I found myself sitting at the Parents Night,

surprised not so much with the act that I found time to attend, but the fact that I am actually here.

That it is time.

That for all these years Parents' Night was something to attend for my own mother (not that she would show up much since I was ten), parents of my classmates and  friends, and now my friends and their own children, and colleagues and their children... and now they came for me

I am ready to do this for the next 20 years; or a little longer if everything goes as planned :) I do like the idea that for the next couple of decades I will be doing certain things that will not bring immediate reward or will be appreciated neither by the immediate beneficiary nor by my family on the whole, but yet I will know that they will yield lots of benefits in the long run, will make my role in my family most efficient and my time I spend with them most productive. I know the right things to be done, and I will follow through. And being selfish as I am - can't help thinking that it will be a great training on becoming a smarter, wiser, quicker, stronger person.

Speaking of children - in plural - I keep hearing occasional voices of the world outside my head, saying that having children - in plural - with a small difference in age is a tough enterprise. That it  is a difficult, exhausting and overall yacky experience that would slow you down and mess up your life. That as a woman you have to realize you can't have it all and need to get your priorities straight: is what you want more a family or career? Serving other people around you or achieving your own goals? Making sure your children are enrolled in sports and take dancing classes or being able to afford to travel altogether with your family?  Having your left arm or right arm?  I giggle when I hear all these voices outside-my-head - what in the world can they know! -  but I almost feel sorry for those women they get to.

And as earlier today, at lunch, I was sitting at the same table with quite a few interesting people I felt very lucky for having crossed my path with those who can inspire and prove with their own experience that there are plenty of options in life - just stretch your arm out. It is possible to have a large family and be a professional and  one of the leaders in your area. It is possible to go through the trouble of getting all the necessary education and help provide all necessary education to your children later in life. It is possible to get to the level where you can be friends with your top clients and continue living a busy social life. It is possible to go to the mountains for skiing and raizor rides at the age of seventy, and take trips around the world or bike to Alaska at the age of seventy. And feel good in your skin, and be happy.

Just aim at it.

Two little conclusions of this week

1. When you're planning to paint on glass it's best to to buy special paint for working on glass :) Otherwise the paint smears and looks diluted and uneven.

2. When you're buying a pot to be painted, for another plant - get into the habit of buying the saucer at the same time already!

While pulling the trash bin from the driveway into the garage

Noticed a little envelope taped to the lid, with  Happy Holidays! written on it.
And a small Season's greeting card inside.
With a poem and wishes of Happy Holidays.
From our trash collector guy.
Wow.

*****

Putting together reciprocal Greetings, for next week :)
But still - wow!

Actually, I feel quite content with myself by the results of the past week.

Apart from cooking :) I managed to complete all important tasks planned for the past week, rolling forward only a few minor things that can be completed this week and keeping on with my studies.

The second important thing is that I managed to make it to gym every workday.

Now, let's do the same for this week! My agenda's already filled for first 1/2 of the week, to-do list goes through every single line...

It turns out that in two days of the weekend Von Zobel & I

can actually cook a pile of food. Looking at it now asking ourselves what had gotten into us...

Oh.... evil, cynical, despicable "West"...

First they imposed sanctions against Russia. Now they pushed down oil prices to bring chaos to Russian economy. Every step they take - is a conspiracy and a threat. Everyone not willing to bow before the hat on the pole unconditionally run geopolitics in Russia's favor - is an enemy.

"Russians are believed to have taken more than $100bn (£64bn; €81bn) out of the country this year and Mr Putin promised an amnesty for anyone choosing to bring their money back.

He said that they would face no questions over how they had earned it."

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30322198

"We have a huge internal market and resources... capable, intelligent people," he said. "Our people have demonstrated national strength, patriotism - and the difficulties we are facing create new opportunities".

Condemning the "pure cynicism" of the West, he suggested that even if Crimea had not been annexed, the West would have come up with a different pretext to impose sanctions to contain Russia's resurgence."

Not to question the abovementioned intelligence of people in question, but... how come they still buy all this?! I also believe any random American middle or upper class citizen, educated, polite and self-sufficient, - would be incredibly surprised to discover that sometime in between discussing Obamacare and Immigration reform they are also supposed to be plotting sabotage for Russia.

A good way to lose 40 minutes

is to "just stop by Hobby Lobby for a second to get a flower pot".

And in 10 minutes find yourself standing in  Scrapbooking section and 1/2 of the store is on sale.

In another 30 minutes I realized apart from the flower pot I was also holding some clear files for scrapbooking pages and a notepad for sketches. A crazy girl in a crazy world... From teh other hand, this is somewhat an improvement from about 5 years ago when I walked out with 10kg of pottery clay...

But now I start thinking of my Granny's rough amber necklace that could use a leather string, and maybe a few other deco pieces.
And I'm running out of some colours of my acrylic paint supply. And those pastel crayons looked great.
And then there was that acoustic guitar on sale in Costco...
Does this condition have a cure, I wonder?

Just yesterday I had a brief conversation about the toddler weight curve

and how it has to be pushed up, or rather - there is no way it was not pushed up. For seeing a drop from 25 percentile to "a little under 15 percentile" in 1 year is a little misleading when you look at a little guy who still has his real biceps :) and has an appetite of a young growing man :) (knocking on the wood).
On the other hand, I strongly suspect he has inherited his father's genes when it comes to body and metabolism.
However, he was not born in a family committed to Vegetarianism or Paleo diet either.

And just this morning I realized my clothes size in a couple of stores I usually shop at is XS. With some XS tops actually being lose underarms - which should be impossible and unnatural given my height, body type and the fact that my ribcage was the only part of my body that did not restore to its pre-natal size after childbirth.
I am pro- adjusting standards when it comes to an average body type, body image, fashion, health, technology, education. Pret-a-porter are in the constant evolution mode, it would be stupid not to use the modern average body type for today's production (and the average body type is hardly ever used, but it's a whole different story). But when in 7 years I go from M (for length or height) to XS - the evolution must be speeding up in geometrical  progression :)
This is misleading. This is so misleading I don't see where it is going.

First, I just realized it is actually year 2014.

While writing down my goals, it did finally get to me it is year 2014. The end of 2014. Ten years ago - ten bloody years ago!!! - I was already a student at a high end European University, and at this time of the year in 2014 I was finishing up my first official work at a big Five Star Swiss Delux hotel. Ten years ago.

Second, - and this is most shallow and superficial, but as an integral part of my life now is worth saving for my offsprings :)  - I've just thought about how great it is to have a strong willpower that would keep you from eating in the evening. That is, this thought crossed my mind after I actually kept myself from eating in the evening. :)  Me. Feeling good about having and using willpower. Embracing-the-possibility-of-being-a-person-without-control-over-my-own-mind!  Dear 17 y.o. me, did you even hear that?! :)

O-la-la-la-la....

(found at http://www.photographersdirect.com/buyers/stockphoto.asp?imageid=1180138 )

One of those weeks

when you feel like all your time and energy are spent on supporting activities to the most extent and that still required a 100% input. In short -  lots of useful things were done, but not too much progress made.

I wish there was a way to outsource an impromptu coaching of an insurance company as well as  large airline on how to handle claims that are almost 1 year old, and how to escalate issues when your partners are not replying to your emails for over 6 months...

Or a way to delegate very meaningful conversations at tire shops after 2 hours of wait. No, there is no way my winter tires can be that bald after 2 seasons. No, these all-season tires are way more warn out than mine would too. You know what? If these tires came off this car - great, because this is not my car either. No, I do not drive a Subaru. No, I have no idea where my car is or where my key is, I did leave the key with you. Yes, I do hope too the car will be found quickly and that the owner of that Subaru did not leave in it. :)

Or - talking with half a dozen people in an insurance company to simply check if they partner with a certain hospital, and still not being able to find anyone who could confirm this.
Or running around from teacher to administration of the daycare trying to find brand new winter boots sz 4-5 that were, doubtlessly, grabbed by someone by mistake and, doubtlessly, were still not recognized as a pair that does not belong to their child.

On the bright side, I did enjoy being part of a wonderful romantic dinner at a French Bistro and a movie night out, seeing new Hunger Games. That will count as November events & outings. :)

On the not-sure-how-I-feel-about-it side, the estimated cost of all the activities for  continuing education and self-development  is  about $10K. For some reason, none of those people who talk about setting goals advise to pick goals that are within your current budget :) I guess once I am established as a world-known greatest Life Coach I will have quite a few new concepts to bring in :)

DOOM

As Von Zobel was watching me taking a 10 minute stress management break, chasing monsters with a shotgun, I remember a little anecdote I had to tell him.

DOOM-II was quite a popular game when I was about 8; I played it on my uncle's computer when I access to it was granted to me :) and I knew a few more kids who played it too. However, we all were in groups learning English as the second language, we were of course interested in understanding the name of the game - but we could not.
Because none of the dictionaries we could get our hands on had the word.
I can't remember what the deal was with the English-speaking adults around, the teachers of English or IT in school, but the fact was - we could not dig up the word anywhere.
So then we decided, that the word "DOOM" must be made up specifically for this game (yep, because if something is not in a dictionary for school-aged kids it simply does not exist!), and - that it is a combination of the words DOor and roOM (because you have to move through corridors between all sorts of rooms with monsters, and open all sorts of doors!).
Makes perfect sense, right?

...It was in a couple of years when either my best friend got a computer WITH internet connection, or I inherited a huge Oxford English dictionary from ex-owners of our new apartment, or we got one of our computers in computer lab hooked up to Internet at school... that we did at some point look up the word.
The meaning was definite, but somewhat disappointing.

"The feeling of relief and optimist is brought to you this morning by... your doctor!"

Indeed. As I was walking out of the doctor's office I got a hint of that long forgotten feeling that changes to better are yet to be seen just around the corner. Such a touch of anticipation of great outcome for whatever comes along. I did need it back, just like a reminder that I am strong and have quite some work to do, and just as I still need a good laughter. I should visit my Doctors more often. 

Meanwhile, in the next hour I finally made it to Korean and Russian stores after months of planning, and stocked up on duck and rabbit meats, liver and chicken gizzards, squid, pomegranates and persimmons, smoked cold cuts, churchkhela, khalva and Russian marshmallows. Yay to gastronomic diversity!

And then there were studies,  and more studies at Toyota center while waiting for my little tank, drinking green tea, eating those Russian marshmallows and trying hard not to fall asleep but to keep reading about GAAS and IAS. Oh, it must have been GAAS and IAS  that were making me so sleepy... Spent the last hour before picking up Dr. Chill at the Library, studying again and feeling happy about having a place to hang out at and save commute time. Dr. Chill has had a great day too: due to one of the teachers getting sick and the last moment redistribution of kids he ended up playing with his old friend all afternoon. It's amazing how those two little guys can form friendship and remember each other after 2 weeks at such a young age. I always thought socials bonds and memories is something children develop by the age of 3 or so.

Now that it's a little break between exams, I'll need to finish my little life clean up project I've been postponing for  a week. Every time i am about to start, I realize I can't get rid of most of my clothes, because I don't know for sure what I will do in the next 6 months :) and I don't know if some of those books will be of use to me again, and if I ever have time on the plane to read all those National Geographic and Smithsonian magazines...  And cleaning up people and relationships looks even worse. I am a compulsive relationship hoarder :)
But just as I start, and then will get a taste of it...

A long angry post about gender specifics of sharing life experience and emphasizing values in womens' blogs could have been published here.

But there will be none.
Because after 10 minutes of reflecting on virtual paper I realized I was reinventing the wheel and boiled it all down to a short advice.

If you are a female in urgent need of inspiration in any part of your life - do go read Forbes or the Economist. Do NOT search for life inspiring examples or tips in blogs and amateur articles of women who belong to your Zone of Proximal Development.
For gender hell breaks loose in their blogs...

The cure.

I love days when absolutely everything is in my favour. I get up earlier than usual, there is no traffic on the way to daycare and back, the study material gets organized and memorized ok by the brain :), there is no line at the gas station (and that calls for some special star alliance I'd say), I get in and out of stores in a minute, with precisely what I was looking for, and the coupons work even if they were not supposed to, and a nail polish of precisely the colour I want gets founded, and the hormones are down, and the dinner gets cooked quickly and easily, and jogging is quite bearable, and the new book I started is so enjoyable!
Days like this save a tremendous amount of time and energy. :)

And then there are days when I have the weirdest dreams and I can't figure them out, and the morning is freezing and grey, and I feel lost and can't focus, and then miss gym because the insurance agent needs to stop by and take a look at the solar panels at a short notice.

And the best cure to this is not to wait for it all to end, but to twist the course of the day and let my little hooligan out. To do something irrational, unpredictable, and unexpected,  stick out the tongue and giggle. Then the universe shakes a little, things fall back into their places, but the day continues on a new trajectory, thoughts and body get lighter, the head becomes clearer, the smile stretches wider.

13 minutes of demotivation.

He is amazing. And his talk about drug addiction, depression, celebrities, health - is amazing. Life works in such a mysterious way that no intelligence, no talents, no hard work can protect you from yourself if one day not all pieces of puzzle fit well.

No happy ever-after is guaranteed when you're fully self-made, talented and smart. No crowd fills in the endless solitude within. There is no logic in suffering from depression and being stuck with bipolar disorder when your works and acting itself can prevent postpartum depression.

I hope he copes and feels much better. He just has to.