Friday, July 25, 2008

Summer of Me Finale

I lost one pound this week, bringing me to a total of 5.5lbs over this program. I was hoping for a bit more this week, but AF appeared and I'm amazed I did even the pound. I have been super good on soda & food intake this week. And I'm having uber (does anyone say that anymore?) cravings for chips & dip. I'm pretty proud of myself for not buying any too. I'm also in an emotional state at the moment which is making the urge to eat that much stronger. Gotta love being an emotional eater. wink.

I didn't set a true # goal with this challenge, but more of an exercise more and eat better goal. While I haven't been able to run as much as I would like, I have bumped up the activity level. Snacking is my big downfall and I think I've managed it nicely during the challenge.

It's been an awesome experience and I can't wait for the next challenge Christie puts up. I received my Camelback waterpak yesterday and it rocks. Although I'm still deciding if I should use it for water, or fill it with whiskey while we are camping. hee hee, couldn't you just picture it?

My clothes feel better. I feel better about myself. It's been a good couple of weeks!

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

On Hiatus

I'm on a self imposed hiatus this week. Just don't feel like talking/writing/etc.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Living

"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today."
~ James Dean

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Once Upon A Time...

...we had this neighbor. His name was Al. And he was scary. We lived in a beautiful, but old, apartment during Jason's college days. The place had lots of charisma, but across the hall from us was Al and his woman. He was scary, together they were freaky weird scary.

Let's see, how can I adequately describe Al. Al was like the poor man's version of this guy.

I'm not joking. He wasn't in all leather, but had the hat, and a vest. And occasionally had a long ass knife like that at his side. No, really. I'm serious. He was quite the odd duck. Or croc I guess you could say. (wink) He had a goat before they were cool, and even when they did turn cool I'm certain his was not cool.

Al owned this awesome van. It looked kinda like this...

Except shittier. And it was painted with purple & blue striping. Hand painted, not body shop painted. And we'd come outside to see him coloring in the black plastic sun shields on the back windows or doing a little pin striping with these...

For real. He would use paint markers, metallic in color, to touch up his Al-mobile. To top it all off, he had horns in the front window of the van.

Yep, I'm seriously NOT joking. Real fucking steer horns. And if I remember correctly, probably a skull or half naked lady air freshener hanging from the rear view mirror.

They knocked on our door once to ask for help moving a dresser up the stairs. How could I say no without being a complete bitch? So, I helped him carry this heavy-ass dresser up the stairs and into their apartment. I was happy to escape and turned down their offer of refreshments. Our apartments had these bay windows, and theirs was filled with some kind of shrine it seemed. And there were some of these around their apartment.

I'm all for individual taste, but decorating with skulls just ain't a good thing. Ever. Except for Halloween. But beyond October, forget about it.

Jason's bedroom when he lived there with some buddies (prior to me moving in) was directly next to their bedroom. the headboards of each bed shared a wall. A rather thin wall. One night about 1am, when I was spending the weekend, we had the most unpleasant experience of listening to them have sex. It took everything we had not to laugh out loud. It started out with her moaning and then turning to repeated "Oh god, oh god" over and over. And over. Come on lady, get on with it! Finally, she let's out a giant "Oh God!" and we hear this guttural snarl/belch/noise. It's Al, and he's finally cooked his goose. Thank god they were done!

We still remember Al and the van, and the horns, and the knife, and the sex. We chuckle about it yet today.

May The Force Be With You

Here are utter geekness photos. The day was termed "Three nerds & a Turd." Our friends from MN shared the day with us, and one of us is not a Star Wars fan. (wink, wink).






Friday, July 18, 2008

I am a geek

We are heading over to the Cities tomorrow for a Star Wars exhibit. And I'm bringing my camera. I will be in heaven.

Yes, I am a Star Wars geek.

May the Force Be With You
all this weekend.

Froggie Heaven

Ariana has been quite the entomologist this last week or so. She had a nice grasshopper last week, some slugs, and a mayfly. Last night she brought home a frog. Yes, I said a frog. Or a toad, I'm not up on the differences.

It was this little tiny thing. She found it at the park and brought it home in her hat. She was being so gentle with it and wanted to keep it for-e-ver. She whined that froggie needed to sleep in the bed with her, and dad had quite the small battle getting it on the dresser. (Don't worry, it was in a bug house.)



Well, this morning she awoke and found froggie dried up and on his back. The tears ensued. Sigh. Last week it was tears over the grasshopper that died. Of course, he died when her foot stepped on him.


We talked about how frogs need water to survive and she says her next frog will have to be kept in the pool in the back yard. Great.

Summer of Me July 18th

Well, this was an improvement. I'm down 2 pounds, and that's with me starting to PMS. I've been controlling my hunger, well, okay. I'm doing well with portions, let's say that. Only had one piece of pizza last evening for dinner. Of course, I followed it up later in the evening with butter dripping popcorn. Oops.

I haven't been on the game for exercise this week. I feel incredibly tired, and honestly just would be happy to lay my fat ass on the couch all day. This is a byproduct of some other issues I have this month and I'm working to overcome it.

My goal as we enter the last week of the Summer of Me is to lose 1-2 more pounds. With AF coming, I'm not sure it's possible, but I'm going to try.

Summer of Me Homework: Christie is having us answer one of two questions this week....and this is what I chose to have fun with:

-I'd have no problem losing weight (or keeping it off) if it weren't for ___________. (Fill in the blank--and it can be serious or not so serious, you decide!).

I'd have no problem losing weight if it weren't for pizza. Honestly. I could eat pizza every day of the year. I can eat it multiple times a day. It's so yummy.

Lately we've been taking advantage of Little Sleazers $5 pizza's. Of course I HAVE to have the crazy bread too. Oh, my...I can eat that as a meal itself every day. It's heartbreaking to see though that we are going to start having to buy two pizza's at a time, especially if we want leftovers or more than two pieces each. The kids love pizza too and will demolish their plates if in the mood. That always seems to coincide on a day where my belly thinks it could handle half the pizza itself. heheh.

Pizza Hut is another favorite of mine, but one I eat rarely. I salivate for a pan pizza with green olives and mushrooms. Oh my god, I can smell it right now. Their breadsticks are pretty darn tasty too. Too bad, their pizza is so damn expensive for our family.

I'm not a fan of Domino's. At all. But if it's there I'll eat it. But you won't see me ordering it myself.

We have a local joint that is purely heaven. Sam's Pizza is a fantastic place to dine and a person can eat an entire "small" pizza themselves. (Dawn, you can attest to that, right?) And the real parm they have too. Settle that with a root beer and I'm done.

We usually eat Jack's for frozen pizzas. My treat to myself is a Digornio Garlic Bread Pepperoni pizza. That fulfills me nicely. yummy.

I better stop, all this pizza talk is making me hungry. And there's no pizza in sight for the weekend.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Does it ever end

Jason was going to take the camper out to my parent's last evening so the kids could hang out in it this weekend when they stay there. Less than a mile from home, he stops at the gas station to check the tires and notices smoke from the back of the van. Of course with the camper hooked up, the back door on the van doesn't open up all the way so he's trying to see what's going on with it half open. He's grabbed Phoenix out since he's freaking out it's going to start on fire or something. Turns out the fricking wiring is fucked up. We had the van wired two years ago for the camper and the big piece (you'd have to see it as I cannot possibly explain it or recall what it's called) chomped the plastic off one of the wire and then that exposed wire touched other wires. Melting plastic on the other wires and starting to melt some plastic in the van cargo area. Great. Real fucking great.

So, now we've got to fix that. Why is it this shit always happens when you least have the money for it?

Sunday, July 13, 2008

For Real?

Jason is flipping through channels this evening and comes across the Miss Universe pageant. I really don't give a shit about pageants to be honest, but this we couldn't help laughing at. When some of the women were introduced, their hobbies & special interests were shared. And some of them had winning activities. Such as shopping with friends, clubbing, and making chocolate cakes. Are you for real? I mean, what the fuck? You are in a multinational pageant and you publicly share that your hobby is clubbing? What happened to world peace? Or tutoring young children?

I just thought it was kinda funny.

Oh Yeah!!

Christie over at Baby Tea Leaves just shared that I was the big winner of this last week's Summer of Me prizes. Rock on! You like me, you really really like me! Well, at least the drawing program did. (wink)

I'm stoked and since I actually ran outside this evening, this will hopefully keep me moving. I slacked way off last week and drank waaayyy too much damn soda. I'm working to have a much better week.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Summer of Me-Fri, July 11

No weight loss for me this week. I'm up a pound, but I actually think that's good for this week. I've had a bad eating week, and am on track to do better this weekend. On the good side, my smaller size shorts are actually kind of loose! My body feels like it's changing.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Can I shit in peace please?!

Seriously. My kids get into the biggest shit when I take 5 minute for a dump. I need to either lock them up, schedule my dump for after bedtime, get rid of all the food in the house, or sell my children.

This was yesterday....
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And just now....
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How the hell do I get that off the love seat? Freakin' butter, great. I stink like butter and everything is slippery. Fuck.

My kids totally must hate me.

Enjoy your laughter. I hope you all pee yourselves.

Fireworks









Apologies

My apologies to all my blogging buddies. I haven't been much into blogging, or had time to blog and haven't had time to visit you either. I'm hoping to rectify that this week. I miss ya'll!

Monday, July 7, 2008

It's Over

The reception is over, and I'm done working on this wedding. Yahoo! The kids had fun and the bride & groom did too. We worked our asses off to get things ready and have it run that evening.

We got lots of comments on our little cutie with the blond curls. And Ariana looked like a princess.





Friday, July 4, 2008

Happy Independence Day

Summer of Me Week 2

I lost 3.5 lbs this week. Yeehaw! I've been watching the soda intake, and eating habits. The other night I ran/walked a mile in under 18 minutes, which for me is a pretty cool thing. I ran over half that mile too! Huge accomplishment for me.

Next week, I'm hoping to keep off the soda train, up the water intake and keep up with the run/walk program. My SIL's wedding reception is tomorrow, so I will be having a few drinks and eats for that. I will try to behave myself.

Christie asked us what our most embarrassing exercise moments were, and to be honest I don't think I have anything that was "out loud" embarrassing, but I have had moments in my bellydance class when I feel the need to toot. And of course we are settling in to do lotus or some other moment that seems to work against my sphincter staying closed. Thankfully I've had silents and not blastem's during those times. Not all that embarrassing since I didn't blow my cohorts over with a blast, but it was mortifying to be afraid I was going to fire a biggie in front of everyone.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

14 Years

Fourteen years ago this evening I met that freaky fellow I call my husband. It was at a party I didn't really want to go to and (pardon me while I took my horn) I had two guys wanting to get chummy. The first guy offered me a beer and I turned him down as I don't drink beer. The second offered me a beer and I said yes. He charmed me with this dancing as my girlfriend and I taught him hip gyrations and his endless drunken talk of "I've got a cute butt."

As we were leaving he asked for my phone number and I gave it to him. He spent the next 15 hours thinking it was a fake only to find out it really was me on the other end when he called. We went out that night, July 4th, on our first date.

And we've been together since.

The days lately have not been joyful all the time, frustrations and busy lives seem to be the par. But he's always had my back and supported me with anything I've need him for. Sure, at times he drives me crazy, but I can't help but love him.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Wishes

I wish I had never been touched by preeclampsia. For all the positive that has come from it, I still feel very angry and bitter at times. I am immensely lucky to have my children with me, so many are not as fortunate. I'm five years out from my HELLP experience and two years from the mind numbing second chance pregnancy. So why is it that I still feel as strongly about it today as I did years ago. As soon as I think I've accepted our fate, and in many ways I have accepted it, something rears up and the thoughts & feelings are brought to the forefront again.

I wish I was still naive about preeclampsia and it's affects. I wish I never met had to meet a woman who has lost her child. I wish more people knew about how serious preeclampsia can be. I wish I could be wrapped in that tight cocoon of "everything will be perfect and go according to plan."

I came across a blog last week and after reading it, I've found myself in a funk. And going over my wishes. This woman is pregnant with her sixth child, and she wrote that she was excited to have been diagnosed with preeclampsia as she got a "get out of pregnancy" card at two weeks early. She had mild preeclampsia with two other pregnancies I believe. When my eyes first read her words, anger filled me. Anger that she was so cavalier about a condition that kills. And anger that I wished I looked at preeclampsia like that.

There are many women who are affected very mildly by preeclampsia. It touches their lives briefly and it vanishes from their radar as soon as they leave the hospital. They say, "it was no big deal" or downplay it completely. I know some doctors do not share the seriousness of the condition with their patients as to not worry them and cause their blood pressure go up. But what's right? Shielding them from the potential or being real and giving facts? I believe you can share information without frightening women. We are not hysterical creatures. Well, some of us may be, but I know a couple men who could fall in that category.

I wish I could be one of those women who had mild preeclampsia and never thought of it again. I wish I didn't feel like a freak. I have used our experiences to help others and to push forward in hoping for a cure/prevention. I know I have done good things, have created positive experiences from our hell, our worst thing. But there is still a part of me who is jealous of a woman who has the perfect pregnancy, the perfect baby who never cries and doesn't have reflux. To not have to worry about risking another pregnancy. To not have be on mag or watch your baby desat in the nicu.

I read a comment by someone I admire and respect the other day where she shared her experiences and when responding to someone who asked how she did it again, and again, even after nearly dying...she replied that she'd do it all again in a heartbeat if she knew she'd get her children out of it again. As I took in the words, my heart began to pound and my spirits fell. I wish I was brave enough to try again, but the fear and the risk was so overwhelming for us. I wish I could be "tra-la-la" about it, but I just can't.

So many wishes, and none will come true.