Running

I decided I needed to break in my new running shoes.  For those who followed the last great shoe search which left me feeling horribly inadequate that I couldn’t find a pair of shoes that fit, I found some this time around in all of 5 minutes without even intending to!  Or at least not intending to consciously.  I have realized I need shoes lately as all my shoes are getting worn out.  Sunday I went to Academy to get an exercise ball to do my back strengthening exercises and noticed it was packed!  I checked the add and saw they had tons of shoes on sale.  I decided to look and saw all their last season shoes were half off!  Sweet!  So I looked at the Asics which can have a naturally wide base and found a pair that fit.  They only had 3 pairs left in that style, and one happened to be the right size.  I asked the people next to me to be tall and get the box down, but then I noticed they were both left feet!  How weird.  So I asked an employee who realized there was a second display which was the right size.  I now own nice white, grey and green asics that were 80 but I got them for $40.  Woohoo!  And they feel great.  Nice and cushy and balanced.  Anyway…

So I have these awesome shoes, and I’ve been trying to wake up early, by 6 so I can run in the morning when it’s only 80 degrees out, but it never happens.  By the time I get to sleep i have to sleep until 7 or later to get my 8 hours, and sleep is more crucial than anything while trying to certify in a class.  That leaves the night, which is still in the 90s here.  But my shoes are pretty, and Olga might be visiting soon and it’d be nice to go on a run/walk for old times sake - though she can kick my ass running I’m sure.

Tonight was the first time running in years.  I started with 1.5 minutes running after a 3 minute warmup, then alternated every minute.  Total I ran about 9.5 minutes and 14 minutes of walking.  Then I did 20 pushups which were actually pretty easy until the last one.  Then I did 10 crunches each normal, then crossover.  Then I did some forward and backward rolls because the grass was soft.  Oh, and I tried to do a pullup…hahahahahahahaha  That was pathetic.  So weak!  :-)  Hopefully that will improve from the pushups and such.

Unfortunately I’m starting my cycle so I may not get to run much for a few more days.  We’ll see.  I’ll do my ball workout tomorrow.  I think I need to give my lungs time to recover.  Woohoo!  I’m out of shape… lol

Paths Linked

In the midst of the other chats we had, T wanted me to know something I apparently wasn’t supposed to know before.  She is also my guide, that we’re all interlinked right now.  If our paths were to break for some reason right now, nothing would be the same and we wouldn’t reach the goals we are to reach for.  In the near future Carrie will be very crucial for my path in helping me learn to really live.  I don’t know what she means by that, but I’ll find out when it gets here.

The point is just that I have to help her understand how important she is to me so that as she dips a bit lower in mood she understands that she is still critically important to my success in life.  I’ll do my best to remind her, I know I don’t do it very well many times because I am focused on keeping everything together.  I’ll work on it.

Today she’s getting a 20 minute chair massage to help her back after all the seizures.  I’m hoping to find a park to go to so she can be with nature a bit after the weeks stuck in the house.  Then we’ll come home again and I’m going to really clean the bedroom.  The bedding is in the washer waiting to go after my shower.  Hopefully I can make it more organized and peaceful so she has a supportive environment for healing.

Better get in the shower or we’ll never get going.

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New bedtime

Last night I found myself tired early, so I decided to try this new bedtime.  I was able to get a full 8 hours or so and get up at 7am.  I didn’t get to work by 8 like I hoped, but 8:30 is better than 9.  So my goal for the week will be in by 8:30 every day.  It will help me catch up on work and hours.  I have so much to study, it’s crazy!  I’m picking up a few things, but not enough to make me happy or at all confident.  At least I’m taking the class I’m going to teach this week so I will finally have an idea of what to focus on.

I better get ready for bed and help Carrie recover from her seizure.  Sometimes it’s hard to keep focused…
Today I got my student loan payment schedule.  I’m supposed to pay $475 a month…yeah, that can’t happen quite yet.  I’m going to request forbearance for a little while longer.  Hopefully that’s enough for us to pay down other things.

About Cleansing other people’s chakras

I wanted to keep some of my comments private since they are about Carrie and her experiences, but I can talk about the things I learned tonight and still respect privacy.

Carrie’s energy has been all over the place, so I asked the guides if I could do the chakra cleanse, if it would be safe for her that is.  They said yes, so long as I followed the directions and listened to them if they needed me to stop.

I prepared first by doing the 2nd awareness exercise (I think that’s the one) where you do these eye movements to clear your vision (I know I’m explaining that poorly).  Then I stand in prayer pose, letting my energy balance out between my hands and body.  During that time they told me to ask for guidance and help, which I did.  Apparently help did come by way of Manthis, my higher guide, but I didn’t know that until after.  So I asked that my hands heal and not harm, and they find their marks for the chakras.  Well, I wasn’t sensing the locations consciously, but apparently I did find them just as I should so that wasn’t a problem.

During the cleansing, most of the chakras elicited a strong reaction, so I only did 2 circles for each.  It’s better to go slow than go too fast and hurt her.  I didn’t use water, just flicked my hand hard to get rid of the dirty energy I was cleaning out.  There were times I could feel some interaction with the energy, but mostly I tried to keep my focus while checking with her to make sure she was ok.

After they reminded both of us to be humble and thankful for the healing and help, which is certainly good to remember.  We’re going to do this every night hopefully, though we’re going to go down to one circle tomorrow and let her slowly build up, as she does have very strong reactions to it.  My guess is that she allows me in more, so there’s no shielding.  Therefore it’s more effective than a stranger doing the same thing.  In time, we’ll build up to doing more.  Hopefully in a few weeks we’ll have a much healthier and stronger Carrie, just in time for the Melissa Etheridge concert. 

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All done!

Woohoo, tomorrow is the last day of instructor training.  We actually have a graduation ceremony, and based on what I overheard, it’ll involve some good natured joking at our expense of course.  :-)  Sometimes, working at NASA, or at least working in MOD feels a lot like the military.  In part this is probably because it was built by military folks, and continues to maintain a decent number of military throughout.  It can be interesting though.

Tonight I spent most of the night working on the new Jedi Academy website.  I transferred over a few courses worth of material so people can get a feel for how we’ve set it up.  I don’t know if it’s the best way to do it or not, but we have to start somewhere.  Hopefully we can get this all worked out so it’s user friendly for everyone.

Hmm…getting sleepy.  I’ll try to get ready for bed in between conversations.  That’s what happens when old friends pop up.

Exploration

Today I visited the local pagan shop, as they were having a get together with other vendors.  While I haven’t been enthused with their yahoo group, I wanted to take a look and see what they had.  When I arrived it was smaller than I expected, with little of interest.  So I went inside, and the store itself was disappointing.  I’m used to some really outstanding stores, but it was beyond their offerings.  It just felt wrong.  I left after I looked around so I knew just what they offered.

However, I didn’t want to go home yet, and then I remembered there is a Native American shop nearby and headed over to it.  It’s basically an art gallery of all different types of Native art.  There were some really amazing things in it.  Of course, it’s out of my price range, but it felt good to be there and look at everything.  Spending some time there redeemed the afternoon. 

Then I had an interesting conversation with another Jedi who has asked me to be involved with something.  After almost an hour, I still don’t know exactly what it is, but that’s ok.  It may not come to anything, but it’ll be an interesting training opportunity I suppose.

An interesting day I suppose.  Carrie and I have been listening to the last Harry Potter audiobook.  It’s been a while since we read it, so there are a lot of details I’ve forgotten.  It’s just so amazing to realize one person came up with all of these stories…
Last night I had a really fun dream thanks to Carrie leaving the book on.  I was working with Hermione to prepare to go meet Voldemort for a final battle.  lol  I’ve also spent a lot of time this weekend thinking about the nature of respect and adventure, and the desire of both.  It’s not clear enough for me to really post on though.  Just trying to understand myself, and what it is that a person truly is looking for when they are looking for adventure.  A puzzlement

Instructor Training

I’ve been in instructor training this week.  Our first 30 minute lesson was on Wednesday, which meant I was busy Monday and Tuesday working on it.  Thankfully I was second to last, as I needed that extra time at lunch to practice my intro and transitions.  It allowed me to speak more fluidly and give an awesome lesson.  I have a dvd of the presentation and debrief, but I haven’t watched it yet.  I find it very hard to watch myself, it just doesn’t seem to match how I feel inside.  Is that weird?
Since I nailed the presentation skills, the big problem with it were a few small technical errors.  Nothing was glaring to anyone except my group lead and mentor who are subject matter experts.  I’ll fix those tomorrow at work.  Honestly, the most important thing I’m taking away from this course is the value of knowing my material and being prepared.  I have this ability to sound very knowledgable and confident.  That means, even if what I say is totally wrong, it isn’t always noticed by the audience.  In normal life, that isn’t a big deal.  But I work at NASA now, and if I give a crew member the wrong information it could create a very big problem on station.  Bad.  I knew I needed to review some of that information and simply ran out of time to do so.  I will keep this all in mind as I certify in my first lesson.  It’s even more important in that class because it’s the quick response class.  In other words, what do you do if there’s a warning or emergency situation with the thermal control system.  This is one of those life or death, ultimate consequences classes, so I have to be very careful and study hard.

I’ve found some confidence due to this class as well.  I wasn’t feeling it until I got up there and did my presentation.  I was just on, and it worked.  Just a little more preparation and time management and I’ll be a great instructor.

You know, every so often, I just have to take a step back.  That’s when, the only thing I can think is, holy shit, I work at NASA!  Growing up, especially in high school, that was my dream.  I wanted to work at NASA, working my way up to the top.  We’ll see how this all works.  Afterall, I work somewhere that floods during a hurricane, so if sea levels rise, the space program may have a few problems.  I know there are unknowns, but if I make myself indispensible, I may find myself with a job no matter what, which would be handy. 

I love my job…yay!

Clean (sorta)

Well, after a weekend of leisurely cleaning, I can safely say this is the cleanest the house has been.  Of course, there is still plenty to do, but every time I do clean, it’s a bit more organized than before.  Hell, in another month or two it just might look like we’ve lived here for a year.  haha

I have a ton of stuff to bring down to the recycling dumpster.  It’s so weird, we can put everything in one dumpster.  I wonder who sorts it?  At least it’s big, because there’s a lot of paper and stuff that needs to be dumped.  I hope I get it done before they do the walk through inspection tomorrow.  I have no idea what they’re checking for, but it would be nice to get a lto of recycling out so there isn’t as much clutter.  The 2nd bedroom is a mess, but it at least looks like it’s messy due to a project and trying to unpack, and not just mess for mess’s sake.  But whatever, I’m not going to stress on it.  I work full time, I have the equivalent of a part time job with the Jedi stuff, and my wife can’t clean due to her physical issues.  Our house isn’t gross, they’ll just have to cope.

On a side fun note, I’ve been watching the Degrassi marathon tonight.  The new and final season (I think) starts Friday, and I missed about half of the last season.  Yeah, the show can be a bit unbelievable in how fast things are resolved, but it’s still interesting to watch the characters grow.  Plus, I’m curious as to how they wrap this stuff up.  In the end, I’ll live without knowing, but since it’s easy to keep on in the background while cleaning, I watch it.  Today we also watched the Silver Stars beat the Mystics.  Man, Becky Hammon is fucking smooth!  Not to mention unbelievably sexy.  We also watched the Indy race.  Rough race, so many crashes, it was crazy.  But it’s always interesting.  It’s funny how I can go the whole week without anything to watch, and then Sunday the whole day is full.  But that’s ok.

I guess I should start cooling off and getting ready for bed.  Tomorrow is “write your lesson plan” day.  Woohoo lol