I'm a Hugger Not a Fighter

Hey all! I bet you're surprised to see a post from me! I've been reading y'alls posts but it looks like I haven't posted since 2015, holy cow. I thought I'd start by catching y'all up on the big things that have happened in my life. So here goes.

*** *** Yoga

Back in January '17 I signed up to take a yoga class at a nearby rec center. The winter before I'd felt like I was in a fog for most of the winter and only woke up from it in April. So I hoped the yoga would help me stay present in myself and hold off that foggy feeling. I'd been practicing yoga inconsistently for years but never actually taken a yoga class so I signed up for the beginners class. A lot of it wasn't new to me at all but I loved the instructor and she gave some good form tips. Though I did actually learn a few poses I hadn't come across before. The class was only for 7 weeks sadly, so after it was over I gave myself the goal of continuing to practice yoga on Wednesdays, the day the class had been on. By the time summer hit though I had so much stuff going on that I modified that goal to just weekly not a specific day. I did really well sticking to it too! I only missed one week and that was the week of Christmas which I think was perfectly understandable! I even managed to occasionally yoga twice a week.

*** *** Bike

One of those other things I had going on was riding my bike. I'd asked my Dad for a basic hybrid bike (street and dirt paths) for Christmas '16. In years past I'd get a longing once in a while to ride a bike again even though I hadn't been on one since HS or before. Twice I decided to spend the 12-ish dollars to use one of the Denver cycles bikes for an hr when the longing was bad and it was feasible.

So I started riding my bike (very) occasionally, weather permitting, the same month I started the yoga class. I started just riding to a park about a mile or so away and back. That was the flattest route I could ride, there are no truly flat streets near my house since it's so close to Green Mtn. On that route there's a change of about 80 ft from the lowest point to the hightest. After I got used to that route I started challenging myself to ride up into the neighborhood hills. By August I was working towards 6.25 miles and 280 ft! I'm not going to mention just how many rest breaks I had to take once I started going that far, in the summer *cough* 4/5 *cough*. But near the end of August I took a short vacation into the mtns with my mom (I'll try to talk about that later) and for some reason, after we got back I haven't ridden my bike since.

*** *** ( Job )

*** *** ( Dentist & Doctor )

*** *** Music

Let's see what else? Music! So I got to see Fall Out Boy in November at the Pepsi Center, which was awesome. I had a great seat on the club level, front row, and it kept hitting me I was seeing Fall Out Boy at the Pepsi Center. When I got into them seriously back in '07 never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I'd be seeing them play the Pepsi Center. It was a great show and the way the staged Champion with video of Princess Di playing in the background? I damn near started balling.

That was actually my first Fall Out Boy show since 2014. The last two times they've come thru tickets were either too expensive or too expensive AND the show was in God Damn Shitty Colorado Springs. And sadly it looks like they're not coming thru here on their latest tour. I'm vaguely contemplating going to the Vegas or Arizona shows.

I'm loving their new Album Mania. So far it's my favorite after FAD. Current Favorite songs are Stay Frosty Milk Tea and Church. Though my fav lyrics aren't in either song. I love the line 'I became such a strange shape, trying to fit in' and 'take all your possibilities and take away the limits, take your ideas and throw away all the gimmicks'.

*** *** Vacations

Lastly, vacation stuff. I think I've rambled on long enough right?

Anyway, starting back in 2015 Mom and I would go up to Dillon Reservoir in the summer for three days and explore the towns and the surrounding mtns. The first year we took a water taxi around the lake and got to see three bald eagles on the bird sanctuary island and an osprey diving over the lake, as well as shopping at the outlets and wandering Breckenridge. We found or favorite restaurant in Summit County that year. In 2016 we went kayaking on the lake, shopped, tried out some new restaurants, ate at our fav again and tried to go hiking (the weather did not cooperate). Last summer we kayaked again, ate at our fav place twice, shopped, and went hiking on two different days. One of the great things about the trip, besides the great birding and hiking, is the how easy it is to make. It's only an hr and 10 min. drive in good traffic from my house. That's actually closer than shitty shitty CO. Springs.

Also in the summer, one of my Texas cousins and her family come up almost every year to visit and go camping. I'm generally not a fan of camping so I usually use those days when they're all gone to enjoy having the house ALLL to myself. But the summer before last the lure of doing some birding out near Rocky Mtn National Park was too great so I hitched a ride with one of my brothers and stayed for the last day of the trip. This year's trip it sounds like the plan is to go to Glendo in Wyoming for three days and two of my Wyoming cousins would join. I think I'll probably end up going for that trip even though all the enforced family time sounds kinda terrible.

*** *** Resolutions

Okay I lied. This is actually the last thing. And the reason I actually managed to make a post in under five years. I don't usually do New Year's resolutions but at the end of the year I'd thought of some things I wanted to try to make habits. So I ended up with 2 or 3 (depending on how you count 'em) goals I'd like to have be habits by this time next year. 1) Try to post to my journal at least once a month. And thus you get a long ass post at the verrryyyy end of January. And 2/3) do yoga at least twice a week and try to ride my bike or the stationary bike twice a month. I have til the end of the year for this to become habit so I won't stress if I don't always manage it.


Til next month my friends!

I am having hormone induced anxiety aimed at my entire LIFE right now. Internet life included. I feel a little bit like a turtle hiding in my shell. I'm having a time of it just typing this out. So pardon me if I fall behind on the december meme. I'll pick it back up once this passes (hopefully in a week). But feel free to ask me stuff at my post, I'll answer when I start feeling up to it.

I'm sure that part of this pervasive anxiety stems from trying to figure out Christmas presents for my family with only half the budget I had last year. I'm sort of thinking about baking things for people for Christmas for the first time.The thing about that is besides the brother who I have something else in mind for, I don't really know anybody's preferences well enough to make them something they'd really love.

Oh Fall Out Boy, you amazingly talented bastards! I got the email from them yesterday and immediately cracked up laughing because they've done it again! Once again they release a single and announce an album and nobody had any idea it was coming. I learned way back with Infinity On High to never have expectations about how a song will sound but they've never let me down. The new song sounds nothing like Centuries, I spent my first listen to it going between 'Whoa where did that come from?' and 'How is this so awesome?'. I've said it before and I'll say it again - I don't think it's possible for me to not like any music the four of them put out.

Well, last night's game was a shitshow. I'm a cynic and a pessimist so I excepted the Avs would lose that game to the Wild - first game of the season, after losing a series to them, in THEIR building (a building where we never won a game in that series either). You can see why I'm not surprised we lost. I'm not even sure we'll win tomorrow's home game against the Wild. But I wasn't expecting the Avs to lose in such a spectacular fashion. I thought Danny B and Tyson were good and Duchy was working hard but kept getting shut down. Mostly though I thought we didn't look like much of a team out there. It's only the beginning of the season though, so there's that.

I'm lucky that the two sports I follow season's run almost opposite each other and I only had about 4 weeks from the time the NWSL season ended and the NHL started back up. Though it seemed so much longer. Women's club soccer here in the US started up mid-April and so I got to spend my spring and summer watching all the soccer. No, seriously since all but a handful of the games aired on youtube only I watched every. single. game. of the season. Every team had at least one player I like watching and while I like some teams more than others there's no team I dislike. I do have a favorite team though, the Seattle Reign. I loved them when they were the second worst team last year and when they went on to win the regular season this year. There's so much to like about the way they play and the attitude they have, there's so many awesome players on the team but there's not a lot of ego getting in the way. And watching Jess Fishlock and Megan Rapinoe together is like magic. The Reign made it to this year's Championship game but lost to the number two team in the league because (in my mind at least) of their season long tendency to get behind in the game and have to try and come back.

I'll admit I'm worried that the league won't be able to sustain itself thru the world cup and olympic years. Keeping interest in the club game is hard when there's big, important international games going on and that was one of the downfalls of the last two leagues and I really don't want to see another women's soccer league fail in the US while the men's league is doing so well that they're about to add another 3-4 teams in.

Speaking of international soccer, qualifying for next year's women's world cup starts next Wednesday. I'm excited anytime I get to watch the US national team play but these are important games. Though yes, they'll mostly be blowouts since Mexico's our only real competition in the tournament and we just played two friendlies against them and the combined score was 13 - 0 us. Fox sports is airing all the games, which is great since I don't think the qualifiers have ever even been on tv before. But of course half those games are on FS2 which Comcast doesn't carry. WTF Comcast?! And to make it worse the first US game is one of those on FS2 though at least it looks like FS1 will be re-airing that game.

Question for anyone who made it thru all of that - considering that my last three posts have been about hockey I feel like it's about time I get a hockey icon. Any ideas on where I should look for one?

I has a Save Rock and Roll! I braved the snowstorm Wednesday evening to buy it. And I'm listened to it for the first time in my Black Cards hoodie.

( My thoughts )

In conclusion, I LOVE IT! Oh, Fall Out Boy how I've missed you so.

I am so weird about new albums from bands I like. I started saving everything that mentioned anything but the 1st single from Save Rock & Roll over a week ago so I wouldn't be spoiled. I don't want to know anything musically for new albums except the lead single (and maybe one other song). I have to wait until I have the cd physically in my hands and I can open it and burn it myself. It's a thing. I've never listened to leaks or official streams before an album I was eagerly anticipating came out. Hmm, now that I think about it I've only ever listened to an official stream once and that was for Fun.'s Some Nights. I listened to it once and then kept coming back to it over the next month trying to figure out if I actually liked it (I did & now they're in my top 25 on last.fm.)

I also like to go to stores on release day (sometimes release week if I can't make it work that Tuesday) to buy the cd. I tend to do that when I'm not drawn in by whatever pre-order is being offered. I pre-ordered Panic's! Vices & Virtues because hoodie! but there's no way I'm pre-ordering 30 Seconds to Mars' new album because wow, over priced. So Paramore's new album comes out tomorrow and I was vaguely hoping to go get it but that hope's been dashed seeing as we're supposed to get at least 8 inches of snow thru Tuesday and it's sounding like it'll be more than that even. So while that's great news weather wise not such much when it comes to taking the bus anywhere. But it does make me a tiny bit sad that I'm not going to get a full week to listen to it before I drop it post haste for Save Rock & Roll.

Just need to scream this to the world real quick:

Long Live The Car Crash Hearts!!

Believers Never Die!!

I'll have more to say on this later I'm sure.

Lol, list I am terrible at posting!

I need some help finding a fic I read awhile ago and now I can't get it off my mind. I have no idea why I even read it in the first place as wasn't in the fandom at all when I read it. I must have read it because one of you either rec'd or wrote it. It was a Star Trek: Reboot fic and it was probably at least 10,000 words long since I mostly only read long fic. In it Kirk had some psi abilities that he's kept hidden. I remember it had some scenes set during the academy days but the bulk the story took place after Kirk becomes Captain I believe. What I remember most about the fic was that Kirk felt when the people of Vulcan died and he had a lot of trouble handling what that did to his psi ability. He wasn't able to meditate after and Spock had to assist him. I'm also pretty sure the fic ended up Kirk/Spock.

Help, please you guys!

Thank you for the cards dine and katienyc!! They bring a smile to my face whenever I look at them.

Christmas went better than I thought it would. I still felt the absence of Jeremy and his family, especially when it was just Dad and I sitting down for Christmas dinner, but them not being around didn't 'ruin' the day.

It was actually a nice, non-stressful day. I didn't have to be up early like past Christmases (though my body didn't let me sleep in). I didn't bother to even stuff the stockings til after 2 pm.

Chris has turned into that guy who can't be anywhere on time to save his life. When we made the plans for the day he said they'd be here about 2 or 3, he called about 1 to say he was running late and it was looking more like 3:30 or 4, they actually showed up not much before 5.

I got Taylor a copy of A Light In The Attic and bookmarked the poem that inspired me to get it for her, A Bear In There, 'cause it's about her favorite animal, the polar bear! I got my dad a copy of Amy Winehouse's last cd 'cause he was a fan of her. I got Chris's girlfriend Jessie a cute necklace from Target and her son a couple little books. I was being a little passive aggressive with Chris and got him a $10 itunes gift card 'cause that's what he got me last year even though we talked before about how I hate itunes. But hell, at least I got him something *ahem*.

My dad got me a new mp3 player! I really needed a new one since my 7 yr old ipod mini was on it's last legs. I was thrilled about that, particularly since he told me back around Thanksgiving that he wasn't getting any of his kids presents this year. In addition to that I got a box of Godiva dessert chocolates (from Dad) and Paramore's Hello Cold World long sleeve T from my mom.

Christmas dinner was ham, mashed potatoes, green beans and rolls with red wine to drink and apple pie and vanilla ice cream for dessert. For being basically thrown together at the last minute planning wise it turned out pretty good!

Wow, White Collar. WOW. That was an amazing season finale.

( Not quite spoilers but... )

I just know I'm going to keep coming back to this episode for like, at least the next couple weeks trying to figure out any clues. I'm impressed Mr. Eastin, good show old bean.