Tomorrow we're leaving for a week down south where I plan to
I turned the television off for today. I usually like to clean the house or iron while I watch some trashy show that's not worth sitting down to. Lately I've been questioning how much garbage gets syphoned through my head. Especially the news. Triple that for Italian political news. Lately they've been covering Vatican ties with the mafia, including kidnapping agreements and bodies being buried with illegally within church walls. Then there's the President who owns three television channels and asks political favors in exchange for putting girlfriends and wives into soap opera roles. It just all makes my stomach turn and look in total horror at this society I've chosen to live in. I'm sure it's better and worse around the globe, but right now all I want to do is hike into the Sierra Nevada mountains for a month and cleanse myself from all this b******t.
Today is Ev's last day of day care, he starts again in mid september when he enters into the "5 year old" class. He's really excited about that, big boy at the school and all. Olly is taking a remedial class for geometric design. She has to re-take a test in september before being promoted to the sophomore level so she'll be on pins and needles for the whole summer not knowing which class she's in.
I've been having a lot of problems lately with concentration. My mind weaves back and forth from one activity to the next and I can't seem to find the focus to finish anything unless I totally and completly put all my energy directly into it...which seems like nothing at the moment. It seems like I get interrupted every three seconds by one of the kids...or it's time to fix the next meal or do something like, I don' t know, sleep. I don't know what to do about me, myself and I. I've tried every trick in the planet except totally seclude myself which at this moment in life I just can't do.
The strange thing about when people pass away is that they never grow old in your mind. My sweetheart little brother who today would have been 46 years old will forever be 22 for me.
Or is it White-Green-Red? The Treviso Marathon had this idea that they would have three separate starts for their marathon and assign a colour of the national flag to each one. At the half way point the three roads would meet and, having supplied a appropriate coloured hat, they would form the Italian National flag. It was really complicated to plan everything, but in the end it all worked out. I put just one pacer from each start point and coordinated it so that they would meet up with one another at 21km. THAT worked too (amazing!). It was actually very emotional, lots of tears were shed. The picture here is of the three 4h15' pacers. The guy in red was sobbing uncontrollably at the finish line.
I think every parent secretly waits for the day that someone tells them that their child is a genius, has a special talent, will grow up to be a special person. Tuesday I went to the bi-annual parent teacher conference. Ugh. It's so hard for me to calculate whether she is doing okay or not just because the system is so different than in the States. Seven teachers said that she is "smart, intelligent, stands out from the rest" but hasn't quite brought her work up to a good standard. On the other hand she does have the capability to do it so it's all really up to her.
...is just before all the marathoners started arriving.
Evan is the best traveler. For now we can throw him into any situation with absolutely no protests. On marathon morning he got out of bed at 6.00 am and we all went to the start together. And he's smiling too!
The best thing that happened was my little girl turning 15 years old. The cake in the foreground is the Coconut white birthday cake that Evan and I made for her. It turned out yummyummy...
If you have now or have ever had any sort of creative block in your life (and who hasn't?), go out now and buy this book. I finally understood where my imfamous writing block is coming from...whew! Now I can get back to work!
I went to my doctor yesterday to get my blood tests ordered up. He asked me a couple key questions which sort of all added up to the type of tests that he's asked for. I'll have to wait until the end of february to have them done (Hello nationalized medicine!) but when I went home I looked up one thing in particular. The key symptoms are:
I know I haven't blogged lately about my running or triathlon training...so now is a good time as any to do that! In three weeks I'm racing the Roma-Ostia Half Marathon. I've been regularly training since the beginning of december but for some reason haven't gotten into the kind of shape that I would expect from regular workouts. I always think that it's just because I'm just not fast or that my back is hindering any progress but I always leave any real physiological reasons until last. Thursday was a holiday here in Modena, the patron saint's day "San Giminiano". They have an annual race every year which I already wrote about last year. For the 2008 edition there were only two girlfriends instead of five - well we know WHO is consistent now! The race is an odd distance: 13,400 metres and I was able to average 5'55"/km for the race , which I was happy about considering how I've been feeling lately. The only problem was that my heart rate was really high for that measly speed. How am I feeling you ask? Run down, tired, sleepy. I went on another run friday and had to take a nap in the afternoon and then another run this morning where after twenty minutes I had to take walking breaks. There are some huge red flags waving here and I need to get it all checked out. Tomorrow I'm going to the doctor to order some tests. Mostly iron levels and hormone levels. If nothing shows up I will be going back to my homeopathic doctor. To all the naysayers, he's the only one who's ever cured my energy problems (no, this is not the first time that I've had this problem).
This is the Military Academy where the race starts from...
Here I am walking in after the finish line...and while I was running my race...
Piero and Evan were assisting Bald1ini while he ran a lactate test (I think he's preparing for the London marathon again ...)
Kind of humbles you when you're complaining about your energy problems and six minute k's!
At the beginning of december I was in a dilemma about how to get through the holidays without gaining too much weight. Short of getting sick, I almost always gain a few in that one week window between Christmas and New Years. Nowadays it takes me months and way too much mental and physical energy to take it off again (menopause sucks...). Then I came up with what I consider an ingenious plan. I called my Business Coach up...his name is Alessio. He'd just had his fat and muscle mass measured and it turns out that he needed to lose about 12 lbs. The plan was this:
For 2008 I've reinstated one day a week as a television-less day for the family. Don't get me wrong, I love television. I even have a special satellite dish subscription so that we can get 500 channels and see any program we want. The audio is bilingual and I can see all my favorite American shows (Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, ecc) in english. But as a family we do tend to get rather automatic with it and just flip it on whenever. Having one day a week where we purposely do not turn it on gently reminds us that we can also listen to music or put a nice atmosphere in the house or have a reading night. We did this on a regular basis years ago but sort of got out of it. Evan had never experienced it so it was really funny for him to get up in the morning and read the sign on the television. At first he didn't get it, but he started playing with some toys and never asked again for the rest of the day. As for me, after a really tough day, instead of plopping myself in front of a movie I simply went to bed earlier.
I love Allie Edward's idea of having a personal power word for the year. I still have to do some closing with 2007, but I really feel that 2008 is going to be a year of change for me. Doing things in a different way, trying to see other's from a different angle. I chose the word "Evolve" because it signifies positivity and future. I also like it because it's "bilingual" and means the same thing in Italian and English (to evolve, evolvere). I printed it in beautiful red letters and framed it. I have to find a place to put it so that I can see it every day while I work in my studio. Now I can't wait to see how this year Evolves (with a capital E!)
Saturday was a pretty crazy day for me to decide that I had to go grocery shopping at the Coop mall. Here in my world there are two distinct seasons where all clothing items go on sale for a one month period. For winter that would be on January 5th. Everything is marked from 30% to 70% off and you can get some really nice deals if you wait it out until the new year. It took me about fifteen minutes to find a parking spot and then had a long trek to get to the mall entry. I got out of the car, grabbed a shopping cart and then lifted Evan and settled him in. I’m not a fan of bringing Evan shopping with me because he gets restless and complains after three minutes. In the past he would start to act out on everything and anything right in the middle of an isle. That’s when I started to get smart and either not bring him at all or entertain him. I whipped out my ipod where I had loaded up two children’s song albums (he loves to rock out) and two Winnie the Pooh narrated stories. He smiled, plugged the earphones in and zoned out while I happily shopped. An hour later we were finished and I steered the cart towards the exit. As I was leaving the mall I passed by an accessories store where just the week before I had been looking at a new purse. I didn’t see the it in the window, probably because everything was marked off 50% and it’d already been sold. I wanted to check out the other purses but had to find a way to do this without losing sight of Evan who was now singing along with “Quarantaquattro gatti”. I parked the cart right to the side of the entrance so that I could clearly see Evan while I just glanced in at the merchandise. Blocking my entry into the store were two women wearing headscarfs with a total of three children in tow. The children were all under five years old and one of the little boys was crying. They were speaking in another language so I couldn’t understand what they were saying. All of the sudden the mother whips around and starts hitting the little boy on his face. He tried to protect himself with both his hands, a sure sign that this had happened before. Even at four years old, he knew what to do.
My father used to hit us when we were children. Whenever one of us would get in trouble there was always a belt ready. I can clearly remember an incident where someone had done something and nobody would fess up, so he just lined all four of us up and spanked us all. I was a pretty well behaved child so I didn’t have too many encounters with his belt, but my two brothers were constantly getting into trouble, especially my older brother. What I used to hate the most was listening to his cries while he was getting spanked. I would sit in my room and cry along with him while it happened. Even worse than listening to him get spanked by my Dad was going through the same thing at my Grandparents. It all stopped when we grew older though. In any case, we weren’t battered children and I don’t feel I suffered any trauma from it. That’s just the way a lot of adults disciplined their children back then. I think it’s a learned process. My Father had learned it from his father and he had probably learned it from his. When Olivia was around two years old I knew I had to teach myself a different disciplining method. I poured over a lot of child psychology books and tried out different methods. A lot of them were failures and I can still remember my frustrations with her. Quite honestly I don’t think I ever really arrived at a good solution until Evan came along. That’s ten years of trying different methods! What I learned from Evan, what I could still apply to Olivia is that if a child is crying or acting out or behaving badly, they’re trying to tell you something. And if you want to get on with things you have to listen to what they have to say. I’ve gotten to a point with both my children where I can just ask them what is going on and they can tell me straight out. Usually this involves getting on their physical level (kneeling down, face to face, making eye contact, touching them). Just asking them what they need seems to cut right into the bad behaviour and make it all good again. Adults that hit children are not listening to them. Hitting them just vents their frustration without resolving the situation.
