Catching up part deux

Haven't written here in over a month-now that the holidays are over, it's time to catch up again.

Alex is doing great-walking up a storm, getting into all kinds of trouble. ;) He's also talking a lot more as well, pointing at everything, saying "look", or "that", etc. It's so fun to watch him develop.

I've still been walking Hank at the dog park every morning. I feel healthier as a result, but I'm going to have to ramp up the exercise to see real results losing weight.

We're leaving for our trip to Maui in less than two weeks. Woohoo! I can't wait. Ron and I decided to upgrade our hotel, changing our reservation to the Four Seasons Maui for the first three nights, then the Hotel Hana Maui for the last two on Maui. We'll be on Waikiki Beach for the last night. We are also planning a trip to Japan this fall to visit Theresa, Ron's sister. Should be a lot of fun.

I started taking French classes again last week-French 1, at Bellevue Community College. It seems to be coming back pretty painlessly this time. I'm determined to stick with it until I become fluent. It's embarrassing to speak only one language. I've been enjoying it a lot.

We had our first round table meeting of the new year last week-two guys showed up. We talked about Campbell's book Primitive Mythology. It was an interesting discussion, to say the least. We spent some time on threshold rituals for the boy moving into manhood. Campbell talks about that topic quite a bit in PM. Next month's meeting will be on Oriental Mythology.

As far as the writing is concerned, it really hasn't been happening much lately. I've even been reluctant to write in this blog. I'm hoping that writing in the blog regularly again will get the creative juices flowing again.

See you all tomorrow-same place. :)

My dog Hank and the pursuit of perfection

It's easy for me sometimes to labor under the delusion that it's possible for my life to be perfect. I didn't always have this problem, but ever since I met Ron it seems like occasionally I have thoughts along these lines: "well, if I just get in great shape, and write a perfect, amazing, bestselling novel, I would have everything I wanted and my life would be perfect". A few years ago, the big things in my life that I didn't have that I wanted were a husband and baby. Then, in 2003, I met this amazing guy, and, like dominoes falling, all these things that had been on my "wish" list for life started coming to me. The engagement ring, the wedding of my dreams, the graduate degree in mythology, the world's most beautiful baby-it was coming hard and fast.

Now, my life is so very happy and fulfilled. The two things still "out there" that are on my wish list are a career doing what I love, writing and talking about myth, and to get healthy and in shape, and I'm actively working on those two.

I used to fantasize about what the perfect life would look like-husband, baby, dog, house in Queen Anne with a view of the ferry boats. However, now I don't think of that life in the same way, having three out of the four. My dog helps me with this.

When I finally talked Ron into adopting a dog (all part of my plan for creating the perfect life), we found a breeder of beautiful English labs in our area. Her stud dog is gorgeous-almost white. When the puppies were born and we first saw the pictures, one of the pups in the litter had a black spot on the back of his neck. My first thought was, oh, I don't want that one-it would interfere with my idea of the perfect life. How can my beautiful dog in my perfect life have a black spot? Of course, given the way that the universe works, it was that dog that the breeder chose for us, mostly for his temperament (he was the most mellow pup in the litter, and she knew we had a baby on the way).

So, I had to let go of my ideal of the life that looks perfect. I love Hank so much, and I would never trade him for any other dog, just because he's mine. However, I'm also so grateful now that I did get so lucky as to get the pup with the black spot. He reminds me every day of how silly I was, thinking that if I could just get things a certain way, my life would be perfect. Of course it never would have been, and I would never want it to be. Every time I slip and start to think "if I could just...", I look at my beautiful dog Hank, and say a little prayer of thanks.

Hank found a good place to lay down ;)