Opportunites O'Plenty!

Happy Monday!

 

WOW! This has been a time of lots of change, not just here at the Partak Homestead, but with so many of our friends, too. I'm starting to reconcile that there is no such thing as, "When things settle down." I'm heading into the last 6 weeks of school, Dave is working full time and managing to keep his accelerated education up, Mason is starting to get more media requests as his cooking demos are coming up (2 this month in NYC and CT, 3 in May, and 1 in June - so far!), and I'm working a part time job for one of our top producing real estate agents handling her files. Yeah, we're keeping busy. If you want to see where Mason is cooking, you can visit www.masonpartak.com and click the "Meet Mason" tab.

 

Mason and I leave for NYC next week as he has two television taping opportunities. One is with Connecticut Style which is much like Good Day Sacramento, and the other one has not allowed me to share the details. I was hoping they would let me tell you all before we go tape, but rest assured, I will share as soon as I can! And there are a couple of other fun things about the NYC/CT trip, I get to connect with my friend Julianne and her daughter who will be visiting the city at the same time Mason and I will be there. To add to that, April this year marks our five year friendship anniversary and since we met on Twitter and social media has been a large part of our relationship, how cool that we get to be in the Big Apple to celebrate our anniversary. Also, Mason and I will get to have lunch with Dave's sister JK and her husband Jim in New Haven after Mason's taping. JK and Jim have not met Mason and I know it will be a great time. I will say this about Mason's appearances, he is working to promote his fund-raising efforts for the kitchen update at his school, he has a lofty goal, but if he reaches enough people with his light and humor, I believe he can do it!

 

Okay, now I have to get back to studying the dating of igneous rocks, geologic time, volcanoes, earthquakes, fossils and topo maps - I have an exam in geology lab tomorrow and another one in lecture on Wednesday...wish me luck, or something stronger! Happy Monday.

April Showers Bring May Flowers

Happy Monday!

 

It's definitely a happy Monday for us Partaks having finally made it home from Hawaii. Now, before you say it, I know, "There are worse places to be stranded than Hawaii." Yes, that's true, but next time you dream of being stranded on a tropical island, make sure all your work is caught up, you don't have classes to attend (still working on an honors graduation in a few weeks), and that you have more cash than you need at the ready. If all that is in place, great, get stuck! I explained much about what we learned about flying space-a so I won't go into that again, but let me tell you what an adventure our flight home was, we got to fly on a C-17! My military peeps totally know what I'm talking about and for those of you who don't I've attached a few photos. It was totally cool, Mason got to go in the cockpit and talk to the pilots while we were in flight, we were all allowed to make ourselves comfortable with blankets and pillows on the floor, and we were even served an in-flight meal! Okay, it was a not-very-good sandwich, a piece of fruit, snacks, and a bottle of water, but it was something. Mason said it was the best flight ever and it completely reaffirmed my desire to downsize my life of "things" and travel more with my family. I also want to give Mason some major kudos for being such a great traveler. We had quite a few trips (fully packed, ready to go) to the terminal only to have to find somewhere to stay and unpack again. He totally went with the flow, was happy when we got a few extra days, cooked for us when we had a kitchen, and was increasingly appalled (in a funny way) when a restaurant server gave him a kid menu with crayons!

 

I don't know if I mentioned here that Mason is working on raising money to update his school's kitchen. The school kitchen does not have a stove or oven and Mason wants to be able to have culinary classes offered at his school. Two local chefs have offered to provide the curriculum for these classes and that has made Mason even more determined to make this happen. There are a couple of things planned right now including a community Pampered Chef party with all proceeds going to the kitchen - if you have been putting off a purchase, I'll let you know where you can go on line to get what you want while helping a great cause. A local restaurant owner has offered to allow Mason to create a dinner menu and his staff will prepare and serve it on a Monday (the day they are usually closed) and Mason can sell tickets for this charity dinner - how cool is that? There are a few more things in the works but another one is that Ellen has a call to viewers to let her know if their school needs a hand. I wrote to her and Mason did this video on his You-Tube page - please take a look and share it with all your family and friends. If you have media connections, it would be awesome if you would share it with them, too. The more attention he can get with his plight, the more likely he will be able to make this happen. Here's the link to his video: http://youtu.be/NJAZMXKrdTU 

 

April showers are falling and prepping us for lots more May flowers! It has been a really pretty spring already, I am loving the colors and fragrances of everything that is in bloom. Would love to hear from you with what's new in your neck of the woods! Sending lots of love and laughter!

Kathy

Happy Easter and Aloha!

Happy Easter and Aloha!

 

As many of you know, we planned a family vacation over spring break to Hawaii. Of course, Hawaii is gorgeous, but what we really wanted to find out was how to work the Space-A system and fly free through the military. Here's what we now know...there are tricks to getting your name in and on the list early to be assured you are top-of-the list to be selected - this one we learned by not getting on the first two flights we showed up for. Next we learned that even though for a full 4 weeks prior to our travel, there were flights out of Hawaii back to Travis almost daily, that does not mean there will be even one when we are ready to travel home, oh, and just because the itinerary says there is one, two, or three flights the day before you plan to travel, does not mean there will be even one when you show up for roll call. Finally, we learned that Hotels.com is super great for finding last minute, affordable lodging and being stuck in Hawaii as a family for three extra days was not all that bad. It certainly helped that we both got paid at the same time we learned we would be staying on. As of this writing, we are planning to be at roll call at 3 AM tomorrow to catch the flight home...if that flight is still flying. Yeah, it's a wacky system and at some point, free is not really free, if you know what I mean. Even still, with the extra days, and the killer deal we got on our hotel(s) we have not spent what we would have paid for the three of us to fly commercial to Hawaii.

 

While we've been here, Mason learned to surf, went snorkeling, rode a boogie-board, enjoyed a luau, ate sugar cane, rode an aqua-bike, visited the Dole Pineapple Plantation, and did a video on how to properly cut a pineapple from the rooftop pool area of one of our hotels. We've enjoyed meeting people from Scotland, Australia, and Canada. Some of the food we've enjoyed has been fresh grilled fish and salad with papaya vinaigrette, some of the prettiest cocktails and mocktails you've ever seen, and the best dish of the trip, the curry catfish tacos with pineapple salsa! Oh man were they good!

 

Now it's time to pack our things up, again, and get ready for a very early morning roll call to try and catch our flight home. If only we had unlimited amounts of time and money, oh the places we would go! Have a great week and be sure to pop over to www.masonpartak.com to see Mason's Hawaiian video and leave a comment to be entered to win - it's super easy and it's a good prize!

 

Send us some good their-getting-on-that-plane ju-ju!

Hawaii or Bust!

Aloha!

 

Finally, Someday it Today! It's a day later than we planned but we are finally waiting to board a flight to Oahu out of Travis AFB. The flying Space-A could be really good now that we know how the system works. Actually, this was the purpose of this trip was to learn how to utilize this system so we can hopefully fly more at no cost. We learned the ropes here and now we will need to see if what we learned works coming home at the end of the week.

 

We made the best of the time we had to wait by taking Mason indoor kart racing, doing a little shopping, and as we Partaks do, lots of laughing! Our plans in Hawaii include Pearl Harbor/the Memorial, Mason wants to take a surfing lesson, we will visit the north shore to snorkel, we have tickets for a Luau, and hopefully we can get to the Polynesian Cultural Center and the Dole Pineapple plant.  All in all, there are certainly some trade-offs for being able to fly for free, and once we had an understanding of them, I think it will all be good.

I'll have plenty to share next week and lots of photos! Have a great spring break.

Midterms. 'Nuff Said.

Midterms are in full swing and that means I am buried. After midterms we are off to Hawaii for spring break. Before you all turn green with envy (or purple as my dear friend Marsha says!), keep in mind we are taking a chance on the military "hop" system - basically we fly free if we have the flexibility and patience to wait and chance not getting home. I'll keep you posted on grades and the vacation next week.

My Crazy, Busy, Funny Life!

Happy Monday!

 

It looks like spring outside but not for long, the rain and snow are coming! I'm quite pleased about this because we are headed to Truckee this coming weekend and a fresh dusting of the white stuff will be nice.

 

If you live in the Sacramento area or are interested in watching on-line, Mason will be on Good Day Sacramento tomorrow morning in the 8 AM hour, probably about 8:20. He's pretty excited to show that he is not only handy in the kitchen, he can do some other things, too. You will have to tune in to see or check it out on-line after. Here's the link.

 

This is one crazy busy week, but I have an observation to share with you all, some of you old-married folks will likely get a chuckle out of this, but here's the way it goes: Dave plans to make chili for an upcoming event and goes to the store to buy the ingredients. He will come home and if it's something that does not need to be refrigerated, he will stack it on the counter. I'll see the pile and put the groceries away. He'll then come home and ask what happened to his chili fixins'. When I explain I put them away he will then inform me he planned to use them. "Yes, and your event is not for another 3 days." This has happened in our marriage over the years with food, clothes, project supplies, and who-knows what else. Is it just me, or could it be possible that Dave could live in a house with everything he ever will need to use will be in a pile in the vicinity of where he plans to use it? I see this in my head as a Sunday comic strip, in full color and cut out to hang on refrigerators all across America! Maybe not, but when I do laundry, I put my clothes away even though I know I will  be wearing them the next day. I also put the diced tomatoes in the cupboard just above where they would be piled waiting for me to make chili, I mean, it's the difference between reaching directly in front of me or reaching up a few feet to the cupboard. Laughing! I'm not ragging on Dave, we've talked about this through the years and it's funny like the way I think he can lead troops into battle but can't effectively load a dishwasher OR be able to look at the dishes and tell if they are clean or dirty (psst, the water pooling on the upside down glasses tells you they are clean). I know, some will argue it's his way of not having to do the dishes, but that doesn't work! I would love to know if you've observed this or something like this, it makes me smile and who doesn't need a smile on Monday?

 

And let me leave you with a big Whoo-Hoo for Dave who got a 95% on his Anthropology paper AND scored highest in his class on the midterm! My husband who hates to write really rocked this one!

 

Have a great week!

Special Mason and Mom Moments

Happy Monday!

It was quite the week and weekend here at Partak Central. I struggled all last week with a cold that, thank goodness seems to be on its way out. It may have been less of a struggle if it weren't such a busy school week. I had two tests, one of which covered 29 minerals, their origin, their hardness, how to identify them and what not to use to identify them (color), where their color comes from and some practical uses for said minerals. Let's just say I didn't get an A, but I also didn't fail. I don't know what the grade will come in at, but I'll know soon.

Mason and I had some fun this weekend making a couple of videos and it is blowing my mind how comfortable he is becoming. Not only is the recording getting easier, but he is doing whole takes in one shot, and my favorite development? He is producing the shots himself. He will direct me as to how he wants it to start, where I should shoot from and how he sees the edits happening. I knew this would happen, but I saw it a bit further down the road. After we did our videos, we were doing our own things and he came in my room and announced that he loves me more than anyone in the whole world. I smiled and said, "Thank you Mason, I love you, too. But you know what, I think you love dad more than you love me." He protested and asked why I thought that. I told him science says so. Science says that the same-sex parent has the most influence on a child. He thought for a minute and said, "Well, I can't argue with science but I want you to know how much I love you. Mom, I love you because you want to help make my dreams come true." WOW! Yes I do, Mr. Mason. Our conversation went on a few more minutes where he allowed me to see how intellectual and deep his heart really is. He even went on to acknowledge our plans to move back east and he said, "So it's not only my dreams, you want to make dads dreams come true, too. Mom, that's cool, we're all going to make our dreams come true." It was a special, special conversation and I thank all of you for allowing me to document it here. I don't ever want this memory to fade. But fade it will as we go back to stepping on each others toes, and bumping heads when he wants to do something and I say no. I'll be back to MOM (Mean Old Mom), in no time...smiling all the way because I know what is really in his sweet heart.

Today both of my boys are home not feeling up to par and I am off to school. This semester is flying by and before I know it, I will get to graduate and hang a piece of paper on my wall. Hopefully two, my diploma and my honors certificate. I hope you all have a great day and I want to leave you with a piece by Ralph Marston, a motivating mentor of mine...I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. This piece speaks to me beyond measure, "When You Don't Know You Can't"

When you don't know you can't

To achieve great and valuable things, you don't even have to know that you can.

You just have to avoid knowing that you cannot.

If you're sure you can't, you won't.

When you focus on all the reasons why it won't work, it won't work.

Instead, just get busy.

Work your way through each challenge, one by one.

Don't place judgments on your abilities before you even... make the effort.

Put your considerable skills to use and achieve what you choose to achieve.

The only things impossible for you are the things you consider to be impossible.

Focus your time, energy and awareness on what you can do, and let go of thoughts about what you cannot do.

Feel the powerful pull of your dreams, your longings and your desires. Work to make them happen, for when you don't know you can't, you will.

Ralph Marston - The Daily Motivator

 

Used with permission from Ralph Marston, www.thedailymotivator.com