I value that.

A thousand years ago, (okay like 1992 or so) I attended a training class while working at Boeing. Another team member and I signed up for this class that was basically getting to your core and finding out what makes you tick at work and at home. I've taken several classes like this and find I always find something new about me.

In that class on the first day we were given a list of "values". We had to write on a paper plate one value. We had 5 plates.  As soon as we were all done, the instructor asked us to give one away. That was hard. I honestly don't remember all of them but I do remember struggling over which one I'd give away.  Then every day we came to class we had to give a value away. The instructor had these grand stories about what would happen if we didn't. It was hard. Very hard. These are things that you truly hold to be part of who you are. 

By the end of the week, I had integrity left.  I do remember giving up family on the day before and it was hard to decide between the two.  It took me a while to think about what my family would want me to do. In the end I held on to "integrity".

In this team offsite we had a stack of 200 cards. Each card had a word or phrase on it. The instructor have us 2 minutes to find 6 that would describe our core values.  He asked us to not "think" about it and just react.  Most of the team started flipping through the cards one at a time. I tossed mine on the floor and scattered them.  Glancing down at them words would rise to the top and those are what I chose.

When the two minutes were finished I was a bit surprised at what lay in front of me. Not because I don't think they're core values, but rather because I felt really good about them being my core values.

In no particular order:

Creativity - This should go without saying.  I firmly believe that creativity is something I need in my life to feel fulfilled.  Without it, the world would be grey and dull to me. I use creativity in so much of my daily life that it's a bit frightening that it was the first word that popped out to me.

Family - This goes without saying. Without family I would be nothing.  I may not always like all of them, or agree with them, or spend as much time with them as I'd like. But at the end of the day, they're family.  People who stand by you and love you unconditionally regardless of how crazy you may be.

Do what you say - This one did surprise me a little.  And yet it doesn't.  It is the one thing that drives me the most crazy about people. When they say they're going to do something and then they don't. I hate that feeling of being disappointed and bummed because they didn't follow through. That being said, I know that I too have to work on this one.

Inspiration - This one and volunteer bounced back and forth with me.  Finally I decided on inspiration because that's what I want to be for someone.  If my actions, my words, my deeds can inspire just one person to be a better person, then the just got a little bit brighter.  Being part of the 3Day family I'm surrounded by inspiring people and I think because of that, they make me want to be better too.

Health - This one in 1992 would not have been in my core values.  I find it mildly amusing and not at all surprising that it's here now. This one by far of all of them is the biggest struggle for me. And yet it's the one that I think stands out as the most valuable one. Without health your life stinks. Things you can't do, people you can't inspire, creativity you can't explore...none of that is possible if you don't have health.

and the last one...

Integrity - after all these years I am proud to see it still there.  Have I always lived my life with integrity? Nope. Not likely. I think you'd be hard pressed to find any one of us who has "always" lived with integrity.  But like an old friend, I know that it is something that I value not just in me but the people I surround myself with.

So what now?

After that exercise he asked us to define what we meant by our core values.  For a person with "creativity" in her core values my definitions weren't all that creative. From there we had to list our values on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being I am living the value at the highest and one being I am not currently living this value. 

Wow. This part was a bit more difficult than all the others for me. I had to use my "integrity" value and actually rank how I was living this for all the world to see.

I approached this much like the cards. I just went with my gut reaction. Ignore that I did it backwards. I thought 10 was not living it and 1 was living it.  Pays to read the instructions. But you get the point. Health wasn't as much "living" as I thought. Creativity is a daily part of my life so that one I have no worries. Do what you say wasn't nearly as full as I thought either.

Looks like I've got some work to do. Do you know what your core values are? Do you live them?

EEE Voila!

For some inexplicable reason I have that phrase stuck in my noggin and every time I do something, or someone does something I say, "EEE voila!" As in, "ta-da" as in "finite" as in I need to stop.

Since I last posted it doesn't seem like a lot has happened, and yet 7 days have gone by.

Here's a couple of updates for you.

Update 1: Weight loss
I'm sure you've noticed that I've not been chatting about this much. Its because there isn't much to chat about. I stopped being motivated back in July after the DadUnit passed.  Thankfully I've kept the 30lbs off since then, but haven't really made any effort to lose more. 

That all changed this weekend. Somehow I found some motivation tucked away in a closet and I'm trying to use it before it expires.  Back on the wagon.

Update 2: The death of a camera
When Blueberry and I went out to see the eagles on the Skagit River it was pouring rain. My camera got a little wet. And it died. I tried the rice thing for several days. Nothing. So I started the search for a used/refurbished camera body. Finally I found one that was just a body and the newer version of my dead camera.  This lesson cost me some $$ I wasn't planning on spending. Ironically last year BigBro sent me a link to buy body armor for my camera. I was aghast that it cost $50 for a camera condom. So I said no thank you. Turns out that $50 would have saved my hide. I have a camera condom now.

Update 3: Cirque du Soleil - Amaluna
I've now seen 8 Cirque du Soleil shows. All of them have wow'd me and left me saying,"Do these people have any bones?"  This one, however, not so great. I kinda felt cheated in a way. While the arcobats and stunts were amazing in and of themselves, they weren't OMG.  And this one seemed to have a lot of time killers. I don't know. For me I felt like the tickets were way too expensive and the show as just OK.  If you've never seen a Cirque show you'll likely like it. It is still amazing, and the costumes...wow...but if you've seen any other Cirque shows you might not be as wow'd.

Update4: JC
I didn't post it when it happened because it was still very raw for me. My dear friend JC died on Feb 10th of cancer. I'm still fighting with the "WTF?" emotions that go along with losing someone so young. It seems so unfair to his wife and boys that they now have to go on without him. He was well loved and will be truly missed.  A couple of schoolmates actually made it to the funeral for him. The community all came out to support JC and his family. The roads were lined with service personal (military, police, fire, etc) all there to pay their respects to a man who died way too soon.

Update5: Couch to 5K
If you can believe it, because I sure cant', I'm running for 8 minutes straight. I know for many of you "runner" types that's no big deal. To me, it's a huge deal.  My pace is still slow, but I'm still putting one foot in front of the other. I managed to not find a 5K in February that fit my schedule, so I'm doing 2 in March. The first one is this Sunday, the Hot Chocolate Run.  This particular 5K starts...STARTS at 6:45AM. Who in their right mind is up and ready to jog at that time of the morning? All I can say is they'd not only better have hot chocolate at the end of the run, but they'd better have some vodka to put in it.

There...that's all there is.

The Eagles

This weekend Blueberry and I took off to head up to see the Skagit Valley Eagles.  Apparently the Skagit River is home to hundred and hundreds and hundreds of bald eagles that come down from Alaska to feed. 

I say apparently because we didn't see hundreds and hundreds of eagles. I had in my head that I'd see several eagles in a tree and thought how cool that would be.  Turns out that is not what happened.

We took off at the butt crack of dawn to get up there for our 10am departure. In typical Seattle February weather it was raining. The rain, on the way up, varied in how much rain there was. At times we'd have just a mist and others it would be a down pour. All I could think was we're gonna get soaked.

We found, barely, the Shell station and got ourselves ready to go.  The tour company was there and ready to get us on the water. They put us in this old, very old, shuttle that had more dirt in it then anything I'd seen in a long time.  I was pretty sure the dirt was holding this thing together.  We grabbed our life jackets (also caked with dust and dirt - but I kinda expected that of life jackets) and were hussled off the old, musty shuttle and in to this 1970's van that had seen better days.

This is Blueberry looking for eagles. She's being dramatic of course.

The van was disgusting. Dingy, musty, dirty, and well, in a word, gross.  I didn't want to touch a thing in this van. And all I could think was, "Do they not know what vacuums are here in the country?"  Our tour guide, Dave, chatted us up a bit on our way to get in the boat. He seemed nice and happy to be doing what he was doing. He's spent years on the river and said he knew it inside and out.

We stopped at a boat launch and had to hike a bit to the water through a trail of mud. I was thankful I had my hiking boots on.  They were keeping me dry and relatively clean. There on the waters edge was this big raft.

Dave gave no safety talk or nothing, just said, "Here's how you get in the boat." I was first in line so I hopped on in and rolled my way to the back of the boat.  Dave was paddling right behind Blueberry and I.

And we were off.

Did I mention it was raining? Yah, still raining. 

We hit the water, which was calm because this girl is not interesting in white water rafting.  A couple of ripples in the water was all I wanted to see.

Dave was an expert at finding the eagles. I'd say he had an eagle eye...hahahaha.

Ahem.

Our critter count was:
21 eagles for the back of the boat
22 eagles for the front of the boat -they apparently saw one they didn't point out to us
9 ducks
2 Canadian geese
and 3 river otters.

The Skagit River, even in the rain, is beautiful.  The fog was hanging low which made for an eerie kinda feel to the area. And of course with the rain, it was already grey and dark.

After our 3 hour tour that lasted only 1 hour and 45 minutes, we docked and we hopped out. We were all cold, wet, and frozen.  All any of us could think of was getting back into that dingy, gross van and getting warm.

Dave hopped out of the boat, got us all out and said, "Where's the van?" As if any of us knew.  There was no van there to pick us up. 

Dave called the van-dropper-offer and asked. The van-dropper-offer said he'd be there in about 5 minutes.  Fine. I could wait 5 minutes.

40 minutes later after we started hiking up the road to the shell station in the rain and the wind, here comes the van.  The van-dropper-offer hopped out of the van, and started walking down the road.  I'm sure he wasn't interested in the wrath of 10 very wet, very cold, very frozen people. Dave got us in the van and cranked the heat. He apologized over and over again. 

As soon as we got back to the shell station, Dave announced he had received instructions from the owner to give us all a free tour. Oh goody, we get to go back and have a free tour! 

I turned to Blueberry and said, "I'll only come back if they can guarantee we get to ride in this dingy, gross van again." Blueberry just rolled her eyes at me.

After we got our wet clothes changed, we were starving.  A friend of ours had recommended the Birdview Brewing company.  So off we went.  We were starving and so ready to be warm and cozy.

This little place was, let's say, interesting. I have no doubt they brew good beer. There were many patrons in this place having a pint, or growler, or two.  I wasn't really interested in beer since I still had a two hour drive ahead of me. I just wanted food.

The "kitchen" in this place was basically a half wall off to the side and this older woman, working at a snail's pace making food.  Their menu was short and simple, as I would have expected. But the kitchen is what struck me as odd. 

The counters, were covered in food items. Bags of bread, condiments, a HUGE tub of butter, more bread, more plates, lettuce, sliced tomatoes, bags of chips, etc. It was crazy. Her "stoves" were basically two Panini presses that were so coated in grease and gunk that you couldn't really tell if there was a grill under there or not. The other cooking service was basically a flat griddle pan that was on full time, and sitting precariously close to the bags of bread.  I turned to Blueberry and said, "If the water didn't get us, this will."

I ordered a turkey sandwich with Swiss cheese and bacon. Blueberry ordered a grilled cheese. It took an hour to get our meal. And Blueberry's grilled cheese was basically two large slices of sour dough bread and two small slices of cheese.  We paid our bill and we got outta there determined to find a Starbucks.

Despite the wind, the rain, the cold, the 40 minute wait, the few birds, and the crazy lunch we had a great day.   I mean it's not every day you get to look this cool.

Oh and the cold, wet part of this trip killed my camera.  It's d-e-d dead. I'm afraid I'm going to have to fork over some $$ for a new one. Or a used body if I can find one.  Still, this camera isn't that old and I'm so mad at myself for not taking MORE precautions. It's sitting in a bunch of rice right now...let's hope it does the trick.

February Sunday Dinner

Occasionally a Sunday dinner comes together with no issues and turns out to be fantastically fun. This last Sunday dinner was just that.

Mostly the same usual suspects. Conversations ranged from sleeping naked in bed (don't ask) to bad neighborhoods to live in to family dynamics and back to sleeping naked in bed.  Again, don't ask.

The conversation this time seemed to flow so smoothing and effortlessly. Everyone adding their two cents in, and a few adding in a like a whole dollar worth (who name rhymes with WigRow).

The food was outstanding - if I do say so myself. I decided Sunday dinners were about comfort food a lot of the times. The combination of attendees often dictates what I'll make for dinner. This time around I decided comfort food was going to be the name of the game. So I made Shepherd's Pie. And what a hit it was. Queen PopUp brought spinach dip for an appetizer. Um, yum. S&C brought salad. Or more appropriately they brought items to make a salad and C then made the most kick ass salad of all time. It rivals Blueberry's kick ass salad.

Sorry for the yellow tint. I didn't have too much to drink that I should have forgotten to check my white balance. But there ya go. I had a few other things on my mind. Which I'll get into in a later blog.

So you can see, there was plenty of food for the 9 of us.  I figured a 9X17 pan of Shepherd's Pie would be plenty.  I mean I am a Wraspir and Wrapir's are known for notoriously cooking large sums of food.

Apparently my Wraspir heritage didn't plan on the salad being kick ass, and the Shepherd's Pie being unbelievably good. And it was delicious. It's definitely a recipe I'll do again. I'll be adding it to the cooking blog some day soon.

But the star of the show, in my humble opinion were the Nutella Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches.

What started as just a plan to use up a jar of Nutella and make cookies, turned into a thought just before I fell asleep one night about putting ice cream between two Nutella cookies. And the ice cream sandwiches were born. They...were....fantastic. While the cookies were not low-cal, the ice cream was. So I figured it countered the calories of the cookies and therefore the entire dessert was calorie free. And yes, the sky is pink in my world.

I just wanted to add one more gratuitous shot of the Nutella cookies.

Drool....

So as I mentioned, the February 2013 Sunday dinner will go down in the history books as one of my favorites. 

Seattle SIL, P-Dot, C, S (behind the kerchief), me, BigBro, Pantry Goat, Mr. Queen PopUp, Queen PopUp and Blueberry.

Blogger has a mind of its own

I was bored last night and so made some updates to some OLD blogs. For some reason, Blogger then posted them as new blogs instead of old blogs.  I've since deleted them altogether...so ignore the new blogs you may or may not have seen yesterday. They weren't "new".

Occasionally I do like to go back and read what was going on in my life at a certain point. Its not all interesting, but its my story all the same.

I've been having an ongoing conversation with a friend about life and how people approach it.  We all have those friends, like me, who try to be very planful about my life and my direction. Spontaneity isn't something I do well.

Then you have the friends who just flop through life with no real direction or plan. 

And of course, you've got all the friends who are in between.

The discussion I've been having is about which is "right".  Should you be planful? Should you be spontaneous? Should you just let life happen?

Just typing those words "just happen" sends shivers down my spine.

Look, the way I see it is this...this is my one chance.  I have to have control over it so that what I want out of life I get.  All the planning, the thinking, the doing, that's what life is all about isn't it?

At the end of my life, I'd like to look back and not have any regrets.  Well, serious regrets - I think we all have some minor regrets. 

I get there's a lot to say for being spontaneous. I'd love to have a bit more of that and a bit less control freak.  It's a struggle... let...me... tell... you. It is one thing I've been actively working on. Sadly, there aren't a lot of opportunities in my life to be spontaneous.

So what am I trying to say here:

First, it's your life. Live it! Which ever type of person you are - you have to own it.

Second - maybe try a little enlightenment and try to push out of your comfort zone into Opposite World and try to be a little like what you're not. I.e. spontaneous when you're not.

Third - You only get one chance. As Nike said, Just do it!

And Now Back to our regularly scheduled show...

It's been a weird couple of days for me. With current situation of a good friend heading into hospice and bracing for the phone call, my life has taken another unexpected turn to re-evaluate who I am, what I'm doing, and why.

Its sad to me that it takes a major trauma for me to re-evaluate. But I don't think I'm alone in that. I think it might just be the way life is, and that I should just go with it. Its not like you can schedule soul searching into your daily life. Or could you?

I don't have a lot to really talk about today, but felt like I needed to express something. So I'm stealing an idea from Beagle Babe and going to write about what is currently going on.

The idea here is you take a moment each week and write about a few things that are currently happening. You'll get the picture...just keep reading.


WATCHING:
The super bowl...okay so I ignored the first hour of the super bowl, then decided to turn it on to watch the commercials.  Really uneventful commercials for the most part.  A couple caught my eye and got me all teary eyed - Clydesdale commercial and Jeeps commercial about working with the NSO and bring our military folks home.

READING:
Just finished We Need to Talk About Kevin. Brutal book. Great book. Tough read, but it was a good read.  It's about a mom who's son commits a high school mass murder.  Rather odd timing to start reading it considering the Sandy Hook situation.  Finished that and hopped right into Beautiful Creatures.  I've read some mixed reviews on this supernatural book and so felt I had to give it a go myself. So far, I'm hooked.

LISTENING:
A little bit of this and a little bit of that with regards to music. With recent events dumping me on memory lane, 80's music seems to be the main theme this week. 

MAKING:
I'm finishing up my 2012 scrapbook and specifically the Vancouver portion of 2012.  Then I decided I needed to take photos of every scrapbook page and organize them so I have them should anything happen to my scrapbooks. That is a project in and of itself.

FEELING:
A bit nostalgic.

PLANNING:
Oddly my planning this week is around food. I've got to get back on the wagon of losing weight. I've maintained, and I'm fine with that, but I still need a couple more pounds (read about 50) to get off me. 

LOVING:
Project 365.  I decided to do it again this year and haven't quite found my rhythm yet.  I will say though I love that every day I think about what photo I want to take. 99% of my photos so far have been with the iPhone.  Soon, very soon, I'll get the big camera out.