Find Bella here:
http://www.downtowndoglounge.com/sites-bellbigdog.html

I'm always so back and forth. Twisting thoughts between the good and the bad and back and forth. Bret once said that he could think himself into or out of anything and the hard part was not thinking himself one way or the other. Everything is fine, and I'm lucky to have everything I have. Or I'm amazed with myself for digging myself into the holes I dig myself into and can't understand for the life of me how silly I am and how I work.

I had a discussion the other night about trying. I really do believe that most of us are trying as hard as we can, and yet when I look at what I do and how I do things, I don't know if that is really true. Do I try as hard as I can? I'm so quick to give up, so ready to turn my back, how can that be trying? Maybe (absolutely) I'm hypocritical, maybe I give others more room than I give myself, or maybe I'm trying, and I just don't see it.

I keep trying to see things as okay, I keep trying and maybe someday I'll really see it that way.

Snowboarding:
Thinking causes falling for me while snowboarding. If you think much about anything other than where you are going to fall. It’s the greatest way to get away from thinking. In between trips down the mountain you end up thinking about all sorts of things, like why am I outside when it’s cold and snowing, should I go home now, am I hungry, which way should I go, why is my life so goofy, do I know that person, do I have to talk to the person on the lift next to me, am I unfriendly if I don’t, and on and on. But when you are going down the mountain all I think about is, turn, turn, turn, jump, turn, turn, turn, stop.

Golf:
Thinking equally causes woe and success. It seems that you can put bad thoughts in your head and cause the exact effect you are hoping to avoid, like hitting the ball into the water. Conversely concentrating on just making a good connection with the ball and not worrying about how far it goes or anything else often results in a good shot. The less worry the better things go.

Yoga:
Thinking is a curse in ways its better to just stretch or move and forget the thinking, and just listening to what the teacher says. The more I think about wow this hurts or wow I’m tired the more things fall apart and the less enjoyment I have. When I just let go and enjoy what I’m doing it all goes much better.

Different Measures of Achievement:
Snowboarding:
It’s hard to measure achievements in snowboarding, does it matter if you go faster or turn tighter? Is jumping higher or spinning better? What if you learn to do more tricks but they look horrible? How can you judge which matters more? I’m not sure that I really worry about getting better as much as I just like to do it.

Golf:
My score should be going down. I’m right around 100 right now sometimes below, and less often lately I’m a couple of strokes over 100. I wanted to be below 100 consistently this year but I didn’t get enough golf in to see that happen. Not enough dedication this year. You can blame Bella, although surely it’s my own fault. Golf scoring is interesting, you are the only one that really keeps track, and it’s easy to fudge, do you just forget that penalty shot for losing a ball or do you count every stroke. What happens when you are shooting so badly that keeping score starts to hurt more than help? I usually stop keeping score then, since I’m out for fun more than to keep score or get better.

Yoga:
I just want to kept stretching further and doing it all the poses better. Doing Bikram Yoga gave me a bunch of new goals, since there are a handful of poses that I can’t do. There are things I’m getting closer to, there are things I’m still not flexible enough to do, there are things I seem to either lack the focus or strength to do but I know how to work towards doing them. I know I can relax into it, or push into and eventually I’ll get there.

Turning the corner of the lake, looking back towards home, the glowing lights of 99 at the far end, off to the right towards the East towards the mountains starting to whiten with snow were clouds glowing with a dirty pink, almost a brownish pink. As if someone’s pink sweater was drug through the mud then light with a spotlight from behind. It was beautiful. The clouds seemed full of rain, darker towards the edges lighter in the middle. Stacked on top of each other and all of them glowing with that brownish pink. Westward the Olympics were barely visible, mid mountain was visible the bottom blocked by land and the top blocked by horizontal sheets of darker clouds coming in. Around the last corner of the lake the bright Eastern clouds had faded taking on the same ominous color as the darker Western clouds. Everything fades from bright to dark and hopefully back again.