For Your Viewing Pleasure

yay! The Winter Olympics. I have always loved watching the Olympics, and now it is so much fun with the kids! Bienvenue!

Mind Over Matter

I have blogged previously about the amazing connection (for me) to running and mental exercise. I didn't start running until age 40. I did it for about 18 months. But I HATED it ever second I did it. Really. Some people talk about a runners high, or getting out there and getting some personal time. Not so much for me. I spent every minute of it wanting to stop. So for me, running was almost completely mental. Convincing myself not to stop to keep on going. stay tuned - I may try it again, but several people have told me that if I didn't like it after doing it 3+ times a week for 18 months, I probably never will.

When I went skiing for the first time a few weeks ago, I found there was a similar dynamic. But instead of hating it - it was getting over FEAR. Fear of falling, fear of sliding out of control, fear of careening off the edge of the mountain. During the lesson, I gained some confidence. This increased as I skied down the bunny hill, and made it though the easiest of the green trails. (see below video when I was feeling GOOD). Then I got cocky and went by myself down a different green trail that merged with a blue trail. Well, I did it wrong and ended up on the top of a big drop that lead from the blue trail to the green. And I got petrified. It was a big incline, and I didn't see how I could do it without falling off the edge of the mountain at the bottom. So I sort of scooted down on my butt (with 10 year-olds on snow boards shushing all around me). Then I had blown any confidence I had and was terrified the rest of the trip down. I barely made it through the rest of the trail (some more scooting involved). Then I decided to go back up and do my "good" trail again. Unfortunately my loss of confidence was now joined by my physical tiring and it just wasn't fun anymore. My legs didn't want to cooperate, and I struggled my way down.

It was so interesting to see how much my mental frame of mind went into this. It was so must less enjoyable when I let the fear in. Interesting. I will definitely try skiing again, and hope to enjoy the confidence I had here:


Don't I look like Suzie Chapstick?

also LOVE this skiing humor!

Bad News Bears

K plays soccer. She is in the local league, and is still young enough that they are mixed gender and - most importantly - don't keep score. This is good. Except when we play 90% of the other teams in the league - who keep score themselves. and I don't mean the kids- I mean the parents. This is not a travelling league or anything - this is the little fun league you pay like $30 for, and it is simple and relaxing. except for the parents of the other kids. Seriously - this is soccer for 6 and 7 year olds. CHILL OUT!

I will admit, our team sucks. SUCKS. They often kick the ball to their end of the field, nowhere near the net, out of bounds, and cheer as if they scored a goal. We had a game a few weeks ago where only 5 of our players showed up, so instead of fielding 2 teams of 6x6, we had less than one. Last week the opposing team scored 4 goals in the first 5 minutes (not that we were keeping score). So we suck. But our kids are nice, and sweet, and don't knock the other kids down or talk smack (???!!!) to the other team. Who are these kids - more importantly who are the parents of these kids. CHILL OUT people!

But this week was heaven. At first we were nervous, we were playing a team with the same name and uniform as ours. We couldn't figure out how this would work. Luckily, the kids didn't care - and even more miraculously, the parents didn't care. The kids just went out there and had fun! They enjoyed playing with each other. We all cheered for the red team - which was EVERYBODY! The kids applauded each other when they did well. It was really fantastic.

I am all for competition - but these kids are 6-7. Give them a break, let them have fun. And this weekend was awesome. At the end we all (some of us very seriously) considered leaving the league and just having our two teams play each other for the rest of the season!