Been a while

I'm not finding a lot of extra time in my day to sit down and write.  When I realized that I would have one hour a day free, the hour between the time I got home from work and Selim got off the school bus, I decided that I would use that time to exercise.  Yeah, well, it took me two months to follow through, but I finally started.  I enjoy moving my body; it is just so hard since I have put on thirteen pounds this year.  I think the weight gain is a combination of my surgery last January, the lack of exercise and eating out this summer, and the lack of walking when I got back from London.  The first week I managed two workouts.  The next week I did two or three.  But this past week, I got in five.

The other activity I started is karate.  Two weeks ago Selim moved into the big person karate class.  I had told him that if he left the pee-wee class, I would join the big person class with him.  Since he moved up, I had to keep my word.  There is such a nice atmosphere in the class.  There are many families doing it together -- husbands, wives and kids.  Last Tuesday I took my first class.  It is fun for me that for this one area in life, he ranks higher.  I went again yesterday and the class was a killer work out.  It was less about the forms (sequence of different movements) and more about repetition of the same technique.  We did lots of kicks and thigh work.   By the end of class I was so sweaty and tired -- but I felt great.  This morning my quads are still quivery.

In other aspects of life -- I wanted to post a couple of Thanksgiving pictures.  We had such a lovely day.  It was warm and it felt very relaxed.  Nedim put up the lights on the outside of the house.  And Selim drew each of us a place mat/place card.  He worked really hard on them.  When I suggested that he stop and eat breakfast, he told me, "Artists don't stop to eat, Mom.  They work until they are done." 

By the time Mom and Robert got here at 11:00, I had all the side dishes and the desserts finished.  My goal was to eat at 2:00 and we started 15 minutes early.  The only problem with the Thanksgiving meal is that Nedim and Selim don't really like the traditional dishes.  So I need to find dishes next year that Selim will eat.  Dessert was no problem.  I made three pies for five people.  I made pumpkin, chocolate pecan and cheesecake with cranberry topping. 

After Mom and Robert left, I went in the back to take a short nap.  I ended up sleeping for 11 hours -- waking up when Mom called to say that they made it back home, and around 9:00 to find both of my guys asleep on the couch.  On Friday, we went to the Ashram.  While Selim went out looking for animal tracks in the snow with Robert and Jacob, I fell asleep for another two hours on the couch.  I should have been quilting, but I couldn't stay awake.

On Saturday, I managed to quilt twelve squares and get in a walk with Amy.  We went down to the Franklin Falls Dam where Selim and Jacob rode their bikes and we walked and talked.  Even though there was snow on the ground, the air temperature was in the upper 40s.  We got back to find Mom and Robert working in the little apple tree garden. 

And, we tried taking our Christmas pictures this morning, but we looked really bad.  I have some good ones of Selim is his Rudolph nose from yesterday.  But the ones of me and Nedim are less than stellar.  It doesn't help that we don't have our tree yet and there isn't a festive place in the house yet.  I guess I should clean out the corner where we put the tree so we can get that up this week.