Dancing Dreams

Okay, I'll admit it. I'm a "Dancing With the Stars" junkie. In fact, I am posting this blog late on Tuesday night because I had my usual crazy Tuesday and didn't have time to blog earlier, and I just had to watch the final results show after I got back from Connor's basketball practice.

I think the reason I love it so much is because it gives me hope. I would love to be able to glide gracefully across the dance floor, in perfect time to the music, turning in and out of my partner's arms as if it were the easiest thing in the world. The thing is, they take people who actually couldn't dance, and in just a few weeks they turn them into dancers! Okay, so most of them have some entertainment or athletic experience, and I'm sure that gives them a leg up. But clearly many people with entertainment and even musical ability do not have any dancing ability (did anyone see Michael Bolton dance this season?) And as much as I doubt that Bristol Palin deserved to be in the final based on her dancing ability, I do appreciate that someone with no previous experience whatsoever was able to make a very observable improvement and could actually keep up to the other competitors by the end. (No comment as to whether she qualified as a "star" to suit the title of the show.) Jennifer Grey won this season, which seemed perfectly justified to me, considering the iconic character she played in "Dirty Dancing". Nobody put Baby in a corner this time! (Sorry — I couldn't resist!) And I have never seen a 50-year-old who looked better.

Maybe it makes me a geek, but I just love to watch the dancing and dream that I could actually do that someday. It is a little bit of escapism once a week (okay, twice a week), and I can't wait until it starts again in the spring. My DVR will be programmed and ready. Now onto "Skating with the Stars" — Nah, I don't think so. I'll stick with "Battle of the Blades", thanks! I'd much rather watch hockey players try to figure skate than famous comedians and reality stars who have never had a pair of skates on their feet. That is just too painful to watch!

A Good Way to Start the Day

I overslept today. I don't know why. I heard the alarm. I heard Chris's alarm. We both pressed the snooze button a number of times. I woke up at 8:17, and I flew out of bed and started frantically getting the kids moving so they could get to school on time. They were both up already, of course. They were downstairs watching something on TV, probably just counting their lucky stars that Mom hadn't kicked them in the butt yet. It was a frenzied morning, but they made it to school on time, along with the other two kids that I was driving this morning. Chris did not get to work on time, which made him a bit of a grouch, and in turn made me a bit snappy. All in all, it was not a good way to start the day.

I am not a morning person, by any stretch of the imagination, but I have had to get up early on a regular basis many times in my life. When Connor was a baby and I was teaching full-time and we only had one car, I had to get Chris to work, Connor to a sitter, and myself to work across the city by 7:45. My alarm went off at 5:45 then, and I don't think I used my snooze button. When Janelle was a baby, my friend Heidi and I would meet at 6:00 a.m. for a daily predawn trek across Marysville. I loved that! We got our exercise and a good visit, and were both ready for our day by the time we were done. I don't know why we ever stopped. When I had the preschool, I got up at 6:30, so I could get all of us up, dressed and out of the house by 7:45.

I think the fact that the kids don't have to be at school until 9:00 a.m. has contributed to my lack of urgency when it comes to getting up in the morning. But I'd like to change that. I'd really like to start getting up before the kids again, so I can have early morning devotional time, maybe get myself cleaned up before I drive the kids to school, and actually feel like I'm ready to start my day after they are off to school. Maybe I should think about going for an early morning walk again, although I always found that works best when I have a partner with whom I can be accountable. I want to be able to set my alarm and get up, even at 7:00 a.m., and give us all a better start in the morning.

That is what wide-awake, mid-morning Leanne says. Unfortunately, she isn't anywhere to be found when the alarm goes off in the morning. The Leanne that is repeatedly pressing the snooze button in a stupor knows that she doesn't need to be up that early. She craves every bit of sleep she can get! But tomorrow I'm going to give it a try. I'm going to try to overpower sleepy Leanne with rational awake Leanne, and see if we can all have better morning. I let you know how it goes....

You're Only as Old as You Feel!

One of the more pleasant things that occurred on my rather disjointed journey to Toronto Friday happened as I was purchasing my bus ticket. I pleasantly relived it and recounted it several times over the course of the weekend. As I was taking out my wallet to pay the price that the agent had quoted to Chris, $36, the young man behind the desk said "That'll be $29. I mean - oh - are you a student?" He thought I was a student! I laughed and said "You're kidding, right?" "No, you look about that age to me." When I told him I was a student twenty years ago he laughed, too and said "Wow, I was way off!"

Ahhhhhh, what better compliment than mistaking a woman for half her age! I basked in the warmth of it for much of the weekend, my confidence bolstered enough to live on for a good three days. I bragged to my friends about it, never honestly believing that the young man thought I was really 21, but just happy that it could even be joked about. On my way home, however, when I was settling into a conversation with Sydney, the young lady I sat with on the train, I casually mentioned my children, as I usually do to anyone who will listen. She said "Oh, are your kids in high school?" And the balloon deflated. Now I know I'm more than old enough to have kids in high school. Many of my friends have kids in high school. But I was still floating around on my little cloud where I look like I'm 21! I told her that no, my kids are 10 and 7 (and I made sure NOT to follow it up by saying that I didn't have any kids until I was 30!)

I love being mistaken for being younger than I am. Forty-one still sounds so much older than I feel! But I think that old saying "You're only as old as you feel" really is true. I feel like a young mom, who isn't really older than most of my kids' friends' parents. I always said that my little brother, who was born when my parents were in their late 30s, kept Mom and Dad young. I think my kids do that for me. So if I really am only as old as I feel, I'm probably around 32 or 33, and I'm pretty happy with that.

And that student ticket is still quite a compliment!

Makes me so MAD!!!

We were robbed Friday night -- or sometime between Friday night and Saturday morning. Not only do I feel kind of violated and creepy, but I'm just so MAD, both at myself for allowing it to happen and at the jerk who felt he had the right to steal my property.

I am usually very careful about making sure the van is locked at all times. When we go somewhere together, I'm the one always reminding Chris to lock the van. When I pull into our driveway and get out of the car I automatically hit the lock button on my keychain, sometimes more than once. But Friday night, I messed up.

Janelle has started going to get the mail for me from the mailbox up at the corner of our street. She loves to do it, and it saves me the trouble of doing it myself. On Friday, I had actually checked the mail already while I was out running errands, but it hadn't come yet. I had left the mail key in the van, thinking I'd just check again next time I went somewhere. So, when Janelle asked if she could get the mail, I unlocked the van from inside the house so she could get the mail key. I didn't remind her to lock it back up again. And I forgot to hit the darn button myself. It would have taken half a second. But I forgot.

I didn't need to get in the van again until yesterday afternoon. I opened the driver's side door and found a couple of CD cases and other miscellaneous items on the driver's seat. I knew what that meant. Someone had been going through my stuff. I immediately checked the opening in the console where we keep the GPS — one of my most prized possesssions since we've moved to this unfamiliar city. Sure enough, it was gone. So were all my favourite CDs that I keep in easy access right between the front seats. The DVDs and CDs kept over the passenger side sunshade were there. So were both CD wallets that we store in the compartment under the passenger seat. Only my favourite CDs were gone. I was concerned about the car because we don't have automatic locks on it, so Chris rarely thinks to lock it when he comes home. I checked, and could tell that they had been in it because the driver's side door was not fully closed, but nothing was taken.

I'm really mad about losing the GPS. Chris's dad gave it to us for Christmas last year, and we really loved having it, and obviously used it often since we've moved. We're heading to Indiana in a couple of weeks. Are we going to have to use (gasp!) a map? I'm mad about losing the CDs, a few of which I can't replace. But mostly I'm mad at myself. I learned a lesson. I just wish this lesson didn't have to be quite so expensive!