Yesterday I found out someone I knew died suddenly this week. He was not a close friend, a mere acquaintance and colleague. I had friendly conversations with him from time to time but never knew him much outside work. Why then do I feel so devastated? I had friends lose a parent long before I did and I remember feeling sorry for them. But it was at a distance. I didn’t understand the impact the death of someone can have. When I suddenly lost my mother my eyes were opened. The loss of a life that is close to you burns your insides. And they say the pain of losing a child is exponentially worse. I cannot even imagine that level of suffering. The thought of people having to go through it is almost unbearable. It doesn’t seem fair that the world won’t slow down for a little while after losing something so valuable. It just keeps going like nothing happened. I will still go to the gym today. I will still work on my basement. I will still get together with my family. But I will be thinking of Dave and of those he left behind for a long long time. I am so deeply sorry for their loss. He seemed like a great and talented guy.

Anyone remember Destinos? Destinos is a 52 episode saga told entirely in Spanish. We were required to watch it in school. For me, Destinos was naptime. I don’t think I watched a single episode. I could recall a boy losing his dog and some guy trapped in a mine but that was about it. When I set out to learn Spanish I knew I would not be done after 12 weeks but wanted a concrete goal. So I found all the Destinos episodes free online and bought the workbook. Today I am on episode 20. I plan to get through all of it by the end of March.

A very strange thing is happening in my neighborhood. Someone is going out in the freezing cold in the middle of the night and rifling through cars parked in the driveways. But they aren’t taking anything. Who would make all that effort and not take anything? The sad part is that multiple people felt safe enough in our neighborhood to leave their cars unlocked overnight and now everyone must lock their doors and switch on their alarms. Small town to big city overnight. This added a task for the ‘Get organized’ goal. Now that the basement is usable we need to clean out the garage so we can get Todd’s Jeep back inside. Crime is a nuisance.

My neighbor’s adorable daughter delivered Girl Scout Cookies to us last night. Funny timing. If those cookies had arrived last week they would all be in my tummy by now along with the heart candies and cake I ate. But no. I got myself back on track and despite the torture of sending my Samoas and Tagalongs to work with Todd without even a taste, I did the right thing. It was a painful goodbye. Out of site, out of mind – eventually. But my inability to say “no cookies, thank you” to the innocent eyes of my neighbors’ daughters means we have more coming…

Major setback in the diet and exercise department this week. I had a junk food relapse and gained 2 pounds back. Usually this is about the time when I start to realize that life is a lot easier and more fun if I just forget about my New Year’s Resolutions. Thus begins the cycle. Start, get bored, give up, get disappointed for giving up, start over. Well, I set out to achieve something, not to be perfect. No need to dwell on it. I just need to get going again much sooner than normal. Like now. Last night after work I turned my refrigerator into a giant salad bar. Back on track this week.

WEEKLY WEIGH-IN:
Last week: 147
This week: 149
Goal: 137

The basement was ready just in time for the Super Bowl, a year long goal! It is not done but at least we can finally use it. We invited our parents and a friend over to watch the game. In case it was boring I set up a pool to bet on who would score first, who would win, etc, but the game did not disappoint. An onside kick after the half? Really? What a game! For a lot of reasons I should have rooted for the Colts but I cheered for the Saints. In over 40 years they have never even BEEN to a Super Bowl. Drew Brees is a good quarterback who deserved a ring and Manning already had one. And finally, New Orleans has seen a lot of suffering and deserved a reason to celebrate. Great game to both sides and congratulations to the Saints.

Louie Psihoyos, photographer and now filmmaker, set out to demonstrate how the actions of a few people in a small place can have a devastating impact on people all over the world if the world is not aware.

http://blog.changemyselfchangetheworld.com/?page_id=1153

There are other reasons why I want to learn Spanish. For one thing, right after I married a Ramirez I started getting mail in Spanish. I might be missing out on some great credit card opportunities. Also, speaking of finishing things I start, I never graduated from college. A third semester of a foreign language is one of the three requirements I had left before I dropped out of college to go work in Europe (a story for another day). Since it has been so long I would have to start over. Or, I can learn on my own and test out of the requirement. So that’s the plan. My most motivating reason, though, is that I want to go back to Honduras to meet the rest of Alex’s family. This time I want to be able to talk with them directly. Going through a translator just didn’t cut it.

Obviously, studying Spanish in school was one of the main reasons I chose it for the “learn a foreign language” goal. I am hoping some of it will come back to me. If it had occurred to me back then how useful it would be to speak Spanish in Colorado I might have actually studied. I even went to a high school with a decent sized Hispanic population but to be totally honest, I never thought about it much at the time. The only day I remember really being aware of it was when a speaker came to our school to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. But instead of talking about the great victory of the Mexican army over the French, he talked very passionately about Latin America rising up to bring down the white man. That was a very uncomfortable school assembly. Anyway, now that I am older and wiser I definitely see the value of learning Spanish so that is what I am going to do.

Major accomplishment working out this morning. Double unders are a frequent part of our warm up at CrossFit. We usually do sets that total up to 50. This morning double unders were the actual workout. The goal was to do as many as possible in 15 minutes. I did my first 50 in a row. I have never been able to get all 50 in a row before today. In the first minute and a half I had already done over 100 but my pace deteriorated quickly. Not a bad though. In 15 minutes I did 575 double unders. I bet if I paced myself at 20 every 30 seconds I could get over 600. I look forward to the challenge. But I bet we won’t see that workout again for awhile.