LJ Idol, Wheel of Chaos! Week 1 - Quality
Jun. 21st, 2025 01:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tonithegreatSuch a difference the passing of time makes. I guess it has been less than a year since I last participated in an Idol Mini season. But still, such a difference in so many directions. It feels nice to sit with a laptop in a coffee shop and write. It feels nice to open a nostalgic window on Dreamwidth and see a slice of the internet that hasn’t changed much in the last twenty years or more. There used to be a lot of talk about how the internet was actually getting much worse, back at the dawn of the forms of social media that have taken over most of our devices now. I added my voice to those choruses. But ultimately, like everyone, I was dragged along on this wild ride consisting of so many media and culture shifts. And now here we are.
Do not fall horizontally. This mandate was issued multiple times in the instructional videos that Anson and I had to watch in order to sign the waivers required by the climbing gym that hosted roped/sport divisionals earlier this year. It became one of the quotes of the trip; one we would just say during silences in the car. It was delightfully ironic given that her routes had lots of overhangs and roof sections, making it more likely that her body would be positioned horizontally during a fall. As it turned out, both of Anson’s falls were pretty clean during the competition. But then in the evening after the competition, I took a big spill trail running- one where my whole body managed to get way out in front of my feet and I had that horrible moment of realizing I was falling with nothing I could do to stop it before the big smack. That was three weeks ago, and the skin has all grown back on my knees now. Do not fall horizontally.
June 21, 2025. Yesterday night was the solstice. Today is technically my 17th wedding anniversary! It’s before eight. And I’m sitting in my neighborhood coffee shop writing. The world is moving too quickly. Much too quickly. But just as some things are spiraling badly out of control in our world, our family’s chaotic rhythm seems to be in sort of a good place? Maybe? Dare I write that?
This fall, Rog will be two years post big brain surgery. He’s 60 this year. Almost twenty years with young onset Parkinson's and, honestly, things could be a heck of a lot worse.
Our girls are Juniors in high school now, eagerly awaiting the revelation of their AP exam scores. This is going to be such a big year for them. They’re both starting to drive which is part of why I’m actually able to pretend that I can breathe a little bit at this moment. Anson just finished a week of cello camp at FSU. Jasper is finishing up her summer synchronized swim training ahead of Junior Olympic nationals which are held over the week leading up to July 4. She’s swimming four routines at nationals this year. And I should be adding a final round of finishing touches of glitter and rhinestones to her solo suit right now. Jas decided to take the lifeguard test with the city while Anson and I were up in Georgia for climbing divisionals, and she came out of it with an offer for summer employment. I’m so proud of both of them, working hard for the things they want to go after.
The girls keep on learning and making connections. People change and grow. And the world burns around us. It’s hard to wrap my mind around.
I finished the couch-to-five-k running program again a couple of weeks ago. My own health hasn’t been my priority for an alarming couple of years. Work has been both intense and satisfying and family hasn’t been easy and I just let my health go to the back burner. My schedule hasn’t been consistent enough to let me exercise with friends or cultivate new exercise friends. I actually had to start C25K from the very first week this time, and it even threw in a few extra bonus workouts over the course of the program based on what it saw from me. But I’ve finished it again- midforties-Toni style, I guess. I’m figuring out what that means now. Perhaps primarily a lot of ibuprofen. I rolled directly into 5k speedwork with hopes for a hot summer race toward the end of next month. I still don’t honestly know if I will ever run an elusive sub-30-minute 5k. In the deeper past when I was in close to the right shape to knock one out, I was always aiming for longer races. But I might dust that old goal off again as it starts to cool down this autumn, depending on what else is happening.
I’ve never been a fast runner. My advantage in running was always just that I can slip into a frame of mind where I am genuinely happy while running and that I’m built for the long haul. Forty-inch-inseam legs make for long strides. But I’m quite heavy for me right now and that doesn’t help the running.
One thing I have done this spring is to undertake my running on trails. In times past I did a lot of road running around home, but the trails do something for me other than just giving me a place to strive cardiovascularly. I love being out in the hot north Florida green. One of the parks where I’ve been running has a gopher tortoise burrow along the loop trail I use. A little over half my laps there, I’ve been able to say hi to a tortoise friend as I go by.
The other trail that’s closer to home has been a riot of wildflowers over the last few weeks. One morning, I discovered that mushrooms had popped up along the sides of the trail, which led me to long ponderings about what the designer of the Mario Brothers games was thinking about when he made it so that the characters could power up by punching mushrooms. I’m sure that there are interviews out there where people have asked questions about this. But running that morning, and finally starting to feel good in places had me thinking that for me, running through wildflowers was the real power-up move. Running past pretty flowers and dew-covered bracken ferns. . . There are certainly worse things.
Anyway, do not fall horizontally, kids, if you can manage it.
Do not fall horizontally. This mandate was issued multiple times in the instructional videos that Anson and I had to watch in order to sign the waivers required by the climbing gym that hosted roped/sport divisionals earlier this year. It became one of the quotes of the trip; one we would just say during silences in the car. It was delightfully ironic given that her routes had lots of overhangs and roof sections, making it more likely that her body would be positioned horizontally during a fall. As it turned out, both of Anson’s falls were pretty clean during the competition. But then in the evening after the competition, I took a big spill trail running- one where my whole body managed to get way out in front of my feet and I had that horrible moment of realizing I was falling with nothing I could do to stop it before the big smack. That was three weeks ago, and the skin has all grown back on my knees now. Do not fall horizontally.
June 21, 2025. Yesterday night was the solstice. Today is technically my 17th wedding anniversary! It’s before eight. And I’m sitting in my neighborhood coffee shop writing. The world is moving too quickly. Much too quickly. But just as some things are spiraling badly out of control in our world, our family’s chaotic rhythm seems to be in sort of a good place? Maybe? Dare I write that?
This fall, Rog will be two years post big brain surgery. He’s 60 this year. Almost twenty years with young onset Parkinson's and, honestly, things could be a heck of a lot worse.
Our girls are Juniors in high school now, eagerly awaiting the revelation of their AP exam scores. This is going to be such a big year for them. They’re both starting to drive which is part of why I’m actually able to pretend that I can breathe a little bit at this moment. Anson just finished a week of cello camp at FSU. Jasper is finishing up her summer synchronized swim training ahead of Junior Olympic nationals which are held over the week leading up to July 4. She’s swimming four routines at nationals this year. And I should be adding a final round of finishing touches of glitter and rhinestones to her solo suit right now. Jas decided to take the lifeguard test with the city while Anson and I were up in Georgia for climbing divisionals, and she came out of it with an offer for summer employment. I’m so proud of both of them, working hard for the things they want to go after.
The girls keep on learning and making connections. People change and grow. And the world burns around us. It’s hard to wrap my mind around.
I finished the couch-to-five-k running program again a couple of weeks ago. My own health hasn’t been my priority for an alarming couple of years. Work has been both intense and satisfying and family hasn’t been easy and I just let my health go to the back burner. My schedule hasn’t been consistent enough to let me exercise with friends or cultivate new exercise friends. I actually had to start C25K from the very first week this time, and it even threw in a few extra bonus workouts over the course of the program based on what it saw from me. But I’ve finished it again- midforties-Toni style, I guess. I’m figuring out what that means now. Perhaps primarily a lot of ibuprofen. I rolled directly into 5k speedwork with hopes for a hot summer race toward the end of next month. I still don’t honestly know if I will ever run an elusive sub-30-minute 5k. In the deeper past when I was in close to the right shape to knock one out, I was always aiming for longer races. But I might dust that old goal off again as it starts to cool down this autumn, depending on what else is happening.
I’ve never been a fast runner. My advantage in running was always just that I can slip into a frame of mind where I am genuinely happy while running and that I’m built for the long haul. Forty-inch-inseam legs make for long strides. But I’m quite heavy for me right now and that doesn’t help the running.
One thing I have done this spring is to undertake my running on trails. In times past I did a lot of road running around home, but the trails do something for me other than just giving me a place to strive cardiovascularly. I love being out in the hot north Florida green. One of the parks where I’ve been running has a gopher tortoise burrow along the loop trail I use. A little over half my laps there, I’ve been able to say hi to a tortoise friend as I go by.
The other trail that’s closer to home has been a riot of wildflowers over the last few weeks. One morning, I discovered that mushrooms had popped up along the sides of the trail, which led me to long ponderings about what the designer of the Mario Brothers games was thinking about when he made it so that the characters could power up by punching mushrooms. I’m sure that there are interviews out there where people have asked questions about this. But running that morning, and finally starting to feel good in places had me thinking that for me, running through wildflowers was the real power-up move. Running past pretty flowers and dew-covered bracken ferns. . . There are certainly worse things.
Anyway, do not fall horizontally, kids, if you can manage it.
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no subject
Date: 2025-06-21 09:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-06-21 09:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-06-21 10:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-06-21 11:47 pm (UTC)I make every attempt to not fall ... horizontally OR vertically
- Erulisse (one L)
no subject
Date: 2025-06-22 01:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-06-22 06:15 pm (UTC)While reading your family recap, I was struck by the huge amount of stuff going on in the background, stuff that needs managing, stuff you live with ... LOL I don't know that it was your story in particular because it hits me when I'm thinking about my own family as well, there's just so much! (grin)
Anyway, thank you for this, it was great catching up with all the family characters from past LJ entries. :)
Dan
no subject
Date: 2025-06-22 11:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-06-23 02:07 am (UTC)I really enjoyed how you wrote this!
no subject
Date: 2025-06-23 12:02 pm (UTC)I'm so glad you're back! It's great to read you again. 😊
no subject
Date: 2025-06-23 12:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-06-23 06:09 pm (UTC)I didn't know there were competitive climbing events. How nice that both your girls have found activities that mean so much to them.
I'm envying your running. I first got waylaid by plantar fasciitis about 20 years ago, and the second time it came back I could not get rid of it. It's flared up recently, due to two short hikes this spring within 2 weeks of each other. *cries*
Your training runs sound wonderful!
no subject
Date: 2025-06-23 10:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-06-25 04:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-06-25 01:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-06-25 11:42 pm (UTC)My brother took up running in his 40s and now, at age 53, is a regular competitor at 5K races in Vermont. Despite asthma and the sort of aging issues we all face as we hit the downward slope, age-wise, he tends to do well. More importantly, it's been a great way for him to connect with people.
no subject
Date: 2025-06-28 05:41 am (UTC)