As fate would have it...

As fate would have it I have been extremely busy at work, of course now that Allegra is here and we have so many other things that we would rather be doing. So yesterday when I took the afternoon off to go to the mall with us girls it cost me working until close to midnight last night. Just made spinning that much harder this morning, but oh well. :-)

Here's Allegra and Austin on Austin's first ever amusement park ride at the county fair (I made Allegra squish her legs into it so Austin could ride)

And here's a Blue Jean Cake that Allegra and I made last night! :-)

Our Weekend

We had Happy Hour at our place on Friday night, which has become such an easier venue than some of the bars. We ALWAYS used to do happy hour but when baby girl got here it just got increasingly harder to go so we started having them at our house. Joe's cousin Allegra is here visiting for the next two weeks, so I picked her up on Saturday at the airport. We went to a wake boarding competition that night here in town. And then on Sunday we went up to the Renaissance Festival, a town here in Colorado does an amazing Ren Fair and it is always super cool to go up to. Little Austin even got to ride her first pony. :-)

You'll notice our little daredevil with the death grip on her Daddy. She eventually eased up some.

Of course now I can't help but celebrate.

What a fantastic idea Kimberly, it is so easy to lose sight of what you are proud of and happy with at the moment but I am sure making a list of my accomplishments will help this be an amazing Friday!

1. I laugh more than I cry. Inevitably I get asked at the safe house, generally from a mom who is debating on whether or not she made the right decision for her children..."How do I know I'm OK?". And I tell them every time, you need to get to a place where you laugh more than you cry. Anyone who has ever been in a truly awful place knows this isn't the case and anyone who has an amazing life knows that you still cry, you can't control everything. But if you can make sure that at the end of the day you laugh more than you cry...you have made it, you have reached the top of the mountain.
2. I found someone to have a child with that is a truly amazing dad. While I consider it a bonus that I love him to pieces I can assure you that it is more important to me that Austin loves him so much. My Dad was never involved with my life and when he was it wasn't in a healthy way and after working with so many girls and taking so many self esteem training classes I have learned beyond a shadow of a doubt that a father's love and support directly affect a girl's self esteem.
3. I'm a good big sister, I watched Intervention last night and it showcased a family of three boys with the oldest having a severe drug addiction. The other two brothers were torn to pieces that their brother was not only killing himself but they didn't have someone to take care of them. I am glad that I never let my siblings down like this.
4. I am one of the only senior engineers at Verizon that is female. I would like to say the only one, because I have not come across another one, but because they employ 250,000 people I don't want to assume. And I did all of this without a college degree.
5. I am the only volunteer that has her own group at the safe house, I write my own curriculum and am solely responsible to run the class.
6. I can get down any mountain on a snowboard...period...and generally with a smile on my face. :-)
7. I can ride a motorcycle and drive a stick shift.
8. I invested more than most people make in a year on a small start up business and while it's frightening, I was able to do it.
9. I am near half way done in my weight loss goals and feel amazing.
10. Last but not least, I am a great friend. I don't lie, cheat or steal and always try and put my friends feelings before my own.

After posting this, I thought to myself that at least one person would probably ask why I didn't include that I proud of Austin or my realtionship with her. So I thought I would at least explain why I didn't. First, it's still hard for me to call myself a mom much less a good mom I just have such great respect for that title. Secondly, right now our relationship is the same as that of a babysitters I make sure she stays safe and well fed. The true tests will come years down the road when she needs to believe in herself...have I given her the tools to stand up for who she is, will she refuse to give into peer pressure. Will she help others and be kind even when it's not the trendy thing to do. When I can watch her help someone that cannot repay her or speak for someone without a voice I will call myself a good mom but until then I will do everything to make sure that I raise someone that will represent her name well.

And someone's latest obsession!

She just can't get enough of this...

If you have nothing nice to say...

I remember my Mom beating that in my head as a child, if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all. Hence my silence for the last couple of weeks even in blogging world. I think I am finally cooled off enough though to type without hurting my keyboard.

I started reading the comments on news articles to gauge where the general public stands on certain issues. Really it started with the fact that Joe and I are so involved in a very controversial business that I really wanted to see what the opposition has to say. That being said plenty of people leave very hurtful comments that in my mind border on threatening. Our industry gets regularly attacked with everything from God in going to throw you in hell to the state should take away your children.

Speaking of children, Colorado just released a memo that states that if you are involved in the medical marijuana business that you are automatically denied all chances of adoption or fostering programs. I am forced to be directly involved in the child protective system and can assure anyone reading this that it is as bad as TV shows make it out to be, children very rarely stay with their siblings and are not well taken care of. But I can no longer apply to be a foster parent, because of what I choose to invest my money in. Hmmm, sounds fair and totally just. I was fingerprinted yesterday like a common criminal at the police station because of this investment, keep in mind they could not use the countless fingerprint cards already turned into the FBI because of my work with children, oh no they needed all new ones. I am terrified that this involvement will strip me of my volunteering with children and even more scared of the ramifications of what will happen when they try. All the while wishing to myself that I didn't have to involve Austin, but if what I believe will happen does, I can't help but challenge the rules both politically and openly to try and make changes.

A 2 year old little boy was hit and killed by a driver the other night a few miles from here, in reading the comments of the article people were saying things like, I know the parents he is in a better place now. Wow, I know a lot of people that had AWFUL childhoods but grew into amazing people but this little boy doesn't get that chance. Oh yeah and if he had such an awful home life I sure am glad that he was still with his biological parents rather than with foster parents that heaven forbid have MMJ licenses.

J and I went to the annual Pride Fest parade last weekend. We both have a ton of GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bi-Sexual and Transgender) friends and always have fun at these type of events. Of course the comments on those articles were all about going to hell and perversions and comparing them to pedophiles. Well that's just ignorant even if every last person at that parade goes to hell for their choices I am sure I read in the rule book that it would be for God to judge anyways and comparing someone who enjoys the company of someone else who is the same gender to someone who abuses little kids is absurd. I'm not saying that there are not gay pedophiles out there but I do know that my gay friends would never harm a child.

I was told by my sister the other night that she had to disown me in public and specifically in church because I had a baby out of wedlock and have refused to "remedy" the situation. Awesome! Only family can make you feel like that. This is my sister that is schizophrenic with the measured IQ of a 12 year old so I couldn't even fight back I just had to let her know that I understood and that I don't have any plans of getting married right now. Of course she let me know that once we do go ahead and get married that she can start admitting that she has a sister again. :-) (Sorry I couldn't find a sarcastic smile to put in there).

J and I swam 50 laps yesterday morning, it's hard to believe that we started at 6 and just about drowned and now we are all the way to almost a mile. I skipped the gym this morning so I will have to kick my own butt this afternoon (as I shake my head) bummer dude.

Joe and I have done an amazing job of not killing each other during all this stress with the business, you know like our 1 year old daughter having to hang out with us at the police station for 3 hours or me having to disclose the last 20 years of my taxes or print off 1000 pages (literally it cost me $100 in ink to print all of it) of my financial statements. At least now the state of Colorado will know how often I shop at Wal-Mart and Starbucks...I bet everyone on my block will sleep better at night knowing how I spend my money. In fact I think people who have gone through this process would be BETTER foster parents, not worse. I mean I couldn't hide anything in my past even if I wanted to. Although I do have to say that on occasion our dinners around here just get quiet...one of us says something that the other one would like to kill them for, so we both just get quiet which works out much better than spending most of your two hours a day you see each other fighting or apologizing.

On a much lighter note, here is our little princess attempting to feed herself...she gets so darn proud that you can't help but tear up a bit watching her in person. Forgive Emeniem in the background, we like to listen to music and until she learns more english on occasion we like gangster rap. :-)

Look who walks...sort of.

Austin has been learning to walk and while she is still horrible at it, she's getting better. I am seeing a lot of tears in our future though. :-)

Happy Gilmore...

In the same sense that Adam Sandler played golf with a hockey stick in Happy Gilmore, I will be competing in an IronMan with all the wrong equipment. When we signed up for this competition we were going to spend some money and get road bikes...how fun huh? Well they start at five grand and go up from there, so instead we spent all that money on a start up business. Come to think of it we have spent all our money and then some on this business. I mean let's face it the business is a better investment but now I will be riding a 35 pound mountain bike for 56 miles. :-( While 35 pounds doesn't sound like much it is huge compared to the 2-3 pound speed demons everyone else will have. Luckily I could care less what they think and as long as I carry that stupid heavy bastard over the transition line to the running portion I'll be happy. Did I mention I will be wearing my scuba diving wetsuit for the swim portion and still need to buy running shoes. Hmmmm, I am thinking most people do not have these issues weeks before the big day.

I was telling J the other day in the pool that I am pretty sure that most people that compete in a triathalon are good at at least one of the sports, whereas I am pretty terrified of all three.

Even with all the cards stacked against me I just keep repeating this quote hanging in our gym "Pain is temporary, but quiting lasts forever.". And in true fashion of everything I believe in and how I live my life, I would rather try and fail that not try at all. Cheers...here's to not dying on the course! :-D

Turns out we both work 24/7

I have been on call for almost 12 years now, a couple of things have resulted in this. I am an extremely light sleeper, I don't mind being woke up, and I can clear my voice faster than anyone to answer phone calls. Well as fate would have it good ol' Joe who is the world's deepest sleeper (he never woke up once with Austin) is now becoming one of my kind. Last night at 4 in morning when his cell phone rang he sat up, cleared his throat, and answered his phone only to find out that it was the security team and that the shop had lost power. So out the door he goes. It was nothing, a car accident took out the power for the whole block, but with our track record there are always butterflies when the alarm company calls. I still can't believe this as I type, not only did he never used to wake up but he was outright angry when he would have, but no more.

After the morning fiasco, I decided to skip the gym primarily because I would have had to walk out the door before Joe even got home from everything. So hopefully the rain will hold off today so baby girl and I can go out for a jog.

Our weekend...

Well I can officially say that I am no longer a drinker, not to say that I won't have a drink or two here and there but on Friday night I went through a couple bottles of wine (which would have been a warm up in my hay day) and I can honestly say that I am still a little hungover today. Holy smokes! Uncle Paul, Aunt Lynne and Megan were stranded in Colorado Friday night so they got to see the green hue in my face first hand on Saturday (by the way guys if you are reading this I swear I will be a better host next time I see you), I couldn't hold down food until that evening and J who went glass for glass with me had to watch baby girl because I was shaking too much. Awesome. Time to close that chapter in my life, unless I allocate a week to heal.

We went out to a 4th of July party at a friends house in the country and got rained on all evening while standing outside, at least then the fireworks that were being set off illegally didn't start the prairie on fire.

J, baby girl and I went and had lunch in Garden of the Gods yesterday at this cute cafe where if you present a Colorado driver's license you get buy one get one free meals. It literally took us two hours to find parking and I just kept reminding J what a free meal was worth. The meal was totally worth it and the scenery was amazing.

We have officially been going to the gym at 5am for 7 months and it STILL isn't any easier to get up on time. I would have thought that at least by now we would have been rolling out of bed by ourselves instead of fighting with our alarms and sending each other OMG, running late be there in a few text messages.

Invasion of privacy

I am not a very secretive person, in fact I pride myself on not having secrets and always telling the truth...

A couple of days ago it came to our attention that someone posing as a reporter from our local paper went door to door in our neighborhood asking questions about the business and letting them know that Joe owned a dispensary. This "reporter" went on to ask questions like how many visitors we have and who they were, along with whether or not the neighbors have any complaints about us or the way we live. (I am so angry right now that I am having to control my breathing.) Obviously Joe and I have gone to great lengths to make this a legitimate business and to keep it OUT OF OUR HOME! Away from our small child and myself. I do not go in the shop and have never used our product. But now I am labeled in our community. And rather than the labels that I have worked so hard to shine I get one like this...I got home from TESSA after working with a 3 year old little girl who is suffering from abandonment issues when I heard about this. I am sure they look at me and see my nice car and nice house and think to themselves there's someone else getting rich off something that should be illegal. So I say this...because the Internet is a HUGE place and I have no way of knowing who is reading this...we have not collected one red cent from our business yet, so the nice stuff is brought to you by my near 15 years of experience fixing the computers you are too stupid to operate and while you are out harassing others about their lifestyles and choices I am out fixing the world one broken 3 year old at a time.