Dragon tails

So, the other morning I was getting S into the car to go to the gym and I look up and see this hanging out of our garage door light fixture/cover/motor housing. Impressive, isn't it?

It's HUGE, right?!?

I got a stick and poked at the light cover, and when it didn't move at all, I decided it was dead and that I could go about my day with no worries about being attacked by the mini dragon stuck in our garage door light cover.

When R came home, I made him go and try to get it out. Not only was it dead, it was so dead that it just sort of cracked and crumpled into pieces. I figure pieces can't attack me or the kids either, so I'm okay that half of the super mini dragon is now in the trash and the other half is stuck in the light cover.

Workout Wednesday, the Thursday edition

Yeah, sorry about the messed up posting this week. I still haven't finished my post from Tuesday because I keep falling asleep whenever I sit down at night and now I can't remember what my train of thought was originally. I'm so tired all the time. No idea why. I need to go and have blood work done to figure out what's going on with me. I really think it's hormonal but I'll never know if I don't go to the lab and have the blood work drawn, right? Right!

Note to self: GO GET THE LABWORK DONE. NOW!

Since I was sick last week, my workouts were more phoned in than kick ass. I mean, I showed up and did the best I could, but that best was way different from what my best is this week. But I figure this happens to everyone, and I was actually sick, so I'm not going to beat myself up about taking it easy in the gym.

Workout wise: I've been back on the arc trainer. I love this machine when the incline is set high. It's a great workout and I feel like it helps my loosen my leg and hip muscles. And it makes my butt muscles burn. Anything that makes your butt muscles burn has got to be a good thing.

This week I learned that I'm doing well strength wise. I can hold a really straight plank position (up on my toes, thankyouverymuch) for a good amount of time (over 30 seconds) with no strain. I can even do side planks now without having one knee bent. I even hung from the pull up bar for a good 5-8 seconds without any help from anything supporting my body weight but me. And while being able to hang is nowhere near being able to do a pull up, it's still progress and I'll take it.

So for next week, especially now that I'm feeling better, my goal is to push hard for improvement in my cardio fitness. And with Halloween coming up which means candy everywhere and the start of the holiday season, it's a great idea to bump my cardio back up so that I can afford to eat the occasional piece of candy.

I've got belly dancing and ballroom dancing coming up tonight, so I'm psyched (does anyone even say that anymore?).

It's cereal for heaven's sake!

Yesterday started out to be such a good day. And yesterday ended as a great day too. But the middle part? It was like taking a bite of a luscious, yummy eclair to find out there was no filling in the middle -- or better yet that the filling was cottage cheese (which has it's own appeal, but not so much in an eclair).

So what happened? When T got home from school, I took the kids to Blockbuster. T's birthday is coming up in a few weeks and he's been asking for a new Wii game. R and I both firmly agree that any game we are considering buying should first be rented to see if it's compatible - with our ears, T's skill level, and our tolerance for nonsensical, repetitive noise. You know, the important stuff. Oh, yeah, and content and blah blah.

At any rate, Iron Man 2 came out yesterday, so I wanted to rent that for R as a nice surprise. He watches enough Cupcake Wars and Hoarders and stuff that I like. The least I can do is give him a break with something he really wants to see every now and then.

Things at Blockbuster went brilliantly, the kids listened and didn't beg me for candy, soda, or other silly things like Super Mario Brother cartoon movies. From there we went to the Commissary. All I wanted were pre-formed Butterball turkey burgers, chicken breasts, and a loaf of bread. When we walked in, there was this huge display of cereal on sale. T asked for a box of Reeses' chocolatey puff cereal. I'll be honest, the nutritional value is questionable and it wasn't in my top 25 choices of cereal to buy, but I let him get it anyway.

Because I only planned to get 3 things, I grabbed a hand basket since if I'm pushing around a cart, I tend to fill it up. When I went down the soft drink aisle, they had Mom's husband's favorite root beer on the shelf, so I grabbed those for their visit in October. That left no room for the cereal box, so I asked T to carry it. T either didn't hear or me or was ignoring me (I choose to believe he didn't hear me, what with me being so soft spoken and all -haha!) so S said, "I carry!!"

Works for me.

When T sees his sister carrying the box of cereal, he immediately wants to carry it. S immediately refuses. Tears immediately ensue.

Really? It's cereal, for heaven's sake.

I, the ever wise voice of reason and compromise, suggest that S carry the cereal to the register, then T carry it to the car. S is fine with this since she currently has the cereal. T collapses in the aisle crying drama tears.

Sigh. It's cereal, for heaven's sake.

Does T want to help me carry the root beer? No! (whew...glass bottles aren't going to survive well with the dramatic collapsing)

Does T want to help me carry the chicken? No!

How about the cookies we picked up for his lunch box? NO!

Mmm kay. Next solution...

I explain that this reaction over cereal (for heaven's sake) is a bit extreme and if a box of cereal is causing all this fuss? We need to put the cereal back unless we can all stop crying and fighting over it.

This works until I pay for the cereal and hand the bag with the cereal in it to T, at which point S breaks down into tears and dramatic reactions.

It's cereal! For heaven's sake!

So I explain - S got to carry the cereal in the store, T gets to carry it to the car. S is having none of it. And I? I am so over this.

I usher the kids outside to continue the tantrum-ing in a wide open space that echos a little less. I explain my view point on this again. No one is budging.

What to do?

I sit down to wait out the tantrum. I also inform the kids that this cereal? Will never be purchased by me again. Ever. T, torn between wanting to carry the cereal and actually be able to eat the cereal (and it should be mentioned that he has been calm and non-teary since the initial collapsing and lecturing in the aisle), offers to let the still tantrum-ing S carry the cereal to the car.

Awwwww. And also? Nope. I commend T for this monumental sacrifice he's prepared to make. But rewarding S for tantrum throwing is not going to happen. She needs to learn, just like T did, that throwing a tantrum does not make this Momma give in to you.

We finally get to the car. Finally. But once we are all buckled in and the car is moving, S starts again with the kicking and screaming about wanting the cereal. So I warn her that if she does not stop this nonsense this instant there will be no eating of the cereal in our household. I can see the look on T's face like, "Oh, man. All that good behavior for nothing!" I feel ya, T, but still....

Of course S doesn't stop, so I describe in detail what is going to happen to the cereal. The box will be opened, the cereal poured into the trash, and the box top saved for T's school. And our household will likely only be purchasing Cheerios from here on out. Nothing to argue about then, right?

It was cereal for heaven's sake!

Sigh.

What do I wish I'd known at 13?

Over the weekend, I read a blog post on Managing Mommyhood (http://www.managingmommyhood.com ) about Dove's new campaign to increase self esteem.
The campaign details can be found here: http://www.dovemovement.com/en-us/events/toolkit

Continuing with the question posed on Managing Mommyhood's post, I've been thinking about what I wish I had known at 13.

So, here goes:

* There are a billion levels of 'fine', some better than others, but all of them are acceptable as long as you are, in fact, fine.

* Having a sense of humor? Invaluable!

* If he's really interested in you? He'll make the effort.

* Being truly, genuinely nice will get you so much farther in life than being popular.

* You need the bad days to appreciate the good ones

* No one is perfect. So stop trying to be.

* Don't eat your emotions - feel them.


What do you wish you'd known at 13?

After misery, there's pleasure. Thank goodness.

To my surprise and extreme pleasure, today was kind of anti climatic compared to the last week.

I'm feeling much better. (Whew!)

S is much quieter (methinks she might just have spent a bit 0'time in time out while I was out of commission. ::silent cheering::).

I even made it to the gym. R, to his credit, didn't even give me the stink eye over that one. We packed up the kids and headed out - him to swim, me to do some light cardio. My thinking was that I would work up a light sweat and it would help to break up my congestion.

Hey, it was a good idea.

It was. It was!

But then I ran into a friend of mine, we started walking laps together, and on our first lap around the track, she suggested that we jog.

Jogging and I? We have a hate/hate relationship. I hate to do it, it hates my body. I made it one lap at what was, for me, a pretty good clip and I was totally out of breath. Three walking laps later, we jogged another one. Seriously? It almost killed me. I'm just not a jogger. Today I made my peace with it.

God bless my friend, she and I switched to floor work: sit ups, ab work, planks, pull ups, vertical push ups...it was a great workout. And also? I got my stuff from the Pampered Chef party I attended with her a few weeks ago (you might all remember that better as bowl of margarita night). I bought a knife and I used it to chop up veggies for the vegetable beef soup I made tonight.

Can you be in love with a knife? Because I think I might be. It fits my hand perfectly, it slices right through all sorts of things like a hot knife through room temperature butter. Seriously, now I can actually see how chefs can be all whack whack whack and boom! An entire onion is in 2,000 tiny even pieces. Sa-weet!

So, if you need anything cut, sliced, diced, minced, or chopped? It would be my pleasure. Dinner tomorrow will be at 5:30..the possibilities are endless but will likely be in little tiny pieces. hee!

Misery

Karma.



::sigh::



My good, good friend Karma has come back to kick me right in the sinuses. Those eye drops I was using on S?



Got some for me now.



The nasal spray I blogged about forcing her to use?



Got some of that for me now too. And a pack of super strong antibiotics to boot.



And, as it turns out, a sinus infection that, even though it was just in the beginning stages, made my teeth feel like they were going to fall out on the left side. And I don't even want to think about the ear pain. Seriously, what's up with this? No wonder babies with ear infections scream. This stuff is miserable. And so am I.

I woke up at three a.m. in so much pain between my teeth, sinuses, and ears that I couldn't sleep. I finally got back to sleep around 6, got up for good at 8:30, and was at the urgent care clinic by 10 am. Fun.

On top of that? I got a migrane. Yowsa.

So I've slept off and on all day, R's been stuck..I mean is spending quality time....the kids.

And I'm sorry. I just don't have the motivation, energy, or ability to focus enough to make this entry any better than it is. I'm going back to bed. Peace!

Hold it down, tiny dancer!

S's ballet class was tonight. She missed last week since she was sick.

Since the last class, we've practiced most of what she learned. First, second, fourth and fifth positions, arm positions, prancing around on tiptoes. She loves it all.

But today, as we left the Y, a week's worth of screeching, screaming, ear splitting caterwauling finally got the best of me.

S: (assorted screeching, yelling, and kicking)
Me: If you don't stop screaming this instant, young lady, you will NOT be attending ballet class tonight.
S: NO! NOOOO! I want to go to ballet class. I waannnnaaaa gooooooooooo!!!
Me: Then you need to stop screaming. You are actually making my ears hurt. Hush!
S: (Screaming and flailing about)
Me: Do you want to go to ballet tonight?
S: Yes! I don't want you. I want Daddy! Don't WANT YOU!
Me: You want Dad to take you?
S: Yes. NOT YOU! Daddy! NOT YOU, MOMMY! You make me cry!

sigh. I wonder, really I do, how I will survive her teenage years without losing my mind.

So I email R as soon as we get home. Please take your banshee of a daughter to ballet tonight, okay? He agrees (because my husband? He totally rocks!) and we make plans to meet at his car at the end of the workday so he can just take off from there to get her to class on time. T and I will then go back home and start dinner.

Only.....

On the way to take the kids to meet R, T tells me he wants to go and watch S's ballet class. And as we pull up, I realize that the one thing R asked me to do which was to bring him some civilian clothes and shoes--I've forgotten. Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!

And then, after all the weeping and wailing and whatever-ing throughout the day, S refuses to get out of the van and into R's car because, and I quote, "I waaaaaannnnnntttttt Moooooooommmmmmmyyyyyyyyy to doooooooooooooooo iiiiiiiiiiittttttttttttttttttttttt"

R and T head home so R can change clothes and they'll meet us there. So even though I was planning to go back home and get the clothes for R that I'd forgotten, I end up taking S to ballet class.

I have no idea. I'm just trying to roll with it.

S and I get to the Y, walk through the workout room (where kids are not allowed, btw) to get to the aerobics room where they actually have ballet class. The door is locked, the room is dark, and there is no instructor to be found. I check the clock...we are 15 minutes early. No problem. We'll just wait.

Yeeaaah. My tempestuous three year old in a room with all sorts of spinning, mechanical, neatly lighted up machines that she's not allowed to go near or touch. It went over brilliantly. And I notice that people keep shooting me looks which I interpret as "Why is there a 3 year old in the cardio area?" But hey - she's in a ballet outfit with ballet slippers on and we are waiting by the aerobics room door. So I - the gal that's been dealing with a screamer for five solid days non stop, who is getting sick and is utterly exhausted - just smile and wave at the shooters of the evil looks and encourage S to do the same. She's not so into that idea, as it turns out, and does NOT like that we are stuck outside the room we need to be in and that she can't do what she wants which is run around the track and go and check out the machines. And let's just guess how she deals with that?

Uh-huh. You got it. Screaming.

Luckily, R and T come up so she's distracted for a few minutes, but she still ends up in a very public time out. Hate it for her.

Right before class was supposed to start the room is still locked and none of the other students were there, I start to wonder if maybe they've moved or cancelled class. R goes to check and nope, not cancelled, not moved.

Five minutes after class was supposed to have started with only one of the other three students there, S and I walk to the front desk to ask if someone can open the aerobics room because between my two kids and the fellow ballet student, there was some rebellion going on about not being able to do anything besides stand by the door. The staff member at the front desk is not feeling me on opening the door and explains to me that kids can't be in the aerobics room if the teacher isn't in there. So I snarkily point out that the kids a) aren't without supervision. Hello! Parents! Automatic supervision! b) aren't supposed to be hanging out in the cardio room but have been since it's now 5:07 and the instructor hasn't shown up, and c) I've counted six staff members - four of which don't seem to be busy right now, so can't one of them come and open the room and stay until the instructor decides to show?!?

At that point, of course, the instructor walks in, so S and I head to back to the aerobics room for class.

Whateva.

T has a meltdown because he wants to run around the aerobics room and I won't let him. S is too busy looking at herself in the mirror to remember more than 15 seconds of what she has been asked to do. But - as an aside - how cool is it that three and four year olds love to look at themselves in a mirror?!?! There's no criticism, no judgement -- just delight to spin around and see their skirt swirl about. I love that. Love that!!!

We made it through class, all four of us, and headed home for a quick dinner and then the bedtime routine. Let's hope next week will be more quiet and timely.

Tomorrow, tomorrow..is only a day away.

Whatever it was that S had last week, I've managed to pick up this week. Probably from all the sneezing and coughing in my face at the butt crack of dawn as she wakes me up to tell me her nose is stuffy. And then, of course, she refuses to blow it. I promise you it's been easier to potty train the kids than to teach them how to blow their nose.

I kind of get it with T because when he blows his nose, it makes his ears hurt. With all the ear issues he's had, I'm not surprised. He's supposed to grow out of this, but we are still waiting for that to happen.

But with S? I have no idea what's the issue with the tissue. hehe. Sorry. I'm on sinus meds and sort of punchy. So this morning she comes in the bedroom and says (predictably) "My nose is stuffy."

Me: Let's try and blow your nose, okay?
S: Okay.

I get a tissue and hold it up to her nose. At the same time, my nose starts running, so I grab another tissue and wipe my nose.

S: No, Mommy. Blow your nose."
Me: Okay (I blow my nose). Your turn.
S: Okay.

And she DOES it. Hallelujah! But when I try to get her to do it again, she refuses. Loudly. And then she collapses into tears. I still don't know if it hurts her ears like it hurts T's ears or if it's something else.

And while it's frustrating not to know, my main concern is that there is something else going on with her. She's been breaking down in tears over everything for about a week. At first I thought it was because she didn't feel well, and with the way I feel today, I SO get that. But when I dropped her off at school, she cried too. No idea what that was about, either. But it wasn't the fake wah-wah cry that she does just for attention.

Nope. These were heart wrenching tears that brought tears to my eyes too.

So what's going on with her?

I tried to get her talk to me about it this afternoon, but she wouldn't. And when she collapsed into tears because I wouldn't let her drag out the contents of my purse, I finally had had enough. I picked her up and headed upstairs with her to her room. I sat down in her rocking chair and rocked her. She didn't put up any resistance, which is unusual. So we sat there and rocked and sang silly songs until she wanted to stop.

I'd love to say that the rest of the day was uneventful or calmer or even tear free. Not so much.

Maybe tomorrow. Maybe.

Workout Wednesday

Fair warning: this isn't going to be one of my light(er)hearted posts.

Yesterday, S was napping and I was piddling around, oddly energized from an exhausting second go at plyometrics. I don't even know what channel the TV was on, I had changed it from children's programming to anything else for background noise.

A show called "Ruby" was on. Apparently it's a reality show about a woman who used to weigh over 700 pounds. She's now around 300. This woman is stunning. Well spoken, intelligent, funny...or maybe she's just well edited. I prefer to think that's not it.

She said something that made me stop in my tracks. Something to the effect of this: when she was at her largest, she would look in the mirror but not see her reflection to be as large as she actually was.

Yes. Exactly. Amen. Guilty.

At my largest, which was very, very large, I did not see the me in the mirror that other people would see when they looked at me. I lied to myself...constantly. I could still get into pants that were ___ size, so it couldn't really be that bad, could it?!?

It could, and oh my gosh, it was. It so was.

I was a master at looking at my reflection without actually seeing it. I would focus on a part, never the whole picture, never seeing what was actually reflected in the mirror.

Here's the odd thing: through it all, I really did like myself. My out of control eating wasn't because I didn't love or like myself. It was, as I finally, finally realized, a way to make sure anyone that was around me was there for the real me. A test to see if they could see through the weight and see the real me in the self imposed fat suit.

At the same time, being called out as being fat terrified me. Going to the doctor? There was nothing I was more afraid of. Flying? Oh my goodness. I love to fly. I hate to sit in an airplane seat. I hated the looks that I got from other passengers. I hated facing the reality that I might not fit in the seat or be able to buckle the belt. It was humiliating.

I hated being the 'fat friend'. Most of all? I hated not having the courage to shed the defense of fat and face life as a non fat person. Fat was comfortable. Fat was known. But fat? Fat was going to kill me one way or another.

So this week's workout post is about me being real and seeing that girl in the mirror. That girl that has worked hard for over a year and can see some progress, even though the me I see in the mirror now is the me I saw in the mirror then. Only this time? It's the real me. Finally. This post is also about me deciding not to hide behind the fat anymore. I know that I'm probably going to end up with some seriously altered relationships in the long run, but I'm okay with that. I'm a big girl (pun intended) and I can handle it.

Thanks for reading this. ::sliding my soap box back under the sink::

Mom vs Toddler

This is a surprisingly evenly matched battle. I was not aware that I no longer have the advantage even though I'm over twice as tall as S and way heavier. Way.


So how is it, then, that a three year old who is by all considerations at a disadvantage: position, height, weight, and determination, able to just about best me when it comes to eye drops and nose sprays?


Doesn't she know this is for her own good?!?


Yeah, I know she doesn't care about that. ::sigh::


This morning I had double med duty. Eye drops and nose spray. The eye drops we have down to a painless process. She sprawls across my lap and I put the drop into the corner of her eyes and she'll normally blink for me. If not, I can pull down the lower lid just a bit and let the drop seep into her eye. It's all good. It only took four days to get this process down without tears and fighting.

The nose drops? Totally different story. We really only need them in the morning, since she's the stuffiest when she wakes up. Today she refused to even try and blow her nose.

Doesn't she know she will feel better without all that crud in her nose?!?

Yeah, I know she doesn't care about that. ::sigh::

So this morning after breakfast (feed the diva to stable the blood sugar level) I told her we were going to use the nose spray. Our resident diva did not agree.

So after I chased her down, picked her up and put her on floor, I had to fight to get keep her flailing arms and legs from beating me to a pulp. Then I had to figure out how to get her face out of the carpet and get the nose spray in that cute, adorable, stuffy, tiny little nose.

And would you believe she actually spit on me? Yep. She sure did.

So I end up turtling her. I'm on my back on the floor, she's on top of me, my legs are holding her legs sort of still, my arms are helping to restrain her arms, and then I use my hands to find her nose and somehow get the spray in it. I'm 90% sure that I got the spray where it needed to be.

20 minutes later, she is breathing through her nose (!?!) and in a much better mood. T, who thought this whole process was just hilarious, patted me on the back and said, "maybe you'll be better at it next time, Mom." ::snort::

Go away Monday

Last night I actually headed to bed at, for me, a very reasonable hour. 10 pm. R and I watched Cupcake Wars on Food Network but I fell asleep before I could see who won. I'm sure I could look it up, but I'm just not that motivated.

As I fell asleep, I realized that I was getting stopped up. Uh oh. So I snuggled deeper into the covers and my pillows and hoped I could sleep it off. Instead, I had these vivid, nonsense, bizarre dreams. Little orange squares raising up and down...hard to explain and sound sane, so I'll just stop there. When I have dreams like this? I'm usually getting sick. I so don't have time for that, and really? Unfair! I have disinfected this whole house since I took S to the doctor on Thursday and I've washed all the bed linens...covers included. So bah humbug!

But there is hope. Usually, if I can go pound out the cardio, I can get rid of the congestion before it sets in. I was set to meet Kristine at the Y in the morning, so I was looking forward to a nice, sweaty workout.

And then at 4 am, here comes S into our bedroom. She's uber congested and coughing like she's trying to give up a lung. Great. Just....great. I'm hoping that maybe it's just from being asleep and that once she's up and moving around, the congestion will break up and the coughing will stop. No such luck.

So.

Crap.

She doesn't have a fever, but I can't take the chance of taking her to the Y childcare room if she might get others sick. They have babies from six weeks on up, and I would not be pleased if I came to drop off/pick up my child and someone else's child was already in there sick. Rude. So I emailed Kristine to let her know I wouldn't be there this morning as I sit here and feel my head fill with mucus of my own. Sigh. It's 8:15 in the morning. Go away, Monday. You aren't welcome here today.

Case lot sale, here we come.

Oh the joy of a case lot sale at a military commissary. Just in case you've never heard of such a thing, it's where the DECA (who owns and runs the commissaries) turns into Sam's or Costco for a weekend (minus the gas pumps and anything non food store related) and passes even MORE savings onto YOU...the approved military commissary shopper. ::Snorts of derision::

In South Dakota, the deal tended be cases of 12 ounce cans of soda. If I remember correctly, we got 24 cans of Cherry Coke for $5.00. In Germany, I don't remember anything standing out, but I know we almost always bought paper products like tp and paper towels. And diapers. Always the diapers. And Ziploc bags. Oh, and the first case lot sale there offered a case of Cheerios for something like $6. Cheap. We ate Cheerios for months. Good thing we like Cheerios.

Here? Hmm. I'm not sure what the best deals are, but that's because the case lot sale here scares me a little. People line up around the corner and down the street way before the commissary opens. We are talking flat bed carts to fill up the backs of mini vans and pickup trucks and I believe I have even seen a U-Haul trailer or two. That's some serious shopping. You are also shuffled through a tent with one way traffic that has no patience for those of us who are just looking to see what's there. These are some organized case lot shoppers, let me just tell you. They have calculators and coupons and a plan. Do NOT mess with these people. They will take your a$$ out.

After the last sale, I had pretty much made up my mind to avoid the commissary this weekend. And then we ran out of toothpaste for the kids and were running really low on tissues, and we needed bread, and so on. Since we had thunderstorms and heavy rains all night last night and into this morning, I figured it would be safe to try the commissary today. T wanted to go with me, so we bravely suited up and headed out.

And - yay! The parking lot had parking spaces, which is rare on non case lot sale weekends. We parked and sauntered up to the tent, which was....gasp...mostly empty. This case lot sale was pretty much cleaned out. Awesome. So T and I headed into the store where we were able to find what we needed without any right of way battles and get through the checkout process without hardly any wait at all. This is a case lot sale I can deal with. No screaming kids (meaning mine), no dirty looks, no nasty sounds coming from the people behind me....it was almost like a dream. I liked this dream. I liked it a lot.

We be illin'

Remember that song in the 80's by RUN DMC? Love that song! Rap was so much more fun for me when it was about fast food. Sigh. My household is illin', people.

Admittedly, I don't have a lot of experience with pink eye. Neither of my kids has had anything that even looked like it might be pink eye until last Thursday. S' pediatrican gave us a prescription for eye drops to be administered 3 times a day. R and I held her down and got two doses in on Thursday, and on Friday, her eyes looked totally normal. I'm not sure if that means we just caught it early or if she perhaps didn't actually have pink eye or what. But I'm very glad that her eyes are goop free and clear. Other than a stuffy nose, she's back to normal. And for whatever reason, she has grasped the concept of blowing he nose way before T did.

So, S was illin' but is feeling better. R has developed a monster cold sore that just looks...painful and awful. That means he's stressed out. Can't imagine why that would be, seeing that I'm so laid back and go with the flow and our kids are totally stress free. Bwaaahahahahahahaaaaaaa.

And I? Well. I can feel what I'm assuming is a migraine coming on. It woke me up about 1 am last night, so I took some medication and went back to sleep. S came in our room around 5 saying her nose hurts, and bless her heart, it's so chapped and irritated from being wiped constantly that I have no doubt she's miserable. I ended up getting down on the floor with her so she would go back to sleep, and just as she draped herself over me and goes back to sleep (seriously, she's like a cat that way), T wakes up and comes in and then all bets are off. It's about 7 am at this point, so R gets up with the kids. God bless him. I'm too tired and my head hurts too much to move back onto the bed, so I fall asleep on the floor and don't wake up until 10 am. Also? I'm so stiff and achy that I wonder for a minute or two if I'll ever be able to get up and move again. Over- dramatic me, I was fine in a few minutes. But my head has ached all day long.

Tonight was kids night at the Y, and R and I debated all day about if we should take S. She never had a fever, any discharge coming from her nose is clear, and it's not running very much at all. We decide to take the kids since we've already paid and they really want to go. But R and I end up staying home for several reasons. One, I didn't feel like going anywhere, two, we wanted to be reachable if S decided she wanted to come home, three, we were tired, tired, tired. There were other reasons as well, but that's kinda private. And Dad reads this. Love you Dad! Paintball is FUN. ::Snort::

Anyway, by 7:30ish we've had dinner and hung out, even watched a few episodes of the new Showtime series staring Laura Linney called "The Big C". Great show. We decided to go get some ice cream and then pick up the kids early. Only somewhere between Sonic and the Y? My stomach just revolts. Yuck.

So, now we are all home and the kids are in bed, exhausted from their evening...yay! R is asleep and I? I'm paying multiple visits to the Oval Office to see the porcelain god. So if you don't see a new post tomorrow? I be illin'.

peace out.

Blah, blah, ballroom

Remember how I mentioned blah, blah, blah, ballroom dancing, blah at some point last week? (And seriously - how lazy am I not to even go back and look that up? But no lie, I am that tired today.)

Well, R and I meant to practice our Waltz. Really, we did. I also meant to practice the belly dancing moves we learned and I didn't do that either.

Last night found us in ballroom dance class quite unprepared.

How unprepared were we?

When the instructor finished telling us his "good news/bad news" (which was that the Y decided both the ballroom classes didn't have enough couples in them so they are combining them and changing the time) and began showing us the next steps of the waltz, R and I both stood there looking blankly at him like he was giving us instructions in Latin backwards at warp speed.

Seeing him demonstrate was no help.

So we decided to practice what we learned last week, except we couldn't quite remember how to do that either. When we were frustrated enough to seek him out for help, he was on the phone. That did little to ease my frustration, even though he was trying to get in touch with his rep at the Y to discuss the scheduling issues.

By the time he walked over to us, R and I were both so frustrated that it was rolling off us in waves. R thought I was frustrated at him, I thought he was frustrated with me, but really we were just frustrated at life in general. And unknown dance steps. And ourselves for not practicing. And pink eye. And the waltz for being so doggone confusing.

I'm not going to lie. I thought the waltz consisted of the box step and some turns. I should really pay attention when I'm watching Dancing with the Stars this season.

By the end of the lesson, the instructor had us doing the box step, turn, and the next step that I charmingly refer to as 1-2-3-4. Which would be impressive except that there were two more steps after that that he told us not to worry about yet. Blah, blah, blah.

Oh what a day!

Today was interesting. S woke up super, super early and was tired by 8 am...right at the time that I need to take her to preschool. She was pale and stuffy, but I thought it was just allergies since T's are going crazy right now.

On the way to take S to school, I think I was on the same route as every pissed off, running late driver in the metro area. And by the way, guy in the big black truck? Racing your engine behind me when we are IN THE SLOW LANE isn't going to make me do something stupid...a la pass on the shoulder. Advice that you should pay attention to. And you should probably leave a little earlier lest you kill yourself or someone else.

I drop S off with a heads up to her teacher that I think her allergies are acting up, but if it starts to look any differently to call me. By 10 am, I get the call that they think she has pink eye. Luckily, I was just down the street, so I got there quickly. Poor little thing, she had goopy eye in a big way.

This means a doctor's visit. S fell asleep on the couch soon after coming home, and I had to wake her up to make the appointment on time. She cried all the way to the pediatrician's office. As it turns out, she has pink eye. But by tomorrow evening, she'll be okay to be in public without my hauling out hand sanitizer and lysol wipes and sanitizing everything she touches or looks at. We have eye drops to put in her eye 3 times a day.

Bwahahahahahahaaaaa. Doc? Have you MET my resident diva?

When R got home, he and I held her down for round one. Nobody won. But we are pretty sure we accomplished our objective since her eyes looked better within an hour. By tonight, when we wrestled her to the floor for round two, there was noticeable improvement. Thank goodness, but I have no idea how I'm going to get these drops in her eyes tomorrow by myself. Bribes maybe? Lots of begging? Who knows...

Workout Wednesday

My cardio fitness is slipping. Saturday, R and I went to the Y and I had a great workout between the arc trainer and the elliptical. Since Saturday? It's been a serious struggle to match that level. When I started thinking about it, I realized I had been doing a minimum of 1 1/2 hours of cardio per day. Now I'm doing about 30 minutes or so a day on average. So it's really no wonder why I'm struggling when I look at it that way.

But!

Good grief. It's just not feasible to workout 3 hours a day from now until the end of time. Well, maybe it's feasible, but I really just don't want to have to do that. Today I did the plyometrics portion of P90X. Well, we did one round of it at least. Lots of jumping. I hate jumping. Lots of hopping. I hate hopping. What I DID like? I could feel my body kicking it's own butt. So in six weeks, I fully plan to be able to get through this plyo workout doing with full reps and more oomph to my jumps. Don't worry, there will be no photographic evidence. Some things are better left unviewed. Especially on the world wide web. Especially involving flab and skimpy outfits and just...there will be no pictures, people.

A positive to my week, work out wise, is that when I did the arms and shoulders workout on Tuesday, I was able to do the push ups on my toes instead of my knees. I hadn't done that particular workout in at least a month. And, I did the cycle twice, which means I did over 100 push ups. And, I can move my arms without crying in pain. So, there's progress being made, but I'm just going to have to make sure to balance progress I've made until this point with future progress. How interesting that it's not enough just to workout....I didn't see that coming.

Chaos!

This afternoon, I made my first trip to the base CDC and Youth Center to pick up the kids of a friend of mine. She just needed someone to watch them from 5 pm until she got home from work. They are great kids and T and S just love them, so I was looking forward to this for me and for them.

T gets home from school and I let him have about half an hour on the Wii before we need to leave. Only we rented a new game to try last night and I ended up spending more time on the Wii than T did trying to figure out this idiotic game. One of the characters says "Mama will help you" (it's a cooking game) when you don't do well but let me just clear one thing up right now. Mama is no help at all. I actually had to read the instructions --- read the dang instructions --- to have a clue what to do. I? Am getting old. Sigh.

So we pile in the car and head to the commissary, because on top of procrastinating, I've decided the excitement of seeing their friends will make my two behave extraordinarily in the commissary. Bwhaahahahahaaaaa.

In all fairness, they were good, they were just actually hopping with excitement and the commissary was crowded as usual. Retirees don't seem to find my kids adorable when they are touching everything they can get their tiny little mitts on. What's up with that? They aren't screaming or being destructive, so what's not to love? ::Snort::

So we got through the commissary as quickly as possible and headed over to get the youngest of our afternoon guests. There is a new CDC and an old CDC. Both of them are being used. Okay then. Once I figured out the traffic pattern, I took the first available space and tried to figure out which building I needed to head towards. Which way do I go? Which way do I go! I went against my instinct and headed to the building that had people coming out with kids the same age as the one I needed to pick up.

Yay! I picked the right building. After a quick stop (read: not quick at all) at the front desk to verify my identity, sign him out, find a potty for both of my kids who swore up and down that they did not have to go before we left the house, figure out where he was, then find him....well, I'm glad I erred on the side of caution time wise because we were there for 20 minutes. 20 minutes. Crazy.

Next up? Kid #2. Or should I say #4? After I found parking, pulled all the kids out of the car, went inside, found someone to help me, showed my id, signed my next kid out, and found someone to help me find said kid, I have a whole new respect for dual working parents around here. The CDC's were sooooo chaotic.

We finally tracked down our target..err...I mean our last guest, and starting moving towards the door. Have I mentioned we were outside yet? No? Well, we were. And at 5 pm, the National Anthem plays. And so it started playing and I'm trying to show my kids to stand, face the flag/music, while holding a kid who just makes me laugh because he's so darn cute and then he says loudly...WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING?!?! And you know? I have no idea why other than I'm now sweating from the effort of finding, gathering, and keeping my four kids together and non-rowdy. It's not going well.

When we finally got out of the CDC (have I mentioned CHAOS yet?), I'm trying to get everyone buckled into my van. Kids are small. There should be no reason why three kids with booster seats can't fit easily into the back seat of my van. No reason at all, do you HEAR ME Honda?!? While I got seats and kids in the backseat? I couldn't get the dang seat belts fastened because there wasn't enough room or leverage to grab the part attached to the seat and then fasten the belt into it. 15 minutes later I admit defeat and move one of the kids to the front seat. I made it one of my kids because well, if we get in a freak accident, I don't want to harm anyone, but I really don't want to harm someone else's child. Of course, R suggested we put the other middle seat in the van last night, but what does HE know?

Once everyone was buckled, we took off for our house. It was now 5:20. What most parents can accomplish in 15 minutes? It took me an hour. How's that for productive?!?

The rest of the evening went pretty smoothly if you don't count that S got in trouble about six times for screaming like she was being ripped open all in the name of having fun, the fact that one of my kids shoved an entire roll in their mouth and tried to talk around it, which then made everyone act a little food silly, and T broke down in tears that our guests had to leave. Awwww...T's got such a huge crush on his friend. It's so cute and heart wrenching all at once.

As I was putting the kids to bed, T tells me, "Mommy? I like my friend, but I love you."

And I said, "I love you too, T. But it's okay for you to love lots of people during your lifetime. So don't worry about making me sad that you love someone else, because I'll always love you and I know you'll always love me."

To which my little heart breaker replies, "But I'll always love you best, Mommy."

Such overwhelming love for this kid. I swear. Love, love, love.

Jet fuel, an issue of who's right, and how to tell if I'm drunk

I'm struggling with trying to finish my post from yesterday. Everything is coming out flat and boring and very, very ordinary. Fine if you are updating your relatives at a reunion on what you've been doing for the last half a decade or so, not so great if you are trying to engage readers and encourage more readership. Here...read this blog...she's perfectly ordinary and an average writer. Woohoo!

So I'm taking a break from working on that post after erasing the equivalent of three or four perfectly average blog entries to try and string together some randomness for this entry that will hopefully be witty and entertaining.

First, and I've been meaning to say this for a couple weeks, over Labor Day weekend, R and I went to Target and as we were walking towards the checkout, I see Listerine mouthwash on sale. Excellent! I had just run out of mouthwash. Let's buy some! It whitens! It brightens! It kills germs! It's almost as good as flossing! Use it, and all your dental issues are over! Not to mention it kills the germs that cause bad breath and it's in a pretty purple bottle. Sold!

And then? I tried it. It's like swishing around jet fuel. WTH? Did I burn my mouth on something and not realize it? Listerine can be hard to swish around for the full minute, but I can almost always make it happen. But this stuff? I didn't make it 20 seconds before I spit it out and rinsed my mouth with water. And then I went downstairs and got something to drink and eat to try and soothe the burning, dissolving flesh that used to be my mouth.

Determined not to be a total wimp, I gave my mouth a few days to heal and tried again. I definitely hadn't burned my mouth on anything lately, but swishing that acid around my mouth sure made it feel like I had. Trying to suck it up and make it for the full minute, I decided to read the label to distract myself.

Oh.

Do not rinse your mouth out afterwards. Ooops.

Oh.

Do not eat or drink for at least 30 minutes afterwards. Double oops.

Also? Owwowowowwwwww.

And I spit out the jet fuel disguised as mouthwash into the sink. Guess I'll go back to regular old Listerine and keep the soft tissue and my teeth and my gums. I think it's worth the trade off.

Secondly, we grounded T from his Wii for eight days. He adjusted better to it than I did. So I'm not going to lie, I was delighted that it got hooked back up today. And the darndest thing happened, he played it a bit, but didn't obsess over it.

So, fine. He was obsessing. R, you were right and blah blah blah. I'm putting it in writing and publishing it on the blog. Mark this day down, my friend. I'm not sure when or if I'll admit how right you can be again. Just sayin'...

Third. Friday night I was invited to a Pampered Chef party, and I actually went. Progress for me! Afterward, some of us went out for a 'quick' drink. Only, when we ordered the grande margaritas? Ummm....we didn't expect a bucket of margarita each. No one finished theirs. I think I drank the most -- and no I wasn't driving -- and I didn't even get half down. Not that it wasn't delish, because it so was.

The housing area we live in is on base land, but not on the base itself. It's gated, but the gates are rarely closed. Since I wasn't expecting to be out late, and since the gate is rarely closed, I didn't even consider taking my gate card. When my ride brought me home, of course the gate was closed. Of course.

I tried our assigned code, but of course it didn't work. It never has. So we tried to use the directory to call R and ask him to let us in. Only the number dialed "could not be completed as dialed". Of course. We tried a couple other options and called a few houses by mistake (I'm so very, very, very sorry!!!) before I finally gave in and called R with my cell phone. And he had to come and get me at the gate. I felt like a teenager being busted breaking curfew.

I've been a bad, bad girl.

We got home and while I knew I was pretty toasted, it wasn't truly evident how toasted I was until I got up the next morning. Let me point out here that I've never been a heavy drinker and I have no idea what I was thinking by trying to drink a margarita that big. Oh, wait, I was thinking about all the thirsty children all over the world who don't have clean drinking water and what a shame it would be to waste this beautiful, delicious drink. Okay, okay, that's not true either. I obviously wasn't thinking anything rational.

I did escape a hangover, but I had put a load of clothes in the washer and forgotten to turn on the washer. I had started the dishwasher, but forgotten to put detergent in. How do I know this? Because none o' the dishes were clean even thought they had obviously been through the cycle. And the final evidence? I used that dang mouthwash when I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. I have no idea why I did that, other than my mouth probably had a serious case of the margarita funks.

And that, folks, concludes our blogging day. What have we learned? A purple bottle of Listerine mouthwash = bad, the hubolicious was right at least once this week, and attempting to drink a fishbowl's worth of margarita is generally a really bad idea.

Blue Skies

Wowsa. This weekend there was a two day air show on base. The public was welcome. Welcome by whom is up in question. I'm guessing PR folks and vendors.


Because holy snickers, people! I've never seen so many people trying to get into one place.


But come to think about it, there has been a flyer up in the Y for weeks about the air show, so I'm sure that it's been heavily advertised elsewhere. Not that I pay attention to that sort of thing.

On Thursday, some of the planes were practicing and since we live near the flight line, we heard, felt, and saw a lot of what was going to be happening this weekend. Very cool. Which of course made me want to take the kids even more. Because what three and five year old wouldn't love hanging around a military base for eight to ten hours so that they could see about 2 hours worth of flying, especially when they could see most of it from their own backyard?


Mine, that's who.

R had parking lot duty on Sunday, so I was trying to decide if I should take the kids with his help on Saturday (duh) or wait and take them on Sunday and then we could maybe hang out with R a little if he wasn't busy. Decisions, decisions.


Then, Saturday mid-morning we headed to the Y for a workout and from there went to sign the kids up at a different Y for parent's night out next weekend. Yahoo! Date night is within our grasp, baby! On our way from Y #1 to Y #2, we were traveling in the opposite direction of the air show traffic.


And just like that? I lost any interest in going, especially since we'd be able to see a lot of the flying stuff from our house. I also became suddenly quite happy that I'd managed to keep my big mouth closed to the kids about the air show. The line going into base had to be three or more miles long. It was backed up from the base gate all down the main road and onto the highway. Double lanes.


No thanks.


As it turns out, one of R's brothers and his wife ended up flying into Nashville, TN unexpectedly this weekend for Lisa's grandfather's funeral. So last minute, we were asked if it would be possible to meet up with them this weekend. And as luck would have it, no one that we had talked to about the possibility of attending the air show with wanted to go and deal with the traffic and crowds either.


That meant that Saturday afternoon found us driving to Metropolis, Illinois. Yes, like from Superman. We didn't do too much exploring around the city, we just met Eric, Lisa, and George for dinner and then headed back. R was supposed to be on base at 5 am the next morning, so we wanted to get home and get the kids into bed at a decent hour. But Eric posted some really cute pictures on his FB page and now I want to go back sometime and look around. Preferably when it's cooler and we aren't under such a time constraint.


Again with luck being on our side, on our way home R got a phone call and was told he didn't have to be at work until 7. Awesome! We were all tired, but I had sent R into the back of the van to lie down while I drove home because I could tell he was struggling to stay awake. And since he gets up with the kids on the weekends so I can sleep in if I want to? It's the least I can do.


This morning, R headed off to work the air show and the kids and I slept in until almost 8. Ahhh! Today was warmer and sunnier than the last couple of days and when I went outside to take pictures of the Blue Angels flying around, the angle of the sun was such that I could see nothing, which was proven by the video I took with our camera. It's not in focus, for most of it I don't have the planes in view, and you can hear me mutter how "I can't SEEEEEEEEE" as I point the camera directly into the sun. So I deleted it.

And that is pretty much it for this weekend.

Thinking about 9/11

Labor Day weekend of 2001, Mom, Angie, Robin and I went to NYC for the weekend. What a difference eight days would make. How haunting those pictures seem now.

I was at work the morning of 9/11, just an ordinary Tuesday. When the word started to spread through the office about what was happening, no one could believe it, but we were afraid not to. America? Attacked? How was that possible?

My boss had a small TV in her office and we crowded in there off and on during the day for updates and explanations.

R was on terminal leave from the Army. For weeks we waited with baited breath for him to be recalled to duty since he was Airborne Infantry. For whatever reason, but likely the grace of God, he wasn't.

Such a huge loss for so many people, for so many families, for our country, for so many, many things. And those losses are still occurring because our service men and women are still going over there. And even when they come home, those who come home bring back experiences that will have changed their lives forever. And the families who lost loved ones that day? They will always be affected too.

9/11.

I will never forget.

Friday post

Oh my.

Long day + Pampered chef party + a margarita afterwards means this chick? Is heading to bed.

I'll do this entry justice tomorrow. Or something.

Let's Dance!

Remember that song by David Bowie? ...Put on your red shoes and dance the blues...to the song they're playing on the radio..while color lights up your face....

Wait, what was I supposed to talk about? Dancing, right. Tonight the Y offered a belly dancing class and then R and I had the ballroom dancing class we signed up for a few weeks ago. It was a full night of dancing. Low impact dancing that was set to music at a reasonable pace for me. Sigh. I miss Zumba.

I have to admit it. I'm so excited that R and I are finally taking a ballroom dance class. We've been talking about it for ages, but this is the first time we've had the time, opportunity, and money when we also had access to a class.

Tonight we learned the basic box step for the waltz and we sort of learned a turn. By sort of, I mean that we were all shown the turn but R and I aren't sure if we are doing it right. And surprise, surprise - I have trouble following. I mean, it's not like we are dancing through a room full of sharp pointy objects, so what is it that I'm so afraid of if I follow someone else's lead? Dunno.

The instructor was really patient with us. There are four couples in the class and two of them have taken a class with him before and know what they are doing. The novice couples? Are R and I and a little old couple that are so cute and tiny I want to put them in my pocket and take them with me everywhere. This instructor? He's got his work cut out for him.

R can be a bit....rhythmically challenged and he's hesitant to take the lead. I have a very hard time not giggling because we look like a couple of third graders dutifully clomp, clomp, clomping through elementary school ballroom dancing in PE. We figured out that it helped if R didn't face the mirrors because either looking at my ass was distracting (doubtful) or watching himself in the mirror mixed him up. He was too polite to say either way.

The instructor came over as we were 1-2-3ing our way through the box step and reversed his prior instructions for R to take smaller steps. Not sure if that was a comment about my non-daintiness or huge feet. I warned him I had huge feet. The instructor was in the process of saying, "You do not have huge feet" and then he looked down. He finished the statement, but his face gave him away. I do have huge feet. But I'm big, so you don't really notice at first. I have incognito big feet. heh.

But clumsiness and leading issues aside, we had so much fun. I can't wait to practice this week to see if we can nail the turn down before class next week and I can't wait to see what we add on next week.

Now we just have to figure out where we can go to practice. For now? I vote our garage.

Workout Wednesday

And one and two and bend and stretch....

Oh, sorry. I was practicing my best Jane Fonda. ::Snort::

I was gym avoiding this weekend. It wasn't intentional, exactly, we were busy all day Saturday and then Sunday we just hung out (mostly recovering from Saturday) and then Monday the gym was closed. I do have (drumroll please) a week long pass for Gold's Gym. All I have to do is go and activate it. See? This is me, planning to go and do that, like, soon.

So. Last night I got to go to Zumba. Woot! Susan was teaching which was nice because she doesn't teach at the Y that often. But I also realized that I don't like Zumba as well when it's all crowded. I was having some serious personal space issues last night. As in, hey! Dude in orange shirt! Stay out of my space, please! And I must have been spazzing out or something too, because the people behind me were giving me wide berth. I was grateful for that. And I also hoped I didn't smell funky because for the second Tuesday in a row, dinner ended up having lots of garlic. Oh well, maybe they'll think I'm repelling a vampire or something.

The am workout this week is a variation of a whole body workout. I like it. We did two rounds of supersets and I'm hoping I worked out hard enough to be a little sore tomorrow. This afternoon the kids and I are going roller skating. I think I'm as excited as they are. Tomorrow is am workout, then pm belly and ballroom dancing. I can't wait! My goal for the rest of this week is to increase my dumbbell weight by 5 lbs in every exercise we do. I also want to add 15 to 20 more minutes of intense cardio in. I just don't feel like I'm getting enough now that I'm not going to Zumba five to six times a week. How did I ever manage that?!?

Have a great Wednesday, everyone, and go out there and do something fun!

Fresh air is so overrated.

You know how for the last few posts I've mentioned a thing or two about nice weather and open windows and yay for nature and blah, blah, blah?

I think we would have been just fine if I hadn't felt all smug about it. Look at me! I have my windows open and I'm not snapping everyones head off! Hurray! Pat me on the back! I'm becoming besties with Mother Nature!

Yeah. About that....

Sunday night R is walking around looking all cranky and irritable. Three straight days home with us tends to do that sometimes. But as it turns out, he was just hot. Hold the phone! R is hot and cranky before me? Write down the date! Naturally, I offer to close all the windows and turn on the A/C. Which is exactly what we do. And like magic, the crankiness subsides.

Yesterday around 6 pm, Mr Cranky appears for another visit. But wait - the A/C is already running. What's the temperature inside? 78. We usually have it set at 72 and those six degrees make a difference. And this is the second day where I'm okay temp wise and R isn't? What's up with that? Have I broken the hubolicious and reprogrammed him as hot natured? Say it isn't so!

We fiddle off and on with the A/C and the settings, and R gets too hot or fed up or something and heads to bed. I figure once the sun goes down, the house will cool off pretty quickly. Umm. Not so much. So before I go to bed, I open all the windows and turn off the A/C. No point in wasting the money to run it if it's not working.

This morning? The downstairs temperature is still at 75. Turning on the A/C results in no cooling. And it's fairly humid outside, so the air is all heavy and still and incapable of soothing our heat strokes. This is going to require a call to maintenance. R volunteers to call them from work. When I come back home to get my iPod at 8:45, maintenance is already here and working on the problem. Seriously? We have the best maintenance guys on the planet.

About an hour later, the air is fixed and running, and the house is cooling off. R comes home from work today and is immediately soothed by the artificially cooled environment or maybe just the fact that he called it in and it got fixed post haste. And interestingly enough, my sneezing fits stopped once the a/c kicked back on. I knew I was probably allergic to fresh air. See Mom?! I so was not lying when I was 10.

Of course, looking at the weather forecast, the weather is cooling off this week again which is just fine with me. But I'll absolutely be checking with R before I turn off the air and open the windows. Just in case. And also because of my fresh air allergy. heh.

Happy Labor Day 2010

Happy Labor Day. Here are some pictures to make you think I don't have some freaky form of writers block. Which I totally don't.


The kids this time last year by Annie Pennington Photography. Sweetness!


T after a rainbow snow cone. Heh!




S's hair braided. Or as she calls it, twisted.

S wanted to help us clean, so she sat on top of the table to help us do it.

What do you think?

What do you guys think? I'm working on learning how to do more of the technical side of blog related stuff and I'd really like to create a custom banner. Because I can not write code at all, I'm relying on free sites and guided tours. Here's my first attempt. I like it, but I don't love it.

Lovely, lazy Sunday

Yesterday was a frenzy of activity for us. We straightened up the garage which mostly involved spider and spider web removal and sweeping. It really needed to be done, though, and the weather was fantastic. We even saw our McNeighbors who were in and out (how is it that their garage is always clean?) and exchanged pleasantries. Mah-velous.


Since we cleaned our carpets and rearranged our furniture last weekend, mostly the house just needed a good once over. This means that instead of cowering under their beds in terror after leaving footprints (or heaven forbid dirt) on the carpet, the kids were free to move about the house freely without fear. Cause we are excellent parents that way. Full of love and understanding. Bwaaahahahaaaaa.


Just on a whim and kind of out of nowhere, I asked T if he wanted to go and get his hair cut. I was expecting the usual emphatic 'NO!!!" and a dirty look. Instead, he got all excited and jumped around yelling, "YES! I want a hair cut!!" Oooo-kay.


He and R took off for the barber shop, leaving a wailing, distraught S behind. I, showing further evidence of superior parenting skills ::eye roll::, distracted her with the equivalent of power tools for women -- the kitchen aide mixer. S and I made a very yummy lemon torte while the boys were gone, only I had given S the last yogurt as a snack, so I ended up having to go to the commissary anyway, which was a good thing because the bag in the freezer that I thought was broccoli? It was green peas. Not quite the same. Also? I hate it when I don't pay attention when it matters. Like when you're serving a broccoli dish for dinner and you have no broccoli. Luckily, the yogurt situation prompted me to make sure we had the rest of what we needed, which is how I discovered that we were out of broccoli, but not out of peas. I could be a vegetable detective. ::Snort::

Anywho. The guys came back and T's haircut? Man, did we get our $10 worth! But he looks adorable. He looks so grown up with his hair that short, and his hair looks so much nicer since I didn't do the cutting. I can never get it even, even with the clipper guards. And how nice that two to three of us don't have to restrain a screaming, crying toddler who has no intention of getting a hair cut. What a difference a couple of years have made! And as the very definition of sweetness, R said when they offered T a lollipop yesterday he asked if he could have one for S before he took one. And then he brought it home and gave it to her. Without hair on it.


After the haircut. Cute, right? And this is what happened the last time I cut T's hair. Ooops.
So that was yesterday. Today? We pretty much just enjoyed the weather and the kids learned how to fly kites. I think R and I had as much fun as they did. And the a/c? Is still off and the windows are still open. Yay for fresh air!

Schedules

At the beginning of the year as we settled into our new home and routine, it was no sweat to make it to Zumba classes whenever I wanted to go. Heh. No sweat. Get it?

Ahem. Sorry.

R is completely supportive of my working out and hey! the more the better.

But with school starting, T going for a full day instead of half a day, and trying to coordinate our lives which have suddenly taken a turn for the busier; my Zumba attendance has suffered dramatically. I miss it. The afternoon classes are hard to make because T needs time to unwind from school, I need to get dinner on the table earlier so the kids can go to bed earlier, so I can go to bed earlier so I can then get up earlier and get the kids up earlier. It's exhausting. And stuff keeps coming up on Tues/Thurs evenings. Like the fact that we are taking ballroom dancing classes soon. (SO excited!) S starts ballet next week, too.

I was bitching to R about missing Zumba classes and how am I supposed to improve my cardio without it and why is scheduling so hard when we only have ONE kid in Kindergarten?! What happens when they are both in high school but can't drive yet? I shudder to think. Then I got an email from my friend Chris (to whom I also bitched about my totally normal and common situation) and she suggested I check Zumba.com to see if other classes were offered. And whaddaya know? They so totally are. Woo! The only problem is that I'm going to have to pay to take these classes and that's kinda why I joined the Y. So all my cardio needs could be met for one low price. Hmm.

So, it feels great to have options, but man, I am really, really hesitant to pay additional money to take Zumba classes. I guess it comes down to how much I want it. The jury is still out. Who knows? In the next couple weeks I hope that things will settle down and I can pick up where I left off a month ago. In Zumba class, dancing my a** off. Mucho gusto!

Pigs are flying! Hell has frozen over!

There are some basic facts about me that have yet to waiver.

-I am so hot natured. You know that annoying person standing outside in 20 degree weather in a sweatshirt whose hands are still warm? Yep. That's me. And no, it's not from the layer of fat that surrounds what I'm sincerely hoping is a quite decent body by now.

- My head sweats so easily. I chalk this up in part to being so hot natured, and also my rapidly thinning hair since there's so much less of it to absorb the sweat. Have I mentioned how much I dislike sweating unless I'm trying to do so? Well, I do. A lot!

- It's never too cold for me to run the a/c. Whether in the car, in the house, or in a hotel room, I'm fine with the a/c being on almost year round. When I lived in NC? The air came on the day the temperature inside rose above 75, no matter what the outside temp was. When I was pregnant with T? Our a/c was set on the lowest setting (which I believe was sixty) until well in November. Seriously. In the middle of the summer? R was wearing sweatpants to bed with all of the covers piled on top, and I was wallowing around moaning about how I going to die of heat stroke.

- I'm not so fond of being outside unless it's 60 or below. Ever. For any reason. Many reasons behind this, the top one being that I involuntarily spent 95% of my childhood outside. Fresh air! It's good for you! Harrumph.

- I've been to Las Vegas twice. Once in July of 1999 and once in the summer of 2004. You know how you hear that since Vegas is in the desert and so it's a dry heat? Bull malarkey. It's plenty humid in Vegas. You are just too busy melting to notice.

So with those things in mind, I present to my faithful readers serious progress:

I was walking to the car from the commissary chatting with my bagger and we were raving about how beautiful the weather was that day. I got home and found out that it was 93 that day. 93! And I thought it was beautiful outside! What. Is. Happening?!?

S and I had lunch at a friend's house last week. She had the a/c off and the windows open. It was in the 90's that day, but I was totally fine.

A cold front moved in today which dropped the temperature here into the high 70's, low 80's. We tried to get the kids to go outside (neither of them was interested) and......
wait for it....
wait for it.....
turned off the a/c and opened the windows. AND....no one has been yelled at or killed. That I know of anyway.

What this means to me? Is that all these things I thought were not changeable about myself? May indeed be changeable. That, or hell is freezing over and pigs are flying. Either way.

Magic wands and big girl panties

Lots of...interesting things going on with my extended network of family and friends at the moment. I wish I could wave my magic wand and make everything better.

You are sick? *POOF* Not anymore.

You seriously goofed up and it's eating you up inside? *POOF* Problems resolved.

You are struggling in day to day life? *POOF* Things will be smoother now.

You need closure that you are never going to get? *POOF* Closure granted.

I'd be willing to grant most reasonable wishes except those involving paying off credit cards and finding front row parking spaces. heh.

At the moment, I wouldn't mind someone using a magic wand on me for a couple things. But I also know I need to put on my big girl panties and deal with my issues myself. I'm avoiding it. Duh. That's what procrastinators do, don't you know?

But the time has come. (Me: Do I HAVE to? Universe: Yep. Hop to it, sister!)

I really, really want to pour it all out on here, but I feel that it's not appropriate. I was accused of bullying someone not too long ago, and I was floored by that. It's made me tremendously more cautious of what I say, especially on a public forum, even if only 21 people a day visit. Those 21 people? Are important to me because they take the time out of their day to read what I have to say. That's powerful. And I love you all. Henceforth, unless you are related to me and therefore fair game (muahhahahaha), the brilliant specimen that decided they needed both my lane and their lane today when I was taking T to school (Put. Down. The. Phone.), or the worst customer service giver in the tri state area, I'm likely not putting you on my blog unless I have something lovely to say. Unless you ask me to, and then I'll have you sign a disclaimer and we'll go from there.

Workout Wednesday

Man. The things I'm willing to do to have something to blog about. Kidding, except, not really.

I didn't go to the Y yesterday morning. Now I'm kind of glad because after I dropped S off I went to get gas and an iced tea and by the time I picked S up a couple hours later? Gas had gone up 23 cents a gallon. Seriously...what IS that? But I made a deal with myself, skip the Y in the morning but go to Zumba last night. And Zumba I did.

It's been over a month since I've been in a Zumba class, and even though I've been doing cardio, there's really nothing like a Misti led Zumba class. Of course, I thought it was going to be Kim teaching, but hey - that's what I get for not making the last 20+ classes. Although, I'm amused at myself for being surprised that it was possible for things to change. What can I say? I can be obtuse. I'll add that to my growing list of things to work on.

And good heavens. That class kicked my butt. I made it through, but I have to cop to the fact that between songs I put my hands on my knees and leaned over to suck in as much oxygen as possible. Oh, and when I left? I was so sweaty that my hair was actually dripping sweat down my back. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.

When I got in my car? I turned on the a/c and lifted up my arms to expose as much of my sweat drenched self as I could. All that accomplished was lowering my body temperature a couple degrees...but, wait...isn't that supposed to be a metabolism booster? Let's hope so.

I had to roll down the waistband of my sweatpants in class because I was tripping and sliding on the hems. When I got home? I could wring water out of the waistband. Folks, that is one excellent workout.

This morning it was back to the Y as usual. Motivated by the night before, I jumped on the arc trainer and did twice my normal distance in the same amount of time. Of course I lowered the level, but I still got an excellent cardio workout because I was moving so much faster. I topped that off by doing the weight routine twice afterwards. And then my worn out self limped home and tried really hard to convince S to take a nap. She was less than motivated for that. So we colored instead. Which was almost as nice.