I mentioned before that there is a significant age spread between me and my siblings.
My oldest sister is probably the one I know the least, but it doesn't mean I love her less. There are many things about her I admire. Foremost of those qualities is her courage at dealing with the challenges that life has brought her.
I think that people often say, "I don't know how so-and-so does it," as a bit of a throw-away statement to indicate that they're grateful that they don't have the same challenges. I say that about my sister and I truly do mean I don't know how she does it. (I also wouldn't want her challenges, but that goes without saying.)
My sister served a mission in Brazil back when it wasn't cool for women to serve missions. She loved those people and still enjoys speaking Portuguese when she can.
She's a talented artist. One year she painted a water color of a Christmas tree with presents under it in the foreground. Behind the tree was a picture on the wall of the Nativity scene. The foreground, though prominent, was obviously not the focus of the painting. It was simple and beautiful and still evokes feelings of a peaceful, meaningful Christmas whenever I see it.
She loves fantasy stories and novels, especially JRR Tolkien books. Two of her children are named after "magical" characters. Again, she was a woman ahead of her time.
She has an independent spirit. She's a hard worker. She is a wonderful mother and grandmother and loves her family deeply. Life has not been kind to her and she has been dealt more than anyone's fair share of health issues. Through trials of not being able to be with her family and failing health, she never loses hope, and for that I admire her. She never gives up, never stops fighting, and never stops believing that something better is coming.
I may not know her very well, but I admire her and have much to learn from her.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Monday, November 7, 2011
Scrum Wars
It used to be that at work when a big project was getting ready to start, a conference room would be taken over and become designated as the "war room" for that project.
I never liked that terminology. It made it sound so violent and anti-project. Here was a project "team" coming together to build something supposedly to enhance people's work productivity, and it sounded more like they were gearing and arming up for battle.
The terminology trend these days is now "scrum." As in rugby. Scrum (an abbreviated form of scrummage, which is now rarely used, except as a verb), in the sports of rugby union and rugby league, is a way of restarting the game, either after an accidental infringement or (in rugby league only) when the ball has gone out of play.
If you've ever seen a rugby game, you know that a scrum is not a non-violent event. Put a group of strong, athletic men in a huddle, all eager to regain the advantage for their team, and it can result in being kicked, punched, bitten, shoved mercilessly, and generally beaten up and bloodied.
But in a technology project environment, it means this: Scrum is an incremental framework for project management often seen in agile software development, a type of software engineering.
Sounds benign enough, no. But I don't think its naming convention is an accident. Especially if you think of it as two teams playing against each other, not that everyone in the room is on the same side.
In my new job, my boss has scrum meetings. I frequently come out of those a bit worse for wear, or at least feeling I'm at a disadvantage. It doesn't feel as though we're all on the same side fighting for the ball so we can happily wend our way to the goal line. No, it feels more like being on the wrong end of the huddle against the strong, athletic men, getting a bit beaten up.
I prefer war. At least there was no punching and kicking.
I never liked that terminology. It made it sound so violent and anti-project. Here was a project "team" coming together to build something supposedly to enhance people's work productivity, and it sounded more like they were gearing and arming up for battle.
The terminology trend these days is now "scrum." As in rugby. Scrum (an abbreviated form of scrummage, which is now rarely used, except as a verb), in the sports of rugby union and rugby league, is a way of restarting the game, either after an accidental infringement or (in rugby league only) when the ball has gone out of play.
If you've ever seen a rugby game, you know that a scrum is not a non-violent event. Put a group of strong, athletic men in a huddle, all eager to regain the advantage for their team, and it can result in being kicked, punched, bitten, shoved mercilessly, and generally beaten up and bloodied.
But in a technology project environment, it means this: Scrum is an incremental framework for project management often seen in agile software development, a type of software engineering.
Sounds benign enough, no. But I don't think its naming convention is an accident. Especially if you think of it as two teams playing against each other, not that everyone in the room is on the same side.
In my new job, my boss has scrum meetings. I frequently come out of those a bit worse for wear, or at least feeling I'm at a disadvantage. It doesn't feel as though we're all on the same side fighting for the ball so we can happily wend our way to the goal line. No, it feels more like being on the wrong end of the huddle against the strong, athletic men, getting a bit beaten up.
I prefer war. At least there was no punching and kicking.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Natural Beauty?
I got my hair cut on Saturday. It's pretty short -- shorter than it's been in awhile, in fact. George, the gentleman who cuts my hair, told me to be brave and not style it as much as I'm used to doing. He didn't say those words, but that's what he meant. What that comes down to is leaving it pretty straight with not as much body and product that I'm used to putting into it.
I went to a play after getting it cut where several people from church were also. They all complimented me on it and dared me to wear it like that to church the next day.
So I did. Or tried. Without George to make it perfect, I did the best I could. I only did a little bit of body in the crown (his recommendation) and left the rest of it straight and natural. I have fine hair. There's plenty of it, but it's fine. That, coupled with not a lot of body, means that it looks like I don't have a lot of it, since now the shape of my head is more skull-like without a lot of hair to shape it otherwise.
I got a few more compliments on my hair at church. (It actually is just about the same cut as I've had before, I'm just not styling it as much, so it does look very different.) I made sure to thank those people, then laughed explaining that it took a lot of control to NOT style it very much. I lamented to one woman that now you can tell how very little hair it actually looks like I have now since I'm not fluffing it up as much.
She chuckled as she reached up to her own hair (super cute, by the way), and said whatever it was (don't remember what) that bugs her about her own hairstyle.
It led us both to realize that we all spend a lot of time and effort covering up our (self-perceived) flaws and physical imperfections. We blow-dry and curl and style our hair to make it look different than it is or behaves naturally; we put on makeup to make ourselves look more "naturally" beautiful; we wear shoes to make us look taller; and the list goes on.
I pointed out that it was the ancient Egyptians who invented perfume to cover up their own body odor because they didn't bathe frequently enough.
"We are just a smelly, ugly, bald bunch of people, aren't we?" I said, laughing, to which she agreed.
And yet tomorrow I will bathe, using nice-smelling soaps and shampoos, I will put on deodorant so that I don't offend others (and myself!) with my own natural odor, and I will put on makeup to enhance my own features while trying to look natural, and I will "shape" my hair so that it falls perfectly naturally. After all, I don't want to look like I spent too much time on my appearance.
I went to a play after getting it cut where several people from church were also. They all complimented me on it and dared me to wear it like that to church the next day.
So I did. Or tried. Without George to make it perfect, I did the best I could. I only did a little bit of body in the crown (his recommendation) and left the rest of it straight and natural. I have fine hair. There's plenty of it, but it's fine. That, coupled with not a lot of body, means that it looks like I don't have a lot of it, since now the shape of my head is more skull-like without a lot of hair to shape it otherwise.
I got a few more compliments on my hair at church. (It actually is just about the same cut as I've had before, I'm just not styling it as much, so it does look very different.) I made sure to thank those people, then laughed explaining that it took a lot of control to NOT style it very much. I lamented to one woman that now you can tell how very little hair it actually looks like I have now since I'm not fluffing it up as much.
She chuckled as she reached up to her own hair (super cute, by the way), and said whatever it was (don't remember what) that bugs her about her own hairstyle.
It led us both to realize that we all spend a lot of time and effort covering up our (self-perceived) flaws and physical imperfections. We blow-dry and curl and style our hair to make it look different than it is or behaves naturally; we put on makeup to make ourselves look more "naturally" beautiful; we wear shoes to make us look taller; and the list goes on.
I pointed out that it was the ancient Egyptians who invented perfume to cover up their own body odor because they didn't bathe frequently enough.
"We are just a smelly, ugly, bald bunch of people, aren't we?" I said, laughing, to which she agreed.
And yet tomorrow I will bathe, using nice-smelling soaps and shampoos, I will put on deodorant so that I don't offend others (and myself!) with my own natural odor, and I will put on makeup to enhance my own features while trying to look natural, and I will "shape" my hair so that it falls perfectly naturally. After all, I don't want to look like I spent too much time on my appearance.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Practice Makes....Maybe Not Perfect ....Just Practicing
There are just under four weeks until Thanksgiving. For those of you keeping track at home, that means that I only have about nine more practice runs left before I try to schlub my way through a 10k.
For a long, long time, I have set a goal for myself to run three times a week. In my mind I have run three times a week, even if I have never been able to manage it. Last week I actually did it for the first in .... ever. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday -- woot woot! I have time on the weekdays to do about 40 minutes total, so I can get about three miles and a stretch in before needing to shower and get ready for work. On Saturdays, in my mind at least, I have time for my weekly "long" run. That's supposed to be 20% more than your usual/standard run, so I guess I only need to do not quite four miles (is that math right?). But there's that part of me, that really annoying nagging part of my mind, that keeps saying, "You have to be ready to do six miles. Six miles. Six. Miles. Ten kilometers. Thanksgiving. Six miles. Thanksgiving day. Mmmmm, pie." Okay, that last part isn't annoying -- it's the other parts that keep reminding the rest of me that I've not run more than five miles, and how am I supposed to do six? On Thanksgiving day? mmmm, pie.
You can see why I have issues. Clearly I am more motivated by pie than actually completing the full 10k.
Anyway. Last week I ran three days, and this week I did too! I didn't know if I'd be able to do it. Two weeks ago Saturday, the day that is supposed to be the "distance" run, I got about two and a half miles and just...stopped. I was done. The problem was that I was not close to home. I figured I'd be okay after a break, but when I started trying to move my legs again, they felt leaden. Or at least very heavy.
That was not a good day. And I despaired being ready for a 10k.
This week, I got three runs in again! Woot! Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday again. I only did about four and a half miles today, and my time certainly is not fast, but I did it, and that's what matters. After all, four and a half miles is only a mile and a half shy of six. I'm two-thirds of the way there. Hey! More than two-thirds!
I started reading a new running book, then leant it to a friend before I could finish it, but one of the things the author encourages is that instead of thinking of these regular runs as "training" runs, to classify them as "practice" runs instead. His reasoning is that since he's teaching a form that could be different and take some time to re-train your body to do, that you should think of it as practicing instead of training.
I like that. It makes the whole "I'm gonna run a 10k on Thanksgiving day" thing less intimidating. Instead, I'm just practicing. Just like I used to practice the piano, or guitar, or go to volleyball practice. I'm practicing running.
Still on track to for Thanksgiving, then.
Running AND pie.
For a long, long time, I have set a goal for myself to run three times a week. In my mind I have run three times a week, even if I have never been able to manage it. Last week I actually did it for the first in .... ever. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday -- woot woot! I have time on the weekdays to do about 40 minutes total, so I can get about three miles and a stretch in before needing to shower and get ready for work. On Saturdays, in my mind at least, I have time for my weekly "long" run. That's supposed to be 20% more than your usual/standard run, so I guess I only need to do not quite four miles (is that math right?). But there's that part of me, that really annoying nagging part of my mind, that keeps saying, "You have to be ready to do six miles. Six miles. Six. Miles. Ten kilometers. Thanksgiving. Six miles. Thanksgiving day. Mmmmm, pie." Okay, that last part isn't annoying -- it's the other parts that keep reminding the rest of me that I've not run more than five miles, and how am I supposed to do six? On Thanksgiving day? mmmm, pie.
You can see why I have issues. Clearly I am more motivated by pie than actually completing the full 10k.
Anyway. Last week I ran three days, and this week I did too! I didn't know if I'd be able to do it. Two weeks ago Saturday, the day that is supposed to be the "distance" run, I got about two and a half miles and just...stopped. I was done. The problem was that I was not close to home. I figured I'd be okay after a break, but when I started trying to move my legs again, they felt leaden. Or at least very heavy.
That was not a good day. And I despaired being ready for a 10k.
This week, I got three runs in again! Woot! Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday again. I only did about four and a half miles today, and my time certainly is not fast, but I did it, and that's what matters. After all, four and a half miles is only a mile and a half shy of six. I'm two-thirds of the way there. Hey! More than two-thirds!
I started reading a new running book, then leant it to a friend before I could finish it, but one of the things the author encourages is that instead of thinking of these regular runs as "training" runs, to classify them as "practice" runs instead. His reasoning is that since he's teaching a form that could be different and take some time to re-train your body to do, that you should think of it as practicing instead of training.
I like that. It makes the whole "I'm gonna run a 10k on Thanksgiving day" thing less intimidating. Instead, I'm just practicing. Just like I used to practice the piano, or guitar, or go to volleyball practice. I'm practicing running.
Still on track to for Thanksgiving, then.
Running AND pie.
Friday, November 4, 2011
My Familly
My family is awesome. I know that statement isn't unique to just me, but seriously -- I have a pretty cool family. Granted, when I was a teenager nothing about my family was cool (if you've ever met or been a teenager, you know that can be a true statement).
We have a pretty big age spread between the oldest and me, the youngest. There's 21 years of a gap there, so I haven't always felt necessarily close to all of them. They're all baby boomers, and I'm a Gen X-er. I became an aunt for the first time when I was four. Yes, there are some generational differences between us.
As children grow older, unless the children have a particularly strong bond or live close to each other, there may not be a lot to hold them together. In my experience, parents are the common tie between siblings. Thankfully, I have a sister who is the glue of our family. As my parents' health deteriorated, she was the one who kept us all informed and helped us decide when it would be good for us to come visit. Her home was always open for us to visit, with a warm bed (or floor with bedding), food and hospitality.
(More about her later.) So when my parents died, I didn't know if there would be enough of a tie or bond for us to keep being a family -- it's easy to focus on your own family once the parental units are gone.
But guess what? My family is awesome. We still love each other. Even with our own separate lives and families, we are still inseparably connected. Which is good, because they're cool (no longer a teenager) and I love them.
We have a pretty big age spread between the oldest and me, the youngest. There's 21 years of a gap there, so I haven't always felt necessarily close to all of them. They're all baby boomers, and I'm a Gen X-er. I became an aunt for the first time when I was four. Yes, there are some generational differences between us.
As children grow older, unless the children have a particularly strong bond or live close to each other, there may not be a lot to hold them together. In my experience, parents are the common tie between siblings. Thankfully, I have a sister who is the glue of our family. As my parents' health deteriorated, she was the one who kept us all informed and helped us decide when it would be good for us to come visit. Her home was always open for us to visit, with a warm bed (or floor with bedding), food and hospitality.
(More about her later.) So when my parents died, I didn't know if there would be enough of a tie or bond for us to keep being a family -- it's easy to focus on your own family once the parental units are gone.
But guess what? My family is awesome. We still love each other. Even with our own separate lives and families, we are still inseparably connected. Which is good, because they're cool (no longer a teenager) and I love them.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
And Then What Happened?
I saw this church sign the other day and wondered....well, I wondered a lot of things. First, the sign.
Here are some of the questions I came up with:
But did he give it back?
Did the hotel charge for it?
Was it fluffy?
...and then, snapped it?
No, I don't think it's blasphemy for me to laugh at this sign. Maybe close, but definitely on this side of the line.
And yes, I do think I can speculate what that day's sermon would have been about.
But come one. That's some good stuff!
Here are some of the questions I came up with:
But did he give it back?
Did the hotel charge for it?
Was it fluffy?
...and then, snapped it?
No, I don't think it's blasphemy for me to laugh at this sign. Maybe close, but definitely on this side of the line.
And yes, I do think I can speculate what that day's sermon would have been about.
But come one. That's some good stuff!
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
November Goal
Last year the local YMCA sponsored its first annual Turkey Trot -- a 5k/10k run -- on Thanksgiving morning. I signed up to participate for a variety of reasons:
-- I run about 5k on my morning runs, so I figured I could do that
-- I had never entered a formal "race" before
-- I work at the local YMCA
-- I would go running on Thanksgiving morning anyway to justify the over-indulgence the day naturally brings, so why not get a t-shirt out of it?
-- It's for a good cause
I finished in about the same time I do my standard three mile run in my own neighborhood, and had fun, and still wear the free t-shirt on occasion. I started thinking back then, that it would be fun to try and do the 10k next year.
Here's next year. The Y is having its annual Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day again. I hadn't officially decided to do the 10k portion until I found myself telling an entire class of mine that I was going to run 6.something miles on Thanksgiving morning.
So...I'm committed now. And probably should be committed. I don't know how I'm going to actually do it, but I'm already registered, and Thanksgiving is four weeks away. I have managed to get up to 5 miles on two of my training runs, and figure that doing six shouldn't be that much harder. Three is definitely comfortable, but I guess the idea of this type of thing is to push yourself outside of your comfort zone, right?
My goal is to complete it under 70 minutes. Given my average speed, that shouldn't be a problem at all, if I were able to run the whole thing. I'm sure there will be plenty of walking in there as well.
But....PIE! That's my motivation. Pie.
-- I run about 5k on my morning runs, so I figured I could do that
-- I had never entered a formal "race" before
-- I work at the local YMCA
-- I would go running on Thanksgiving morning anyway to justify the over-indulgence the day naturally brings, so why not get a t-shirt out of it?
-- It's for a good cause
I finished in about the same time I do my standard three mile run in my own neighborhood, and had fun, and still wear the free t-shirt on occasion. I started thinking back then, that it would be fun to try and do the 10k next year.
Here's next year. The Y is having its annual Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day again. I hadn't officially decided to do the 10k portion until I found myself telling an entire class of mine that I was going to run 6.something miles on Thanksgiving morning.
So...I'm committed now. And probably should be committed. I don't know how I'm going to actually do it, but I'm already registered, and Thanksgiving is four weeks away. I have managed to get up to 5 miles on two of my training runs, and figure that doing six shouldn't be that much harder. Three is definitely comfortable, but I guess the idea of this type of thing is to push yourself outside of your comfort zone, right?
My goal is to complete it under 70 minutes. Given my average speed, that shouldn't be a problem at all, if I were able to run the whole thing. I'm sure there will be plenty of walking in there as well.
But....PIE! That's my motivation. Pie.
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