ckmunson’s blog

Insomnia & awful headaches have taken me out of commission since Monday. Uggg I finally got some sleep on Tuesday, albeit drug induced. Tonight will be another night with sleep meds but at least I'll be sleeping.

I've been lucky that Erick and Nina have been such good help as I've been sick. I did get a lot of work done despite being in a complete haze. I'm really looking forward to completing KeyLime.

:) good night!

This has been my first week of my two week dance break. I've been living it up people! I haven't had to be anywhere at a certain time, or coordinate anything more than my own family. Wowsa! I've been a free woman and love every minute of it! This week went by fast and I'm afraid this next week will too.

This summers dance schedule will be a quiet one. After a long and busy year of being at the dance studio, one day a week is going to be our summer schedule, a break. The time will be spent doing pool stuff, park stuff and time at the lake house. A summer of fun in 2008!

I have had a real issue with sleeping these days. I'm not sure why, all this freedom perhaps? I'm averaging three hours a day. It sucks! I'm about ready to go back to the doctor on this one. Speaking of the doctor... I got my new glasses and new coach sunglasses this week. The new glasses are cute juicy couture and very chic coffee shop specs. I'm having a time getting used to them. If I look down I can't see, a moving to different shaped lenses I guess. My new sunglasses are a different story.... 100% love them. The extra money spent on anti reflective and polarized gradient lenses are well worth it. Grace loves them, she digs them out of the case and says me too, she has excellent taste.

Our central air died on Wednesday night. What a fate worse than death! Thankfully Erick was able to fix it in no time. Talk about a handy man! Not only has he had a very long and busy work week he's been a savior at the house!

Saturday we all got up early and headed to the Minneapolis Farmers Market. It was a zoo, parking was a bitch, but we found many good buys. We came home with new potatoes, onions, peas, limes and nectarines. Thea and Grace each picked a bouquet of fresh flowers.

Quiet day at home today, for me and the little ones. Erick and Nina will be at the Twins Game.

This has to be the creepiest thing I've seen in my life. SERIOUSLY FUCKING CREEPY. First off, have these people not seen Pet Cemetary? Every one knows that you cannot re-create life, and if you do, bad things happen. Frankenstien, Pushing Daisies, Evil Dead, Cemetary Man, Children of the Living Dead, Night of the Living Dead, City of Rott, Bio Zombie - and COUNTLESS soap operas. Bringing things back from the dead isn't exactly the same thing as cloning your doggie - but its as close as our science can get these days. Cloning your doggy.... wait wasn't there a movie like this...... Have these people not seen "The Island"? That movie is about cloning people, and telling them they won the lotto! Then they put them under the knife and take out their parts when their REAL human needs some fixing! Look, I'm all for science.... but cloning doggies, so we have our best friend "again" is fucked up. SERIOUSLY. CREEPY.

"It's not true. Some have great stories, pretty stories that take place at lakes with boats and friends and noodle salad. Just no one in this car. But, a lot of people, that's their story. Good times, noodle salad. What makes it so hard is not that you had it bad, but that you're that pissed that so many others had it good."
Melvin Udall, in As Good As It Gets

I have been really lax with my journaling and writing, so I thought that it was about time to challenge Chris to a blog-off. He always accepts the challenge, and comes up with a good read!  So thanks to you Chris, we have a fun and unique blog off topic, and hopefully a hand full or more of people who decided to join us.

Summers in Minnesota are beautiful, hot and damn muggy, especially when the dog days of August arrive. A lot of people think that Minnesota is where Eskimos live and we have snow year round. I once was asked if we had tv in Minnesota, and it was then that it dawned on me the true reason as to why the seasons are so extreme here - it keeps the riffraff out. (And you know the second question this Southerner asked me was if my whole family lived in Igloo’s or if we each had our own.) Its true that the average temperatures in Minnesota in the summer months are in the 80’s. Summer brings sunshine, swimming, lake houses, summer dinks, water skiing teams, and of course summer love.

My first summer love was the water. Who had time for boys when there were lakes to swim in, and towers to dive off of? Not me. When I think of summer I think of I think of the good times I had with my friend Lyssa. We spent as  much time at the beach in Spicer as we could. Green Lake was our favorite  past time, and we were queens of that diving tower. (At least we thought we were.) We spent hours and hours swimming at that beach - we’d bask in the sun only momentarily, because that diving tower was calling for us. We’d be at that lake even on really windy days when the waves seemed bigger than we were - it made it more of a challenge to swim out to that tower. The tower still stands out in the lake every year, and it serves as a reminder of how much fun I had those summers with Lyssa. It does give me a bit of sadness as I pass by that tower on my way out to the lake house, I know where the tower is, but I haven’t any clue about Lyssa.

The summer that Grace was just a baby I had great times out at the lake house. I enjoyed having friends from High School out to the lake for drinks and swimming. We all have kids now, and its so fun seeing them and even more fun to see the kids have fun out in the water. Its so reminiscent of the days I spent out at Green Lake. I can only hope that Thea and Grace grow to have fond memories of being out at the lake - memories of Grandpa taking them for ice cream at the ice cream shack, and memories of water skiing and tubing.

The rite of passage in my area of the world for teenagers was pretty simple. You and some friends would go up to the old Nest Lake Bridge and jump off.  I had imagined that it wouldn’t be such a big deal, as I had jumped from the diving tower for years and hadn’t had a fear of heights (at least that height) since about jump 10 years back.  So one hot and muggy August day, I went with some friends out to the Nest Lake Bridge, and stood above that beautiful lake, and realized that I really did have a fear of heights!

Just how high was this height? High enough. Below you’ll see some visuals of the new Nest Lake bridge that they erected in 2004. As you can see they took away the real good jumping spot and put rails up to detract future jumpers. 

(*No one that we’ve ever heard of has been hurt doing this jump. They only accidents we’ve ever heard of are of the extreme wedgie, and “oops where is my bikini top” kind.)

So about the year 1996 I and a few of my friends went to Nest Lake Bridge, and did what many others did for years before us. Stood atop that bridge, looked down at the water, and realized “Gee this is really high.” and wondered why it was so deceptively tall from the usual vantage point. We stood together the 4 of us and held hands, deciding that it was better if we all jumped at the same time. What really happened was that one of us jumped (it wasn’t me, I was in the middle) and the rest of us were pulled down. It was a chain of falling blondes. And then there was the water, and it felt so good, so much better than had we walked our way into the water, or jumped from a dock. This water was different - it was exciting and exhilarating. We each popped back up and all of us were fine, well mostly fine, one of us had lost their top in the fall ... or jump rather. When the heads were all above water we could see that a car had stopped, we had been spotted - not good. So we took off in the direction of where we had parked... all of us, including one topless. It was a race to get in the car and away, as anyone caught jumping off the Nest Lake bridge got an over night stay in the psych ward. (Something about appearing to want to kill yourself I guess.)

We drove back to my parents place, and settled right in for dinner. It was a italian noodle salad and a watermelon my mom had cut up.... Yes that was my favorite summer food I put in my mouth! 

I think the most useful advice I was ever given was on my wedding day. I am sure this is advice that our pastor had given everyone else just before their wedding, as its nothing so profound, until you realize that it works with most everything you ever come to have to deal with.

I got married on February 12th, 2000 and I was lucky enough to get married on the day of the biggest snowstorm the state had that winter. There was so much snow and wind, that it made travel very difficult, even just going to get my hair done that morning was a challenge. I got married at 4 o’clock and there was plenty of time for the major roads to be plowed and sanded even just a little bit.

I got dressed at the church, and left my dressing room to find Erick in the men’s dressing area. Our pastor knocked on the door to check in with us, and it was then that he gave us this advice. He said “Don’t worry about a thing today, if anything goes wrong, its completely out of your control - just focus on what matters today and that is getting married.” I honestly can’t recall anything going wrong that day.... we were worried about our guests of course who hadn’t yet arrived, hoping everyone was just late, and not hurt in a car accident. The wedding went by quickly and I really don’t recall if anything did not go according to plan - but I think that has something to do with the advice that was given. The only thing I concentrated on was what was in my control and that was simply saying “I do.”

I am a worrier by nature. I worry a lot, and plan a lot. There are many times I plan and worry about the plan. Its very much in my nature to look at things and try and plan and plot them out - right down to every action and reaction. Most of the time I’m accurate and the plan was well thought out... but then of course there are the times that that unexpected occur, and that throws me for a serious loop. I am not a fly by the seat of your pants kind of girl. It is in times like this that I remind myself to “focus on what is important today” and as hard as it is to focus most days, taking my mind away from the worry, away from the “what if’s” and ugly unknowns - I find peace.

So what is really important in life? Its not something that I have to worry about or plan out. I have to remind myself of this, because this is what is important.