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@boxer-jeep
Visiting extended family abroad and this question is followed up by dozens more:
Why?
Are you being too picky?
Maybe stop eating bread...
Is there something wrong?
Are you looking in the right places?
Can’t any of your friends set you up?
Do you even want to be with someone ?
And I’m over here like:
This won’t make your blog look ugly. How could you not reblog this? REBLOGGING THIS COULD SAVE A LIFE!!!
This goes for assholes, too, guys. I know a couple who went tubing once, and they had to re-air their tubes, but the guy thought it would be funny to stick the tip of the air compressor up to her bikini trunks, the air ruptured something inside her and she died within thirty minutes.
WHAT?
The thing about this? It’s in every pregnancy book I’ve read.
WHAT?????
Why is it in pregnancy books but not sex ed books?
Because the men in charge only care about the health and safety of women in so far as it enables them to have babies.
https://www.healthline.com/health/air-embolism#outlook
WHAT?!?!?!??!?!
It’s later in the morning than I usually get up… However, last night was a good exception. My ‘little’ brother called me via FaceTime, he got home earlier this week from his umpth deployment. We stayed on FaceTime for several hours, drinking, laughing and hot fuckin damn if it wasn’t good to hear his voice and see his asshole face.
So this morning, I enjoyed sleeping in and snuggling with my pups in a warm bed. See, Michigan this year decided to have some weird freakish fall…. a 95+ degree weekend the end of September, October stayed mostly warm, then right before Halloween BAM fridged fall, freezing rain and oh hey some snow. The past couple of days it has been in the 20s and I’m still wishing it was flip flop weather. I also realized, I have not written in almost three months….
There has been a lot of good in the past three months a a little bad, but mostly good. I’ve completed a lot of work to Lady Jaye, fenders cut, muffler changed out for an inline, CB finally successfully installed, lots of two track time with some great people, football games a friend’s homes with bonfires, Halloween costume party -dressed up as a steampunk witch and it was phenomenal, more two-track exploring with just old school map books (up to date ones of course), and the sad part -the end of a relationship.
My friends haven’t let the grass grow under my feet thou and I love them for it.
Processed with Rookie Cam
I truly have a good life…. I am blessed with wonderful friendships, the unconditional love of my two fur babies, a great job, an adventurous mindset -whether it’s tooling my Jeep or getting out and trying something new, and then there is the amazing bond with my family. I truly don’t wish for anyone else’s life; nor do I wish for a better life….I make it happen.
I’ve been busy It's later in the morning than I usually get up... However, last night was a good exception.
leave no trace
As someone who has thoroughly enjoyed the outdoors since childhood, it’s no surprise that I get involved in a lot of hobbies that take me into nature… Mountain biking, camping, hiking, snowshoeing, off roading with my Jeep…I follow all sorts of individuals involved in these hobbies on Instagram, but not so much on Facebook. However, In the past few months I have mingled into a few different…
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a life to love
a life to love
United States Strongman Nationals is next weekend in Detroit…. It’s been over a year since I competed. Some days I’m ok with this, other days I miss it; but the being ok outweighs the missing. Two weeks before last year’s Nationals, I wrote a blog after swapping out the license plate bracket on my Jeep. time to start doing the things I talked about the nerves leading up to last year’s…
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another birthday approaches
As my birthday draws closer, I am fully embracing the blessing of growing another year older, another laugh line around my smile or my eyes. I am also doing some last minute cleaning and then packing, because zero-dark-thirty tomorrow morning, I fly out to actually spend my birthday on vacation. While I am dreading boarding my dogs this trip, it is just not possible to take them with me. I…
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Zombie Jesus day
Let me start by saying I do not celebrate Easter, Passover, Yom Kippur, or any other of these types…hell I don’t even celebrate Christmas, I think proof of that is the fact that I spent it solo snowshoeing. To me, today is just another beautiful day that I woke up on the right side of the daises. Usually, Easter in Michigan, it either snows or it’s pouring cold rain. However, this year being…
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one sunny Sunday in April
one sunny Sunday in April
Amongst the damp and darkness of my garage this was growing… This was a text message I sent a girlfriend this afternoon, but I couldn’t help but think how symbolic. All this, all this junk I’m trying to cut, things with memories that drag me down and keep me from moving forward. To find a lily growing out of the darkness. But let me back up. Last night I decided I was going to tackle my garage,…
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Why am I still holding on?
Why am I still holding on?
Why is sorting through the junk in my house so incredibly difficult. What in the actual FUCK is still wrong with me?! Why am I so frustrated trying to do this!! Why do I have so many stupid cook books? I hate cooking! Some times, a lot of times, I have found that if I just start typing…verbal vomit, so to speak, sometimes I have those A-HA moments and realize what is holding me up. Something…
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i need more coffee
i need more coffee
It’s Sunday morning, a slow lazy morning sleeping in as late as my dogs would allow, today that’s 8am. I’ve spent the past 45 minutes, surfing a few blogs, getting caught up on a few that I enjoy, but now I need more coffee. Taking the dogs outside this morning, the temperature is not as breath-robbing-fridged as yesterday’s blistering windy 18 degrees, but it’s still cold. There’s no snow to…
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training again
Today marks the end of the 4th week back on a training program, almost a full month of ‘training’ again, since my injury this past summer that sidelined me from heavy lifting and any idea of a competition for a while. I would love to say there was a specific date the injury actually occurred, however looking back it was a slow build up, signs I ignored or times I thought it was something far…
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2017
I have a long standing friend, Matt, who I have random conversations with in text message. His life is busy with a wife, two young kids and a very patience dog. He once commented how he enjoys reading my blog. How it’s like listening to me tell a story and he enjoys the preview into my life even though we now live a thousand miles apart. Aaaaaand he apologized for being THAT guy who was first…
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I had taken two weeks off from work, what we call the last of my ‘use or loose leave,’ before the first pay-period of 2017. My sister came to town a couple of days post Christmas, of course this was two days into a weird winter warm up. The good two feet of snow that had still been on the ground Christmas day was gone along with any further plans of snowshoeing while she was here.
I should back up and say that my middle sister is a fellow adventure and contained gypsies soul. Twelve years active duty Navy has afforded her the new scenery and constant moving around every few years, and I dare say each of her locations has been pretty amazing… California (3 duty stations), Florida, Italy…
So one of the things we had talked about was going rock climbing. I have never been, my sister has been doing this a couple of years now, both at indoor gyms and outside. Frankly. This scares the crap outta me.
fear: ˈfir/ noun 1. an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.
verb 1.be afraid of (someone or something) as likely to be dangerous, painful, or threatening.
Somewhere as an adult, I cannot remember exactly when, but I developed some stupid fear of heights. I remember one night on patrol over ten years ago, my partner and I were standing on top of a 8 story building. He walked right up to the edge and peered over. I walked up ….woah…. and back peddled a few steps fast!
Recently, I decided this was stupid and it was time to get rid of it. So in some wild hair idea, I decided rock climbing was the answer. It is something I have expressed interest in for a few years. A few of the guys I have dated over the years all said they wanted to go or would take me, but the actions always fell short. My sister on the other hand, saying I wanted to go and that there are two indoor rock climbing gyms here in Grand Rapids, there was no back peddling now. Of course I also did not tell her about this stupid fear of heights I had developed, like the asshole that I am.
We decided on a week day evening to go, of course we get to the gym about an hour after it opened and it is packed. My nerves are at an all time high, I can feel the adrenaline running and I am doing my best outwardly to remain calm. What the fuck am I do. I’m listening and paying close attention to the individual teaching me how to put the harness on, how to tie in for climbing, then how to belay…. all while I can hear my own blood pumping in my ears. Get it together woman, you were a paratrooper, get your shit together…
My sister does the first climb while I belay her. fuck she moves almost faster than I can keep up with her. But she comes down with a beaming smile upon her face and my instructor smiles and says have fun ladies My sister looks to me and says, “alright your turn.”
Deep breath. We switch, my hands are sweating and I can feel my heart racing inside my chest.
My first climb is kind of a blur, I remember looking for hand holds and just going up, refusing to look down. But I survived. I didn’t fall to my death. In fact, I absolutely loved it, but I still want to hide in the corner of the gym with the easier climbs and hopefully none of these insane climbers will notice the obvious newb in the corner.
Two more climbs on the beginner routes and I feel a bit more confident. Confident enough to move up a level. The holds are spread out a little more, my amazon height is a glorious help here. Before I started this climb, two other seasoned climbers have moved into the little corner I’ve been wanting to hide in and we had made social with them before I started. Now as I am climbing I can hear pointers being called out and it is openly welcomed. In fact a few holds before the top, I missed a grip and slipped a little. In the half a heartbeat my mind flashed, I hope she has the rope. A split second later I felt the tug of the rope and I just hung there.
I can hear my sister call how she has me. I can feel the fatigue in my fingers and grip. I shake my hands out at the same time my sister calls for me to collect myself before trying again and how she isn’t letting me down the wall until I reach the top. Bitch, I laugh to myself. She knows exactly the encouragement I need, at this point I had already fessed up to doing this to kill my fear of heights. She knows now that the first climb my heart was racing wildly.
I take a few moments to shake out my hands, take a could of deep breaths all while staring at the wall above me looking at the holds. The roof and final grip seems so far away, but in truth it’s not. It’s all in my head and I know it. I mentally tell myself I’m not coming down until I reach that final stupid rock on the wall.
What felt like an eternity to me was probably less than 20 seconds reality. I shook my hands out, chalked my fingers and re-set myself. I had 3 or 4 rocks to reach and each one I could feel the pull in my forearms and finger tips, taking my time, I remember telling myself to keep my own head together…nothing out loud, everything in my head. I’m pretty sure I resorted to my yoga breathing when I’m trying to hold some pose and my limbs are burning or balance when I’m trying not to fall over and introduce my face to the floor. I felt extremely proud of myself when this breathing kicked in naturally to keep myself focused. Next thing I realized, both my hands were on the final rock and my sister was calling that she had me.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
After 4 climbs, my sister took me over to teach/work on bouldering. My heart was already soaring and my soul happy. We each took a handful of turns working on a route we had picked out and not deciding to call it quits or the day until we had reached the top.
To many, the routes or climbs I did that evening would be very easy. To me, it was about learning something new and conquering a fear that had taken seed and I no longer had room for it in my life.
she lives to run I had taken two weeks off from work, what we call the last of my 'use or loose leave,' before the first pay-period of 2017.
My furkids have let me sleep in the past couple of days, being on vacation it is rather awesome, on Christmas Day that sleep lasted until about 8:45 when some friend with little kids decided to text message me. Probably because he has been up since 5am. The ding of my iPhone was echoed through my Bluetooth speaker and then the buzzing of my watch. I groaned. Feeling a slight twinge of a headache from the bottle and a half of shared wine the evening before. Ten minutes later another baby crazy friend sends me a text message…. At 9:15, after a trip outside for the boys, the boys’ breakfast and settling down with coffee, I still have not answered the first two text messages. Why? Well according to my brother I get weird about the holidays. Now wait to the bombardment of “Merry Christmas” text messages from people I barely hear from the rest of the year… Could we not?
So back to this “she gets weird around the holidays.”
I grew up in what I consider a large family, I’m one of 4 kids. Christmas was every bit the insane sugar spun Hallmark card. So when I got married at the way too young age of 21, I had every intention of recreating that family life. In fact I use to joke that my family was the truly dysfunctional family. Yes my siblings and I all beat the crap out of each other growing up, but moving into adult hood we were thick as thieves. My parents were still married and loved each other.. Or so I thought. A few years later my youngest sister discovers that my father has a girlfriend, it turns out a girlfriend the past 5 years. After that, my parents marriage quickly falls apart. My mother is served divorce papers at work on what would have been her 25th wedding anniversary. At this point I’ve been married 3 years, it’s ok, but we spend so much time working or deployed with the military that we are truly unable to settle into a true married life. Until we exit the military. Fast forward a few years, a child, and a miserable life, a verbally abusive marriage. I’ve already posted a blog discussing this…. me too …..so I’m not going to dive back into it. My first Christmas post divorce was an attempt at normalcy. Myself and several friends got together and did a big happy dinner, it was truly wonderful. But a year later we would all be moved to different states, myself living in Connecticut at the time, could not get the time off so I ended up spending Christmas alone. This would not be the first or the last Christmas spent working and alone. Mind you, I am in law enforcement, working Christmas is not exactly uncommon. However, I have lost count of how many Christmas’s my brother and father have spent with my ex-husband and the daughter he refuses to let travel to Michigan. Oh, there have been other holidays too, like Thanksgiving. They never tell me ahead of time, I usually find out because pictures have been posted on social media or like last year. When my brother called our mom, who was with me, in the evening and after talking for about 10 minutes put my then 11 year old daughter on the phone. You can imagine my upset. Another year, I arrived at my father’s house middle of Christmas Day because due to weather and work, it was the earliest I could start out on the 11-12 hour road trip. I found out two days later that my ex had been there for several days and only left when I was a few hours out. So yea, maybe I get a little draw inward and disappointed in my own blood about the holidays.
Fast forward 9 years, another Christmas, by this point the flavor is lost. I’m not moved by societies expectations of how I should be spending it re-married, with extended family and spending way too much money sinking myself into a temporary debt. I enjoyed a friend’s extended family dinner last night and today, despite the warm ups Michigan has seen the past 5 days, I plan on heading out to one of the State Parks and breaking in my snowshoes… it’s 35 degrees outside at 9am, I might as well wear shorts! Kidding…
Ok, I really didn’t mean to ramble about my family for 700 words, I did try to keep it brief. I want this blog to be more about the new traditions I am setting for myself and ways that I refuse to feel holiday blues or disappointment anymore….and frankly, this year, listening to my boys wrestle in the dinning room in the mid morning low light of a Michigan December, I am happy, I am content. The past several months has seen an even bigger change than the past 5 years and I am enjoying every bit of it. I attribute this to my ‘get out and do more, be more’ plan.
I actually started contemplating what I was going to do for Christmas this year, back in October. I had been invited back in July to spend Christmas in Dallas with friends and bring my boys, but I wasn’t 100% about making that drive. The friend who had invited me, pretty much knows there is very little reasons I will board my boys, in fact it’s borderline in saying I’d rather stay home than go somewhere without them. Work and camping are the only two reasons right now, camping because Reese is kind of an asshole who doesn’t listen well. It’s gonna take some work to turn him into a camping companion. Work, well, I think that is a fairly obvious reason.
So I had tossed around a few ideas in my head, the one I loved the most…renting a Winnebago and either taking off and just driving anywhere for a week or renting a camp site on one of our amazing lakes and just disappearing off the grid for a couple days to a week… Either option was not in my budget this year. Don’t rule this out for next Christmas thou.
I had been planning on buying snowshoes for this winter since late summer. Turning off my phone and going snowshoeing was as appealing and means that I can continue to save money for two possible trips in the works for this summer.
Soooo….
I’ve put the Do Not Disturb mode on, on my iPhone. I’ve already pulled the new Osprey pack I spoiled myself with, out. Pulled my hammock out and put it in the pack, hey you never know. Grabbed my water resistant hiking pants, a thick pair of wool socks, it might be 35 degrees outside but I’m thinking the thicker hiking socks are the better idea. Added one of my base layer SmartWool shirts to the pile. My snowshoes are sitting in the front room just waiting to get outside…
Two cups of coffee and I’m awake and excited to start another solo adventure.
Processed with Rookie Cam
Processed with Rookie Cam
Processed with Rookie Cam
Processed with Rookie Cam
A few hours and five miles later, not bad for the first trip to break in my new snowshoes. The temperature hung right above freezing, a few degrees cooler than it has been the past couple of days but not as down right cold as it was the previous two weeks. I ended up snowshoeing in my hiking pants, the SmartWool top and vest with a beanie and gloves. I had started out with my Loeka mountain biking jacket on, but after a mile it was too warm. I knew this was going to happen, but getting started it was just to cold to go without it.
Heading home a little before dark, I am one happy gal. Spending Christmas late morning and afternoon in nature with no one else in sight. It was all mine for a change. It was beautiful.
I cannot wait to go again, Michigan we need more snow.
-Inked Amazon
Christmas Day My furkids have let me sleep in the past couple of days, being on vacation it is rather awesome, on Christmas Day that sleep lasted until about 8:45 when some friend with little kids decided to text message me.
a very muddy Christmas?
Sunday I ordered snowshoes from REI, Tuesday the weather began to warm up. Go figure (laughing). After two weeks of temps in the single digits and teens, plus a week and a half of snow showers; it is now supposed to be 50 this weekend with rain on Christmas day (Sunday). You’re welcome Michigan….🙄 -Inked Amazon
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Happy Winter Solstices
I posted this to my facebook: 🌜❄️Happy Winter Solstice ❄️🌛 Or hibernal solstice is an astronomical phenomenon marking the day with the shortest period of daylight hours and the longest night of the year. In the Northern Hemisphere this is the December Solstice and in the Southern Hemisphere this is the June Solstice. The 2016 Winter Solstice officially arrives at 5:44am Eastern time on December…
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quit whining
For godsake, shut up. It’s mid December and the “new year, new me, nah I’m gonna be the same asshole” is already popping up; but that isn’t the one I roll my eyes at the most. The memes talking about how horrible 2016 has been. SERIOUSLY?!?! Tell me, what did you actively do to make your year better? Or did you just let a bad year happen to you? Wait, grab your helmet, ready for an amazing…
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