Blast from the Past

In taking everything off the shelves in my home office, I came across a folder that my Mom gave me years ago containing schoolwork of mine when I was really young. I will need to go through it all in detail now, but here's something I wrote on some June 2 for English class. My guess is I wrote this in first or second grade. My younger sister is 4 years younger than me. I was constantly sitting her down in front of a magnetic white board and playing school with her before she was even in school. I loved school myself, and I wanted her to love it as much as I did.

Once I tried to teach my little sister who learns the wrong way. She uses purple for faces. I taught her to use peach. One day she used purple. She must have learned or heard wrong. When I had taught her a few things, she thought she could start teaching. So she did. In learning about colors she didn't remember very well. One of the pupils said, "I think Lisa has taught me wrong. I think I have learned the wrong things. I'm positive I am learning the wrong things. The other pupils said that she teaches wrong." I said I knew what was wrong. I told her that Lisa doesn't remember well. So she made you learn wrong. She knew she didn't know everything. So I told her to try not to teach unless she was absolutely sure she was smart enough.

More Notes to Self

I'm now beginning to get ready for the interior painting of my house, which means I will need to empty out closets and the larger shelves, and take everything off the walls. In going through one stash area, I found something that I'm not sure why I kept. It's a small dry erase board that I got from some race somewhere, I have no idea when. It folds in two, and is intended to hold emergency phone numbers, and then it has a "Things to Do" page.

Below, reprinted for your pleasure, are my Things to Do as of November, 2004. I have left out the 3 items that were triathlon related, since they just had to do with some time goals. The list is in order that I wrote them down. I think I sort of had a plan back then, and since that time, many aspects of my life may have changed, but it's still a good list, I think. I suppose I could have written down things like places I want to travel and races I want to do, but I can sort of remember the day I put this together, and this is what I came up with:

1. Find and keep a mate
2. Be my best
3. Think about retirement
4. Stay employed 5 years
5. Be in the moment at work
6. Do a good job
7. Remember what's important
8. Be a better friend
9. Stay strong in the face of adversity
10. Become more self-aware
11. Let go of attachments
12. Surrender

I guess at the time I wrote this down I had a 5-year plan to be ready to retire (yes, it's an early one!), which means just switching gears from a full-time job that pays the bills to something else that I'd really like to do and maybe also moving or at least figuring out where I want to live the next 20 years or so. Or, I could rephrase it to, "If I could do anything I wanted and could get paid decently for it, what would it be?" So I'll leave #3 on there.

Everything else looks pretty good to me. I find it funny that this "Things to Do" list is so reflective of what I now consider important in my life.

This getting my house ready to be painted is becoming emotional. When I pick something up and really look at it and touch it and remember when I got it and what was going on in my life and then decide whether I want to keep it, put it off to the side or toss it, it makes for some thinking. I remember being young and single and carefree and not owning a lot of stuff. Now, I'm no longer young, not as carefree and have a ton of crap! But a lot of it is good crap, you know? Still, I think I will be eliminating a bunch of things. It's good to touch, think, remember, honor the feelings, and then move on. As hard as this is, I know it's the right thing to be doing right now.

Tiki Hut Remodeling!!!!!

Since I'm having quite a bit of work done in my house, I figured I should start on a remodeling project at the Tiki Hut. It's been awhile since the girls (and the one guy) have been able to play, so since they are going to need to relocate for a few weeks, I thought they better get some action first. Interesting choices they made, don't you think?

Luckily, I bought a new camera yesterday, because my other one was acting flaky since July, and as of this morning, it's completely dead. The new camera is easy to use, and I'm dying to try out its video feature.

I'm not posting my "weakly" workout totals, since I didn't get much done last week, but that's OK. I've given in to the fact that all this moving stuff around, shopping for home improvement stuff and relaxing afterwards is what I should be doing right now. I'll get back to serious training soon enough.

And oh, by the way, that 50K race in Chicago is O-U-T!!! I'll be in Panama City Beach, Florida, cheering on Shelley and Brett and replenishing my tan! No doubt I'll get in some running while I'm down there, but the date I'm putting on my calendar as the "official" start of training is December 1. Whatever I get done between now and then is fine with me.