Lester Park to Susannah's house.
After our hike we did a couple shorter session of yoga nidra. We were like yoga nidra junkies - just one more time, please. We were less successful at staying awake this time after a tiring hike, but it was still quite worth it. We then went grocery shopping as Joanna was going to make us dinner. Pasta with shrimp, lemon, tomatoes, basil, parsley, and garlic and shallots. Because my tummy hates me I couldn't do the garlic and shallots so Joanna was nice enough to make two different batches. How awesome is she?
Susannah is in school and had to finish up a paper so Joanna and I put together dinner while she typed away in the next room.
We tried to not be distracting to Susannah so naturally Joanna and I started taking pictures of Susannah's pets and each other.
Joanna lives about 5 minutes from me so we drove up to Duluth together on Friday. Joanna is notorious for getting lost, but this year she had her Garmin so she was brave enough to drive. No getting lost!
We arrived in Duluth around 8:00 pm and headed off to dinner with Susannah and her friend, Lori, We dined at At Sara's Table Chester Creek Cafe, a farm to table restaurant with a cozy atmosphere and walls covered with book shelves. As usual we talked so much that we stayed an hour past closing time (and probably would have stayed longer if we weren't gently told they were closed). In our defense, the waitress made it sound like only the kitchen was closing at 9 pm. At any rate, the food was fabulous as was the desert and the company. We had a great conversation and realized that we all have a lot of interesting things happening in our lives right now.
We went back to Susannah's and stay up past 1:00 am - something my body is so not used to, but it was worth it for the conversation and the laughs. These ladies make me laugh like no one else.
I headed off to my suite for the weekend - a room normally occupied by Susannah's 9 year old daughter. I was surrounded by Justin Bieber, Selena and some Harry guy who has pretty awesome hair. And Joanna, got to sleep in the sports suite (Susannah's 11 year old son's room).
I headed off to my suite for the weekend - a room normally occupied by Susannah's 9 year old daughter. I was surrounded by Justin Bieber, Selena and some Harry guy who has pretty awesome hair. And Joanna, got to sleep in the sports suite (Susannah's 11 year old son's room).
I'm fairly sure that we all woke earlier than we hoped too the next morning. I know I had big dreams of sleeping in, but it didn't really happen. We spent the morning eating and talking and deciding what to do. We had plans to participate in outdoors activities (one out of three ideas accomplished) and practice yoga (Joanna is a yoga instructor who has been learning about yoga therapy, Thai massage, and Ayurveda).
Once we ate we decided to squeeze in a 45 minute session of yoga nidra before we headed out for a hike.I almost made it through the 45 minutes, but must have fallen asleep for a short period of time. Why have I never done this before??? I've done a little of guided relaxation and a breathing exercise along the same line, but I now want to do this every day. All day long. So relaxing!
Once we were rejuvenated by our yoga nidra experience we suited up and walked out the door towards Lester Park for some spring hiking... in a couple feet of snow. What's up with the weather this year? Luckily, it was a nice day in the upper 30's. We kept remarking about how beautiful it was and then would remember that it's spring and should probably be nicer, but I loved being out enjoying the day regardless.
We came across this hollow tree and decided we all needed to have a picture in it. It probably would have been smart of me to take off my camera pack before getting in, but I still maneuvered in and out and the tree didn't fall over or anything. So all is good.
While Susannah mapped out our hiking path Joanna remarked that she wasn't very good at taking self portraits which led to a whole lotta self portrait taking...
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| Photo credit Joanna |
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| Photo credit Joanna |
From Lester Park we headed across the road to lake Superior and down to Kitchi Gami before heading back through Lester Park to Susannah's house.
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| Photo credit Joanna |
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| Photo credit Joanna |
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| Photo credit Joanna |
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| Photo credit Joanna |
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| Photo credit Joanna |
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| Did I mention it's spring? |
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| Photo credit Joanna |
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| Photo credit Joanna |
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| Photo credit Joanna |
After our hike we did a couple shorter session of yoga nidra. We were like yoga nidra junkies - just one more time, please. We were less successful at staying awake this time after a tiring hike, but it was still quite worth it. We then went grocery shopping as Joanna was going to make us dinner. Pasta with shrimp, lemon, tomatoes, basil, parsley, and garlic and shallots. Because my tummy hates me I couldn't do the garlic and shallots so Joanna was nice enough to make two different batches. How awesome is she?
Susannah is in school and had to finish up a paper so Joanna and I put together dinner while she typed away in the next room.
We tried to not be distracting to Susannah so naturally Joanna and I started taking pictures of Susannah's pets and each other.
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| Zippa |
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| Photo credit Joanna |
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| Photo credit Joanna |
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| Chin's down, ladies |
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| Yikes |
Susannah finished her paper just in time for Joanna and I to announce we were going to sleep (sorry Susannah!).
In the morning, we decided brunch out was in the cards and headed off to the Duluth Grill which was highly recommended by Susannah.
The Duluth Grill is evidently a popular place to go. We had a bit of a wait, but it was well worth it. I had the duck omelet, hash browns and a gluten free slice of pumpkin spice bread. Nummy.
After breakfast we headed down to Canal Park to walk off our huge breakfasts and spent some time browsing at an art store. Susannah bought some cards with sayings on them and got us each one that reminded her of us. Mine said:
Destiny is no matter of chance.
It is a matter of choice.
It is not a thing to be waited for.
It is a thing to be achieved.
-William Jennings Bryan
It was pretty spot on based on what's going on in my life and my thoughts about religion that I expressed the evening before at dinner. Thanks Susannah!
Once we were back at Susannah's we had just enough time to do some yoga therapy before heading home. Joanna had collected some of our primary and secondary health issues and created a yoga session with moves that would help with those particular issues. For example, one of the moves was good for digestive issues. It was definitely a good work out and I felt it in my legs and shoulders the next day.
We really got lucky this weekend with Joanna being willing to share all her expertise about yoga and Ayurveda. For instance I learned that I am vata deranged. Who knew? And even better she's going to continue practicing with me.
Overall, another successful girl's weekend. I can't wait until next year!
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| Photo credit Joanna |
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