Little Ruthie

Snowy Sunday

A new holiday sweater just in time....

 
for running in the snow...

and backyard patrol.

We didn't expect all the snow but then I guess neither did most of the U.S.  Very cold everywhere.  

Regardless of the chill factor, we braved the elements and brought home our Christmas tree.  It's sooo lovely!  I'll post pics tomorrow.  Right now I'm going to sit on my couch and look at the pretty lights on my tree.
 

 

Another thing I want that I don't need

Is this too scrumptious or what?  Vin Burnham is a costume designer who has worked with the Royal Opera House and designed for opera and ballet along with films and television.  She is now making these gorgeous costumes at quarter scale, using crystals, sequins, tulle and silk.  The Little Costume Shop sells these guys for about 2 to 3 thousand each.

We'll take two.

My favorite is the snowflake costume.  Would have posted the pic but couldn't get it to save correctly.

He's 7!

The boy turned seven this week.  We had some family over for a quick dinner and cake with a few presents in there as well.  Tomorrow we're taking him and a couple of his friends to this "fun center" (has miniature golf, go-carts, bumper cars, arcade). 

But tonight we're going to my sister's for a Halloween party.  Generally we have family gatherings that are centered around the aduls and the kids run off and play with one another.  But my sister decided to do a kids party for all of our litle ones, complete with games and scary stories.  The boy is about to lose it with so much happening.  Pictures to follow.

I'm outta here

Yesterday was my last day at work.  I'm exhausted.

I think I picked the wrong week to be my last.  My big annual event took place this week so I was trying to pay attention to all the details all the while trying to hand off projects, etc. 

I have two weeks off before I start the new job and I'm looking forward to that.  I'm finishing up the polishing on the draft to go to London and should have it in the mail by next Monday (fingers crossed).

Auntie is in this weekend from L.A. so we'll be touring the town and hanging out.  I think we like the hanging out part best.  Last night we went out to eat and I just inhaled my mushroom ravioli dish.  Talk about overeating!  I was still full when I woke up this morning.

And you know the geese are back.  We wake up early in the morning to here them as they fly overhead. Nobody likes them but me because there's so many of them here during the winter.  But they're one of my favorite parts of the seasonal changes.

 

 

 

 

Little things that make the day special

The husband bought me a lovely silk scarf that I'd been wanting.  It's sort of an early anniversary gift but it got me to thinking about little things that make me so happy. 

For instance, I've recently begun adding to a vintage charm bracelet that was given to me by Auntie.  The charms are so tiny but I always get happy when I see them.  I purchased a perfectly campy charm of the Manitou Springs Cliff Dwellings that we saw on our camping trip.  It was in the store next to the commemorative spoons.  Do you remember the spoons and the thimbles?  A friend's mother used to collect those spoons and even had a little rack on which to display them.  Must have made her happy.

This soap is made by L'Occitane and it's my favorite.  They make the best milk and shea butter soaps.  Each time I use one it feels like a tiny little luxury.  I need to go out and get more.

Right now, I'm drinking some white tea from my sister's catering company, The Denver Tea Room (remember, she caters tea parties and is a pastry chef).  It the Wedding Tea and its delicious.  I catered a gig with her yesterday and came home with some stash.  I've been writing this afternoon and it's always nice to have a pot of tea going. 

Do you have any litle things that just pick you up?

en croix, jeté, plié...

Tonight was my first ballet class.  Loved it.  I haven't taken lessons in at least two decades, but it all seemed so familiar.  Of course, some of it was a little bit harder at 45, but hey, I still managed.  My legs feel wobbly in such a great way. 

I'm so glad I decided to take the class.  I love everything about it.  Just being there is invigorating.  And I'm sort of geeky because I really enjoy the piano music used to do barre work.  As I said, the whole environment is wonderful.

Conference prep

Tomorrow is my writer's conference.  I've been working on completion of the mom lit. MS but it isn't finished.  It's close, but not finished.  But I'm gonna pitch anyway. I want the experience of pitching to an agent/editor.  So today I'm printing business cards and refining my pitch. 

It's beautiful here today and I have been off from work since Tuesday.  One day was spent on the couch nursing the cold and reading but yesterday I wrote.  We also went to the boy's Art open house at school.  He did not display art work this year but he did sing in the Kindergarten program and was quite proud of himself.  He did a great job and watching his joyful face as he sings makes me so happy.

Tonight is baseball practice.  I am going to get all my stuff done and put the conference out of my mind and go and enjoy watching him.  He's gotten pretty good and batting and catching.  But it is still funny to listen/watch the coach as he tries to herd all these little six year olds.  Last week, the coach said something about falling on your butt, and a little voice from the group said, "We don't say that.  It's called 'bottom'."  Still babies but they want so much to be bigger boys.

I got a treadmill!  My sister's brother-in-law had one to give away but it didn't have the key and you kinda need a key to turn these things on anymore.  So I went online and ordred the key - three bucks for the key and fifteen bucks for shipping if you can believe it.  Still. Fifteen bucks isn't bad for a nice treadmill.  Th key came yesterday and last  night I went out to the garage and did thirty minutes.  I'm so happy to have it.  We'll move the thing down to the basement this weekend, but I wanted to make sure the key actually worked with it before I got my neighbor involved in carting it downstairs.  It's reeeally heavy.

Go enjoy the day.  I'll talk to you later!

Tapping through to fitness

I talked my husband and sister into taking a tap dancing class with me.  We went on Monday night and had an absolute blast.  It was so much fun, and when I left, that constant headache was gone.  Not sure why.  Maybe I was just concentrating and having too much fun.  Who knows.  Anyway, the teacher was also having fun because she teaches kids all day.  Also, none of us are rhythmically challenged so we covered lots of ground fast.

I missed dancing and thought this would be a nice addition to working out.  The husband used to do shows for Disneyland at the park and even though his primary job was to sing, they required a bit of dancing and at some point in our relationship he had said that he always wanted to learn to tap.  Then my sister suffers from memories of being taken to dance class with our older sisters and crying and having to go home.  So I figured we'd all benefit in one way or another.

While we don't yet look like Gene Kelly or Cyd Charisse, we're workin' on it!

The Art of Creation

I opened up Cathy Segal-Garcia's email, clicked on the youtube video and listened in awe.

Cathy was my singing coach in L.A.  Aside from being an all-around beautiful soul, she is an amazing improviser.  She still sends her class schedule to me (she holds regular workshops as well as private lessons), and I remember seeing the date for this Singers Roundtable and thinking it would be great.  Well, it was.

Ingrid James, Tierney Sutton and Cathy end the session with, "Beautiful Love."  The thing that is so wonderful about singing jazz is the frightening and beautiful way improvisation can come together.  The three of them leave me speechless.  A little over halfway through the number all three of them sing their improvisations together and it creates this completely new piece.  And it's all happening right then.  It's magical. 

Some health stuff, some writing stuff, and just eye candy

I took the blood pressure meds and the headaches went away the very next day.  Amazing.  So I'm grateful for that.  But.....I still don't want to be on the meds forever, so I've been scouring the internet to find out all I can about high blood pressure prevention.  After much research, I believe that I can tweak a couple of things:

Primarily I've added three cardio workouts to my routine.  Just 20 to 30 minutes each on a treadmill, but I think it will help.  I do my pilates and while my heart rate increases, I don't know that it increases enough to have the impact I would like.  I actually don't mind the treadmill - I like doing intervals where you run really fast and then take a brief walk. 

Also, I've been pretty exclusive to doing Pilates but now I'm looking at stuff like Tai Chi.  People I've talked to say it has really helped them with their stress levels.  We have a DVD that my husband uses and I gave it a whirl this past weekend. I don't know the forms yet, so it isn't necessarily "relaxing".  So I have to take a swing at it for the next couple of weekends before I incorporate it into my workout.  My main concern with this one is that I naturally exercise with precision in mind.  The Tai Chi movements are designed with "flow" in mind, and I don't flow.  I mean, my very early training in dance was about precision.  Even when you have a dance movement designed to look like you're floating or you are to perform it smoothly, you still have to do it within a certain measure of music, so there is a definite precision to that.  Pilates is about precision, so it is natural that I would like it so much, I think. Have to retrain myself.

Remember I said we had no history of high blood pressure in my family?  I was wrong.  I have one sister who has it as well.  So that makes two of us.  My parents didn't have it and I just wonder why she and I have it. 

So far I've not caught the cold being passed around in my household and I'm just going to hope it stays that way. We had a lazy weekend of rest and Gene Kelly movies at our house.  The boy has now decided to become a dancer/pilot/explorer.  He has made me replay the dance scenes with Gene over and over.  But hey, I dont' mind.  I LUV Gene. Very graceful.  Very masculine.  If he were alive, he'd be on my free pass....

Lastly, went to a booksigning for three of my fellow RWA chapter members.  After much discussion and debate, I've decided to enter a few contests through various RWA chapters.  For those of you not in the the RWA world, RWA chapters hold annual contests and you submit approx 25-30 pages of your book to one of the designated categories (Single Title, Contemporary Category, Historical, etc).  If you make it to the finals, the final judges are editors and agents who work with your kind of book.  So I've gone online and found four contests whose final editors are Harlequin people that I'd like to get in front of.  If I don't final, I'm going to send it straight to London (Harlequin editorial office that houses my category) in May.  We'll see.