Confession Friday

I really had intended to write another post between last week and today, but it just didn't happen. Maybe next week. Haha. Right.

Anyway, my confession for this week is that I am absolutely terrified of heights. I am not sure when this happened. When I was in high school I went on all kinds of roller coasters and up in high overlook things and none of it bothered me. My friend and I went on this Xtreme Skyflyer thing several times at a local amusement park. I mean, they hoist you 200 feet in the air and drop you! What the heck?

Well, a few years ago when we visited the Grand Canyon, I noticed that I was more nervous around heights. Getting too close to the edge made me nervous, but I was okay.

Last month on our Yosemite trip, we found out the hard way that I am now completely terrified of heights. We did a hike to the top Sentinel Dome. It is this awesome rock from where you get this amazing 360 degree view of Yosemite - many of the falls, Half Dome, the valley - and it's breathtaking. But to get to the top, you have to hike up the steep side of it. In snow. And it's pretty curved so you kind of feel that if you slipped too far to either side, it wouldn't be too difficult to keep sliding and fall over the edge.

It probably didn't help that as we arrived at the base, there were three people slipping and sliding their way back down. Ryan talked me into going up (I mean, we have life insurance, so it's okay, right?). I just put one foot in front of the other and charged up the thing. When I got to the top, I was shaking. And almost hyperventilating. And almost crying. And I'm not a crier. I couldn't help it. I had to sit on a rock in the middle of the dome and compose myself. Ugh. I felt like such an idiot, but I couldn't make myself not freak out.

We did several other hikes to the top of very high places, but I always had to stand way far back from the railing along the edge, just to get used to being that high up. I wasn't going to let my fear keep me from seeing Yosemite, but I realized that there are some fears you can't make go away just because you don't want to be scared. Fear of heights is real, people. And I have it.

See those happy people at the Upper Yosemite Falls Overlook there by the railing? The ones enjoying the view of the Yosemite Valley?

Then see the legs of that person against the rock wall? Yeah. I don't know those happy people, but the legs are mine.

Friend Quota

"Since there is nothing so well worth having as friends,

never lose a chance to make them."

- Francesco Guicciardini

Am I the only one who feels like a lot of people have some sort of pre-determined "friend quota?" I don't know. Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm just not that funny or not that nice. Maybe I'm too weird or too silly. Maybe. Or maybe it really is what I think it is, that some people have reached their quota of friends and no matter how great the two of you seem to hit it off, they just don't have any more room in their lives for additional friends.

I don't mean this in any sort of desperate "I need more friends" kind of way. I actually have plenty of friends. It's just that sometimes I meet people and we seem to talk easily and we have kids the same age and feel the same about a lot of things. These are the kind of people who say things like, "We really have to get together again soon!" when we part, without me even bringing it up. And then? Nothing. I may even try to invite them over once or twice and they say they are busy but would love to get together soon. And they will let me know when. And I never hear from them.

Now, I'm pretty busy. I work full-time and have a husband and two crazy boys. My parents and my sis live nearby, so I spend a lot of time with them. There are friends who I consider very dear to me, with whom I always have a blast when we hang out, but who I can only get together with every few months or so. I guess I just don't feel like I have to be talking to someone or seeing them all the time for us to be friends, even GOOD friends. I really don't like to talk on the phone, but I usually keep up with people enough via Facebook, instant messaging, and text that I feel I have a decent idea of what is going on in their life, yet I'm not so involved in every second of their days that we have nothing to talk about when we see each other in person.

Is that it? Is it maybe because I can go a while without talking to someone and still consider them important in my life? Or maybe it's that I don't actually believe in the whole "BFF" thing. I don't have a BFF. I have my "person," my younger sister Tiffiny who I have a special connection with in a lot of ways, but I just don't like feeling as though I have to limit my interactions with friends by assigning labels. I think we need multiple people in our lives, who communicate in different ways and have different interests. I don't want my friends to all be the same as me. I just want us to have enough in common that we can really enjoy each other and be understanding enough that we can appreciate each other's differences.

I have no idea where I'm going with this. Now I'm just rambling. But seriously, has anyone else noticed this with some people or is it just me?

Confession Friday

I was doing pretty well with my Confession Friday posts there for a while.

Side note: I don't know if Confession Friday is actually a thing. I just kind of made it up and put it on my blog, but there are so many thousands of bloggers that someone has probably already thought of it and done it so... sorry if it seems like I stole someone's idea, but I really didn't. Not intentionally, anyway.

So, yeah. I was posting kind of regularly. But then life happened with all it's birthdays and other craziness that happened in the month of June and I got way off track. Again. I'll try to get back into it with this, another Confession Friday post. I have two confessions for this week. Here goes.
1. I went on vacation without my kids and only missed them a little. I know. How can I even say that out loud? To celebrate our 10-year anniversary, we decided to go on a trip to California, just the two of us. My very wonderful sister and brother-in-law stayed with our boys so we could pretend we were jet-setters for a week. Leading up to the trip, I was anxious about how much I would miss the boys. However, once we were away, it was just SO nice to have that time to spend with Ryan and to have "us" time, that I was able to completely enjoy our adventures. Sure, I thought of the boys and there were a few times I had those pangs of homesickness for them, but it wasn't until we were actually on our way home that I felt overwhelmed with wanting to be back with them.

2. My husband is a much better photographer than I am. My sister is an amazingly talented professional photographer. I guess she got all the photography talent from our family gene pool, leaving me with only the ability to snap random photos and sometimes luck into a decent one. Here are a few photos from our trip. If you like them, my husband probably took them.

And this is why I hate trying to add photos to my posts.

I can never get blogger to let me caption!

Here is what the photos are, in case anyone is still reading:

1. A lighthouse in San Francisco

2. Us in Napa

3. General Sherman, the worlds largest living tree

4. Me trying to get a picture of the Kings Canyon sign

5. Rivers converging in Kings Canyon

6. We finally made it to Yosemite

7. And it was awesome

Confession Friday

When I was little, I wanted to be a ballerina. I loved the shoes and the costumes and watching the graceful, beautiful dancers. My mom, God love her, was kind enough to never say that I was not graceful enough or tall enough or athletic enough and she let me take lessons. She was kind enough to never point out to me the obvious: that I am a huge klutz and have the gracefulness of a duck. I eventuality got bored and quit, and it wasn't till later that I realized that I would never have been not-a-klutz enough to be a ballerina.

Lucky girls outgrow their awkward klutziness and grow into their adult bodies and lives. Girls like me can grow up and dress up like an adult and get a degree and start a career and have a family, but just can't shake the klutz. Let me give an example.

There is a nice shopping area right near my office building. Recently, I went in to White House|Black Market on lunch and found some cute clothes on their clearance racks. I tried on several outfits, then put my my own dress and heels back on before realizing I hadn't tried on a black skirt I'd picked up. No sense to undress again, right? I'll just slip it on real quick. That is what I thought right before trying to step into the skirt and SLICING the side of my knee open with the heel of my shoe.

So... there I was, standing in the dressing room, leg bleeding, wondering what in the heck I should do now. I mean, I was wearing a dress, so it's not like there are pants to cover it. I scrounged around in my purse and found the little first aid kit I keep in there for the boys. Of course, it's out of band-aids (and if it had them they would probably be brightly-colored cartoon ones anyway). I see there is still an antiseptic wipe, so I try to use that. Only, of course, it is the worlds smallest wipe. Not kidding. It comes in a pack like those regular moist towelettes, but only unfolds once. I had to blot the blood with this tiny, two-inch by one-inch wipe. Oy.

There you have it. These are the kinds of things that happen to me. I know that might not sound so bad, and it wouldn't be if these were only occasional occurrences. But no. I have (epically and like something from a movie) fallen in public more than once. I drop things, bump in to things, bruise, scrape, and maim myself. My name is Trischa, and I'm a klutz.

Over 10 years have gone by...

Well I was crazy about you then
And now the craziest thing of all
Over 10 years have gone by
And you're still mine

- Jack Johnson (From the song Do You Remember)

So, I have never been the kind of person who gushes about my relationship. And, frankly, I find the people who do to be unbelievably annoying. I'm not talking about sharing from time-to-time a very sweet or thoughtful gesture like, "My husband knew I was tired and got up with the kids this morning so I could sleep in."

No. The ones I'm talking about are the people who are constantly saying out loud or posting things on Facebook like, "I can't believe how perfect and romantic and good-looking and amazing my significant other is and how I'm the luckiest and most blessed and most perfect person for getting to be with them!!!!!!!!!!" Or something similar. You get the point. I mean, I just have to wonder if these people really feel that way or if they just think they are supposed to feel that way and are trying to convince everyone, including themselves, that they do. I think the whole Hollywood-romantic-fantasy-and-grand-gesture thing has gotten to the brains of some people.

Anyway, rant over. I really got off-topic. I really just meant to say all that to make the point that you will rarely hear me gush about my husband or see me posting things about our relationship. I think that a relationship is between two people and while it is fine to share with friends something frustrating or something great, it really isn't something that should be talked about or posted about all the time and for everyone to hear/see.

That said, I would just like to take a moment to say that yesterday was our ten year wedding anniversary. I know that all anniversaries are special, but something about making it to the decade mark just seems like such a big deal to me. I was ridiculously excited about it and probably gushed a little too much (yet hopefully not to the point of annoyance), but... TEN YEARS! And I have to say that I love my husband more now than I did way back when we were 23 and 22 and fresh out of college and getting married. We aren't perfect and we certainly don't have it all figured out, but somehow we work and he has put up with me all this time and I am really very thankful for that.

Confession Friday

If I can't figure out how to write some good posts, I may as well use my blog as a form of therapy. I guess confession is supposed to make a person feel better. I don't actually feel bad, but everyone can always stand to feel better, right?

My confession of the week is that I kick things under the couch. Before I had kids and even when my kids were still pretty small, I maintained that my kids would clean up each thing or group of things as they went. They would know that before getting out the toy tractors, all the Trio blocks must be picked up and put away. And then before they got out the trains, the tractors had to be cleaned up. Books and magazines say this is the best method. And it really sounds great, doesn't it?

Only I live in real life. I work full time. Three days a week I work from home. I also have meals to cook and laundry to do and sanity to maintain on the weekends when my husband is at work. It is absolutely remarkable the number of things two boys can find to drag out while I'm putting in a load of laundry. Or answering emails. Or on a conference call. Or blinking.

So I've adopted a more real-life approach. All the toys will be picked up before bedtime. Of course, ideally this would be the two people who made the mess cleaning it up by themselves and without being prompted. It would also mean all the toys all over the entire house would be picked up and put where they belong. Reality is more like... the two boys being helped by whichever parent is home to clean up all the toys visible in the main area of the house. If we get to tidying the playroom, great. If not, we just close the door. Of course, all the pick-up is usually done in a hurry as we race the clock to bedtime.

So... can you really blame me when the house is finally quiet and the kitchen tidied, that I really don't feel like picking up any more toys? Sure, the kids should have picked up that ball or cardboard-tube-turned-spyglass or flip flop. And yes, squatting down to pick it up and then walking to put it away would almost count as exercise. But, if I take a good look at it and sweep it under the couch with my foot, then the living room will look clean when I flop down on the couch to catch up on reading, facebooking, or the DVR. And I will know exactly where said item is when someone is whining for it three days from now. And that will make me a hero.

I'll take being a bad-housekeeper-yet-hero-mom over those burning those five extra calories any day.

Pizza and Potato Chips

It's so crazy how something I've probably seen hundreds of times will randomly spark a memory I haven't thought of in years. My boys and I were at the Reds game on Sunday, walking near the stadium, when I looked up and saw a sign for "Mike-sells". Mike-sells is a local potato chip/snack food company that distributes mostly in the Midwest. Their wavy potato chips, including the ones that have the greenish edges from being cute too close to the peel (?), have a special place in my heart. On Sunday afternoon when I saw that sign, I was transported for a second to pizza night at my parents' house WAY back when I was little.

Pizza night when I was growing up did not involve a delivery guy or carry-out. Sure, from time-to-time we did buy pizza. But that wasn't "pizza night." Pizza night when I was growing up always started with some yeast, water, flour, and a pinch of sugar. Pizza was the thing my dad made. And as soon as we were old enough to spread tomato sauce or sprinkle oregano, my sisters and I had our hands all over it. I don't remember a time in my life when I didn't help make pizza or know how to make pizza.

The dough that results from my dad's recipe is very... yeast-forward (no, I don't know if that's a real thing, but "yeast-y" just sounds weird). It's not like anything I've every had in a restaurant, and yet it is still my favorite pizza to eat. I now make it with my boys at least a few times a month. Back in the day, pizza night was a huge deal and usually involved company. Even if that company was just the neighbors.

I know we ate a lot of pizza in the winter, including every Christmas Eve, but my main memories of pizza night were in the summertime. We didn't have air conditioning and despite having every window open and multiple fans working overtime, the house would get increasingly warm from the oven being on and opened/closed to cook multiple pizzas. We (my sisters and I, the neighbor kids, and all the adults) would eat in shifts around the ancient, creaky table in the dining room. When the pizza with the toppings you liked was ready, you'd get a paper plate with a slice, a perspiring cup of 'Pepsi-free' (pizza night was one of the few times we were allowed to have soda), and a handful of wavy, Mike's-sells potato chips.

And there you have it. The crazy way my mind works. Walking on a chilly, rainy day in the city with my kids, and all it takes is seeing an advertisement to take me back to a sweet memory of a sweltering, summertime joy from my childhood. I don't think I've eaten chips with pizza in years, but for the past few days all I could think about was getting some Mike-sells chips and savoring a memory. Luckily, I went to the supermarket today. If you'll excuse me, my writing is keeping me from a salty, crispy snack and some serious reminiscing.