What is Important

Sometimes when I tell people about my travels, I get a response like this "Wow that must be nice."

When I get an upgrade, when I am stuck in a town due to weather delays or cancelled flights and I stay in an upgraded suite, dine on room service or Häagen Dazs ice cream, when the car rental company gives me the newest model of a black sleek car, and when I get to skip security it does feel like I get my own little mini-vacation.  I can't pretend like being alone in a hotel room with room service is "stressful" or "sensory overload" like my house often is on a regular basis.

And yesterday at church, someone posed the question: "What is your holy place?"  and I had to admit to myself that unlike some other women whose response is "the bathroom",  I actually have a quiet and peaceful place where I spend time on a regular basis.  That is since my "no TV" policy I established a few years ago (due to excessive Seinfelding at 11 every night).

But when I sit down to look at my travel schedule and find that I am going to be away from my family for at least some portion of the week for weeks on end, I wonder if it really is nice.

My children are growing up.  My two oldest are in fact away from home already much more than I anticipated, spending time with friends, or extra-curriculars and as they grow up, I miss them tremendously.  And I wonder what long-term effect my travels will have on my children.

Will they report to their therapist that their mother was always gone and neglected them or will their sense of independence and ability to make choices be greater and healthier psychologically?

Will I look back on my life and wonder if my sense of purpose was skewed in wanting to serve so many children over serving my own brood on a regular basis or will I feel a sense of satisfaction at having done both?

Will my husband look back on our marriage as a one-sided effort or will he feel closer to me because we made a great effort to spend time together precisely because of my schedule?

If I were working for a standard for-profit industry, I feel that the moral dilemma I face would not be so complicated.  Though I doubt I would be able to recognize it, I feel that in my heart I would know that my time of jet-setting was to come to an end once my husband had a job and we had another income.

But now, I can't imagine giving up the work I am engaging in nationally and by the way being paid for it any more than I can imagine not being a mother.  It is who I have become and who I want to be--so the question becomes even more complicated.  Were I not working for pay, I would still spend hundreds of hours a month in schools, school board meetings, or some other nefarious volunteerism.

As I recently said to a co-worker, we are all busy doing a certain number of things.  Some of us do more things and do them less effectively--I am one of these individuals.  No matter what anyone says, I am certain that my effort to raise my children is less efficacious than a woman who is at home with her children full-time.  I am positive that my home would be cleaner, my medical bills more organized, my budget in better shape and my church service would be greater.  I know I would be a better intern and grad student if I weren't doing 10 other things, a more committed friend and a less needy wife--but these are not the choices I have made.

What I still can't decide is whether more is less, or, as my mind and body insist, more is more.

Hampton Inn, I will see you this evening O my Holy Place.

Last Travel of the Year

I had a horrible flight experience today and to commemorate this and appreciate that it was truly my only really bad travel for 2012, I will bore myself and any potential readers with a travel story.  
Seriously, travel stories are like dreams, no one really likes to hear about them.  But here we go:

I overslept.  To be precise, I told Siri to set my alarm for 5:30 AM.  I always verify the alarm because she sometimes ignores me but I was so exhausted that I forgot.  Did I mention I had a redeye the day before and then worked all day after landing in time for my morning meeting?  Anyway, this morning, I woke up at 7:30.  The time my flight was to depart from Columbus, Ohio, and discovered that Siri did not hear me because my alarm was not even set.  Obviously, I missed the flight.

And this detail doesn't make any sense to normal people but is important for frequent flyers--I am not on my normal airline (Delta) but US Airways.  I used to be on their preferred list but I never did like them.  Now I am a Delta girl, all the way.

So the US Air people tell me in Columbus that it is unlikely I can even get out of there today and all flights from all cities are booked so they can't promise I will arrive in SLC until at least Sunday.  They sent me to go to other airlines to ask about additional flights (what?  awesome).

In the end, US Air did get me out of Columbus to Charlotte, but they had to de-ice the plane so we left 30 minutes late.

As is usual for bumpy bad weather flights, I contemplated my own mortality, particularly when, about 20 feet off the ground, the pilot suddenly pulls up and instead we do an angled, wild, and rickety circle around the airport.  We landed so late that I only had 15 minutes to get all the way across the airport.

So I hop on one of those beepy golf carts and make friendly conversation with a fellow passenger who is blind and has a seeing eye dog.  The golf cart stops us at the bottom of an escalator and tells us to take another golf cart to make it the rest of the way, but blind man says he will instead follow me since we are both headed to Phoenix for the next leg.  I look at my ticket and see that it says C-16 and walk quickly over there while the blind man and his dog are trying to make it across several moving walkways and through thousands of holiday travelers, go carts, etc. It was a very stressful experience to go fast enough to get there but slow enough where he can literally blindly follow me.
We arrive to the gate finally, 5 minutes before the intended departure and I look at the gate which says "San Francisco", not Phoenix.  Well, rather than trying to work it out at that gate, I grab the man's ticket and it says B3.  B!!! That is all the way across the terminal again!

I race across the terminal with him madly following with his little doggy and I am on the verge of tears because know that I have ruined his holiday!! He is now going to miss this flight because I must have gotten the gate wrong, you know?  So we arrive to the gate and it says Dallas, so then I start crying and explain to the gate agent that it was my fault that he missed the flight and she says "sweetie, the Phoenix flight is not leaving for another two hours, he didn't miss it you are fine."

And I am so relieved I cry more, and then realize that I missed my own flight and have reduced my own possibility of getting home today.

I should have just talked to the people at the gate like I would have if I had been myself.  I didn't realize that he and I were on different flights!  But what kind of person doesn't help the blind guy? I mean, after I have just searched my soul on the near-death airplane, I figure it is better to miss a flight and help a blind person than to selfishly run ahead, right?

So I go the bathroom and just start crying uncontrollably.  Like, sobbing.  What the heck, you know?   A few ladies in the bathroom were worried about me, which was kind of annoying but helped a little since I realized I was wallowing a bit.

But here is the touchy-feely ending.  I go to eat lunch (because now I have like tons of time) and eat dessert for the first time in months because I am just tired, so tired, and so frazzled.  And I call Steve and I start crying again (so much crying!!!)  Well, I go to pay for my meal, and the server tells me that the lady who had been sitting across from me felt sorry for my travel troubles so she bought me lunch and wanted to wish me a Merry Christmas.  So what do I do?
Cry of course.

Can you imagine?

I am a chump.

Detroit Westin

A wonderful General Conference Weekend (for those who didn't read about the announcement, big news for us Mormon folk!) in which I spent several hours in the living room with my children.  We should do that more often!

A sample of the kind of "fun family time" that my kids enjoy:


Casey:  And that is why I am your favorite son, right mom?

Bridget: Well, you are her only son.  Which also makes you her LEAST favorite son.


It was filled with such loving, brother/sister bonding kinds of conversations.  But, as a family that values sarcasm, it was tremendously fulfilling.

We had a fun time together in the afternoon and then on Sunday in which I felt grateful ALL day for my kids.  This is a rarity, I am not really that grateful of a mother.  Maybe because I am tired all the time (next post: my chronic dehydration).

I ended up coming in Saturday around noon because I had to stay overnight in Detroit at a hotel. I have tremendous guilt when end up an extra night in a hotel, and this was no exception.

But honestly, I have been a little stressed lately and the in-airport Westin (literally, they even have a small security line so you can go directly into the airport from your hotel and you end up near the A gates) was really, truly, lovely.

The smells and colors are so relaxing and I ended up falling asleep at 4 pm.  I woke up at 9, had a nice salmon dinner delivered, and then I was back asleep.  I woke up, did some homework, and then got on my plane to go home.  I came home so relaxed I think it allowed me to have a much better experience with the family.

My husband and children should be grateful for the extra night away from home because mommy came home a better person.  I wish I were that good to begin with, but I am not.

Thank you to the Detroit Westin for providing a luxurious layover experience.

Goblin Valley Experience

This weekend I went to Goblin Valley, for those who don't know, it is a crazy amazing place 3.5 hours from where we live now.  I can't explain it so I won't try.  Here are several shots to attempt to capture the beauty of it:

It really is like a bunch of little rock goblins.  Speaking of little goblins...

Then my phone died. So I didn't capture the loveliest of all, my new amor for the outdoors that I discovered in a slot canyon. Little Wild Horse Trail. So I have to borrow some pictures from other sources, pretend like the kid in this picture is one of the young women in my ward or one of my own wee ones:

 Or...

Prior to this trip, when people would say "let's go on a hike" I would think things like uphill, stickers in my socks, plant identification, and being really thirsty.  But this kind of hiking, this kind of adventurous climbing and moving your way through small openings in rocks, now that... that is what I call a hike!

So fun, and I hope to repeat it several times over.  I am already trying to scope out a time when I can do it again.  Here is one more picture just for you to imagine it.  We saw several groups doing things like this so we could go under their legs to pass.  Again, don't know these people, but you can imagine that is the kind of group we might have seen.  If I get some actual photos, I will replace these.

Authentic Dining Experiences

In my opinion, there are two kinds of people in this world:  those who will pay for a $100 dinner, and those who will not.

You know which group you fit with--I am not talking about variables like "well, if I had a spare $100 floating around on the ground" or "if someone else paid for it" I am talking about the general concept of your willingness to spend money on your meal.

If you don't know which group to which I belong, you do not know me as well as you thought.


*This week I was in New York and ate dinner at Da Umberto in Manhattan.  For those who have not eaten at a really high quality restaurant, there is no point in even trying to imagine it.  What was wonderful about this particular place was not just the food, which I will get into in a minute, but the ambiance. 

I am pretty certain that 100% of the wait staff were genuine Italians.  The accents were thick, sing-songy, and the rolling of the Rs was like watching a broadway theater production.  I was riveted by the pronunciation of every last offering from the "For the ah especial this evening, we have the ah... rrrrrisoootto with the ah, butternaut esquash" to the "oh maybe you like a combo of the feeg and estrawberry gelaaaato?" to the "no, it no have the pancetta, it have the prosciutto." Some people do not want a belabored dissertation for dinner but as for me and mine? When it has the accent and beautiful descriptions, it is an audible treat.

It doesn't hurt that in general, the swarthy Italian waiters look you straight in the eye as they are pouring more water.

We had some of everything and perhaps part of the reason why these meals are so much money is that the waiters make the food sound so tempting that you won't say no to tacking on something here and there.  Something like, ah, thees?

My favorite was the sun-dried tomato ravioli with the goat cheese and some herb or other but it was almost a tie with the fried baby artichokes and the pancetta-wrapped chicken breast with pecorino cheese.  Our table held a collective moment of silence in honor of the great flavor.  And of course a chocolate mousse for dessert.

It was a tremendous memory and much more valuable to me than any concert or play.  Because for me, my deepest connections are with the food I eat and the people I am with.  As my mother aptly noted, "Lee Ann, I eat to live while you live to eat."

Amen, mamma mia.

*Disclaimer:  My work pays for my meals when I travel but if we go over a reasonable amount which is very rare, we pitch in our own money and in the story above and others like it, my colleagues and I put up our own money to make up the difference so that we are not using sacred education dollars for my personal indulgences.

How to Stay Healthy on the Road

I was home for fewer than 24 hours before traipsing across the country and I have a lot of crap to do to catch up with both my home and work lives. 

So rather than catch up on said work, I am going to do a quick blog to record this moment of my life and the energy I spend trying to be healthy. I hope I stick with these practices, it has been months so I am thinking they should be habits, no?

A couple of shoutouts first:

1) To Amanda for sending me a link to greensmoothiegirl. 
2) To my co-worker Jude who has made needing to eat healthy a group event
3) To my friend Tiff for mocking the sprout sandwich I pinned.  And other yummy treats on my pinterest boards.

Here are my current practices, I would love for feedback if you think these are bad things:

1) NO SUGAR.  Seriously.  If I pick up a bag of almonds and it has sugar, corn syrup, or aspartame, I skip it.  This is the top one because I notice that after awhile, I no longer crave it.  One bite and all the memories of desserts on the road come flooding into my brain and I can. Not. Resist.  So sadly and tragically, no sugar.

2) No refined flour.  This one is almost moot because hardly any flour-based products are sugar free.  However, pasta and other non-complex flour items are on my no-no list.

3) Get Naked at Starbucks.   Naked Juice makes some incredible smoothies that are comprised of healthy ingredients, they have a variety of flavors at almost every Starbucks.   I probably eat 2 green smoothies a day while traveling, sometimes I get stuck with the fruit-only ones which are highly tasty.  They are $4.31 each, but if you compare that with an average breakfast, lunch, or dinner price, that is pretty steenking cheap.  I should buy stock in Naked Juice.  PS Berry Veggie is gross, all other flavors are rockin.

4)  Take the stairs.  Everywhere.  If there are one hundred stairs in the subway right next to an extremely steep escalator, I take them anyway.  There are so few opportunities to take stairs that you should do it when you can.  I sometimes request a high floor in a hotel if I know I have a few extra minutes to get out the door and back in at night and then I take the stairs.  Not convenient for 6 hour hotel stays.  Alternatively this section could be entitled "Dance as long as you can" but not everyone likes dancing and it may disturb you to know I dance in the bathroom, in front of the TV, and out with colleagues a few times a year if possible.  It is way more fun than stairs.

5) Preparation for potential exercise.  I always pack a sports bra and an extra pair of workout underwear.  Then if an opportunity presents itself, I put in a DVD or youtube vids and get jiggy with zumba or Tracy. I have found that packing tennis shoes takes up space and then makes me regret that I couldn't commit to leaving my room.  But in my room if I say "okay just five minutes" then even while exhausted I can come up with something in my stockinged feet.

6) Drink herbal tea  Hardly any hotels carry them in the room so if I do find one, I raid the supply and take it with me.  I like a peppermint for the morning and a chamomile for evening.  These energize and relax me alternatively and fill me up with necessary liquids.  Plus I can hang out at the coffee/dessert crowd and feel like I am partaking without filling my body with sugars and well, you already know I don't do coffee.


5) Scout out room service healthy options immediately.  When I get into my hotel room, I look at all the options and tell myself how unhealthy they are and then pick something relatively harmless.  Then, if I do get a temptation to eat, I have already selected the healthiest item and don't slip back to a bad choice.  Most hotels have some kind of yogurt thing or a tomato salad.  I don't usually order them, but it is a safe guard to pick right away and then be prepared if you give in to the call of the brownie with ice cream and chocolate sauce.

These may seem like simple things or maybe stuff you have always done, but I have struggled with weight gain and I finally, finally have brought myself to a place where not only do I not gain, but I often lose a pound or two if I am away for a long time.

If I had better self-control I would add one more thing to my repetoire:

Eat alone.  When I eat alone, I eat less and I pick healthier items.  However, since the purpose of life is to be good and right and to simultaneously find joy, I would find eating alone sad and a waste of an opportunity so I sacrifice a few extra calories in order to spend time with people I enjoy. 


Don't worry, if you ever want to join me on one of my trips, you will find there are plenty of yummy foods out there that are not on my taboo list.

Detalles

So I had an awesome day with nuns but I am a few posts behind and I have to stay in order.

Fact:  Barcelona is totally awesome.  Fountains mmm:

Fact:  If you drink from the fountain in La Rambla, you always return.  Also a fact:  The water tastes disgusting.  Since I have gone to that fountain several times, the desire to return courses like poison in my veins, no need to feed the best.  I did get a foto taken by it though.

Fact:  The official language of Barcelona and the entire region surrounding is Catalán.  For those who don't know the deep roots of a very long battle, the region of Catalunya wants to be separate--not like tejas that jokes about it, but for reals for reals Catalunya doesn't want to be part of Spain and in fact does not consider what we consider "Spanish" to be Spanish, rather Castellano.  Though I have used the term before, I had forgotten that some Catalanes consider it an insult to call it Spanish (even though they don't want to be Spanish, so, weird.)  Anywho, linguists know that if a language isn't useful, it declines so they require it for everything these days to protect the language from extinction and to resurge as a great language of art and culture.  The sign below is in Catalán and is the one found at the base of said fountain:

Fact:  Awesome architecture due largely to Gaudí.  More on that guy later, but everywhere you see his influence:

Fact:  Spaniards love motorcyles.  Harleys, really, but they don't drive them, they drive little motos.  Here is a sampling of moto love:

Fact:  El Barça has the best soccer team in the world right now.  My friend (well, her husband to be exact) es, like many other in his city, un fanático.  Their entire family dressed up and of course bought me un original shirt.  They were very happy to see me in the shirt, I hope I actually wear it again in my life.  Maybe Halloween?

I have many other pictures, but at least I got these up for now.  Next post:  Mucha marcha en Madrid and Flamenco.

The Spanish Beso

I was planning to do a post on detalles--all the details of Barcelona which focused on hundreds of pictures of roof tops.  Be thankful for lousy internet that all you get is this post until my pictures finish downloading.

Since I mentioned the Spanish beso in my last post I thought I would help out those of you who have no knowledge of the beso.

In Spain, you give a kiss (beso) to people on each cheek under the following circumstances:

1)  You are being introduced to someone new

2)  You see someone you know after a long time (a month, a year, 5 years, etc.)

3)  You see someone you know really well after a shorter time period

It is a very sweet tradition, people seem to do it in place of a hug and there is an indicator that you are going to get a beso when the person leans in towards you--not really any awkwardness, a nice simple expression of kindness and caring.

Not surprisingly for those of you know about missionary policies in the Mormon church (which are basically guidelines similar to what a nun or priest might follow), the missionaries are discouraged from giving besos to the opposite sex.  It goes hand in hand with a strict no-opposite sex general policy which precludes missionaries from being alone in a room, or even at a 1/1 ratio with members of the opposite gender.  It is a really important guideline that helps missionaries really focus on spiritual work instead of on their more tangible and very alert hormones at that age.

Anyway, as a person who is a bit of a hugger (not like, lingering huggy and hang all over you hugger, just a normal I care about you hugger) I had a hard time with the "no beso" rule when I was on my mission. 

See in Spain, a beso is a gesture of friendliness, not attraction, and by making it taboo, it actually elevates the level of the beso to feel like it IS related to attraction.  So... I admit a few times when someone was already leaning in, I let it slide.  Mostly we used the line "no damos besos" (we don't give kisses) but it was such an awkward moment if the person was already moving in for the kiss.

Fortunately, we could beso the ladies all we liked which were mainly the people we kept company with anyway, so I didn't miss out on the tradition entirely.

Now that I am in Spain as a post-missionary girl, it is enjoyable to not stress about that awkwardness of  "no damos besos" and instead meet and greet whomever I like in a platonic kiss.

I highly recommend both Spain and the beso.


Today I splurged and got myself tickets for a dinner and flamenco show at what is apparently the premier restaurant of Madrid, Corral de la Morería which is featured in the Book "1000 Places to See Before You Die."  Hopefully I can get a few snapshots without looking too touristy.

La vida quotidiana parte II

I am taking a different kind of vacation in Spain.  My former mission companion, Cristina, refers to it as la vida quotidiana--the daily life.  I am in a suburb an hour outside of Barcelona and we are doing a lot of things that Spanish people do, and I am loving it.  I almost think everyone should do a vacation where you go to a non-touristy spot and you stay in a humble living space to really, really experience what people do.  It reminds me of the mission except I can kiss attractive men.

So... what do Spanish people do?

Well... they go shopping.  I personally LOVE grocery stores in other countries.  In fact, I would love to do a grocery tour across Europe.  If you ever travel to another country, make SURE to go to a local market (skip the touristy stores) so you can get a sense of what the average Joe eats.  Fascinating, really and truly.   Even within the United States I find the comparison interesting.

One thing they do, which seems super smart to me, is they have a security system for their carts!  You pay a Euro, click the button and take the cart, but if you return it to the place, you get your Euro back when you click it in!!  Smart, no?

Spaniards eat mainly fresh food.  They eat bread of the day, they eat fresh tomatoes, onions, garlic, and other vegetables they might sneak into a fritura with olive oil for some tasty dish or other.  Here below you can see the fabulous, well-priced produce in the plaza of the city.  Doesn't it look beautiful?

One thing I found totally different was in the appliance store. Check out how narrow the fridges are!

Maybe you couldn't tell, so here is a point of reference:

We also went to a birthday party where I happened upon a woman whose husband was in my mission.  The kid looks JUST like his dad.  I mean, seriously!!

Here I am eating way too much chorizo with my former companion and wonderful friend Cristina Colomo who I love to bits and pieces.  She is a REAL Catalán.

Tomorrow:  Church and then a nun.

To Spain

In 8 hours I will land in the city of Barcelona where I will be embraced by the Mediterranean.  She has called my name for years and I could not answer but today is the day my friends.  The day I will return to the land where my adult life began.

And it has been sweet my friends.  While I had a happy youth and a reasonably average level of self-loathing during adolescence, my life markedly, decidedly improved as I aged and it seems to still be in on upswing and I attribute so much of my happiness to the formative experience I had as a missionary while in Spain.

My only wish for this trip is that my family were with me to enjoy it.

So... what will I be doing?

A little bit of this:

A little bit of that:

And of course my primary responsibility:

Working with a group of nuns on Tuesday.

I would ask you to pray for me but I need you to send your luck and prayers to the following individuals who have a lot of "firsts" to go through without me around.

• Steve.  Who I love more than life and who I already miss so that he can get the routine started for back-to-school week
• Gillian.  Has her first soccer practice and game (ever!) this week.  She is also starting up the Spanish immersion this year (she had to take a hiatus because the program here doesn't start until 2nd grade)
• Casey.  Starting Junior High (gulp!) as a big 7th grader.  
• Meghan.  Potty Training.
• Bridget.  That she can adjust to going to bed before 3 am.

Hasta luego chicos!!

My Conferenceness

The last picture I posted was of me on stage prior to starting a conference which I co-chaired the last few years. It was a ton of work, all life-consuming really, and those of you who have had the misfortune of being in my presence during the month of July the last three years, you know just how little else I do during that planning time. We had 1000 participants but even more challenging, we had five difference groups running completely different conferences all in the same building. Herding cats to submit agendas and logistical details in a timely fashion simply wasn't possible so we were running last minute on everything, of course. However, it is finished and I feel a deep sense of satisfaction on behalf of my wonderful organization and all the people who contributed to the success of the conference.

Those of you who have noted my absence during the summer (mental if not physical) will be pleased to hear that I am passing the baton to a co-worker who will chair it next year and I will be merely and advisor.

I am both thrilled and sad to be finished with that work but surely the time will be sucked away by some other event.

In other news, I will be traveling to Madrid in August to provide some professional development to a group of nuns interested in authentic assessment. You read that correctly, nuns. They are principals of 40 schools as part of a network. I am going to be doing this work in Spanish and I am very nervous about how that will go, but I figure anyone else would have done it in Spanish and if they are nuns than they ought to be more forgiving of my errors, no?

My only regret is that I am going alone. If anyone has some spare time I would love a little company.

Oh and last piece of news, I am writing this from my new iPad which I love to bits and pieces. If you don't have one, trés sad.

Day of the Sardines

In Spain, Ash Wednesday is a very sad event in which the partying comes to an end and they bury the sardines.  Or something like that, to be honest I can't remember how the sardines fit in.

But I do know that it is associated with the end of a party and great weeping of the Spaniards and I know how they feel because the end of Grandpa camp is marked with great sadness for our family.  Here is a commemorative film highlighting some of the great moments:

Grandpa Camp II (III)

Sorry for my dearth of posting, I am in heaven (aside from the weather, ahem) at the lakeside North Carolina Grandpa Camp.

For those who do not recall this little gem of an experience from last year, it is a combination of working hard and playing hard, my favorite mix in life.

Working hard:  Making meals for 20 people 3 x a day:

I am actually just taking a break from my paid job, the real chef is Aunt Jenny with the fab legs.  I show up to be her sous or provide periodic dishwashing support along with a few others not pictured.

Playing hard:  Intertubing children

Working hard: Kids' nightly chores to keep those shoes in line

Playing hard:  No explanation required

Working hard:  Preparing for the annual conference day and night (no picture but you can imagine me sitting at the computer and staring really hard)

Playing hard:  Eating delicious gourmet meal after delicious gourmet meal. 


I have some other pictures but Aunt Abby so kindly posted them on the Caboodle so I was able to borrow them for this post.  Stay tuned for today's events...

Working hard:  Making Harry's Hogwart's Haystacks for a crowd

Playing hard:  Eating red velvet cake pops and a treasure hunt for Hidden Harry Handouts

Eye of the Storm

Last Wednesday as I was coming into Albany we flew through this:

Light flashed in the sky and then the plane took a dip to the side, sending the passengers into a frenzy as drinks flew, ice fell, electronic gadgets dropped, and sleeping folks woke up. An older French woman behind me started chanting 'Ay Jesus!' (or the French equivalent) over and over while making the sign of the cross.  It was the worst turbulence I have ever experienced and I was genuinely scared and began to panic myself.

However, I was fortunate enough to be seated next to a 12-year old girl who looked up at me with tears in her eyes and asked "Are we going to crash??"

Then my logical teacher brain kicked in and I said "Of course not, what would we crash into up in the air?"  I calmly wiped her spilled ice into the cup as the plane was shaking and told her that almost all crashes happen during take off or landing when we are close to the ground.  I am not sure if that is actually true, but I heard that once and it seemed like something good to stay when the plane was dancing in the clouds.  What amazed me most is that I became extremely calm and I couldn't focus on my own panicky heartbeat.

I thought to myself I hope the guy sitting in the exit aisle can stay calm if we crash.


I once read a very sad article about 9/11 and how so many people could have exited the building if they would have understood the danger they were in--and that people who did realize what was happening went into a sort of decision paralysis.  The point of the article was that the people who did get out, and got out quickly, were people who knew the layout of the building very well.  Their brains were not paralyzed because they had practiced leaving the building in emergency situations.

As a former teacher I have experienced the following emergencies:

--Lost teenager in Europe
--Passed out teenager in the streets of Spain
--4 intoxicated, vomiting teenagers on a bus and in an airport
--Driving on twisty streets down an Italian canyon under construction during a thunderstorm to reach teenagers from whom I had become separated
--Lost teenagers in downtown Los Angeles during a conference
--A tweener running in the classroom and beating another student's head against a desk
--Searching teenagers for drugs during a dance to find the source of the pharmaceuticals
--Countless "teenage emergencies" from relationship drama to lost money/ipods

I decided that the presence of a 12-year old on that airplane is what pulled the familiar from my own brain and got me into my zone.  I hope that if I am ever in any real emergency that there is a teenager in the room (that I am not related to, si claro!) to save my life.

A Real Vacation

Time Zoning Out

I was in Texas for close to 24 hours.  I wish I would have been there longer because I think I could dig Texas for real.  The high school I went to visit there is UNBELIEVABLY AWESOME. I have seen a lot of schools that are really incredible, but I think it might have been one of my faves.

It did pour down rain on me from the school to the car (about 100 ft) and the result was ridiculous amounts of water soaking me all the way to the bone.  Tejano weather capricious.

The airport is lousy, if you ever rent a car from DFW,you have to allow yourself an extra hour (so plan on arriving 2 hours before your flight).

Anyway, the real purpose of the blog is report that I got home at 10 pm last night and I am leaving tomorrow at 5 pm to go to NYC until Thursday after getting back from California last week.

And to let you know that I feel tremendously blessed that my body continues to serve me with health and comfort in spite of the travel.

Ride it out with me:

1 week on ET
2 days on MT
1 week on PT
4 days on MT
1 day on CT
1 day on MT
5 days on ET

When I set an appointment in ET for 2 pm, I show up in MT and my phone converts it to 12 pm.  Great, right?  But what if in my head, I naturally translate the time to 12 because I know that is what time it is when I am in MT?  When I get back to MT, my phone translates it to 10 am.  And then I email someone in California to remind them of the time and they say, wait, I thought you said 11, not 9.

The trick is to realize that time is in your head--so when I travel from one time zone to another, I don't say to myself "Oh to me it is actually 3 AM!!" If I have to get up at 5.  I just say "Hmm what time is it?  Oh, 5 am, great.""

I feel the drag, I really do--but I just do a little zumba, have some strawberries, yell at my kids, and I get over it.

Things I Should Remember

The last few months have been so happy for me.  I can't decide if it is because I have been exercising regularly, because we live in such a beautiful house, or if we just haven't gotten entrenched in the community enough to have responsibilities beyond our family.  Regardless of root cause, I feel like I have been so happy lately when I am at home.

I have been traveling way too much but will cut back as of June which makes me even happier.

A sampling of things I have done here and loved:

1.  Helped at a friend's wedding--I thought this basket that the brother of the bride put together was so beautiful of all the homemade breads (chocolate, garlic asiago, whole wheat, tomato basil, etc.)  Isn't that a gorgeous way to display bread?  I am going to have to remember this little catering tip for the future.

2. Inspired by my friend Tiffany's little crafty self, I called her for some ideas on making cake truffles.  Believe me, these things were tasty and just used up some leftover cake and frosting we had sitting around. These were for teacher appreciation week btw.

3.  One of my recent trips to NYC--this is the Lincoln Center and the sparkly little lights are the word "Welcome" in a million different languages.  I guess the droid camera doesn't capture that kind of light intensity, but I liked the way the picture turned out and feel like it captured how I felt when I was there.  I am going back in about a week.  

4.  Up the canyon--we had a nice little Friday night picnic up there last week and it was so enjoyable.  I definitely will be adding this to things to do around here.  Here are some shots of what we did together--I include the first one so you can see Meg is now cast-free and participating (with a limp) in more active family time.

Gillian took this and I felt like it just captured Meg's joy at the river.  She wanted to just sit at the water's edge and play the whole time.

Casey was off doing his own thing....

5.  Work meeting--our entire staff got together in Napa this week and here at the end of the table standing up is my boss.  She is lovely and tremendous and everyone I work with is incredible.  I can't say enough how much I love the job I have and the people I work with--though the travel has been really intense for everyone on our team, we still enjoyed the opportunity to hang out together during meals.

I need to remember to blog these as separate events rather than try to squeeze it in one post, but that is how I have felt anyway.

Maybe next week.

The Happenings

I haven't much to say--I am leaving for NYC this afternoon and it will be my third week in a row gone.  I have to say that I have never felt so at loose ends before.

I love my new place, but I feel like I can't enjoy many of the amenities because I keep leaving.  I also had a very depressing moment in Indiana last week when my bff of all time texted me that she was in Utah for her kids' spring break and I was nowhere to be found.  It was tragic and I cried in my hotel room.  Sadness for me.  I guess that means I need to make a trip to Colorado soon.

Steve and I haven't sat down together to do much of anything because of the maximum three-day stretches we have been together for the last 7 weeks. 

Meghan's broken leg makes everything hard.  I was taking her to the pool during swimming lessons that the older girls had, but those days are over.  She can't move herself, but she can demand, loudly, that she be moved, or that other people provide toys for her.  Thank goodness for older siblings who have stepped up to the plate nicely.  They seem less impatient than I.

I owe a huge thanks to my friend Chellese for getting me started on an exercise routine.  We started getting together twice a week to exercise and she introduced me to Tracy Anderson.  I couldn't link you to anything else because she is always wearing a bikini in her pics, but her mat workout video is amazing and you can see with her Japanese "pretty women" clip that what she does is really different.  I feel like my upper body strength is increasing, evidenced by the fact that I won the Fleming Family Olympics, a new game we started this weekend.  More on that in a minute.  I have taken to doing strength training 3-4 days a week and though I am not getting svelte, I feel a definitely increase in my overall health, and my back no longer hurts when I travel.  Highly recommend Tracy if you don't mind a bit of pop culture and constant reference to how she can make you tiny (not like I am opposed to that goal, but I don't like my daughters hearing that, wish she said "... so that your heart with operate at optimum efficiency and you will feel good inside" but perhaps that motivation is less than the desire to be thin.  Oh, evil society pressures.


Fleming Family Olympics--so on Saturday when the kids were fighting and bored (ahem, Conference on Saturdays, tough) I decided we should do an impromptu competition.  Here is how it works:

--Each person in the family picks a particular competition. 
--You get 30 minutes to "prepare" (so I could clean up the house)
--Bring your stopwatch and your measuring tape so you can assess winners in those categories, along with a pencil and piece of paper to keep track
--Go!!

The activities we prepared:
--Bridget:  take a random object from around the house and decorate it with paper and tape.  The most creative wins (she judged and therefore could not compete in this one).  I of course won because I know how to do something in 6 minutes.  I took the Eiffel Tower and added a bunch of monkeys that I cut out from paper.  Creative, no?

--Casey:  5 trivia questions.  I lost this one because I couldn't remember how many DS games he had or the name of the book he was reading.  Bridget won this one.

--Gillian:  List as many words that rhyme with ees as possible.  Meaning, how many words can you create that end in ees.  There was some fighting as we defined rhyming but in the end, I would have won anyway, not really fair competing with kids, but I will take the wins wherever I can.

--Mama:  Try to build the tallest tower from blocks.  I wish I would have set the timer for this one because Bridget actually made the fastest, tallest building.  When her building fell, Casey scooped up her blocks and then spent about 20 more minutes building a really stable foundation.  He pointed out that I never said they couldn't use the extra blocks from others and there was no time limit. 

We had a great time while Steve was at Priesthood meeting--then on Sunday after Conference, same thing, bored, fighting, etc. so we decided to do round two.  This time Steve was involved so we ended up doing some more physical feats--chicken fighting within the taped area on the carpet, wheelbarrow race, and a series of competitions involving the exercise ball.

Everyone went to bed happy, energized, and when we finally did our family prayer and scripture study at the end, there was NO fighting.  It was magical. I did lie about winning though, Steve actually beat my on Sunday due to the exercise ball competitions--I don't have the upper body strength to pull off the stuff that he did.  I beat my kids though, and that is all that counts.

I am off to NYC this pm of course, my last travel for TWO WHOLE WEEKS, hopefully I will capture some more colorful images of the culture. 

Schedule update

• Thursday: Santa Barbara--Phoenix--Indianapolis--DC--Albany
• Saturday: Albany--DC--Raleigh
• Wednesday: Raleigh--Phoenix--Santa Barbara
• Thursday: Looking at student work after school with kids teachers
• Friday: Some commitment, can't remember what (Lisa/Steve maybe?)
• Saturday: Dinner with friend, possibly movie
• Sunday: Teach RS
• Monday: Birthday
• Tuesday: Farewell Fiesta
• Thursday-Friday: NYC
• Saturday: Move to Utah

Nueva York

In case you missed it, I had a great opportunity to last minute head to NYC for a work thing.  It was awesome.

I won't go into detail about the actual work part, but the touristy part, now that was amazing.  

We were working from 8-6:30 on the first day and by the time we were finished with dinner and debriefing it was 9:00 pm.  Considering the fact that my flight was delayed coming in to NY the night before and I didn't get to sleep until 2:30 AM, I was wiped out.  

BUT, not to be daunted, I did play the tourist bit until around 11:30 or so.  My previous post was of the outside of Saks 5th Avenue and their really cool bubbles and snowflakes digital wonderland.

A few other pics that really don't even capture the amazement of the city:

The Tiffany's window display after hours:

I took a gazillion pics of all the cool window displays done up for the holidays:

And of course, the most awesome entrance into an Apple store ever.  The real estate of the window front alone must be astronomical.  The store inside is just like any other Apple store only bigger.  You see the artistry of the Apple in the Big Apple, right?

More lights--the stores all just try to outdo each other...

I won't bore you with more, but honestly, if I had even the slightest chance of getting my husband to agree to it, I would totally be down with living there for the next stint.

I suppose Utah is alluring.