Sick

Jennie has the Gombu. As she calls it. Upper head and respiratory infection. I put her down last night early. (Which means putting her to bed early). :)

Grades are coming this week. Preliminary look at grades was all As and Bs for the boys, but we'll see how it all shakes out.

Last night Riley and I spent an hour building a model with Ame yapping at us. Before that all three kids and I did 30 minutes of Tai Chi (I'm teaching them this martial arts). It was really fun. We have to stand still and breath and take poses of balance for minutes at at time. Riley is by far the worst and most fidgety of the kids. He's got to get that under control, but his body is growing crazy so he's really uncoordinated. Ame is the best.

That's it for last night's report, though we all did eat Jennie's fabulous chicken as leftovers for dinner.

January 25th, 2011 - Tuesday - The Hermit

Today we got The Hermit card, the 9th Trump. It is ruled by the Angel of Inner Wisdom and Introspection. Right off the bat this tells you what? You are going to go on a journey today, and which direct is the journey? Inside. Go INSIDE. See that little three headed dog on the bottom right corner of the card? Those are the Hounds of Hell, the Demon Dogs. And that is what you need to go face today! Go inside and face your shadow.

Shadow is such a strong theme in the Tarot for a good reason. We are all filled with shadows, and ego. When we let the ego run rampant in fear of the shadow, we usually are shriveled little zombie dolls. Shadow exists. It's part of the Duelistic Universe. Two. Opposition. It's just the COURSE of this universe.

If you think of it, why would it be that way? We can't even picture a world where it isn't TWO. The eastern traditions often think of God as ONE. The universe is ONE but has been shattered into this big duelistic thing.

For what it's worth, such questions are interesting, and perhaps worth pursuing some day, but while we play in THIS realm, we have Shadow to balance our light, and so the way to play is to face it, play with it, and not let fear run you.

One bit of advice today is to practice being still and quiet. Today is a good day to meditate. You should be doing breath work and meditating a bit every day just as a matter of course, but if you aren't, start today.

Be quiet. Be still. Look inward. Write. Sit.

Weekend of the 21, 22, 23

This this weekend we took it pretty easy. Friday we came home, didn't go out to date night, and just relaxed and did some practice (that means breathing eye contact practices, along with meditation, etc).

Saturday morning I surprised Jennie and woke her up early and took her to play racquetball! We had a lot of fun. Then we went to Yoga, then to Cafe Galleria for bagels and tea. Then we came back, Jennie took a nap, I read, and we ended up having a quiet evening together. We did some more practice, meditation, and so forth.

Then Sunday Jennie got up early and dragged the Creature out of bed (the Creature is our name for Ame, who is always a 'creature' in the morning. Tangled hair and sour attitude). She dragged her to Yoga. For me it was cleaning day. And I mean cleaning! We rented a rug doctor and went to work, kitchen, couches, carpets, bathrooms, you name it.

Then... THEN... we watched the Green Bay Packers vs. the Chicago Bears playoff game for the NFL. Jennie's family is from Wisconsin, so they are big Packer's fans. We had a fun time watching the game. I rode the bike for an hour during the game to exercise.

PACKERS WON.

So then we went down and Jennie cooked us her famous malibu chicken dinner, of tender breaded chicken with ham and swiss cheese. I made the salad and cleaned up afterwards. My Dad came by for dinner and we just had a nice time eating and watching the second football playoff game, Steelers vs. the Jets. Steelers won.

Then it was off to bed! Relaxing weekend.

Stuff

Happy Martin Luther King Day! Above we have three items. Two are skill certificates Riley earned in school, and another is a piece of artwork from Ame. All three kids are skiing today at Park City!

Monday

Here is a picture of Churchill!

Monday, we are all getting back to our daily schedule, sinking into the new year. Asher took Ame out for a movie and lunch yesterday, and it was good to see them hang out as Brother and Sister. Riley worked at the shop all day (on a Sunday!) That was cool. He had customers come up from Salt Lake which was awesome. While we sell most of all our products across both ranges online, it's nice to see the kids develop a few in state customers who come all the way from Salt Lake even to buy stuff.

Anyway, I hadn't posted in a long time, so I wanted to say hello to everyone!