Walking in the Fog.

I've been sticking to a really good exercise routine lately.  I used to do yoga every other day.  I found if I did yoga every day my wrists started to get sore.  Since my scary hike I went on I decided that not only do I need to up my cardio but I also needn't go for super long hikes and have no desire to do so.  

Thus I came up with Walk. Yoga. Rest.  One day I walk.  I walk to the front of the subdivision and back which equals about a mile. It takes me about 30 minutes.  Doing this rotation I'm walking 3 days a week.  I recently read an article that discussed a study about the amount of walking to remain active and healthy.  The people who walked long periods of time or over harder terrains didn't show any more increase in health than people who did shorter but consistent walks.  In fact it showed that people who walked shorter distances but did walk consistently had less injuries and joint issues.  

What a relief!

I enjoy walking in the woods but I let go of the notion of proving to myself (and others) that I could be a super hiker going miles and miles because honestly the thought always stressed me out.  

Why did I pick a hobby that required both bear spray and preferably not done alone??  

No Bueno.

Although my path is the same, I'm surprised at how much wildlife there is.  I'm also surprised that I have come to enjoy my walks around my little neighborhood.  I enjoy walking in the earliest minutes of the sun coming up.  The quiet, the sounds of crickets, the stillness of the houses and like the morning in the picture, the fog.  

One morning I saw birds, geese, kitty cats and deer.  It was like being in the woods.  Kinda.  

Now I still plan to go for walks.  Notice I said WALKS.  At least for now.  I still desire walking in the peace of the woods.  I also desire walking in safety and in ear shot of help if I need it.  I also desire not having to pack a backpack to go on my walks.  Maybe a water bottle, no more.  

I'm just thankful that I hadn't invested in an expensive backpack and all that.  

Will I ever want to try hiking again?  I don't know.  Maybe.  I'll leave that for later to decide.  

With fall having arrived my morning walks are going to become chillier and less fun.  I have a back up plan for those mornings.  I do a YouTube video that is basically low impact aerobics for 20 minutes.  

I had to pause there for a second to play a song by Blind Melon called Soup- on their album Nico.  I share my birthday with Shannon Boone the singer, he died of a drug overdose '95?  yes, I believe so.  I just love that song.  It gives me chills every time I hear it.  You can just hear the desperation in his voice to rid himself of the addiction but he just can't.  Not even for his baby girl.  Nico.  

Anyway, I do yoga- it works out to be 2 times a week and seems to be the perfect balance of gaining strength and flexibility while also not creating wrist soreness.

I then rest on the third day.  

I don't know why I'm even writing about this, but it's important to me.  I always always always no matter what, meditate for at least 10-15 minutes every day with out fail.  I've been doing it for a few years now and I have to do it.  I just can't imagine not doing it at this point its been so helpful.  

I'm so happy and inspired by the progress I've made.  

My recent lesson I've learned--

I might freak out and be scared and not be able to perform in life the way I need to.

the answer-- So What?  

More on that next time.

Rose Noel

There is only one sentence I need to write for this post.

This little girl makes my heart sing. 

Until Next Time.  

My Dad Turned 65--- August 31st 2017

My dad turned 65. He had a birthday/retirement party at his house.  

He's a hard worker.  He loves his family dearly in the old school way.  

I'm not really close to my dad, but I'm still proud of him and love him dearly.  

Happy Birthday Dad-  Here's to many more adventures. 

Until Next Time. 

First Day of School- High School Sophomore Year- August 21, 2017

So starts another year of school.  He let me take a quick picture right before he walked out the door.  

But this year he opted for "no selfie with mom" 

Oh my- this year has been a learning experience for us all so far!

Until Next Time!

That day we went to Leesburg VA - July 2017

On this fun Monday we went to DogMoney Brewing Co for lunch.  It was in a beautiful building.  

Why does mom insist on taking pictures of us all the time???

Lobby of the building.

We went to Morven Park after lunch.  It was really hot but a beautiful place. 

The gardens were huge!  We only touched upon the gardens- it was just too hot to explore much.  

View of the mansion.  

Did I mention Ashton chose to wear a long sleeve thermal shirt on a pretty hot day?  Even after we let him know how hot it would be???

We briefly checked out the couple of hiking trails that were there.  I want to go back to these on a cooler day, maybe for an adventure day?

I visited what I thought was a public library but apparently it holds law books and isn't a public library. There was a nice gentlemen who went through a mural that depicts Leesburg town history.  

Our last stop was at Dirt Farm Brewing Co.  We had drinks and simply enjoyed the amazing view.  Absolutely breathtaking.  

A great day indeed.  And we were even home in time for dinner! 

Until Next Time.  

That day I took Ashton to PEV's Paintball and Airsoft Field- July 2017

One of the things that I promised Ashton to do this summer was to take him airsofting.  He had only really played once and that was on his birthday with my brother and friends.  This place was awesome! I had no idea there was such a sub culture of airsoft enthusiasts!  

Ashton preparing his gear.  

Ready to play!

Serious players!

I noticed that Ashton was just about the only person not in camo gear.  He said that's not the look he wants anyway.  

Players starting to come in for lunch break.

Did I mention that it was raining this day?  There were still a ton of people that showed up to play! 

Lots of hungry players!

Including my baby! :)

It was good to see he made friends with his team mates.  

It was a fun day.  What did I do you ask?  

Waited.  

I hung out in the Subaru, read, ate and went to explore a library in New Market, VA

It was fun though!  

He got to do his favorite sport and I got some relaxing alone time.

Win. Win.

Until Next Time!

Today I'm quitting social media.

I took off a year I think in 2015 from facebook.  I never deleted the account- but I remember thinking I'd keep it open in case anyone wanted to message me.  Only 1 person did the entire year.  It was to invite me to a group dinner (I think it was a mass message) and when I let him know I wasn't able to come, I never got a response.  I remember it just being pretty laid back and relaxed without it

The next year I think in 2016 I gave up Instagram also.  Again not deleting it (i'm not sure what my justification was there, again I had a "friend" in Ireland, maybe I was hoping they would message me?) Even more peaceful- I forgot about both pretty easily.  I tried snapchat for a couple months but grew bored with that also.

Fast forward to today.  I'm back to looking at both daily.  Several times a day for fb, a few times a day for Instagram and I'm sick of it.

I've been doing this for about 3 weeks now.

I remember the day I checked fb for the first time after over a year.  I "popped" in just to see my half sisters new born baby picture.  My dad had told me about him and I was curious.  When I looked for the pictures I saw that I had a friend request.

Well, I don't want to hurt their feelings I thought.  That seems so silly now.  So I justified that I would "pop" in every now and then to check and see if I had any new friend requests and I got them!

About 6--

Then I thought well, I'll scroll a bit and see what everybody is up too---

POSTING POLITICAL CRAP is what everyone is up to!

I was happy to see that a girl who had been single for a long time finally found a guy and is in love.  The funny thing is, is that I don't even like the girl.  She's ignored my lunch meet up invites and was always a back stabber.  But for some reason I was curious about her and this new man.

I slid further and further until I was just like everyone else again-- I posted a few times justifying that it was ok because I was just posting it to the homebrew club page-

But SHIT!  I became hooked again.  Damn they're good!

So-- today, I quit social media.  AGAIN I haven't deleted it yet.  But it starts a new year.  This time next year for both Instagram and facebook if I haven't been messaged on either form than I'll delete both accounts.

Wheeeeee!

I'm excited and relieved!

Until Next Time!

I'm so hard on myself. I'm such a control freak.

So I had a bit of a panic attack today.  Not a bad one.  Nothing like I experienced at first during 2015- but still scarey.

I'm over it already!

I know what's going on.  I'm over being mad at my parents.  I've accepted it.  I've mourned it.

Now I'm working on my control freak-ness.  My co-dependency.  My brain knows what's up- so why can't my mind and body hurry up and get with the program!?!

Guess there's an example of my control freak.

Patience Kim.  Patience.

Until Next Time.

Second Chances. Well, really third- none of which we deserved.

This is our oldest son Jared.  You know, we let his stepdad adopt him when he was little and it was a big life regret for me to not have kept in touch with him while he was growing up.  That sweet little miss he's holding there is his daughter Rose.  Our grand-daughter.  

Wow it's weird to say that.  

In a very weird but seemed destined chain of events, Jared and his little family are back in our lives.  It seems that beer is genetic because Jared is as passionate about beer as Eric is.  He was actually saving to move south to take a brewers course when he met his fiance', fell in love and had this sweet little girl.  It is only by chance that his fiance' saw Eric at Walmart and recognized him just because he and Jared are exact duplicates.  

We started texting slowly.  Cautiously saying hello, hoping we'd get to someday not only see pictures of Rose (who was still growing in momma's belly) but maybe even get to see her in person.  

It was slow at first for the first few months of Rose's life.  We met her at the hospital for the first time and we also saw Jared again after 9 years.  The last time was when he was 18- at my mother in laws funeral. After seeing him at the hospital holding his little baby, the enormity of what I had missed hit me like a brick.   After crying a creek, sorting out the feelings and vowing to stay in touch with him from this moment on-- I at least messaged once a month to see how they were doing.  I was totally prepared to do only that for the rest of my life.  

Slowly things evolved.  When Rose was 4 months old Sara and her mom came by to let us meet her.  I was so overwhelmed with emotion I cried when I got to hold her.  It was so weird to be in love with someone I had never even held.  

Fast forward to today.  

Eric and Jared have brewed together a couple times now and have another one scheduled.  

Things really have blossomed between the two of them.  Jared is so laid back (thanks Matt! )  he would've never learned that from us!  He's an awesome father.  He's a parent I wish I would've been to Ashton.  He lets Rose explore without hovering, keeping her safe but also letting her learn about the world.  

Eric asked if he could introduce Jared as his son and Jared agreed.  He's here at the shop a lot.  He brings Rose with him a lot (who turned 9 mths old today!)  and we get to play and see her pretty regularly.  

Eric and Jared like the same TV shows, have similar interest, personality traits and even have the same favorite comedian. 

Knowing he is so laid back and doesn't get upset about things lets us know we made the right decision.  We still regret not seeing him, but I don't know.  We would've been pretty disgusting role models for him so maybe even that was meant to be for his best interest.  

Ashton is good with Rose! He likes being Gruncle Ashton!   Jared and Ashton are slowly getting to know each other.  

I don't know but all I can say is that I'm over the moon happy that he and his family are in our circle again.  

Thank God for 2nd and 3rd chances.  

Until Next Time.