On the very long drive back from New Mexico (10 hours) I was actually able to read a book that I've been wanting to read for several months now. This was cool on several levels because I normally can't read in the car without getting a huge headache and I got to read a great book. It's called Clean and Simple Scrapbooking - The Sequel by Cathy Zielske. So, if you haven't figured it out Cathy Zielske is my new hero. I just loved this book. Most of it was stuff that you've heard before if you've delved into the hobby that is scrapbooking, but the way it was presented was both humorous and inspiring.
But after reading the book, I was ready to go scrap. I've kind of been in a weird in between place with my scrapping. I've started devling into the digital realm, but I still love the hands on aspect of paper scrapping-so I've ended up doing neither because I'm terrible at making decisions. I also finally "get" the layouts devoted to your favorite cup of coffee or how much you love paper towels(Cathy has one on paper towels in the book). I don't know that I'll be scrapping a 2 page spread on my love for diet dr. pepper, but I did finally realize that I need to start putting a little more of ME in my scrapbooks. I've concentrated on recording Caleb's life to the exculsion of everything else. I need to remember to take the time to focus on other aspects of my life. Caleb might be interested to know what his mom was into in 2010. He might think it's interesting that I love 80s music, time to myself, and Mexican food.
I liked the fact that her book was real and showed us a glimpse into her life. I like that she scraps very specific things about people at that particular moment. The little things are the things that we forget ,5, 10 years down the road, but a lot of the time the little things are what makes life fun, interesting, and humorous.
I also really liked her chapter on journaling. One of the reasons I started a blog in the first place was so that I could write about life events as they happened and then be able to go back and use that post as my journaling for my scrapping. In that vein I'm hoping that this blog becomes a much more interesting place in the next year. I'm going to try to get better at giving my thoughts a concrete home. I will still post layouts, but I'm also going to post about life in general.
Gotta go now. Life is calling.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
The rest of the NM trip
Our third and last day in New Mexico started with Caleb's ski lesson. We saw one of the instructors, Josh, working with a 4 year old the previous day so we requested that he teach Caleb's lesson because he worked really well with the other little boy. Plus, Josh can ski backwards in front of his students. John and I don't quite have that trick down. John and I really talked the lesson up so that Caleb would listen and do what he was asked. John told him that he was going to have a ski partner show him how to be a better skier. I think the partner bit comes from the Buzz Lightyear movie because Caleb's always talking about Buzz's partner from that movie. Anyway, the lesson started and off go Caleb and Josh. It was really cute watching Caleb take his lesson. They worked together for a while. Josh showed him how to put on his skis and then they skied down to get on the rope. Caleb was already a pro with the tow rope. They would ski down with Josh giving Caleb pointers and then they'd get back on the rope. This went on for a while and then I noticed that they'd taken off their skis and were walking back up to the building. Apparently Caleb told Josh that he needed a little break and that he needed to talk to his mom and dad. So, we took a little break, got Caleb some blue Gatorade, and then Josh came over and said that he had to take over another lesson at 10 so that if we wanted to get the lesson in before noon that it had to be then. So, we sent Caleb off again with his partner and they continued their lesson.
After Caleb's lesson, we decided to go tubing for a while. They have a little tow rope that takes you to the top of the mountain. This was much better than having to hoof it up the mountain with your sled in tow. Everyone has to sled down on their on tube, or tuba, as Caleb was calling it. So, after Caleb had a couple of run ins with the cable, he decided to climb onto our tube with us and we would hang on to his empty one as we went up the mountain. I got lots of hugs and kisses on our way to the top. The tubing was a lot of fun, but it was a bit cold. The snow was pretty hard and as a result you had to dig your toes into it to slow down and eventually stop. Well, let me rephrase, if you didn't want to end up with any broken bones that's what you did. There were 2 broken bones that day of folks that were more into speed than sense. One had a broken collar bone and one a broken leg. Believe me, we made sure that we slowed down. So much so that in fact, my trusty hiking boots of about 13 years bit the dirt. The soles started coming apart from the shoes because of the snow being forced into them. Before the end of the day, I had one shoe that was completely without a sole. My feet never did get wet though. Anyway, tubing was fun, but did make for some chilly rides as the snow tends to get in your pant legs and the spray from digging your toes in covers your back with snow. At the end of the day, I had icicles for hair. Caleb really enjoyed himself and one little boy of about 10 remarked on how brave Caleb was for tubing. I think our little dare devil takes after me and my dad who are both dare devils. I'm not quite the dare devil that I was when I was a kid. I think motherhood tends to bring out the caution/common sense in a person. We tubed for about 2 hours then headed to the cabin for lunch. When we got back there was a huge youth group that showed up to tube, so we decided to go practice skiing with Caleb again.
This time, both me and John stayed in our regular shoes and just let Caleb ski. I think his lesson really paid off because he finally seemed to get the hang of the snow plow a bit. Then after practicing for quite a bit more, he finally figured out how to stop. And it wasn't any safe snow plow stop, oh no, it was more of a bad ass skid to the side kind of stop. Oh how I wish we could have had one more day on the mountain because we definitely would have taken our boy to the top of that mountain and skied all the way down. Ah well. Next year. Finally the youth group left at 3 so we headed over to the tubes to get another hour in. John went down once and opted to sit out for the rest of the time. Caleb and I went down quite a few times, and I got to experience tubing without waterproof pants as I'd changed clothes at lunch since my pants had gotten snow in them. Let me just say that my nether region has not been so cold in quite some time. We closed the place down though and got the last run of the day. Our little trip was fun. I wish we'd known that the whole school came to ski on Friday and that the tubing was only on the weekends, but all in all it was a good time.
After Caleb's lesson, we decided to go tubing for a while. They have a little tow rope that takes you to the top of the mountain. This was much better than having to hoof it up the mountain with your sled in tow. Everyone has to sled down on their on tube, or tuba, as Caleb was calling it. So, after Caleb had a couple of run ins with the cable, he decided to climb onto our tube with us and we would hang on to his empty one as we went up the mountain. I got lots of hugs and kisses on our way to the top. The tubing was a lot of fun, but it was a bit cold. The snow was pretty hard and as a result you had to dig your toes into it to slow down and eventually stop. Well, let me rephrase, if you didn't want to end up with any broken bones that's what you did. There were 2 broken bones that day of folks that were more into speed than sense. One had a broken collar bone and one a broken leg. Believe me, we made sure that we slowed down. So much so that in fact, my trusty hiking boots of about 13 years bit the dirt. The soles started coming apart from the shoes because of the snow being forced into them. Before the end of the day, I had one shoe that was completely without a sole. My feet never did get wet though. Anyway, tubing was fun, but did make for some chilly rides as the snow tends to get in your pant legs and the spray from digging your toes in covers your back with snow. At the end of the day, I had icicles for hair. Caleb really enjoyed himself and one little boy of about 10 remarked on how brave Caleb was for tubing. I think our little dare devil takes after me and my dad who are both dare devils. I'm not quite the dare devil that I was when I was a kid. I think motherhood tends to bring out the caution/common sense in a person. We tubed for about 2 hours then headed to the cabin for lunch. When we got back there was a huge youth group that showed up to tube, so we decided to go practice skiing with Caleb again.
This time, both me and John stayed in our regular shoes and just let Caleb ski. I think his lesson really paid off because he finally seemed to get the hang of the snow plow a bit. Then after practicing for quite a bit more, he finally figured out how to stop. And it wasn't any safe snow plow stop, oh no, it was more of a bad ass skid to the side kind of stop. Oh how I wish we could have had one more day on the mountain because we definitely would have taken our boy to the top of that mountain and skied all the way down. Ah well. Next year. Finally the youth group left at 3 so we headed over to the tubes to get another hour in. John went down once and opted to sit out for the rest of the time. Caleb and I went down quite a few times, and I got to experience tubing without waterproof pants as I'd changed clothes at lunch since my pants had gotten snow in them. Let me just say that my nether region has not been so cold in quite some time. We closed the place down though and got the last run of the day. Our little trip was fun. I wish we'd known that the whole school came to ski on Friday and that the tubing was only on the weekends, but all in all it was a good time.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Our Little Snow Bunny/Kamakazi Skier
Caleb's been dying to see the snow so we decided to take a little trip to Cloudcroft, NM for a little tubing and skiing. Yesterday we got in around noon so we decided to just go do a little sledding. John and I definitely got a workout going up and down the hill. I had never really been downhill sledding so it was a new experience for me too. John took Caleb down the first time on a tube and Caleb enjoyed that. Then I got a little ambitious on our first run down and went all the way to the top and ended up scaring Caleb a bit (and me too). But, we finally got him going down on his little saucer and he liked that. We weren't able to take a ton of pics because we took our small camera and it ran out of batteries, of course, not long after we got there. When we were through sledding I took a few pics of Caleb with the good camera. I wanted some shots of him with the snow coming down. It was so cute because he normally doesn't really want to pose, but I told him we were going to take a few pics and he just started hamming it up. He smiled, and tried to catch the snowflakes on his tongue and said "I love this place!" Now that's some great justification for driving 10 hours one way to play in the snow!
Today we decided to hit the slopes. Unfortunately for us, the entire elementary and middle school from Cloudcroft were there too. Really. We got a bunny slope pass for me and Caleb but the line was so long to go up the little tow rope that John ended up pulling Caleb up the slope so that he could ski down to me. Our little kamikaze skier wanted to go FAST, but never figured out to stop, so me or John would have to intercept him on the way down. Luckily the kids left at 2 so we pretty much had the bunny slope to ourselves after that. Caleb had great balance and seldom fell, but he just never figured out how to stop. He's going to have a lesson tomorrow so hopefully they can help him learn to stop so that we can do something other than the bunny slope tomorrow.
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Today we decided to hit the slopes. Unfortunately for us, the entire elementary and middle school from Cloudcroft were there too. Really. We got a bunny slope pass for me and Caleb but the line was so long to go up the little tow rope that John ended up pulling Caleb up the slope so that he could ski down to me. Our little kamikaze skier wanted to go FAST, but never figured out to stop, so me or John would have to intercept him on the way down. Luckily the kids left at 2 so we pretty much had the bunny slope to ourselves after that. Caleb had great balance and seldom fell, but he just never figured out how to stop. He's going to have a lesson tomorrow so hopefully they can help him learn to stop so that we can do something other than the bunny slope tomorrow.
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