The Lone Woman

I am the Vice Chair of the non-profit Support Our Schools (SOS). We are a community organization that works to improve public education in St .Paul by helping to build leadership capacity in education among educators, business and community leaders, parents and students themselves. We work to influence district policy so that each student has access to an excellent education that prepares them for success in adulthood.

So, I attend monthly board meetings and I bring my girls with me. The girls always do a great job keeping quite throughout the meeting. They keep themselves busy with books and drawing. I've brought the girls to enough meetings that the board knows and very much likes them. The girls talked with a few board members today and all seemed fine.

On the ride home, Taylor said to me, "Mom, I noticed that you were the only woman at that meeting." I didn't want to lead her to any conclusions so I responded, "Oh, yeah? So what do you think about that?" Taylor said that it's a bummer I'm the only woman board member. I asked her to clarify and the gist of what she said was that it just doesn't seem right that there is only one woman. She asked me a bunch of "why" questions. I wasn't really sure if she was ready to hear the truth about the inequities between men and women, society's perception of women leaders, etc...We did touch on this subject but I explained to her to the best of my ability why this is the case for SOS (which by the way or ED does try really hard to find diverse board members to accurately represent the community - they actually sought me out).

I was just surprised that Taylor made this observation and that without any prompting from me, the sight made her sad and elicited feelings of unfairness. She wasn't angry or upset. She was stating an obsevation she had made. I'm not sure if she really knew the full extent of how this made her feel. I think she just knew something didn't feel right but she didn't really know why. Hmmm????

Skiing

Kong enrolled the girls at Como ski school this year against their wish. The thought of skiing was, according to Ayden, frightful. These pictures and videos are from February and March. (Dlaab/Uncle Phili in the lift behind Ayden and Kong)

I was not real hopeful after our first ski trip. Our second one, much happier campers! Taylor improved tremendously and was doing black diamond runs with her dad. I was scared to death for her but she apparently loves the thrill of going fast.

As for Ayden, after our first trip to Afton, she vowed to never ski again. Her problem was that she didn't really want to learn how to control the skis (as evident in the clip below). She wanted to go straight down which only works on the bunny hill. On our second trip she figured it out and just loved it. There were a few blue runs that looked really scary to me but she was determined to go down them. She did awesome despite my fears.

Both girls decided that they do not need to go back to Como next year. They can't wait to go out West to ski the real hills/mountains. As for me, I decided that I'm not as young as I use to be. My knees were in pain after each trip. It's the standing in the boots and stilling on the lift that does a number on me. And Kong...well, he is loving it. On our ride home he said to me, "I've been waiting nine years to be able to do fun stuff that I love with the girls." I guess that says it all.

Before you watch the video clips, be fore warn that I am talking a lot! I'm trying my best not to let the girls know how terrified I am for them. The fear would cancel out the positive energy of encouragement to try new things. It's a tough balancing act : ) You can hear me saying to Taylor, "...stay in the middle...go side to side..." This is much better then screaming "Don't go too close to the sides because there are a lot of trees and horrific things can happen if you hit one." and "Don't go straight down or you'll pick up too much speed and crash!" Oh yeah, and I scream everytime they fall.

It is important to note that the clip of Taylor going down the run, it looks like we are going really slow but that surely was not the case. Because the runs are short and steep you pick up a lot of speed so the clips are very deceptive.

In Memory of Heath Van Handel

Oh my goodness! I can't believe how time flies. It's been four months since my last post. So much has happened.

Before I go back to posting regularly I want to pay tribute to an old friend of mine, Heath Van Handel. Heath was a pilot for the Wisconsin DNR. His plane went down two weeks ago. Heath and I went to elementary, middle school and high school together. We both attended UW-Madison but eventually lost touch. Just a few months back I located Heath and was going to reach out to him but just couldn't find the time. Now I'll never have the chance to do so.

Heath was a rare individual. He was an all American boy - smart, athletic and popular but Heath was different. He was kind and considerate to everyone. He didn't judge people and when he spoke with you, you felt like you were the only person in the world that mattered. My heart goes out to Heath's beautiful wife and his two small boys.

http://www.postcrescent.com/article/20090411/APC010301/904110513

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/photo.php?pid=30438918&o=all&op=1&view=all&subj=75920146594&aid=-1&id=1345200659&oid=75920146594

(1988: Top - Heath Van Handel, me, Mindy Schmidt, Erika Goerich, Kristin Piper, Jodi Under and Sargent Dittmar)

I know Heath doesn't look thrilled to be in this picture but that's not the case. When the photographer came in to take this photo, we were all told to look busy and not look into the camera. Apparently Heath and I were the only two that followed directions.

As a side note, I have been having a really hard time coming to terms with Heath's passing. Is this weird since I haven't talked to him in nearly 14 years? Maybe it's because I'm getting older and I know that death is closer than I would like it to be. Maybe it's because I am regretting the lost opportunity to reach out or maybe I'm just sad that this world has lost a really good person. Ugh...it makes me want to cry every time I think of his two boys.