The Week that Was

Since last Sunday I began hoping that I can make it to last night. There were so many important things to do in those 6 days. It started with Mr. Man's birthday on Monday. It's hard to believe that it was 8 years ago when he came into our life. He got promoted in his Poekoelan class and got his second stripe. I skipped my own classes so we could have his birthday dinner and cake. You'll catch some fun video I shot of Mr. Man after school that night.

Tuesday I left work early to help the Green Team at Mr. Man's school present a workshop on gardening and composting. We worked together to rescue the upper elementary classroom's worm compost bin. Then it was off to the studio to run my holds and personal form with my attackers for my gold sash test. We practiced for about an hour and I cleaned the school a bit, but I was tired and went to bed early.

Wednesday was more cleaning at school and then my last class before my gold sash test. It was hard to believe that the time had arrived for my 3 hour test, but somehow I retained a sense of calm about the whole thing. The most stressful thing was making sure all the cleaning was finished before the test and recruiting others to help with the set up.

We made it and when the test began Thursday night I still had a sense of calm. It was a large test--8 people testing total. There were a lot of people watching and participating. This was my first experience with a long test and I had no sense of time. Much of it seemed to fly by. I was very happy with the experience overall. I stayed calm and confident through everything until I got to the fighting section. I faced two aggressive fighters who really came after me and I had a huge emotional release. It's really hard to fight and cry at the same time! Black belt teachers kept pulling me off to the side to give me tips and I felt like I was trying, but it was the only time I wanted to just stop and give up. I got paired up with another testing student for my last fight and my black belt personal trainer gave me a huge lift before the fight and reminded me to have fun. That final fight was probably the best one for me and a great end to the test. It's hard to believe that I did everything that I did during the test and it was such a wonderful experience. It feels like a huge milestone in my training and I can't wait to begin training for my next rank.

Mr. Man stayed for part of my test, but he and the sitter headed home to go to bed at 8:30. I was so happy to have my wife there, watching for the whole time. We walked home in the rain, savoring time alone to talk about the evening. After a nice warm shower, I stepped out of the bathroom to find the cats chasing each other and one of them knocking many glass items down off the top of the bookshelf. Thus began the picking up of glass and sweeping and vacuuming up glass at 11:30 at night.

Friday was a great day for me. I took the day off from work so I could prepare for Mr. Man's birthday party. After taking him to school, I came home and got on my bike to go to the bulk food store. I carried so much home on my bike and it's uphill. Oiy, what a hike. The rest of the day was busy with errands, tax preparation and a rendezvous with my loves for dinner and last minute groceries.

Mr. Man had a Lego Party for about 14 of his friends on Saturday. I did hours of prep for this party--planning activities and sorting legos and making cupcakes, frosting and gathering toppings for kids to build their own cupcakes. What fun! The kids seemed to have fun and Mr. Man seemed happy.

Now it's Sunday and every stress-inducing thing this week is behind me, quite successfully. I feel such a sense of relief and satisfaction. Who knew that something so difficult could be so satisfying and fun?