Wanted: Vacation Manager
Position title: Vacation Manager
Job requirements:
- Daily slathering of two slippery children with SPF 50 sunscreen at two hour intervals throughout the day (extra if children are in water). Daily bonus paid if neither child develops any sunburn.
- Managing the contents of beach bag and diaper bag, as in constantly knowing what is in both bags, where all items are located within bags, and what needs to be replenished.
- Frequent trips to obtain forgotten camera, "nice fresh fresh juice", towels, sunglasses forgotten in the car from the night before, etc. etc. etc.
- Getting in very cold pool water to catch jumping child. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Oh, and repeat.
- Preparing baby food menu for each day. Includes obtaining food and finding a way to serve it at a tolerable temperature.
- Building sandcastles which includes chasing away crabs from inhabiting freshly built sandcastles.
- Bathing and dressing slippery, sunscreen covered children each night.
- Running child to the bathroom from the point most far away from bathroom while chanting, "Hold it. Hold it. Hold it."
- Butt wiping.
- Retrieval of all meals not eaten in a restaurant.
- Carrying all beach materials (umbrella, beach blanket, towels, cover-ups, beach bag, sand toys, cooler, book, beach chair, jogging stroller, tent, etc.) to and from the beach each day.
- Confronting neighboring hotel room occupants who happen to listen to the preview channel for 4 hours straight at the highest volume possible.
Qualifications:
- Endless patience.
- True love for children.
- No allergies to sunscreen ingredients.
- Strength of a pack mule to carry multiple heavy things at a time.
Anyone? Anyone? Not that I’m complaining because I’m having a great time; but it sure would be nice. . .
Karate Mama’s & Papa’s
The great Mommy Blogger Love Fest is going on all over the place. It started here. I was flattered to be listed here. I wasn’t sure if I was going to participate or not, because I was in a bad mood so many are participating that I just didn’t know if I could write an original post. I’m a little late getting in on this game to begin with. But, then I thought about all these cool karate mama’s out there who have been stopping by this site, and I thought "Now there’s an idea!"
My first Karate Mama is Junebee. She was my faithful and loyal commenter over at my syndicated blog site that my hometown newspaper publishes. My visitor stats over there are really great, but I rarely get a comment (let alone a nice one). So, Junebee hooked me up with praise on a regular basis, before she decided to come over to this site where I post more. She is a black belt in hapkido, and studies Tae Kwon Do as well.
Wayward Goddess always stops by and comments (and makes me feel like my work outs are completely inadequate!) She’s got a cool new site with a graphic on it that just makes you want to get up and dance. She is outranked by her son, or should I say sensei son. I doubt that will be for long though.
Lost Cheerio found my site recently. She is a green belt in Tang Soo Do. She’s witty and seems like she’d be a lot of fun to get to know. Her American Idol commentary alone is worth a visit.
Crouching Mother, Hidden Diva is a purple belt in shaolin kenpo and has an upcoming test for a blue belt. It should be interesting to see how it goes for her.
And honestly, I know it’s supposed to be all about the ladies, but I would be seriously remiss if I didn’t mention the karate papa’s. . .
"Frogman" of "Taming the Horse Stance" takes karate with his son and works diligently on the things in karate that he likes the least. He goes to tournaments and competes along side his son, which is just way cool.
John of "Martial Views" is the Yoda of karate. . . at least that’s what I tell him. He is a 2nd dan black belt in Isshinryu Karate. If you want to learn a whole lot about martial arts in a short amount of time, his site is the place to go. His posts are brain food for anyone interested in the martial arts; and he’s got three sons too.
Curtis has three kids and is at the beginning of his karate journey. He is very dedicated and is lucky enough to be training with some of his very best friends (instead of with elementary school kids like I do.)
If you are a mama or a papa and take karate, let me know. I’d love to check out your site and I’m sure others would as well.
Karate Mama’s & Papa’s
The great Mommy Blogger Love Fest is going on all over the place. It started here. I was flattered to be listed here. I wasn’t sure if I was going to participate or not, because I was in a bad mood so many are participating that I just didn’t know if I could write an original post. I’m a little late getting in on this game to begin with. But, then I thought about all these cool karate mama’s out there who have been stopping by this site, and I thought "Now there’s an idea!"
My first Karate Mama is Junebee. She was my faithful and loyal commenter over at my syndicated blog site that my hometown newspaper publishes. My visitor stats over there are really great, but I rarely get a comment (let alone a nice one). So, Junebee hooked me up with praise on a regular basis, before she decided to come over to this site where I post more. She is a black belt in hapkido, and studies Tae Kwon Do as well.
Wayward Goddess always stops by and comments (and makes me feel like my work outs are completely inadequate!) She’s got a cool new site with a graphic on it that just makes you want to get up and dance. She is outranked by her son, or should I say sensei son. I doubt that will be for long though.
Lost Cheerio found my site recently. She is a green belt in Tang Soo Do. She’s witty and seems like she’d be a lot of fun to get to know. Her American Idol commentary alone is worth a visit.
Crouching Mother, Hidden Diva is a purple belt in shaolin kenpo and has an upcoming test for a blue belt. It should be interesting to see how it goes for her.
And honestly, I know it’s supposed to be all about the ladies, but I would be seriously remiss if I didn’t mention the karate papa’s. . .
"Frogman" of "Taming the Horse Stance" takes karate with his son and works diligently on the things in karate that he likes the least. He goes to tournaments and competes along side his son, which is just way cool.
John of "Martial Views" is the Yoda of karate. . . at least that’s what I tell him. He is a 2nd dan black belt in Isshinryu Karate. If you want to learn a whole lot about martial arts in a short amount of time, his site is the place to go. His posts are brain food for anyone interested in the martial arts; and he’s got three sons too.
Curtis has three kids and is at the beginning of his karate journey. He is very dedicated and is lucky enough to be training with some of his very best friends (instead of with elementary school kids like I do.)
If you are a mama or a papa and take karate, let me know. I’d love to check out your site and I’m sure others would as well.
“Vacation, all I ever wanted. . .” (minus the head injury)
If your comments take a while to appear, or if it seems I haven’t been a good commenter lately, it’s because I’m on vacation, y’all. Yeah, I said "y’all". My family and I are vacationing in North Carolina at the beach; and after living in the Northeast for almost my entire life, it always shocks and amazes me how nice the people are down here. Nice, y’all, really nice. You may ask why I am blogging while at the beach on this gorgeous afternoon; but it’s because I am on hotel room nap duty. Lil C is out like a light and is enjoying her first uninterrupted nap since Thursday night. I’m blogging before digging into my pile of books I’ve been saving for such an occasion. It all works out.
So far, we’ve only had one little problem on our trip. This little problem has brought to my attention yet another difference between men and women. Let me ask you this. . . when you are driving and you put the car in reverse, do you simply turn your head and use your mirrors to see where you’re going? Or, do you need some help from your arm, as in drape your arm over the back of the passenger seat in order to facilitate your turning around? When I reverse, I turn my head. When my husband reverses, he puts his whole body into it.
Last night, this little physical anomaly caused some serious head trauma. We were backing out of a restaurant. My husband was driving. I turned around and was in the process of retrieving some toys that had been thrown on the floor by Lil C. The next thing I know, I am being clothes-lined by my husband’s arm. As he flung his arm from my seat, back to where it should be, he hit me with an outside block to the ear and head so hard that all I could hear for a few seconds was, "whop, whop, whop." When he made contact, my head moved at a very unnatural angle to my neck and sent pain shooting up my neck and into my head. I felt like the entire left side of my brain was throbbing.
So, as I’m reeling from the blow and trying to figure out what just happened, he decides to school me on not putting my head there while he’s reversing. Because his response wasn’t a resounding, "I’m so sorry. Are you o.k.?" right away, I was slightly peeved. So, I decided to accuse him of having a genetic defect that many men seem to have. . . the inability to reverse a vehicle without using their arm to turn their body. What is up with that???
A few sucker punches to his arm later (and one well deserved apology), I felt a little better about the whole thing; but that didn’t stop the raging headache that lasted until this morning. Ouch. I am hoping that this will be the last of the vacation injuries.
I am happy to report that when leaving a grocery store today and reversing, my husband was able to do so without the aid of his arm. It’s progress people. I’m hoping I can break him of this potentially head-rattling problem by the time our vacation ends. But let’s not talk about that, because this vacation has only just begun. . .
If you can see it, you can do it
It has been very hectic lately around here, what with Lil C suddenly becoming extremely mobile. It has not allowed very much time for solitary training. My work out has definitely taken a back burner. Until I can figure out how to contain Lil C without her having an absolute fit or figure out a way to somehow wear her in a baby wrap that won’t interfere with kata (not possible), I have to resort to other ways to continue to learn my material for testing. The other ways don’t necessarily have to be physical.
I had a biopsychology class when I was in college. I passed by the skin of my teeth despite a ton of studying. One thing I will always remember from that class though, is something my professor said about neural pathways and learning. If you read something, or study something before bed, while sleeping your brain works on it and makes it easier to remember. She said it much more scientifically than that, of course; but I’ve found it to be very true. In college, if I studied right before bed, the information was easier to remember the next day. I didn’t remember everything; but I remembered enough to make me want to continue the habit. (I only wish it would have worked a little better with bio-psych.)
Recently, while trying to fall asleep at night, instead of going through a mental to-do list like I frequently do, I’ve been working on visualizing my kata’s. You have to know the material well enough first to do this; but visualization is a great tool for committing kata (or anything else for that matter) to memory. It helps you work out the details. It also helps with application (bunkai). If you can visualize yourself doing something, you’ll be better prepared if you have to take action. This is great mental training for self defense. Lately there’s been a lot of talk about this in the karate blogging world.
John of Martial Views, (or the karate yoda as I affectionately call him) posted about this imagery the other day. Mat is also a good read for understanding the martial arts journey. He’s really good at seeing the big picture, even though he doesn’t always think so himself. He has devoted so much time to the martial arts that reading about his training regime is really quite inspiring. I can’t keep up with him; but reading about what he’s doing makes me at least want to try. At Taming The Horse Stance, you can also read about this visual imagery.
Everyone has a different reason for taking up the martial arts. For most though, the journey is as much a mental one as it is a physical one. Lirian Fae of Karate Talk writes about her inner voice and how important it is in karate. Karate isn’t about physical conquest and domination. The majority of people studying the martial arts don’t derive enjoyment from hurting other people. Studying the martial arts is about listening to that inner voice and about respect: respect for others, respect for the art, and respect for yourself. It is evident by the way the majority of people treat each other in a dojo. Karate is a state of mind, that hopefully one can translate into daily life.
I have as much respect for the 10-year old brown belt as I do for the 50-year old white belt. Actually I have a TON of respect for that 10-year old brown belt because when I was fumbling with my belt once, she approached me and went step by step to show me how to tie it properly. She wasn’t intimidated that I was an adult; and I wasn’t bothered by the fact that a 10-year old could correct me on something. I often joke about being one of the oldest ones in my class, but stature aside we’re all really in the same boat and working towards a common goal.
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