skiing hurts.

Jimmy got free passes to Snowbird from a business conference, so we decided there wasn’t going to be a better time to go skiing, even though I’m 5 months pregnant. I’d never been before and he’d only been once, so we didn’t want to spend actual money going.

I’ve heard that the first day of snowboarding is hellish, but let me tell you, it had to be better than that! Luckily it was a beautiful day - that made it nice those moments I wasn’t on the snow. When we got there, the lady handing out scarves recommended a few routes for beginners, and we headed up to one. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the beginner beginner slope.

It took me an hour to snowplow/fall down the mountain to the lodge, which is a long time to exert yourself when you’re pregnant and in the shape I’m in. Here’s an embarrassing moment that kind of sums up that experience:

I was at the top of (to me) a drastically steep slope, and I just couldn’t seem to get the hang of anything - I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t turn; I knew what I was supposed to be doing and I just couldn’t get my body to do what it was supposed to do. And I was terrified to go down that next bit. Then my goggles started fogging up and I couldn’t see anything. Jimmy was down at the bottom of the steepness (about 100 ft down), and there was no easy way to get down to him. Being the emotional pregnant being that I am, I sat (aka dropped to one bruised hip) and started crying. I inched myself down a few feet and got myself out of the main way, and just cried for a while. All of a sudden, like out of a movie, this ski instructor, complete with European accent, stops in front of me and says, “Are you in the same place I saw you a half hour ago?” “Yeah,” I sniffed, still sobbing. He helped me up and skied me down to Jimmy (meanwhile one of the three little kids behind him asks, “can I go ski over there while you help her up?”). I was embarrassed, but grateful.

I only went down once more, but luckily it was on the REAL bunny slopes, and I finally figured out how to snow plow and keep my speed down. There were a few more tears, but by the end I could see how some people find skiing fun, and I can honestly say I’d do it again . . . with lessons, of course.

Jimmy did really well, though, and got to the point (on one of his intermediate runs while I enjoyed the scenery of the lodge and let him actually ski) that he stopped thinking and had a “Nirvana experience.” I still can’t imagine that, but I think it means that he had fun, despite my frustrations.

Somebody snapped a picture right as some guy’s skis fell out of a bus window and got run over.

Blast from the past

So, I used to write on another blog. I set it up in 2005 and wrote a handful of posts before forgetting about it entirely. It’s still there, and I looked back at it today and found this post. It’s from the summer of 2005. I met Danika the next fall. I thought it was kind of a cool snapshot of the past. It’s interesting to see what has changed . . . and what hasn’t.

Here it is:

For the next three months, my summer will consist of copious amounts of the following:

• Work - Regular (AKA - incredibly mind-numbing) work, yard work, dental work, work outs, etc.
• Ultimate - I’m practicing twice a week with Cleveland’s club team, the highest level of organized disc that exists in the states. It’s absolutely kicking my trash so far, but I’ve learned a ton and am holding my own out there. This has been by far my favorite part of summer to this point.
• Books on Tape - or CD, as it were. Seeing as my job consists of very little synaptic stimulation, I got permission from my supervisor to listen to books on tape while I work. I chill with my CD player and headphones pretty much all day, every day. Thus far I’ve listened to two Harry Potters: Sorceror’s Stone (8 hours) and Order of the Phoenix (27 hours), Robert Ludlum’s The Janson Directive (18 hours), Robert Jordan’s New Spring (13 hours), about 6 hours of what I thought (mistakenly) was a mystery by Nora Roberts, and I just finished Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code (16 hours) yesterday. Next in line is another Ludlum thriller and the rest of the Harry Potters, when they are available at the library. Any suggestions?
• The NBA Playoffs - Last summer Trisha got me hooked on Smallville and I got her hooked on the playoffs. Since neither of my teams (Utah and Cleveland) will ever make the playoffs, my favorites this year are Miami in the East and Phoenix in the West. I’m pulling for both of the underdogs in the other two series (Seattle over San Antonio and Indiana over Detroit). I generally spend way too much time watching the games, listening to AM sports radio stations, and reading about them in the paper and on ESPN.com. There are two to three games every night, an NBA nirvana. How do you not watch?
• Indians Games - If I’m not watching basketball or playing frisbee, I’m listening to Tom Hamilton and my (dismal) Indians on WTAM 1100. This is one of my favorite things to do, and I’ve been doing it every summer for 10 years now. There’s just something I love about having a game on in the background whenever I’m near a radio, much to Trisha’s chagrin (she’s an FM listener).
• Movies - As long as I went to the trouble to pack up and bring home my incredibly sweet speakers, we are going to make good use of them. Star Wars, LOTR, National Treasure, The Incredibles, Bourne Supremacy, anything else we can get our hands on, here I come! Again, any suggestions?

Okay, that’s all I’ve got so far. There’s more, but my wrist hurts from this stupid mouse.

stupid mouse…

Yeehaw. I’m glad to report that the Indians are now back to being annual contenders and that both the Cavs and the Jazz made their respective Conference Finals last year (the Cavs went all the way to the Finals). And I can’t believe I thought that Nora Gordon wrote mystery novels.