status quo

it's time for me to realize that i have a new status quo.

as of today at 11 am,

i have both the pleasure and the burden of being a police officer's wife.

i have been told that a blue rose signifies the wife of an officer.

it reminds me of the blue stripe on a black background that signifies on officer's death.

which then reminds me of all of the dangers of al's job

that i have & will worry about for years to come.

on the other hand, i'm so very proud of al and so very proud to be an officer's wife.

i've always had a special place in my heart for police officers

and that has only been amplified by being married to one.

my respect for them is large.

there is a harsh line when it comes to police officers.

their job protects our people but also scares our people.

there is both love and hatred for them.

it's mostly the hatred,

that i have seen and heard first hand,

that scares me the most.

----------------------------------------------------

my other new status quo is where i live.

i now live in 2 different states,

in 2 different cities,

in 2 different houses,

with 2 (well 3) different people.

my main confusion lies in where i call home.

when i say "i'm going home" where does that imply?

where my husband is, is my home.

where i grew up, where my mom is, is my home.

i live part time in both places.

does this mean i will never feel settled?

never feel at home?

in place?

like i fit?

only time will tell

but i brought this on myself.

i knew a move was coming

and i choose to stay in the cities part time

for my softball, for my crossfit, for my work.

i have to find my happy in this.

i will make it work

because i know that i am lucky.

i can see all the great things that i get out of this.

but i miss the cities already.

and i will miss my husband once i go back.

reassessing is always an option.

we are lucky enough to have options.

to play it out as it will

and change things if need be.

so, as a wise woman once told me, "so be it!" :]



things around here

some randoms for you:

i went to a softball buddy's birthday

and i made fruity pebble bars. so yummy! 

 st patricks day came upon us.

the day before, at work, we had green bagels :)

they were REALLY green

from bruegers

 then, on st patty's day i went to beaver days in the little town of willard again with my trina!! it was lots of fun and it was beautiful out. actually, it was hot! 70+ degrees on march 17th? should not happen in minnesota. we dressed our selves up like crazies, drank quite a bit, played on playgrounds, danced the night away and had a blast! as usual.

 with our teacher friends :)

and here's the video trina made of our day light time of beaver days :)

i have a couple of cameos and even got to try my hand at camera woman :]

i love good times and friends that like to dress up crazy as much as i do! 

life :: a move :: al's job

well, there is new news for us oleson's.

although, it's not really new news for us.

here's the storyline:

may 2010: al applies for a cop job in wausau (at the same place where his dad works) and we prepare ourselves for a possible move to wausau as networking and knowing someone is usually the only key to getting a job these days.

may 2010-june-ish 2010: al does the testing and first interview for the wausau job. after which we learn he is #20 on their eligibility list.... for the 2 jobs that are open. ok, we un-prepare ourselves for a job/move to wausau. we put wausau out of our minds and al continues to apply for cop jobs in wisconsin.

--------- jump ahead a ways---------

november 2011: al receives an email from wausau job asking if he is still interested in a job with them. um, what? after a tiny bit of thinking and realizing that it had been almost 2 years that al had been applying for jobs with no results, we decided, yes, we were still interested in the job/move to wausau. we'd be stupid not to take it.

december 2011: a month goes by and we don't hear much from the wausau job. so we sit and we wait (and i stress out about moving to wausau...)

january 2012: we still don't hear much from wausau but get insider info from al's dad that there are 3 + positions open and they are on #19 (al is #20) so we are likely to get a job offer. also, al's dad puts in a good word and al actually knows one of the interviewers thus "he'd have to give the worst possible interview to not get the job offer." we also learn that hr at wausau is short staffed and thus slow. al interviews. we re-prepare ourselves for a move to wausau. meanwhile, al continues to apply for jobs including a chippewa (eau claire area) job which he does the testing and first interview for.

february 2012: al gets a job offer from wausau. it is contingent on him passing physical and psychological testing. he accepts and has to fill out and pass a back ground check. then we wait a while for the remaining testing to be scheduled. al does the next round of testing/interviews for chippewa and they say to expect 6-8 weeks before hearing from them (we know at this point al is in the top 8 for 2 positions for chippewa). 6-8 weeks is a long time, sure would be nice if we could hear from them earlier as we'd rather have chippewa since it's closer to minnesota, my family and our friends.

march 2012: al's testing for wausau is scheduled. he goes to one by himself. then chippewa contacts al (we later learn they knew that wausau offered him the job and so sped up the process for al) and asks to do a background check. we then both go to al's second day of testing in wausau together to look for places to live. later a leiutenant from chippewa stops by our house to explain things to us including their areas & scheduling. the next day (a friday) in the morning, al gets a job offer from chippewa. that same afternoon, wausau calls to give al a start date, and he has to tell them he's going to take the chippewa job instead.

end of march 2012: al has testing for chippewa 2 days. we go together for the second one to find a place to live. we wait and wait for an official start date (which means he for sure has the job). we finally get a start date (first week of april!) and we can get things set in stone.

so, after 5 months of stressing and worrying and wondering what was going to happen for us, we are moving to eau claire. again. :)

now i'm just worrying/stressing about al's new job as a cop, his new schedule (will likely not be nights for the first year!! yay!!), where we're going to live, if we're ever going to see each other, if we'll have enough money to cover all our costs & pay off loans, etc...

one nice thing i learned right in the middle of all that stressing was that my job will allow me to stay on part time until july!!! i asked to go part time when i originally told them we'd be moving but was denied. then, after some further thought and my needing a date for something, i asked again how long they thought they could keep me on to help train the new person and maybe cover for one or two maternity leaves. and they told me i could stay on part time until july! it was such a huge, needed relief! i plan on living up here in the cities monday-wednesdays and down with al the rest of the time so that i can play my softball and do my crossfit still. this schedule obviously will not work forever, but will hopefully work through this year's softball season (until october) and next year we can re-assess.

this is going to be a huge transition for both of us, but i'm confident it will be good! and hopefully will be the large stepping stone we needed to truly start our "adult" life! i'm so proud of al for sticking with his dreams and continuing to go for and apply for jobs even after 2 years of nothing!!

i'm ready for us to be moved (and unpacked). al to have a couple of weeks of work under his belt. us to have our schedule figured out. and me to see how my up-in-the-cities busy schedule is going to go. here's what it's looking like as of now:

sunday: drive up to the cities in the afternoon. play softball at night.

monday: crossfit in the am, work 8-430, softball at night

tuesday: crossfit in the am, work 8-430, softball at night

wednesday: crossfit in the am, work 8-430, softball at night

thursday: crossfit in the am, drive back to ec, volleyball at night.

friday & saturday: hang out with al, relax, sleep :)

it's going to be a crazy ride!

my food story

food.

my want and need.

also, my enemy.

i often say i'm a food-a-holic.

and i worry that it's true.

but when i take a look at where i've been

and how far i've come in regards to my food choices

i'm astounded.

and also shocked and appalled that i didn't make any changes earlier.

case in point:

i used to eat fast food a lot.

as a kid, getting fast food was a "treat" for us.

which made me crave and want it more.

as a teen and once i could drive, my fast food intake increased.

then as a twenty-something, i would go in spurts:

i would go months where i ate it almost daily

then i'd get sick of it, and go months without it.

over and over. and over.

now after changing my eating habits to trying to eat clean,

i haven't eaten fast food (other than their chicken & occasional arby's roast beef)

in years. YEARS!

and i'm ten times happier and my body is too!

and now i shutter as i walk by my pregnant co-worker's cube every morning.

she either eats mcdonalds or a donut for breakfast.

that poor baby, it's going to start off it's life without knowing what real food,

real energy, real feeling good is.

i wish i could tell her/talk to her about it without offending her.

but i'm not good with my words, especially in speech.

i have a finicky stomach.

i come from a long line of finicky stomachs.

i used to get stomach-aches ALL. THE. TIME.

and they were BAD!

almost every time after i ate, i'd have a stomach ache.

ask my husband :) when we first met, we'd have to derail plans

or he'd have to deal with my whining after just about every meal.

i don't know how i put up with it.

well i kinda do: i didn't know any better.

i just thought that was how life was going to be for me and my stomach.

then one day something clicked & i thought "there is no way everyone lives like this. i HAVE to change something."

enter: crossfit, isagenix and paleo/malia.

gina introduced me to isagenix.

it's a cleanse/game way of eating which uses meal replacement shakes and cleanse juice with a focus on not snacking and eating only when you're supposed to eat. it also requires you to drink LOTS of water, exercise and get plenty of sleep. it also requires you to work on yourself and your other life habits by making you choose a good transformation and a bad transformation each game you play. (changing one bad habit and creating one good, new habit). the first time i did isagenix i was hooked! i lost 11 pounds in the 11 day game and felt fantastic! however, i was started to go to crossfit more and i had little to no energy for the workouts. and i would get dizzy doing 1 hour of zumba. i definitely didn't like that feeling. so the next couple of games i played i tried to throw in a couple of extra little meals/snacks and haven't really gotten a handle on the isagenix game since then. this was a year ago.

then, after getting engaged, starting a full time job and finding some crossfit buddies who were as committed to it as i was, i began going to crossfit even more. like 5 times a week. i loved it! but i needed more energy and needed to fuel my body for the intense workouts. and recoveries (being sore for 4 days after a workout while trying to do more workouts just wasn't cutting it). so i kind of gave up on isagenix (i have come back to it since a bit but have more research to do on their new game cards/eating regimines).

so i started looking into heathly and clean eating on the internet and started discussing it with al. he then proceeded to send me (and still does, bless his heart) articles of people's transformations from bodybuilder.com. they were helpful but still didn't make me change. i also started discussing eating and nutrition more with malia, in particular paleo (the caveman diet as it's called and the way a lot of crossfitters eat). i learned a lot and got a lot of great tips and tricks to put into action. but i still didn't feel right.

then malia created a wonderful paleo challenge for our gym. we were to log what we were eating on a blog and she and luke would review it. this was just the jump i needed to really try out paleo. and it worked! well sort of. i felt great and my body felt great except i still didn't have much energy like i had heard that people did while eating paleo. so i read some more on it (and in particular, iceland annie's take on paleo (she's my favorite!)) and she eats paleo-like but with some whole grains/wheat thrown in and it works for her. so i did just that. i started to throw in grains as my carbs (the carb part was what i struggled with with paleo/zone). i began eating a lot like the people in the body builder articles al sent me (huh, guess it all kind of comes down to the same thing; eating clean).

and i feel great! when i eat the right/clean way. :) i have energy. i sleep well. i don't need caffiene to keep me awake. i'm addicted to cold water (a very good thing!). as gross as it is, i poop well. i can see/feel muscles growing in places i hadn't before. i don't have stomach-aches any more and on the off chance i do have one it's no where near as severe as they used to be.

now, i'm no where perfect with my eating habits.

and my body tells that story pretty well.

but my eating habits have changed a lot.

and i feel great!

especially on the inside!

i still emotional eat like it's no body's business.

especially when i'm stressed (which has been the last couple of months for us).

i still have many times that i regret what i ate or how much i ate.

i still can't pass up a treat at work especially when it's free.

i still crave chocolate and sweets from time to time.

i still get a hankerin' for potato chips (really just something crunchy).

i still want fast food every once in a while.

but everytime after i eat those, i feel not as great and i try to take that as a lesson learned.

and, i still drink diet pop. particularily diet coke.

that will be my next feat to re-conquer once life is a little less stressful.

i have developed some good habits too tho:

i love and crave cold water like no other. if i am thirsty and can't have cold water, look out because a panic stricken vanessa is about to go crazy. :)

my body will crave veggies if i don't eat them for a while and i'm ok with that because i LOVE veggies (course, i always have).

i can recognize when my body doesn't feel well and why.

i haven't had a cold or gotten sick (other than allergy stuff) in over a year!

i'm saving money by not eating out as often.

someday soon i hope to have before and after pictures to share here.

but for now, i'm happy with the way i feel

and i know what i need to do to progress further.

i just need to implement those.

but i have the determination and drive to do it so i know i'll get there!

jury duty - part 3: deliberations

read part 1: "picking the jury" here
and part 2: "the trial" here

please keep in mind this is all just from my perspective and is soley my opinion(s).

on thursday, shortly before 10 am we were given the trial and they announced the "alternate" jurors. there were 14 of us jurors in the trial but only 12 got to deliberate. 2 of us were alternates but we didn't get to know who those 2 were until after the trial. being number one juror, i was pretty confident it wasn't me but how much would that suck to see the whole trial and then not get to go in and discuss it with everyone? one guy had gotten sick and was "let go" towards the end of the trial so they really just had to announce one alternate. that person left before deliberations. also, during deliberations one man's wife was hospitalized with something pretty serious so he had to leave mid-deliberating. so it ended up being 11 of us to decide. and it had to be unanimous. each decision had to be absolutely unanimous and we couldn't stop until they were. there were 7 counts in this trial.

there had to be a "leader" amoungst us (they had a term for this person, but it escapes me at the present time; head juror, maybe?) and of course the "crazy" lady in our group raised her hand. she was to lead the discussions and attempt to keep us on track. so here i am thinking, ok this shouldn't take too long, shouldn't be too bad.

we get into our deliberation room, which is a small room with a large table in it surrounded by comfy chairs and we all take a seat. the room has a large white board in it. a large pad of paper stand. a sink with a coffee maker. a large-ish window that is placed relatively high (maybe to keep people from staring outside while deliberating?). and a small bathroom for each gender. we are given the guidelines for deliberations as well as the evidence from the case. we all got notepads to take notes on during the case so we got those of our own too. we were then essentially locked in.

so the "crazy" lady begins talking about the case and things and people are conversing a little with her. she then stops the talking and says something along the lines of "well, just to start off, no one thinks he's innocent, right?" GULP. um... what?!?!? my heart and my jaw sank to the floor. my mind was racing as was pulse. this is quite possibly the worst possible thing i could have heard at that moment. what do i do? do i speak up? do i hope that someone else is feeling like i do and will speak up? what is going on? i was sure that deliberations would be easy...

i waited a tiny bit while millions of thoughts ran through my head and we all looked around the room. no one said anything. so i did what i needed to do; i said, "i do." and so the real, unforeseen deliberations began...

the whole room looked at me. i could have sworn they were starring me down. that there was a large spot light pointed directly at me. i probably shrunk down in my chair a couple of inches. no one else spoke up that they thought he was innocent; they all were under the same thinking as crazy lady. this was not what i wanted. i didn't even want to be on the jury in the first place but then to come into the deliberation room being the only one thinking we couldn't find him guilty of anything? so i was going to have to speak up and say my side against 11 others (at that point). i and i alone was going to have to defend my stand point. i was not comfortable convicting this young boy of murder or manslaughter. i was not going to back down and let him go to jail for something we had no proof that he did or didn't do. i had SO many thoughts run through my head. were the rest of them all just racist? were they age-ists? or femenists? or what? how could they be thinking so differently than me? weren't we in the same exact trial, hearing the same exact things?

but i didn't have much time to think (which i hated; i'm a thinker. i need to think about things) when she shot back at me "ok. why?" i took a deep breath and told the outline of why i felt that way. i then asked if anyone else felt the way i did. there was one young girl (the youngest in our group) that said she wasn't sure what she felt; she was on the fence for both ways. and there was another girl somewhere around my age that said she kind of felt that way. that was it. and i could tell they weren't going to say much to help me out. ok, i guess i was going to have to fight for what i thought was right by myself...

after i had explained my side a little bit more, one of the men, tom, suggested we start over and write out a time line and who the main "players" were so we could go over the storyline and discuss important details together. at that point, i was so thankful for tom! and over the course of that day, i would become more and more thankful for tom! i needed to take what i felt like was the weight of the world off my shoulders for a bit and just breathe and think.

we laid it out and discussed a little bit of the story. but we still needed more structure to our deliberating. so we decided to start reading through the counts to see if we could eliminate any of them right off the bat. this turned out to be harder than we thought it might be. it also brought out "loud man"'s opinions. he was an ex-military guy who was very set in his ways and he spoke very loudly. he was the one in the empty court room that talked the entire time and everyone heard every part of his stories. in going over the counts, he came out and said that he 100% thought demetrius was guilty and there was no way he was backing down from that. ever. oh boy, so here we have loud, stubborn, military man versus quiet, doesn't-want-to-be-the-center-of-attention me on opposing sides. at this point i thought "this wasn't going to end well, if at all."

about this time we were to go to lunch. we were escorted by 2 deputies to and from lunch. lunch was on the court house and we weren't allowed to speak to anyone that wasn't on our jury and we couldn't talk about the trial while at lunch. so we tried to take our minds off the trial and make small talk with each other. i had had a couple of conversations with a girl about my age, sierra, and i was so thankful to have her to chat with. she had also just been to a bachelorette party a couple of weekends before so we joked that if we were sequested over the weekend, her and i would be having my bachelorette party together. i also enjoyed the company of a younger than me male who was in a band and liked pretty cool music. he was interesting to listen to. there was also an awesome and funny big black guy in the group. his name escapes me but he was always smiling and cracking jokes, making us laugh. i was also very thankful to have him in the group. he tried and usually succeeded in keeping things light-hearted.

lunch was a buffet and was cut short for a reason that we were never actually told. we were hustled back into the jury room and resumed deliberations. at this point i'll also mention mary. she was a tiny little lady about my mom's age or a little older and she was smart. so smart. and she was calm and collected and understood that i felt like i was in a pickle. she sat next to me in the jury room and was constantly re-assuring me and patting my leg under the table when i needed a boast of confidence. i looked to her to explain things to me and to make me feel better about things. mary, being the tiny little all of 95 pounds she was, was my rock. i know that deliberations would have been 10,000 times more horrible for me if i had not had her.

without going into too much detail about how i came to the conclusion i did, i will tell you that there were little things that other people picked up on that i didn't during the trial. there were some character flaws that i had overlooked (probably a partial explanation of why i'm such a bad judge of character). but here is what i eventually, probably around 2 pm, came to the conclusion of:

1. there is no way that julian was not hysterically crying and screaming in pain from his injuries. the doctors said many things to force that point home. that child would have been in tremedous amounts of pain. everyone in that house would have heard him screaming (all 4 of which said they didn't hear anything) and especially the 2 in the same room with him. anyone having been around children (his mother especially; i should also take this time to say that demetrius has a son as well that he sees once in a while and he has nephews/nieces that he's always around) would have known that this kid was in severe pain. and the fact that no one is saying he was screaming or even crying is suspicious.

2. both demetrius and jessica say they didn't know what happened to julian but we know that something had to have happened to him in that house and either one or both of them were in his presence all night long. so either only one of them knows something or they're both covering up for each other and they both hit julian. the likelihood being that they both hit him because neither were alone with him after 930 pm. if one of them saw the other hit him and they didn't hit him, why wouldn't they tell on the other and save themselves from jail and a trial and charges and such? suspicious.

i had come to the conclusion that demetrius had to have either done something to julian or knew what happened to julian or both. at this point, i looked to mary and asked her if, her being a mother and a kind-hearted person, she honestly believed that demetrius had a part in this. i asked her this even after everyone else had said they believed it. and she looked me in the eye and said yes. she was very certain that he somehow had a part in it. and she thought that they both probably did.

ok, so i was convinced demetrius had something to do with it or knew something at least, but i still was not ok convicting him of murder or manslaughter. he did not go up to julian with intent to kill him and without solid proof i was never going to be ok with that. once i expressed my change in thoughts to my fellow jury-mates (after someone had to sssh the loud guy so i could talk) we started back with the counts. we decided to start at the bottom of the counts and see where that took us. the bottom/least count was manslaughter due to child neglect. the definition of this one said that a person was guilty of this count if they knew something was wrong with a child and neglected to do anything for the child or get any help for the child. in going around the room, we were all sure that he was guilty of this. that he (and jessica) had to have known that julian was hurting badly. and they did nothing. so we had that count taken care of.

at that point i felt good about the deliberations. i felt like i stood my ground while also being open enough to listen and process what the others had to say. and i felt like we were in a good place and all were on the same page. it seemed that everyone else felt the same way i did with regards to murder and manslaughter. that we had no proof or any evidence to convict him of these. i was hopeful that deliberations would be done before dinner.

enter once again: loud man. he was still not budging and was adament that he never would. "this boy (or someone) needs to pay for the death of the child." and such. ok. this was not going end before dinner and possibly not before the weekend. or ever....

we tried to talk with loud man for a while and then were called for dinner. we went to dinner and ate. it was delicious. i don't rememer where we went but we weren't rushed this time. i had grilled chicken and steamed broccoli. and immensly enjoyed my fountain diet coke! we may be in for the long haul (again, deliberations could go until 9 pm before they would sequester us in a hotel).

when we got back to the jury room and started doing more discussion with loud man, i realized tom hadn't said much at dinner and as i looked at him i could see the wheels turning. after a little while, he spoke up and took over the floor. he completely changed our tactic to get through to loud man and it made so much sense. he sort of played devils advocate by coming at the counts from a backwards angle. he was so smart! after an hour or so of this discussion, something in loud man's face changed and i could see that he had seen the light. that we couldn't convict him of murder or manslaughter. thank goodness for tom!!!

we went through the rest of the counts and all agreed to not guilty. the crazy lady wrote down our verdicts to the counts on the official sheet and went out to get our law clerk. we were then told to stay in our jury room. it was about 730 pm at that time and we had been in deliberations since maybe 9 am. we all breathed a little easier then until we realized we didn't know what was to happen now. it was so late. were they still going to sequester us until court the next morning? or what? we waited probably about half an hour when the law clerk came back in and told us the "they" were ready for us. huh? "they" were ready?

turns out everyone was there or able to get there quickly. everyone was ready to hear our verdict including a bunch of demetrius' family in the stands. we filed in, surprised at the amount of people that were there after 8 pm and unsure where to look. we took our seats and i found myself unable to look anyone but the judge and the law clerk. i couldn't believe i had to sit there while the lawyers, defendent and his family waited on pins and needles to find out our verdicts.

part 4: "the verdict and after" coming soon

tid bits

randoms from the beginning of february:

loved my little messy braid and light blue fingernails 

we went bowling with manda and johnny! it was lots of fun.

i hadn't bowled in forever but our shoes were cute :)

i found this online the other day and i'm positive that it's me :]

i so needed to hear/see/read this fortune!

big changes are coming for us oleson's.

they've taken a while to play out fully

(and taken a toll on my stress level)

but we're getting closer to being positive about where the near future will take us!

an attempt of photo every hour

for a while i have been wanting to try the photo every hour deal to document a typical day in the life of me for 2012. i attempted it last saturday but only got about 2 pictures... i didn't do a whole lot that day :) so monday i tried again. i did better than 2 but still didn't accomplish the whole waking day.

first up was 515 am crossfit.

here is a look at some of the tools we use. 

next, was a yummy shake for my post workout protein and breakfast.

then came work.

i am trying to get away from drinking pop so i've been having some coffee in the mornings instead. that is if you can even call what i drink "coffee." i mix a little less than half the cup of water with the same amount of coffee and throw in some sugar free caramel macchiato creamer. i can't have a whole lot of coffee or i get really jittery. my coworker says it looks like i'm drinking a milk shake. but it's doing the trick. 

the sunday before, the hubs and i ran errands and i had birthday money from dsw to spend so he let me have some shoe therapy. and i remembered that i was wearing a pair of my sweet new shoes. they're roxy brand and kind of like slippers but they're a full shoe with laces and every thing. i love them! and they're so comfy.

then came lunch. hubs and i made quinoa for the first time and it's actually really great! i have yet to plug it in to my meal tracker (my fitness pal) to see the specs on it but i enjoy it! so i had 1/2 cup of quinoa, 4 oz chicken and a small mixed greens salad with a teaspoon of trader joe's balsalmic vinagrette dressing. tasty! 

then i must have been busy at work because i didn't take any more pictures until i got home and got to watch this wonderful lady! she makes me happy! 

then at night my brother and i went out to dinner with our dad. it was good times and too much food. :) followed by cinnamon ice cream (yum!).

it was a good day!