Lessons learned

Let me tell you about this man I call my husband. He worked out up to 6 times a week after working 10 hour shifts. He ran sprints until he threw up and then continued on to the next workout. Some of the best coaches in the nation refer to him as a "machine". He is a modest man who knows his own strengths and weaknesses. Today, I saw him fight probably one of his worst fights. And by "worst" fights, I mean that he was "off" his game. He went out into the ring and did his thing, but for some reason his "thing" just wasn't "on". He lost to a guy at about one third his talent, and one one hundredth his heart. He then took about 30 minutes to himself. When I spoke to him, he was so disappointed with himself. He said to me "I don't know what happened. I knew what he was going to do and when he was going to do it, and I just couldn't get my self On. I don't mind losing to a person who is more talented than me, to a better fighter. But this guy is not by far a better fighter." This is supposed to be his last tournament he participates in. He is supposed to bow out gracefully, and move on to bigger and better things. But...when you look into his eyes, he has a hunger. a hunger for victory. I don't know if and when he'll fight again and if you ask him, he'll say he's done. But I don't think we've seen the last of Jesse the fighter. No. He's got more in him. All I can say is that as his number 1 supporter, I will always be cheering in his corner. He is my fighter, and he is the best. He might have been off today, but he is still the best. I know it. He knows it. His coaches know it. Just wait and see. He will do great things.'

Jesse, I am proud of you. You worked your tail off. You did what most don't do. You dropped over 40 lbs in the span of a couple of years and became one of the best. I saw you beat up a collegiate team member during practice. One tournament doesn't decide how good or bad you are at the sport. I know you are bummed out, but Animo, my friend. You always have a team mate in me. You may have not have had the fight of your life today. The refs may not have been on your side either. But you and I know that this could have happened to anyone. The real honor lies in what you choose to do with it. No matter what you choose, I am your esquina. Now and forever. I love you.

Our travels

Here we are in Madison Wisconsin at the AAU TaeKwonDo National Championships. We drove up here from Houston. We took off at 3ish on Saturday and arrived at 9 am on Sunday. Jesse did the whole cutting weight thing and made weight this morning at 8:00am at a whopping 147.00 (his cutoff was 147.4) Rock on! We then ate some pancakes (he was really hungry). After we came back to the hotel and Jesse took a nap while I ironed his uniform. at about 4 we went over to a different hotel so that Jesse could test for his 4th Dan (degree). About an hour and a half later and a lot of sweat, Jesse passed and was an 4th Dan certificate...which means he is now MASTER Jesse! How fun! Jesse and his instructor Master Julio then took me to get my nails done (I really needed it). Now we are back at the hotel. Jesse will go and kick some before going to bed and then its off to sleep. Tomorrow Tuesday he will fight at about 11am. Please pray for him. I will post some pics later. I am very excited because Jesse has been training hardcore for the past 6 months. I will post again tomorrow evening.

Packing

So, Jesse and I have begun our packing. Its a pain and our home looks like a tornado hit (although it didn't take anything with it). Fortunately, I have used my condo yahoo group to post things I can do without, and I have gotten great responses! Looks like I won't have to lug all the bookshelves to Laredo. My game cube was the first to go! Anywho..packing will be interesting, but the less that goes with us, the better. Who knows when we will get a house of our own. My biggest task, papers, journal articles, class notes. Eventually I will get the organization skills to scan them all onto my computer and then burn them! But dont' have the time nor the patience. I wish I would have known how much paper and space could have been saved if I would have taken my laptop to class for my notes since the beginning of school. Hm. Oh well. Hindsight is 20/20.
By the way, today I realized we own 5 printers. HA!

Tomorrow there is a good chance I will see the Garcia Saenz family. Yay! They will be at IAH briefly before they get on a connecting flight to Laredo. I haven't seen them in so long and I am excited to say hi!

See you all soon!

So much to do

so little time. Jesse and I went to watch the Hulk today, we both had a long day at work and we decided to reward ourselves with a Monday at the movies. It was nice because we had a free movie ticket from our rewards club. The movie was very entertaining although we didn't nearly as much as we did in Get Smart. When I walked in our home I realized we have so much left to do. We leave on Saturday to our 19 hour trip to Wisconsin, drive back next Wednesday, go to work Thursday, attend a wedding rehearsal on Friday, wedding on Saturday, and pack the Uhaul on Sunday for Jesse to move back down on Monday. He is only supposed to leave me a tv, my clothes and a bed. Ha! Please don't ask how much we have packed. THAT should tell you how far behind we are. But...no fear, years of deadlines and last minute papers has trained me to remember that anything is possible, all you need is a little Red Bull (AMP for me) and perseverance. I don't know how this next week goes, but I sure am packing for the next 3 days.

ugh.

KuGar TaeKwonDo update

Alrighty guys and gals.... we are on our way to be up and running... Our website was updated and now ready for viewing and sharing. Feel free to share to anyone you know in Laredo. :)

We have signed our lease, ordered our mats and ready to go... I am still looking for good deals on t-shirts, so if anyone has contacts in Laredo, let me know!

On a side note, Jesse had a sparring session with a couple of guys, one of which is on the Collegiate National Team. He looked VERY good! Jesse was scored on not more than 2 to 3 times and he scored well over 6 points. We are psyched about Wisconsin in a couple of weeks and ask you to keep him in your prayers.

Current News

First of all let me extend a very Happy Birthday to Roxana, my sis-in-law! May the Lord shower your with blessings this new year as you explore motherhood.

In other news. I caved in and began Tony Horton's P90X which is a home workout regime. You might have seen the infomercials on tv. In the package, you get 12 workouts and a plan for 90 days interchanging the order of the workouts and increasing intensity. Day 1 was very tough, Day 2 was even tougher...and to this day it is still super tough, and I can't get through every single exercise yet (during the tough workouts). I am currently on Day 1 on Week 2. Goodness, it is tough. After every exercise, I wanted to quit. I first did the Back and Chest routine, which includes many different kids of push ups and pull ups (using a pull up bar). Then after 58 minutes of that, I moved on to Ab Ripper X, an intense ab workout that although lasts on 16 minutes incorporates non-stop ab exercise for a total of about 375 total movements. Anywho...we'll see how this treats me. I practically fainted after this one. The funny thing is that about 3 or 4 days ago, Jesse and I did Yoga X, and we had a super hard time! Jesse would look at the tv and then look at me and say "you've got to be kidding me, I can't believe this is that hard". Jesse usually joins me for low impact days or for the ab portion only because he does his thing consistently at the TKD school.

Onto another topic! Today we opened 2 wholesale accounts, faxed our lease, ordered the credit card machine, filled out most of my licensure applications, worked out, registered our new school with the national governing body (USAT), and I think thats it. I also found out that after all is said and done, it will cost us about $2000 to get fully licensed. Goodness, and I thought Grad school was expensive!

Its 1am and Jesse fell asleep watching Underworld. So..I think I will join the dreaming realm with him...

Alrighty...good night folks!

Others would agree

This summer I have been working in a classroom full of children with autism. I mostly help out the teacher and focus on improving these kids' social skills "Hi how are you, I am fine and you? I am great, thank you".
In class yesterday, one of the boys who was having a bad day says.

"I don't want to work with Ms. K, she talks too much"

hehehehe