My Hit List Revisited

As our time here comes to an end in Atlanta, I like to look back on my overly ambitious self with My Hit List. It was a list of all the places I wanted to travel to while we were down here. Little did I know how much time Rob would be spending with school work and how my vacation time would be taken up by visiting family and weddings. Needless to say, the hit list remains unhit.

We did however manage to visit Chattanooga, TN and that by far was one of my favorite vacations of all time. It was simple, fun, and close. But that has been our only real adventure down here. I guess now with the economy the way it is and our need to save up for the wedding (vacation time included), we will probably be limited in what we do before we go.

We have at least two trips we would like to attempt. One is we are still hoping for that weekend in Savannah, but the timing may get very tricky. Rob will be doing school work until April and May is just silly with traveling for work and the beach so that leaves June. Let's hope June is a good month. The other is a trip to the Outer Banks on the pre-anniversary of our wedding. We want to see how the weather is and meet with some photographers and floral people. Try and do some of it before having to deal with it while we are at the beach for real vacation at the end of May.

The Florida Keys, New Orleans, Orlando, and The Biltmore Estate are almost certainly out of the picture for now. Maybe some other time. :)

The Continuing Journey of Yoga

I have now been practicing yoga for over a year. This is pretty amazing when I stop to think about it. I haven't manage to continuously do much of anything for over a year aside from yoga except blogging apparently. :)

I started yoga without much knowledge of how to do any of it. Now I feel comfortable in the classes and enjoy some of the poses. I remember the first time I went into plank pose and Vicki (instructor) told us hold it there for a minute. I thought, surely she is joking. I could only watch the class go into side plank (see below) from there. As she was doing all of this, she was talking about building your strength and knowing your limits. Well, that day I knew where my limits were. I was happy to watch everyone else in awe.

Side Plank

Last night we did some pose switching from downward dog to plank and repeat about ten times. I did it without the struggle I experienced in those first few classes. We even got to side plank pose which has not come up in class in a long time. I was actually able to get into it and hold it for a while. In fact, I tried the next level of this pose or the full expression of the pose (see below). I was not able to get my leg up that far and I was a little more hunched in, but I managed to grab my toe and pick it up a fair distance and didn't fall over! That's the great thing about yoga, it's all about personal achievements. A year and some months ago, I looked at this in disbelief that people's body's could actually do this and here I am now managing to grab my toes!

Side Plank - Full expression

Not only have I been able to achieve new poses, I have a greater appreciation for the practice itself. When I am stressed or need focus, I know I can turn to yoga to find calm and center myself. I find I have a greater respect for myself and my limits and even to some extent what I can expect of others. I am also trying to let go more or as some would put it - not to sweat the small stuff. It's not easy, but I am making progress.

Rob even got me a couple of books on yoga for Christmas which I thought was just fantastic. He emailed Amanda to get the contact into for my yoga instructor. He asked her for some recommendations of books that would be good to help me have a greater understanding of yoga. I had talked about this, but failed to get the recommendations so he did that part for me. The books I got were Meditations from the Mat and Yoga; The Spirit and Practice of Moving Into Stillness. So far I have only had the chance to read the meditations book. I like it. :)

Does this sound corny? Probably to those who don't really get yoga, but I don't care. It's my escape from the sometimes less than pleasant world we experience each day. And I think if anyone can find that escape, they should take it and savor it. It really is a beautiful thing.

Oldies But Goodies

Sometimes I wonder how I got to this point in my life without have done some of the most popular pop culture things. Mostly I am referring to watching the classic movies from the 80s and 90s. I don't know how I managed to avoid seeing them all this time, but the important thing to note is; I am trying to catch up.

My first or second beach week trip I finally watched all of the Star Wars movies. Yes, that would be about 2005 or 2006. I was missing the original three. I have seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Office Space so I think I am ok there. I am still unclear if I have seen all of the Back to the Future movies. I think I keep seeing the same one with the clock tower, but hard to say for sure.

Last night I had a craving for mac & cheese, beer, and popcorn. Rob made himself some pizzas and joined me on the couch to watch a movie. I ended up picking out My Cousin Vinny. I have never seen this movie either. It was hilarious! I especially liked Marisa Tome's character. She's sassy! :)

Someday I will be caught up with movies, but until then, I guess I will just add them to the ever growing list of things I should do. At least I will have something to do when I retire! :P

Game Night

Last night I was invited to a pot luck/game night at Sarah's house. We ate Mexican food, had some yummy margaritas, and played a game called Celebrity. It's one I have never played, but I think it may be a lot of fun if people wanted to play it at the beach.

Instructions for play - You round everyone up and give them three pieces of paper. Everyone writes down 3 famous people and tosses them into a hat (or similar object). Then you split into two teams by every other person. The first person starts by pulling names out of the hat and describes them any way they know how. They keep pulling names out of the hat until a minute is up. Then the next person goes and so on until you are out of names in the hat. Then the second round you put all the names back in and this time it's charades. You go around til the names are all used up and then put them all back into the hat for the third round. This time the person only gets one word to describe who it is. Since you have been through the first two rounds, you know what the names are so it's not as hard as it sounds. The only tricky part is when you get to a name you don't know. But thankfully, a minute goes by pretty fast. :)

I miss having pot lucks and game nights or movie nights in. I guess a lot more people just want to go out these days. It's fun every now and then, but when I am trying to save for the wedding and I have plenty of school work, it's not always possible. Oh well. :) It's fun when they come around!

Welcome to the ROC!

No, not THAT Rock, ROC, Raptor Operations Center! It's my new home for the next 6-7 months. My new rotation officially started last Monday and I am now working as an F-22 Industrial Engineering on the flight line. An honest to goodness real IE. Holy Bananas!

So far I am impressed with this job and it seems a little more in tune with... well just about everything that was wrong with my last rotation. The work flow is better, the instructions and guidance are better, people are more talkative, and generally, I think this is just going to be a really great rotation.

Already I have gotten to see more action than I ever would have at a normal desk. I got to climb around in a C-5, watch one get backed into the hanger (not an easy feat), listen to an engine run on an F-22 (from my desk), and see other very cool things.

Now, my building isn't fancy. In fact, it's far from it. I work in an elaborated double wide trailer. We have no hot water, no bathrooms, and it smells a little funny, but it's home. The only thing that will take some getting used to is planning bathroom breaks around the weather. At least I am getting fresh air!

The work will be good too. Right now I am learning the mechanics of it all, but I can see myself getting some cool projects if I so choose. It's an encouraging environment as well. After the 7am meeting this morning, I got a fist bump from the VP on a job well done. My lead and the other IE for the flight line were out Monday and Tuesday leaving the newbee, with all the work. I survived!

It's going to be a fun 6 months.

Shh... Super Secret Dinosaur Party!

On New Year's day we chugged through the morning and were about put together after noon. We spent the first part of the afternoon with Meredith at her new home. We met Ginny and stumbled across the flooring project in place. It looks hectic now, but should be really nice when it's all done!

In the evening we went to the Pennock's house for chili (and wine for us real wine-and-chili-day die hards), football, and Kota! You may be asking yourself, who would drink wine with chili? That's just not right. Well my friends, there's a lot that's not right, but we do it anyway because it's FUN!

Also, you may be curious about this "Kota". Kota is a totally bad ass interactive dinosaur meant for children that only 30-year-olds can appreciate.


She (I am assuming it's female though not well versed in identifying gender in dinosaurs) was the life of the party. She roars, goes on adventures, and sneezes. Rummy doesn't really know what to make of her because she will roar at him if he barks at her. Hilarity I would love to have video taped. But she's totally awesome and us few and privileged people got to play with her. Thanks Mike for sharing your way cool Christmas gift with us!

Also, as I do not get to visit Rummy often, we had to destory a toy or two while we were there.

Notice the stuffed bone he has had for a week and is still intact! This is just not right. He decapitated the toy I got him for Christmas. Quite precious actually. Made me smile. :)


Rummy and I in process of destroying said bone. We had it half gone my the time I left. He is awesome because he gets excited when he hears the toys ripping and loves tearing them to bits. I fear for any animals he ever catches.

Really, I can't think of a better place to start the New Year! Thanks Pennocks!!!

Happy 2009!

Well another year is here. I hope you celebrated its coming well. Rob and I spent it at the Diehl's drinking, hanging out, eating chocolate fondue (YUM), and counting down with Mr. Seacrest who seemed to be more impressed with his iPhone as the new year came in. Nerd.



General peoples hanging out and having fun. Ben making his usual photo statement. :)


The nice photo of Rob and I. He has a habit of making faces like he is being tortured when we are photographed together. I wonder what our wedding photos will look like....


A picture that marked the beginning of us watching the countdown (handy clock in the corner). Promptly after everyone had confetti in their eyes, we turned them off and started playing Rock Band. Sadly, I must admit, I have no idea what the words are to My Sharona and I picked it out to sing to. Go me!

Merriment was had by all. It was nice to visit with people we only see a few times a year. Hopefully that will change come July. I think the majority pull is for Rockville, MD. We will see what happens.

Thanks to Diehl's for hosting a totally fabulous New Year's Party!