Thursday, January 1, 2009

Happy New Year!




Tray, Mom and I finally spent Christmas in the same house for the first time in years. Todd, Tracy's boyfriend, joined us and helped fill the house with holiday cheer when he wasn't listening to his headphones to drown out the mother-daughters conversations...beyond me why anyone wouldn't be fascinated by our topics of discussion: dogs, clothes, books, dogs, food, dogs, clothes and chocolate. My only complaint for the trip was the lack of individual time it afforded each of us with each other. But with Bob and Dawn joining us for Christmas Eve and everyone pitching in to make the dinner a success...ok Tray and I had to shop a bit, then I had to workout...and shower...but I was 100% supportive of mom as she moved around the kitchen like a pro. I'd forgotten what a good cook she was. The turkey was delicious as were the salad and sweet potato sides Dawn brought for us. The girls kept the begging to a minimum and were rewarded generously by Todd, who withstood my tongue-lashing for giving the dogs people food. It was Christmas after all.


New Year's Day Chester took me for my second Telemark Skiing lesson. I made more progress as I settled into my left turns and worked hard to commit to those scary right hand turns. With an incline of about 2% I am dialed on the left and, thinking hard enough, can piece together a right turn. But when gravity pulls me downward to the tune of any decline beyond bunny/green hill proportions...I become slightly less committed to bending and lunging and readily forget my heels can and should leave the secure and stable backing of the ski. With that said, I feel very confident on the chairlift. I was settling into both quad and double lifts easily with my innate ability of sitting down and taking a breather.

I can't wait to get up to the mountain again and again. Hopefully, someday this year, Chester won't have to ski backwards while skiing with me.

I'd like to write more...but I'm at work and need to get some exercise. I think I'm going to, as caleb said, kick it old school and hop on the treadmill for an hour. Let's see if I can last that long running in place. I think it's a great thing that this very skill was once easy and now seems very challenging. Running in place for too long doesn't seem like a good idea...physically or metaphorically. Cheers.

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