Susiej

standing all along the course of the Ironman. The signs were especially thick around the parts of the mountains that were the most desolate… along highways where few spectators stood, and the racers heard nothing but silence. Not cheers.

The day before the race, a tent was set-up in the carnival-like atmosphere, with music blaring, and Gatorade passing out free bottles for everyone. The tent was filled with blank poster board and sharpies and tables. Family and friends were busy carefully choosing words and embellishing signs for their loved one. A way to pass the time with the family, I thought, in the final hours before the Ironman. Later, volunteers would post these signs, carefully made, all along the course of the race. My husband later said, when he reached the darkest point of the race, during the isolation and the heat and exhaustion, he looked up and saw our sign. Like an Oasis, it said, “Go, Daddy.”

This year, his family won’t be with him to make those signs, and this bothers me. He’s so busy training and working right now, he won’t notice here that I’m revealing his surprise… that I’m inviting some of his closest training buddies and family over to host a “sign-making” party just for him. It’s the least we can do. Once he has the signs, he can pack them in his bike case, and hand them over to the volunteers to post with the others, when he arrives.

I’ve bought the poster board, hidden the markers. I’ll be busy over the next few hours making food, setting up tables, and hanging banners.

Here you can see them lined up as flags for the racers. As you watch this video, make sure you notice that in those nervous final hours before the race, as my husband stands looking out in the Coeur D’Alene River, which he will swim the next morning… that our son lost his shoe. Leave him a message in the comments, and I’ll put it on a sign.

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Filed under: Life, You Tube, memories, races by SusieJ - 13 Comments →

Invented by native North American Indians in the 15th century, it has been said that the game of Lacrosse is to be played “for the pleasure of the Creator.” Me, as the Mother, perhaps? Because, I really like this sport. This spring, I have two boys to cheer for on the field.

I’m purposely ignoring its dark place in history when the Indians played from sun up till sun down, sometimes for days as the game traveled for miles with players gravely injured or killed. Now, the goal carries much less religious and spiritual significance.

The goal? Simple: Use the stick and its attached pocket to scoop, catch, carry and pass the small rubber ball to get it in the net. Also, stop your opponent from getting the ball in the other net. Think soccer revved up with sticks. Because of those pads, Lacrosse naturally promotes “team building.”

The coach said, “I don’t care what the score is. My goal is to teach the kids to play as a team.” He even added this; “If I see a kid that is hogging the ball and is not giving it up to the rest of the players, I’ll pull him out — regardless of how many goals he’s scoring.” He looked to one parent, with a player on the HS lacrosse team for validation and said, “Isn’t that how they do it in high school?” Sadly, this parent, with all of us looking on, disagreed with the coach. Her goal is to teach her child to win. The coaches methods are still prevailing, despite her protests.

Unlike football, we have only two practices each week. And mercifully, only five games all season.

More technical information I’ve picked up: The players clamp the ball under their stick and flick it out to their middies (midfielders), who start on the wing restraining line near the sideline and sprint in when the whistle is blown to start play. Attackers and defenders cannot cross their “restraining line” until one player from the midfield takes possession of the ball.

I love this quote, which I heard in the car this morning as I was driving one boy to practice. “Sometimes I just don’t want to go to practice… but then I get there, and it’s JUST SO MUCH FUN!”

Lacrosse is laid-back action. Nice and easy, like Spring itself. Games are fast and quick… another reason to love this sport. The clock keeps ticking between goals when the ball is dead for a few seconds. Games are usually over in an hour, with scores in the tens. But still, the main reason I love this sport? These cool-looking shorts… that come with a touch of PLAID!

What’s not to love?! (There is some lacrosse action in this video here from last year.)

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Today, with my husband out of town for three days, I have absolutely no desire to bundle the kids up and go sledding. Does this make me a bad Mom? It’s a balmy 45 — we may get up to 50 (that F for all you Aussies). So, today, we can enjoy what’s left of the 24 inches and play outside all day in the snow, as if we live in Colorado. This is last year’s sledding fiascoes.

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When I was little, before gas prices skyrocketed, my Dad used to love to take us for a Sunday drive in the country to see one-room school houses and old abandoned cemeteries.

Our drive to the lake is 3 hours, and most of the drive has no direct route via interstates. Instead, we drive through back-country roads, past weathered barns, horses, and a loose cow. The owners of the farms, houses, trailers and stores are becoming familiar as we increase our travel to the lake, yet they still remain strangers.

I put this video together during our summer drives to the lake. (Yes, it’s a little shaky, I hope you don’t get car sick.) Here’s a chance to join us, as fellow travelers, in our noisy van with four boys, to see some of the highlights of our drive.

While posting this video on you tube, I found this beautiful video of the Farm Auction. Stick with it, after the first few seconds, the video turns into black and white stills. Each pictures tells a story… Sniff, sniff.

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Filed under: Life, You Tube, the lake house, wordless wednesday by SusieJ - 18 Comments →

Average speed, 33mph

Whoops!

Wordless Wednesday

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One of my goals is to finish editing our home movies by Christmas. I add pictures, edit the video and put music with them. Where am I? I just started working on January - March, 2007.

When I started working with this tape, it was just so ugh! Gray skies, no leaves on the trees, and pretty boring. But, you add a little music, some funny pictures and it just flows. What was not very exciting is now a little gem.

However, it’s only a 25 minute video, and I’ve been working for 3 hours straight now. Not really fun. I wonder if it’s even worth it? But, how can I stop? All this video footage, all these photos? It’s quite a quandary I’ve gotten myself into.

Making a home movie with all of the new software really is a lot like making a quilt. There are threads on the screen to match the video and the audio. If you had music, that block will have another thread. They are all labeled on the screen for you, stacked on top of each other. The threads are what you use when you want something to fade (audio or video), by dragging the line downward at an angle. To stop the picture or the sound — you simply cut the thread. Then, you move it and literally pull the thread out to make the video come alive somewhere else. Some things you cut, and discard, and you continue to pull more threads out to bring you the creation you’re looking for. And when you’re done, you do have a collection, all sewn up, much like an heirloom quilt made from patches you found around the house here and there.

I am hooked because I have this… “gift.” I pick the most amazingly perfect songs for the videos. And I don’t realize I’m doing it, until it’s all done, and the words and the rhythm all just comes together perfectly.

Here’s an example. I was making a movie about my husband’s Ironman. There was this part, a few minutes before the race starts, when he and his buddy were pumping their tires, checking their gear, etc. They were so amazingly calm. The sky was hazy, because it was 6 a.m., and the sun wasn’t quite up yet. It really was not exciting — but it was a crucial part of the video, because whenever they watch it, they smile and say, “I was so nervous then — my heart was just beating so fast.” So, the music needed to be something smooth and quiet, with a nice beat. I picked Sting. I ran through the songs, clicking on the songs in Itunes until I found the perfect one. It sounded GREAT. The name? Be Still my Beating Heart. How great is that?There’s even a line in the song that says, “My body isn’t made to run this fast.” Perfect!

However, there is still the matter of the time involved. Apparently, I’m not alone in this problem of the movies taking so long to make. Check out the opening of this article in the November 21, 2007 edition of the WSJ:

If you have put off turning those video tapes or reels of film in the closet into the finished film you’ve long promised your kith and kin, it may be because you suspected you’d be getting into something that was less a simple project and more a full-time hobby. You were right. Editing software makes movie-making easy in the same way that a word-processing program makes it easy to write a novel. But crafting a film is one of the most gratifying things you can do on a computer, so it will be time well spent. Thus, just in time for the holidays, here’s a how-to based on a recent home project of my own.

I just need to keep reminding myself, “This is time well spent. Future generations will enjoy these movies forever.” As long as I preserve them right. I worry a bit about the music I’m adding for today. Will we dread hearing this 10 years from now? It’s a snapshot of our time, so I guess it’s OK.

So, if you want to join me, start with one of these. Many have trial versions you can try for free. Each product has it’s drawbacks — and they all have their pluses. Even if you have a camera that does tape directly to a DVD, it still must be translated to play on a TV. I still have camera that uses tape, and the experts say tape is still the best quality. It’s amazing how far behind this technology really is. But it takes lots of time….

Here’s my You Tube page.

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Filed under: Life, You Tube, try this by SusieJ - 11 Comments →

This Best Shot Monday is about the picture I didn’t take. The picture I thought I would take on Sunday; but Sunday was too late. I was fortunate enough to grab the video camera. This picture was captured as a .jpg from the video. I really thought I’d have time to get some great pictures on Sunday.

I’ve mentioned Brownie briefly before. Brownie is the class bunny that my 9-year-old son loves. During “silent reading time” my son sits by Brownie’s cage on the floor, and quietly reads to her. He grabs carrots and puts them in his backpack for Brownie. He talks about Brownie at least once a day. He tells me facts about rabbits I never knew.

He has been counting the days for his turn to take Brownie home for the weekend. As we carried Brownie out to the car, parents and students in the hallway waved to Brownie, and said, “Have fun!” In her 6.5 years, she has visited many of the families’ homes in our neighborhood. She is well-loved, and could easily pass as the school mascot. The boys were so proud to be taking her home.

The boys squealed with delight. You can see it all here in a video here and here. She looks so alive. On Saturday, when I put my 9-year-old to bed, he seemed a little gloomy. He said, “I can’t believe it’s almost Monday and I have to take Brownie back to school.” Yes, I said, but aren’t we on the schedule again in two weeks? Yes, he smiled when he remembered.

Less than an hour later, thankfully, after the kids were asleep, Brownie left us. It was very fast and quick — I can only describe it as a seizure. If I had been out of the room, I would have missed it. I would have found Brownie “asleep” and I would have went to bed. Then, my children would have tumbled down the stairs in the morning eager to play with Brownie…

Can you imagine anything worse? I’m grateful the children were asleep. I’m grateful I was with Brownie. She didn’t die alone. I called, and got the teacher out of bed; she took Brownie home so Brownie wouldn’t be here when the children woke. In true spirit, as she fought back her own tears as she said, “Well, I guess it’s time for the class to learn about the cycle of life.” As we stood talking, I felt a very cold. And then I remembered, I had just opened the door for her a few minutes before. Later, when I opened the door for her to go, I realized, it wasn’t THAT cold.

What to say….. that was a difficult one. My great friend had the perfect words. “Brownie was tired, and possibly ill, and felt comfortable and peaceful enough to die at your house. And how fortunate that she died in a home where she was loved, and not all alone in the classroom.”

Yes, we are all grateful for that. My littlest guy, keeps saying, “I just want to hold Brownie. Just one more time.” And my son, my 9-year-old, he took it hard. Today, just send him a kind word of comfort in the comments.

I didn’t want to touch that video in my camera. I haven’t finished the videos from fall 2006, and I vowed I wouldn’t start another video until I’m caught up. My son was so sad; and I thought here is the motivation I need to get one video done. If I don’t do this now, I will never have the desire to watch this video again, and it will sit on the tape unwatched, forever. I’m not going to procrastinate, like I did with the photos; I’m going to pull this video out of my camera, edit this and have this one tribute of Brownie for my son. Just comments of comfort for him.

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Filed under: Life, Tears, You Tube, boy by SusieJ - 27 Comments →

This is a follow up to the fleeting pet story. Just as we were leaving the lake, and I was busy packing the car, the boys found a toad. He was bigger than frog, and he was a huge hit. But, it was time to go, so I told the boys to say goodbye to toad, and we would be back in couple of weeks to see him again.

I reached in the back to buckle up my littlest guy, and there he was, with toad in his lap. No, no, sweets, we can’t take toad him with us for the 3 hour trip home. (I’m picturing him, jumping around the car, while I maneuver my way through traffic, and I am the only legally-aged person out of the five of us able to drive.)  Let’s leave him here, and he’ll be here when we come back.

After a few more propositions, he reluctantly got out of the car, and put toad back. On the sidewalk, on his back. My son figured, in a position like that, toad wouldn’t be able to easily get away, and yes, he would be “right there” when we came back. Luckily for toad, he flipped over and got him self righted.

The best part? He starts preschool today, and there’s a pet toad in his room.
If you haven’t seen the 2 minute pet videos from the lake, here are the links. Part 1 and Part II.

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Filed under: You Tube, boy, the lake house by SusieJ - 11 Comments →

My boys couldn’t wait to fish. They couldn’t wait to catch the big one. And when they did catch one, they threw him back; but not before feeding him the rest of their bait.

And, I was grateful, during my 5-week stint at the lake, without a TV, that mother nature kept the boys amply supplied with quite a few diversions.  We haven’t had a pet since Max left us.

There were the fish, the turtles, toads, and there was this one frog.

They found him right after the one-ton load of sand came in. So, they began building him a house. This is his playroom. He had tunnels and moats. When the boys swam out to the trampoline, he came along for the ride, on top of their head.

He had plenty of chances to get away, but he never took one. We went up to eat dinner, and came back, to find him still there, basking in the sand. I typically don’t like these kinds of creatures, but this one had a heart. And he had the heart of my boys. So, I was warming up to frog.

That night, we got a terrible storm. The rain poured hard. I worried about the frog. I thought about his house, and the rain crashing the walls of his home down, and how would he get out?

I almost ran outside to help him. But then, I remembered the skunk, and thought better of it. But it didn’t stop me from stay up that night and worrying. The next morning, the rain had cleared. The frog was gone. I’m sure he was fine.

I made a 2-minute video of all the pets, it’s in two parts. For some reason, You Tube wouldn’t take the entire chunk, so I had to split it. Part I, and Part II. A boy and his creatures — this is definitely love at its finest.

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Sending my kids off to school has always been for me, a kind of inner celebration. Now, you know that I do tend to get very sad years and months before I need to be sad. But when the day finally does arrive, I’m pretty satisfied. “You did it kid, [Read more →]

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Filed under: Life, Tears, You Tube, boy by SusieJ - 7 Comments →

I captured this sound on this video — so I could watch it on upcoming cold winter days. I wish I could send you the smell. I waited a long time for this. In fact, it rained so much, we had to wear our life jackets on the deck — and it’s 20 feet off the ground. Just kidding.

The sound you hear in the video is the sound of acorns dropping off the trees onto the deck.

More, lake house posts, here.

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