What a life changer  it is to work out of office close to home! Literally - 5 minutes away from Chinchillas's daycare! 4 days out of 6 I will be going to the office nearby, for the next 6 month at least - that's so many hours saved on commute given it takes around 1.5 hrs a day to drive to Lakewood in traffic!

On the other hand, I am glad I took the chance of going through entire Shakespeare works last year, when I had it. I just got my Odyssey CDs from the Library, and I'm at end of Disc 1 out of... 12 and it's hard to tell how I'm going to cope with it listening just 2 days a week. And then, there's also Iliad to cover this year...

Back from first resort family vacation.

Classic vacation with 2 toddlers full of digging holes in sand and building sand castles, putting on layers of sunblock morning and evening, running to and from waves, finding shells, watching pelicans, ships and boats,  and admiring a few local cute animals who were all, for simplicity, called "squirrels".

Good preparation helped a lot. We brought just enough clothes to survive a week, having had 1 laundry done mid-way (Arthur got sick just before leaving and was periodically throwing up over me on the way to Cancun. He woke up perfectly healthy the first morning in Mexico though). Chills loved their new sandals with lights, swimming trunks, hats and UV-protecting T-shirts (ordered in bright Orange, which worked out great to spot one of our kiddos at a distance). Arthur's responsibility was to carry in his toddle backpack their beach bucket, spades and cups, a boat, a submarine and 2 cars. Yep, we brought our own stuff, and that was one of the best decisions for everything was durable, used on a daily basis and could be conveniently put into the bucket and carried around.

Food deserved a separate compliment, for Chills could always find something to enjoy. Even for the kids that eat literally anything- the variety was ample. For the first 2 nights, they asked pasta for Dinner- of course, something that's not often offered to them at home :) On the third night they asked for ribs and more interesting yummy things with their pasta and the pasta remained almost untouched :) But all the time through the vacation they enjoyed ribs, meat, soups, veggies and fresh fruit to the extent that I was beginning to worry coming back to simple home menu will be hard for them. Fresh watermelon, passion fruit and "pink" ice-cream were daily must-haves. And a sudden discovery as food that they can eat non-stop was... red caviar. Even though for neither of them this was the first time they tried it - but they both must have the "red caviar savoring" gene as on those few nights the buffet served caviar - they would literally eat as much there was in front of them. And if they were in the middle of a desert when I finally made it to the caviar and brought some to the table - they would stop in the middle of their ice-creams, grabbed soup spoons and quickly attack my plate. And once there was no caviar left they would return to their ice-cream as if nothing happened.

Another thing I was happy they enjoyed was mini-disco after dinner. Their social life definitely started early - they loved to be dressed up in their cute evening shirts and look sharp,  loved to be part of the action on stage and especially loved getting candy treats after the dance. Only apparently they decided not to repeat the movements they were shown, and do their own dance instead - something less energy consuming and making them look cool and mysterious.

Now that this first trip is done, it will only get easier. Next step is to renew Arthur's passport this summer or sooner, and then - to decide if we can attempt trips to Canada and Spain by the end of this year.

I completed my first scuba dive in 5 years.

Since 2012 I was in a constant pregnancy-breastfeeding-pregnancy-breastfeeding mode, and then Chills were too little, and now, years down the road, I managed to schedule a dive and what's more important - during Chills' day nap time. Priceless.

Surprisingly enough, not all the skills were lost. Actually, none of the skills were gone but a good chunk of the vocabulary was. I could do the basic exercise, assemble my scuba set, but a regulator... what the heck is a regulator?! Oh, that stuff that was in my mouth for the past 45 minutes? Oh, thaaaat regulator!..

 So, my wetsuit soaked the water of the Caribbean once again and later, on the boat back to the shore, I noted the dive did not trigger my asphyxiphobia and muscle memory serves me well. Indeed, when I was last diving I might have been thinking that was the most insane thing I had ever done. Did I have a clue that I would soon have 2 kids back-to-back, pass CPA exams, switch from Global Mobility to PA, become a columnist on time management and efficiency, start learning martial arts and would go through a good dozen of other life-changing revelations? Every experience changes me. I am a different person from the one I was 6 months ago, let alone 6 years. And yet - here I am, my wetsuit, aviator sunglasses, salty breeze and sun in the face, wide grin and salt in the hair... That indescribable state of being - not "me" but still me...

***Non official reflections on 2017 ***

I started 2017 with a long list of goals, precise and dry, resembling a shopping list more than a beautifully worded list of resolutions.

The Universe though always has its way to stir up things without warning, and so it did this time. After some brief eye blinking and face palming, I realized that the two major goals I had for 2017 that involved cooperation/help from other people would need to be pushed back. Until the time I figure out a way to do this on my own, or get help from my Fairy Godmother (the former is more likely). But yep, losing to myself, falling behind on what matters to me now - still sucks and is hard to accept 😃

As to what depended on me to the most part - I've spent a great first year at a new workplace, survived a full-time tax season with topping off my billable hours at night and daily 2 hour commute. Maintaining a schedule of constant pick ups and drop offs (kids - to and from daycare, myself - to and from work 😃, groceries, library books, kids' toothpaste) was easy but left little room for errors/delays. Besides, being grounded in the triangle of home-work-daycare for months is irritating.

At the same time, I did not give up on level of life for our family (priorities....), so no man of our family (regardless of age) has to dig into the laundry basket for a "relatively fresh" shirt when he runs out of shirts, the walls of our house are not covered in mold and our fridge does not echo. I call it success.

I do know now that in the remaining time I can listen to complete works of Shakespeare, although I did have a good start here. In addition to Faust, and going through audio courses of Slovenian and some Latin. Yep, that has a lot to do with my commute time.
I now know that my brain absolutely refuses to follow by ear and memorize Latin declensions and conjugations.

I do know that I can get back to good physical shape within a few months (it only requires to prioritize work outs to sleep during, say, tax season).

I pulled my bottom to Taekwondo, and it loves it I love it. I could not come to classes as often as I wanted to, hence - I did not get the belt I was aiming for, but plan to fix it next year.
I've never been involved into a physical activity that required - actually - learning control over my body (as in professional sports or dancing), so this is completely new experience to me. And the circumstances where I can't get by with just good memory and quick thinking, but have to MOVE and DO stuff. I'm intrigued.

I somehow managed to illustrate the short story for my Chinchillas I wrote last year, and on some drawings you can even tell a moose from a raven. At least by colour.

I'm genuinely happy with all the things that happened this year. Some of them were due to be completed or started a while ago, others were unpleasant, unexpected and probably unnecessary - but pointed at my personal security breaches as well as weaknesses.

For 2018 I'm planning to boil down all my moves, thoughts and ideas to 3 areas only. And while I'll be working on bringing them to life, Dear Universe, please be on my side!

Sitting on the floor in my closet. Listening to Zemfira while going over the contents of a box of my diaries.


My style of those days is nothing like blogging, - more epistolar, vague, overfilled with details... I hardly remember myself across these pages and I  absolutely do not recognize my way of reflecting and interpreting, can't tell why certain things mattered more than others.


To do me justice though, I had no control over any major events in my life back then, no resources and could hardly take care of myself.


Once a survivor, you'll get an immunization for the rest of your life. Enough motivation to stay away from the swamp, enough of anger, strength, imprudence, hunger.


I just need to keep it all together and to keep moving, and to keep working, and all the resources and opportunities will follow. Just need to solve the puzzle in my mind first and the rest will fall into place.

For years I've seen myself as quite athletic and strong - for a woman. Not necessarily the biggest and strongest person in an average room, but for 5'7" and 128-130lbs - definitely never a Thumbelina :)   And since I recovered from shin splint - I would run on a treadmill like a gazelle rushing to vanish on African horizon (if only 5K separated the said gazelle from the horizon), and believed I was in a good shape overall.

Ha.

The moment I step into Dojang I feel… small. Much smaller than the few adults in our class, somewhat closer to the teens. Shorter. Skinny in my dobok. Partially wooden and slow - but this can be at least explained that I’m still a beginner in the class of black belts (literally).
But how can I explain that even my voice seems to become thinner? I try to be loud - and no sound loud enough comes out. I yell - and unlike any other woman I’ve met in the class I sound like a teen :)

My world slowly continues to turn upside down…

Got my white belt.

A beginner's achievement, but still feels like an achievement. Especially since I passed the test 2 days after having another vein treatment, being completely distracted by news on my license application and changes in firm staffing, hungry and exhausted after 1.5 hour drive in traffic.


I guess if not by New Year, then - by my birthday I should get Yellow belt to avoid Tax season.

An elementary Math problem: The mail with my 1st Bachelor's diploma shows its status as "delivered" as of October 5th.  Today's date is October 26th. The International Evaluation department of the Licensing Association I'm working with are claiming they are still processing mail delivered on October 1st. As of Friday last week - they were processing mail delivered on September 28th. I started evaluation application process in July.
Question: will I get my license in hand before I retire?




In good news: Taekwondo lessons are great. That exact feeling that you're at your place despite not knowing what you're doing and even doing... n'importe quoi. A little crazy to follow the instruction in 2 languages: given I've already picked up - purely by listening - some Slovenian and Latin, trying to repeat Korean makes me forget what planet I am on. But hey - as soon as I realized I will be training in a studio that's part of World Taekwondo Federation - or WTF, which is a very precise summary of my life - I knew I was at the right place.


Looks like the vein treatment went well, and if it did indeed - I may have to put off another surgery for now.


Another dozen of Shakespeare works left. I'm of course, a lucky witch, whose Bookworm-ing goal fell for exactly the time when my commute to and from work takes about 2 hours every day. A once-in a lifetime opportunity, if you're a looking at going through dozens of serious and sophisticated works that require you to understand the subjects and conflicts raised, appreciate the language and to get fully submerged into the literature style.

Friday night, around 9.15pm. Putting Arthur to bed.

- Mom, we forgot our Human Body outside! We need to bring it in!
- ???
- Mom, we left our HUMAN BODY at the lawn! Outside! Somebody may take it!
- Erm… Uh… What?! What body?!
- The HUMAN BODY we put at the lawn today!!!
- Sunshine… it’s not a Human Body, just a skeleton. It’s for Halloween. It’s supposed to stay there for now.
- Yeah! So when a bad person comes to our house, he sees the HUMAN BODY, gets scared and runs away!
- Yep. That’ll work too.

I seriously can’t wait for Arthur’s English vocabulary to catch up. Can’t wait for him to start sharing his wisdom with kids and teachers at Kindergarten:

- Um… Arthur was telling me you put a HUMAN BODY at the lawn by your house?... To scare away bad people?...
- Yeah, our home security provider raised our fee again, so we just thought: oh, screw this!...

Passionarity then, huh? :)

"... the ability for and urge towards changing the environment, both social and natural, or, physically speaking, towards the disturbance of inertia of the aggregative state of an environment"
http://creativity.netslova.ru/Passionarity.html


A politically correct synonym for the yet another Russian "awe up in the ass".

After a long week...

Doing 3K on elliptical, full speed and high resistance. Sweating like nobody's business, going backwards to catch breath on the peak of the "hill" and finishing up Coursera course. Predictably, nearly all theories on self growth, success - subjective success and achievement revolve around the idea of constant improvement, focus and adapting way of life to the vision of ideal future. A well formed and expressed idea of the course though was that "success" in modern terms of way of life refers more to a "well balanced" life than to the life where just one part of it is taken to the extreme. That's extremely close to my definition of a  successful life, and the way I try to arrange mine.

In such thoughts worked my abs, biceps, hips. Came home winded up, cleaned the kitchen.
Wrote 3 thesis for the article on fear.
Looked through my goals for the week, realized I never made an attempt to draw an elk this year, and it's  already October. Put on an elk drawing online lesson, took a pen and legal pad, drew an elk:

Saw that I never opened the DALF study book, took it, opened it, put on the CD, listened to the comprehension text. To my great shock, understood the text was about an ex-IT guy who was not fulfilled with his job, so he quit and became a carpenter and is much happier with his job and workplace environment now.

Realized I'm behind on Shakespeare. Downloaded all remaining works according to my list from Librivox and put a note in agenda to buy blank CD-RWs.

Saw that I never went back to Taekwondo this year. Put a note to the upcoming week - to call the Taekwondo studio next to our King Soopers and inquire about schedule and membership fees.

Had some wine, but was still too wind up to go to bed. Cleaned the bathroom and closet. Cleaned the shelves in the bedroom. Ordered kids' poem books in the library.

Wrote a page-long list of stuff to do for the coming weekend.

Two shoe boxes full of my diaries have been stashed in a secure place for months.

For months I have had no time to get back to the contents of the box, glimpse through the diaries, see once meaningful little things from friends and lovers, finally go through the piles of the paper, pictures and cards and see what's all that was about. I anticipated some feeling of nostalgia of the kind of girl I used to be, I thought the memoirs of the days, of all the problems I had would be "cute and sweet", and how I would feel disappointment - yet again - for wasting time in my adolescence and childhood, and not being able to stand up for myself. And then - since past is not going anywhere anyway, there're no rush in getting my hands on the archive, right?


Expectation vs Reality.


I could not make my way through 3 note pads of diaries. Some of those events would come back to me other than from my diaries, but in hindsight - it was one big endless groundhog day, which I'm trying to dilute with escaping to books and my own world as much as possible. There were occasional trips to very nice places, but they still left me feeling like inside of a fish tank: you're in a wonderful place, but fully dependent on family's agenda, mood swings and perception of comme il faut behavior. Except, perhaps, two trips to summer camp where if I saw an opportunity within hand reach - I could actually grab it.
 Hundreds of pages - probably -  talking in very details, although never directly,  about dead ends, solitude, sickness, sadness, rejection, lack of support, lack of direction in life.

Needless to say that brought up no nostalgia and no sweet feelings of younger self. It definitely raised some immediate anger, frustration and intention to push forward harder now, to use all the resources I have and to make sure I do not waste a day. Since I have already lost so many of them in first 16 years of my life, and you never know, in what... Afganistan I could be born in my next life :)

Bang your head at the wall.
Sigh.
Sip tea.
Realize works tends to come your way and build up faster than you can do it. And the thoughts about current day and week, and about everything it would be nice to do - tend to build up and run ahead of you even faster.
Bang your head at the wall.
Feel - probably caused by all this rush - some thoughts in your head. Some about work. Some about... your other job. Some - about volunteering. Some thoughts - rhyming. Until it becomes completely unclear what you need to do now, and in what order. And if you need to write down your thoughts and ideas now - not to forget them later - which one do you begin with?
Print out your completed project. But you'd rather go running instead.
Bang your head at the wall.

I love Colorado summer - nearly 6 months of good weather stretched from mid-Spring to mid-Fall. On the other hand it's quite misleading: you live in a day with green grass and leaves not yet turning for weeks, and weeks and weeks until you realize it's actually mid-September. And a little over 3 months until 2017 is over. And there's so much to do, and nothing is completed: the evaluation team is not poked hard enough, 990s are not learned quickly enough (if they can be learned at all), pictures are not draws, Shakespeare's works are still not read. And don't be fooled - it's already September...

Suddenly.

I know what I will be doing next summer.
And what I'll do to get there.
And a specific way to arrange my life around it, and what to ask in the first place, and how to play the potential benefits.


Seems that any time it looks like there can be no less time or energy whatsoever to fit in anything else in my day - the Universe casually gives me a hint on how to put together all pieces of puzzle.
Thanks, Universe. I'm on it. B-)