Random and Odd

 Camping

This last month has been a busy one and it doesn’t look like September is going to be any slower.

In this last month I have climbed a mountain (or a ‘peak’ according to my brother), I’ve gone camping and I’ve worked very hard on my relationships.

With Kara leaving in a couple of weeks I wanted to do something fun that wouldn’t cost us too much money.  We decided to go camping. For those of you that know me, know I have all the camping gear I thought we would ever need.  I believed this until I went camping with my friend Bonnie.  After two days of camping with her I realized I am missing out on so much. Alyx decided to nickname her “Walmart” because if at any point we needed anything Bonnie had it. She was a walking Walmart.
She has a boat which made the lake we were camping on a whole lot more exciting.  The girls did some tubing, kneeboarding and tried to get up on the wakeboard.  It was a memory I won’t soon forget.   The last  night we sat around the campfire playing “Famous Names” for hours.

This last couple of weeks I’ve had a few new breakthroughs in my relationship.  This week we decided to see if we could clean out a bedroom dresser drawer without it being a big deal.  I have my own side of the bathroom and there hasn’t been an issue.  We stood back and waited to see what the dresser would do after my clothes were put inside.  It didn’t buck or spit them out.  When we got up in the morning the dresser was when we went to sleep.  SUCCESS!
I was also rewarded with my very own towel on the towel rack.  It was a good week relationship wise. 
This week his Sister in Law is coming to town and I offered to help him clean up a little bit.   My version of cleaning and his version of cleaning vary.  When I clean I like to put things away, I organize, I move shit around.   This is the quickest way to send him into a cardiac arrest.  
To his credit, he did very well. 
I think my smart ass comment shut him up. When he saw me moving some books around and asked, “What are you doing?” …I looked up at him with paper towel and Windex in hand and said, “My taxes.”  He did his eye roll, half laugh and loving slap and shut up after that.
In the past two days I have managed to put stuff away, scrub a few floors and move all kinds of stuff around and he hasn’t given me any shit.  In our relationship this is HUGE.  His stuff is his stuff. His stuff has a place and it’s where he put it.  To move his stuff opens up a can of worms I am not ready to deal with…but I did and I feel more a part of this place and I think he can now trust that I won’t toss his shit out or ‘lose’ it.
It was a compromise: I got to clean and move stuff around and he didn’t have to watch me pout when I didn’t get to.  Totally fair trade off if you ask me!

Alyx won 3rd row tickets to see Taylor Swift in concert.  Kara put in to win through a writing/picture thing and we find out in a few hours if she won. I am feeling pretty confident that she will win. If she does she’s taking her friend Kianna who has taken her to a bunch of concerts over the years and it will make Kara so happy to be able to finally take her to one.  If she doesn’t win Alyx said she wants Kara to go with her.  Either way, Kara and Alyx are going to see Taylor Swift on Saturday. 

This month I am flying out to Oregon to take pictures of a couple of elementary school friends family photos.  I’m happy to be able to actually hang out with them. I get to see one when she comes to California to get in a few skydives or the other when she’s in Redding running in a race or something, but it will be awesome to spend the whole weekend getting to know their family and to be able to sit back and talk without distractions (other than their kids)

Things are rough, but emotionally I am pretty strong and keeping my head up.
I get by with a little help from my friends…