Accepting myself fully

Last weekend, there was a hockey tournament. Or more accurately, a set of friendly hockey games among four teams. It was fun, and since it was multilevel, I got to see my friends in other divisions who I don't normally see.

Now, one of these gals really starts my engines. It is fun to flirt with her and to catch up. I had a beer--let's be honest, one Bud Light--and was flirting and joking and having a good time.

As I left, she was leaning over a railing, talking to a guy from the rink. I let my hand brush her ass. I'm blushing a little as I write this. I did it on purpose but it was forward.

Usually, I'd beat myself up for it, maybe write a stupid-sounding apology to her that made more of it than I should. But this time, I'm working on just letting it go. We're friends, I'm sure she's not mad; I think it's fine.

So when I think about it now, I say under my breath, "It's OK, I accept myself. It's fine." And it really seems to be working. I do tend to hang onto things for...ev...er and it is not good for anything. I apologized recently to someone about something I'd been hanging onto for years, and she laughed and didn't even remember it. I spent how much energy and shame on that? That's nuts.

I accept myself fully for who I am, not a perfect being but one with faults, who makes mistakes but owns up to them. I am whole and human and loveable.

How to reset a Master cable lock with red ring

I couldn't find this anywhere on the Master website, so thought I'd document it here.

We have a Master cable bike lock that has a red ring with two raised posts for resetting. While locking up his bike, my son managed to reset the lock so that the post would no longer insert into the combination part. I ended up swapping in my cable bike lock and taking his with me to work on.

I tried and tried to rotate the red ring so I could reset the lock and set it back to the combination we expected. It just kept springing back. The reason is that you can only 'reset' when the old combination is set.

Rather than try all 10,000 possible combinations, I figured out that I could deduce the combination by pressing the post of the lock into the combination tumblers and rotate them one by one to find the set combination. Each time a ring became hard to rotate, I figured it was set to the right number and worked on the next one. As I figured out the next number, the post eased into the combination tumblers until I had all 4 numbers.

Once the set combination was entered, rotating the red plastic ring was easy, and it stayed in place. All of the combination rings became completely loose, rather than resisting turning slightly. I set it to the combination we wanted, and rotated the red plastic ring back.

Now the lock works, and we know the combination and have it set to the one we want. I hope this helps someone out there.

What a lovely weekend! Friday, I had a little 'me' time as Charlie went to his youth groups first-Friday get-together for 4 hours. I returned home and had a little dinner, then headed out to the "preview" night of the Friends of the Library book sale. Spent an astonishing 2 hours there, accumulating 10 books I didn't know I wanted, and finding no D.W. (of Arthur fame) nor Angelina Ballerina books for our friends' daughters--this, despite leafing through every kid's book on 4 full tables. What was nice was the low number of book resellers, who are sometimes so very rude. One of them, on the phone the entire time, loudly knocked a bookend off a table with her butt, and never looked back once. Another complained at length about a book-sale monitor's admonition to keep her box of books near her, even after I pointed out that restocking books were being kept in boxes under tables this year, so someone could well come along and take her books out if her box were not kept near her. No, it was unfair to her, blah blah.

Saturday, we had a glorious sleep-in and I spent most of the day in pajamas... doing what? I am sure I was productive, but can't remember exactly what I did. Got a load of dishes in the dishwasher, fed us, made a lovely fruit salad with an orange, a grapefruit, a banana, and some frozen blueberries, but aside from that, hm. Probably knit a bit and watched some TV.

At 2:30, though, I rallied the troops and we dressed and went out to pick up a trampoline we'd bid on at a recent youth fundraiser auction. It will be smallish but Charlie is thrilled. We didn't have time to put it up this weekend, but maybe Wednesday will be the day. Returned home, I threw my hockey gear in the car, and bid Charlie adieu as I set out for Team Chili Puckers' game. I played hard, but still managed to leave enough of the other team open to score several times, with a 2-4 loss in the end. It was fun and a good game, with the other team having a perplexing number of people falling. There must have been 7 good spills. Team CP has a great coach, who was very supportive and helped me find a few things to work on in my play.

On the way home, I stopped at Los Gallos Tacqueria for cash (they have two ATMs inside!) and a pollo asado burrito. So, so good. Back home, I was too tired to do much, so Charlie and I watched Futurama eposides together while he finished my burrito (it was big and I was full).

Sunday, I let Charlie sleep in as much as possible, and woke him to get us out the door to church, as I was singing with the choir and he was acolyte. After church, we went to the book sale's last day ($3/bag) and picked up a few more, then set out for Liz's concert down in Cupertino. We hung out with their girls, who were super funny and sweet and fun to be around. Little Moo Moo went potty for me! And her big sister did her homework with only a little bit of nagging. After the concert, which was very well done, we went to the playground for a bit of play before we headed home. We met up with my first gf and her wife for dinner at La Piñata in San Leandro, where I could use my $25 gift card from a bulk Costco purchase (the gift card was no longer good at the sister restaurant in Alameda due to owner split). Tasty fish dinner with odd cactus salad and yummy margaritas. When we got home, my ex & her wife did a test drive of our Honda Fit to see if it might be their next car. They were sold and I'm waiting on my dividend check from Honda. I won't recommend the dealership, but I'll wholeheartedly recommend the car. We still love it.

Our new beach cabin

I have always wanted a retreat, a beach cabin to go to to get away, regroup. I considered mountain cabins, but I really love being near the ocean. And now, we have found our beach cabin.

Last weekend, we spent a night at the Hostelling International hostel at Montara. I made the reservation in September, when I came across the page for the Montara Lighthouse yet again and realized that I had been waiting for the "perfect time." No time like the present! I paged forward in their availability calendar and found a free night for the double-bed room in early December, and booked it.

It was heavenly. All the amenities of the beach cabin, without the high rental/timeshare cost, and with the added bonus of social opportunities for outgoing me. Cozy room with a beautiful beach view, perfectly adequate in-room heat, bathroom & shower right outside our door, and shared only with the other 2-bed room. The door is locked with a combination, so no key to lose, but security is there. The main house has two kitchens with two refrigerators each, and a fully stocked kitchen (save things like oil/butter, which we will bring more of next time!). There is a sizeable dining room with 3 differently sized tables to eat at (plus a smaller one in the kitchen itself), plus a couch-filled "living room" area, where I set up my spinning wheel and spun for a while, while G played on his iPod Touch and read. Lovely. The main house is heated with a pellet stove, which produces plenty of heat while seeming to use a tiny amount of what looks like rabbit food.

The people who work there were helpful, sweet, and understanding (I managed to do something to the shower-handset-holding thing and she managed to fix it and not make me feel like an oaf!). The grounds are lovely...

5-4-2012

I never posted this, which I started last year, but I want to get it up. When I re-figure out how to insert pictures, I can do that.

3/4 mile, 50 minutes

Made plans to swim, and followed through. I realized today that, like so many other things in my life, if I want to swim, I need to not just want to, think about it, make vague plans to--I need to schedule it. And that scheduling my lunch hour for swimming means I need to go at the right time (lap swim is technically 11:45-12:30, a smallish window, although as a keyholder, I can go when I want as long as I don't swim alone), and make plans to have a lunch ready.

(Today's lunch is leftover Malay Asian Express, yum.)

I felt so good doing 1/2 mile last time I swam that I thought I could maybe do 3/4 mile today, given that I got there early enough (about 11:50) and had the time. But when I first got in the water, I felt pretty tired. I have been shorting my sleep time lately and have really been feeling it.

I do a lot of math in the water, which tends to help me keep track of how many laps I'd done. If a mile is 72 laps (and curiously, opinions vary--some say 66), then 3/4 mile is 54 laps. So as I swim, I compare the number of laps I've done with 54 to figure out how far I am. It tends to go like "OK, 33 laps. That's 3 * 11, and 54 is about 5 * 11, so when I'm done with this lap, I'll be about 3/5 done with my workout." Sometimes I divide the numbers to see what percentage I've done. If I don't do this, I lose track and can easily be off by 4 laps--100 yards--either way.

Well, once I was 1/4 the way to being done with the workout (the goal of 3/4 mile), I felt really good and was making good time. I take about an hour to swim a mile at my best, and I've been swimming at that rate lately (1/2 mile = 30 mins last time), so having about 3/4 hour of pool time available meant I could do it.

I had my own lane the whole time, which was odd--the weather is great (although yesterday was sprinkly and a bit chilly): sunny, a sprinkling of fluffy clouds, a tiny wind. Usually I have to share at least part of the time. I've noticed that it is usually the women swimmers who get asked to share. I do this too; I've been kicked hard by enough men to tend not to want to share a lane with one. They don't mean to, but they are less careful than the women, it seems. (One guy had long toenails--ouch!)

I'm really glad I went and will schedule a day next week to swim, too. It'd be nice to fit in two, but Thursdays are always out and things can be tough... then again, I don't have my usual lunch or walk date with my friend Lisa, so I probably can.

There, done. Tuesday and Friday it is.