my twins

I met "my twins" in highschool. I was 16. I could barely tell them apart back then. We have been good friends for 25 years. WOW. How time flies.

This weekend I went to Chico to celebrate Linnea's wedding reception. She and her hubby had a son two years ago, got married a year ago, and decided it was high time to have a party.

It was a beautiful party at her friend's house, which happened to be a walnut farm in Chico. For more pics, check out my flickr.

Admiring the tree

We planted a Coastal Live Oak at my sister's ranch in honor of my dad at the memorial services we had last weekend. We buried a pair of his running shoes and his pipe with the tree.

A friend of my sister's was on her way to visit her this week, and told her my father's spirit came to her. She said he kept telling her she needed to stop and get a tree to take to the ranch. He told her to get a big tree that would be good for providing shade after a good run. She didn't know about the tree we planted or that he was a runner.

I wonder

I wonder, if I counted, how many times a day I make a "judgement" about the people I see and connect with that day. I wonder how often I make assumptions about people based on their appearance or their attitude, and then follow the assumption with an opinion about that person.

Standing in the line at the grocery store is good place to make judgements, isn't it? Some poor woman with a whining toddler gets my empathy every time. I'm suddenly talking with that toddler in an attempt to distract the child, if only for a minute, so that poor mother can get a moments peace.

I'm not just talking about negative judgements but ANY kind of opinion we form in our busy little minds. And isn't it amazing how our judgements change for people we've known for a long time, since we have so much more information to base our opinions on. For those people we have so many judgements; "oh........there she/he goes again..............making the same mistake". How easy is it to see other people's patterns and how obvious the solution seems?! "He/she should break up with so-and-so for gawwd's sake..............I'm over it already so why aren't they?"

Judgements are tricky because no one really knows what it's like to be in someone else's shoes. Even if we've had a similiar experience, we're NOT that other person.

The really cool thing about experiencing tough times is that you CAN gain empathy. My father called it "character building". And hopefully as you get more "character", you get more empathy. And while I have plently of judgements (and even let them slip out sometimes), I'm lucky because empathy comes naturally for me, and mostly I don't have to work too hard at accepting others. Why can't everyone be like that? I guess I don't have much empathy for people without empathy.

He said, I said

He said, "son, wanna come help me bring in the groceries?"

Son said, "not right now dad, I'm in the middle of a video game".

I said, "I guess I could get up and help you".

He said, "no...no......don't get up. It all works out. I go to the store, buy the groceries, carry them in, put them away, and cook them."

I said, "so I should get up?"

11 Days

Still grumpy. I may never be nice again. This is definitely the stupidiest time EVER to quit smoking. Gaining a few pounds. Working on a plan not to gain more than five. Chew chew chew. Graduated to the whole piece of gum. Starting to look forward to the "peppery" taste. Finished reading 7 Steps to a Smoke Free Life (again) and decided first reward should be a massage. It was awesome. Gonna' get back to gettin' them every month. As my massuer says "it's good to be the queen".
Other than being grumpy and avoiding the phone (a smoking trigger) and feeling sorry for myself, I'm looking forward to summer. 5 more weeks of school for the munchkin and then he'll have the first real summer of his life. No summer school; no camp. Thinking we'll take golf lessons and take trips and visit friends and ride bikes and find pools to swim in.
It's all about the light at the end of the tunnel.

5 days

5 days of not smoking. Getting very grumpy. Fantasizing about secret smoking. I hate secret smoking but it's starting to sound good. Chomp chomp chomp goes the nicotine gum. There is NEVER a good time to stop smoking. But when your son says "You have to quit smoking mommy. I don't want you to die", you have to quit. I promised him Apr 24 and then renogotiated 3 more days. Those were 3 glorious days.
So I've moved my after-hours blogging from the garage, previously known as the smoking lounge, to my bedroom. The one cool thing about the move is TV watching capabilities. Just finished watching Hogan Knows Best. Kinda like Ozzy but you can understand what he's saying. I watched like 20 hours straight of The Surreal Life this weekend. Who knew it was going to end with an episode of the cast coming to KSBY in SLO. I guess I should watch the news and I woulda known they were here. Missed a major party with Alexis Arguette going off on lame ass college boys at Mission Grill. Hopefully she knows we're not all that small minded in SLO.
I've been missing all kinds of good VH1/MTV/E! TV 'cause I've been watching my usual favs on TiVo in my living room. What's on your TiVo? I've been watching HUFF, Desperate Housewives (way funny this week), Grey's Anatomy, new fav Big Love, and of course always gotta watch Ellen.
Ohhh.................phone ringing. It's Sandy. She's giving me hugs over the phone and says I gotta go to bed. Good advice as always. Nighty night.