8 posts tagged “life”

Vox just did something really stupid. I blame the huge, memory-sucking, rolling drug ad on the sidebar that convinces me that my child has ADHD and needs Vyvanse, and then proceeds to list every possible side effect. Grr. I was trying to write a post but now I'm mad and don't want to recreate it. :( Anyway, life is good and busy. I told someone recently that I didn't know what I was going to do with myself once I was done with school. They told me that I'd be surprised how my time would fill up. And how (to borrow a saying from my grandpa). All the running around and actually making a few meals keeps me busy, if not always occupied.

I even have a book to read. You actual bookworms out there are going to laugh, but I'm just not ready for "real" literature. Besides, I like books about people. It's Uncommon by Tony Dungy. I've admired Dungy ever since he was the defensive coordinator for the Vikings. So when his book came out I always said I'd read it - then the other day I saw it in the church library and snagged it. Haven't had the gumption to start it yet, though.  

The reason why I don't want to read today is that yesterday we got a Wii! Yep, we decided to join everyone else and get one. It was kind of an impulse buy, but it's really an early Christmas present for the entire family and now we won't have to get the kids anything. (They don't need any more junk anyway.) So we got it set up and the kids are playing it now. There's no school tomorrow or Friday so I can guess what they'll be doing all day. At least this is something active, which is why I'm not opposed to a Wii. Hopefully, especially with winter coming, they will actually get some exercise while they play.

I have a couple of topics for real blog posts ruminating in my head but those will have to wait. Even before Vox ate my first post, I wasn't much in the mood for being serious & thoughtful. ;)

Thanks for the well-wishes regarding my coccyx. It hurts like crap this morning, but I'm pretty sure it's not broken because while it's painful, I can still move around. I had already decided to take today off of work, which turned out to be a good thing even better than it normally would have been. I couldn't imagine having to spend all day in a desk chair. I haven't gotten any rest, though, since this morning we had to take the van in for some work and also run some errands. This afternoon will be at least physically more restful, as I'm planning to listen to some hematology lectures online. I might have to have Uncle Rico come over & take care of things for a while.

So yeah, we took the van in this morning for that oil-change-and-27-point-check deal that GM has been offering. We were afraid the brake lines were leaking fluid, so wanted them to look at that as well. So we took it down there (as the driver of the getaway car, let me tell you that driving a stick shift was not fun this morning) and they told us it would be ready in an hour. We ran to Wal-Mart & Kohl's and it was probably more like 2 hours when we got back there. They told us that in fact, the brake lines were not leaking, but the brake pads were bad, the tie rods were bad, and the water pump was bad. Sheesh. So by the end of today and eleven hundred bucks later, our van will be good as new. Oh wait, that's not entirely true. They gave us a whole list of things that really need to be done, but can wait a while. Sure, I'll get right on that. Good thing this is a 3-paycheck month (I get paid every 2 weeks so 2 months out of the year I end up with three paychecks. It feels like a nice bonus and seems to always be very timely).

We did our periodic Sam's Club shopping today as well. We've decided that we're going back on the South Beach Diet starting either Sunday or Monday, so we stocked up on things we can eat in Phase 1 - the no-carb phase. It's going to be hard - I think harder than it was last time. I'm not as motivated, plus I've been so carb-dependent with all the junk food I've eaten to get me through the spring semester. It was so bad. I've put on somewhere between 5 and 10 lbs but it feels like a lot more since I haven't exercised regularly since February and I'm losing muscle tone - especially noticeable in those trouble spots. So just to warn you, I'll probably be blogging about my diet again - it helps me stay focused, even if no one reads it.

I guess the big news of the day in our house is this:

BEFORE

AFTER

He looks like a different kid! Maybe it's just because I haven't gotten used to it yet, but I'm missing the long hair. But at least he'll be able to get his baseball cap on.

Check out the place where he got it cut: http://www.thebarbershops.net/ I only wish they did women's hair.

One other interesting thing....a week or so ago we accidentally got a package delivered to our house. It had the right address, but the name of the daughter of the family that lived here two owners ago. So we called them and when they came to get it, I asked if they'd like to see the house. It seems like kind of a weird thing to do, but I know in the places we've lived in, I would LOVE to see what has been done to them since we left. I thought they might get a kick out of it, and they did. A few things were the same as when they lived here, and many things had changed. (They sold the house in 2000, we bought it in 2003.) They had a lot of memories here, and they liked being able to come back through - I could tell they were feeling reminiscent. They were so nice.

All right, well, it's off to work I go! Schoolwork, that is.

Someone tell me why I decided to have both of my kids in the same month? Oh yeah, I didn't plan that.

The good part about having their birthdays ten days apart is that you get the parties done with in a couple weeks' time and then you're done for the year. The bad part, in our case anyway, is that February comes shortly after Christmas so while we're just getting the tree put away, it's time to start thinking about planning parties.

This year they both wanted slumber parties. And the only way it would work out is that we would have them two Fridays in a row. Eight eleven-year-old girls singing karaoke ala American Idol, followed by nine nne-year-old boys wrestling and roughousing ala Indiana Jones.

Just because I thought it turned out so cool, I'm putting up a picture of the dessert I made for Joey's party. Given the theme, I decided to forego regular old cake and do that dirt dessert that was so popular a few years back.

The good thing about them getting older is that they can entertain themselves for the most part, and in my experience don't seem to want as much structured activity. The part that doesn't get any easier is that you still have to make sure that no one's being mean and no one's getting left out. So even though we're not on constant duty like we used to have to be, it's still exhausting to have a slumber party, let alone having them two weeks in a row. So I'm glad that birthday season is over for another year. We do have one quasi-birthday left, I guess. My parents try to come up in February every year for a weekend, and while we'll probably have some sort of birthday cake, it won't be a party per se, and I won't have to plan anything because my parents don't expect much (God bless 'em). They don't even expect that my house will be clean, which is good because it probably won't be. And my mom never makes snide comments about the state of my house or offers to "help" me clean it up. She's awesome that way. (And in other ways too.)

Your kids do find ways of embarrassing you, have you ever noticed that? This morning during breakfast the boys were talking about how drinking even one drop of alcohol when you're a kid will kill you.  Joey went and said that his parents drink wine and that sometimes they ask him & Bailey if they want a sip. Of course all the boys were just dying and I'm thinking, do NOT go home and tell your parents that Joey's mom & dad give them wine to drink!! Imagine how that could be misconstrued. Very rarely, we give them a taste of our wine. I wouldn't even qualify what they get as a sip. (BTW, I wrote a post a while back on why I allow my kids to have an occasional taste of wine - and a great discussion ensued...and thinking back on it now I wonder if their idea that alcohol will kill you hinges off of what Amy Sue said in her comment to that post.)

Anyway, so now everyone's gone home and we're cleaning up (thank goodness for paper plates & cups, and a dishwasher for things we can't throw away! And a good vacuum cleaner) and I'm thinking about getting some homework done. Joey's playing with all his new toys (he got 4 Nerf guns!!). Today is Joey's actual birthday so he gets to choose what we have for supper. He chose Pizza Hut - works for me!!

We now return me to my regularly scheduled life.

We seem in our house to be in an extended cycle of things breaking.  It's a good thing I don't believe in karma or else I'd be ripping out that new bathroom we just put in because I'd think we were being punished for taking on an expensive project that wasn't 100% necessary. (It was only about 80% necessary.)

Anyway.

First it was the van, and I don't even remember what the problem was there but it cost us around $700.  Shortly after that, the dishwasher started leaking, which we didn't even know about until Brian found damaged ceiling tiles in the guest bedroom in the basement.  Brian called an appliance repair guy, who took one look at the dishwasher and pronounced it dead.  The tub was cracked, thus explaining the leakage.  This had to have been going on for weeks in order to cause that kind of damage, because the crack was pretty small.  The repair guy asked to see the warranty, which seemed weird since we've had this dishwasher for five years, but sure enough when he looked at it, the tub had a 20-year warranty!  Woo-hoo!  But boy, did the company give us the runaround when we tried to redeem it.  First they told the repair guy that they'd send a new dishwasher to our house within 5-7 days so that he could install it.  A week went by and it never came.  So Brian called them again, and they didn't want to deal with us, just the repair guy.  Eventually they did talk to us, but tried to tell Brian that now they weren't going to send us a new dishwasher, just a new tub.  We didn't want a new tub because this dishwasher has been discontinued - and this wasn't the first time we'd had trouble with this thing - so we thought a new one would be a wiser route to take.  Besides, the warranty said we'd get a new one and now they were trying to reneg.  I think that bugged Brian on principle.

Anyway, long story short, they finally agreed to follow through with the warranty and said they would ship a new dishwasher to the repair guy.  We had to choose the model we wanted, which was kind of fun (I love new stuff).  And finally, yesterday - after at least three weeks of doing dishes by hand - we got our new dishwasher.  It has a stainless steel tub (I wonder if the manufacturer had had to replace lots of dishwashers and learned a lesson there - which might also explain why they tried to invallidate the warranty).  It's missing a lot of the nice configuration features I really liked on my old dishwasher, but such is life.  I'm happy with it.

Oh yeah, so in the meantime, our main computer has decided to kick the bucket.  It's only a year old.  So now Brian's working on that.  I'm so glad he's willing to deal with this kind of crap. 

(We still have a laptop, which I'm using now, so at least I can still listen to my online lectures.  It would have been a real hardship to get a couple weeks behind in school - and I'm not being sarcastic when I say that.)

Cross your fingers for us that nothing else in our house decides to blow up.  We're kind of at our limit right now.

So Brian and I - well, I - decided that we're going to do the South Beach Diet.  I'm not really excited about it, because I don't really have the energy to deprive myself, but it's time.  It needs to be done.  We both need to lose weight.  Oh, to be one of those who can eat whatever they want and not gain weight.  But it's not in my genes (jeans?).  Time to suck it up.

SBD isn't too bad.  I signed up for their online program for long enough to familiarize myself with the program and beyond the first two weeks I think it seems very do-able.  The first two weeks you basically deprive yourself of all carbs, after which you can start to reintroduce fruits, starchy vegetables, and "good" carbs.  We did Atkins for about 4 months back in 1994 and we did pretty well but eventually failed because when it came down to it, we missed breads & carbs too much.  I'm hoping this can be more of a long-term thing.  The nice thing about SBD is that you're allowed to cheat, just as long as it's not often and not bad.  So if we decide that we just have to have some mozzarella sticks, then by golly, we're going to have them!!  And I don't have to give up my beloved wine either, although I will try to cut back to 1-2 glasses per week.  (SBD says you can have 1-2 glasses per day with meals, but to me that sounds like a lot of calories.)

The two biggest challenges for me are going to be to drink 2-3 liters of water every day (I like water, I just hate running to the bathroom constantly, plus it makes me cold if it's not room temp), and eating 4.5 cups of vegetables every day.  There's a whole huge list of vegetables you can eat in Phase 1 but most of it is either weird (okra, bok choy, kohlrabi - who eats this stuff?) or things that seem more to me like salad garnishes than real vegetables (shallots, capers, fennel - would you make a side dish out of this?)....plus a few things I've never even heard of (chaote, nopales - huh?).  But even if we choose to not be adventurous, we can still do fine sticking to our basic green beans, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, artichokes, and tomatoes.  And V-8 counts.  I love that stuff.

Since today is Day 1 of Phase 1, and Phase 1 is all about breaking your dependence on refined starches & sugars, I'm feeling quite tired.  I also have a headache, which may or may not be related to the diet, but it makes it that much harder to work.  I have to teach a lab at 4:00 and I hope I'm not brain-dead by then.  I'll have a snack beforehand, but a handful of green peppers will only take you so far.  Tonight after I get home, we get to do our grand SBD kickoff trip to the grocery store.  That'll be fun.  I'm one of those lucky few who actually likes to grocery shop.

Oh yeah, goals.  I'm not good at setting goals.  But if I had to put a number on it, I'd say I'd like to lose about 25 pounds.  I'd settle for 15.  Brian's got more to lose, so I'd like to see him lose about 30.  On Atkins, we stalled out at 15 and 30 pounds respectively - a lot of which we think was probably related to the fact that we weren't exercising.  We have that going for us this time around.  We're not ready to run a marathon by any stretch of the imagination, but we try to do something most days of the week. 

It's going to be a long, slow, difficult process full of sacrifice and self-discipline.  Two of the things I hate the most.  Wish me luck.  I have a bad attitude but at least I have this going for me: I'm not all motivated right now only to lose it later.  I will do this with the same dogged, feet-dragging determination that I bring to my classes.

Aren't I lazy?  :)

Allow me to recap my afternoon.

I left work around 2:00 because Bailey was in a play that her class was putting on.  I have to say, she's got some potential as an actress.  She was very natural in her acting, voice inflections, facial expressions.  A skill I've never had.  I was proud.  :)

Brian and I met at her school and afterwards, he went home and I went to the grocery store to pick up a few things.  While I was in the produce aisle, a woman started talking to me about something she'd seen in the deli and how good it looked.  I agreed, it did sound good, and I went on my way.  As I finished the next aisle, I decided that what the lady was talking about really did sound good, so I made my way back to the produce aisle to get some portobello mushrooms.

As I was in the checkout line, my phone rang ("I could while away the hours, conferring with the flowers, consulting with the rain....." that is my ringtone.)  Brian was talking to me on his cell while simultaneously talking to his buddy Nelson on the regular phone.  Nelson was coming over later but he needed a cake to bring to some friends of his and could I pick one up?  As luck would have it, Hy-Vee had $5 cakes right inside the door and they let me pay for one and pick it up on the way out.  (Boston Cream cake...yum!) 

I got home and a bit later, Nelson came over.  He took his stocking hat off....displaying a completely shaven head!  It shocked me, but he wears it well.  Brian, for some unknown reason, wondered if maybe he should shave his head too.  They were concerned about getting my permission, which I found a little bit funny since while I'd ask Brian's opinion before changing my hair, I wouldn't ask his permission.  I didn't care...he can do what he wants with his hair.  And I'm all for spontanaeity.  It makes life fun!  Not like it won't grow back anyway, if he decides he doesn't like it.

So while I made my mushrooms*, Nelson took to my husband's head.  Brian wanted to chronicle the process from hairball to hairless.  Erego:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What do you think?

I have to say, I don't mind it.  I might even like it - I'm not sure yet.  He kinda looks like he could beat the crap outta ya, doesn't he?  :)  He and Nelson are out now, doing who-knows-what....he had to make sure to wear a stocking cap too.  

Now, the kids are getting ready for bed, after which we will have some cuddle time while we watch an episode of The Muppet Show.  This is the good stuff.

*The mushrooms were portobello caps stuffed with a mixture of cream cheese, crab meat, and tiny shrimp with a dash of creole seasoning, sprinkled with parmesan cheese and baked.

.....because my kids are perfect.  LOL, not.

But I do like them.  (Warning: stop reading here if you don't want to hear me gush about my kids.)  I'll admit that a lot of the reason I like PT conferences is because my kids do well in school (call me a bragging mom if you want; it's a fact) so there have never been any serious issues.  I don't see the teachers on a regular basis like the volunteer-moms do, so I really value both good and bad feedback.  Each of the kids has had a small behavioral issue this year that they've had to work on - Joey being rude to his classmates and Bailey being silly & somewhat disruptive in class.  I like to hear those kinds of things because then we can talk about them at home.  So far, problems have been resolved without much resistance on their part.  They're such easy kids - we got so lucky with them.

Bailey has this computer program they do called Study Island.  She's ahead of the rest of the 4th graders at her school in most subjects in math & reading, and way ahead of the state average in everything! 

Joey's teacher is a little worried that 2nd grade isn't challenging enough for him.   She said he helps the class come up with strategies for learning.  For example, he said that for adding three numbers, he told the class to picture the numbers running around in circles.  The first two crash together and become one number, and then that new number crashes into the other number, giving you your total.  I love how she lets him be involved in the classroom.  I'm sure she does that for all of the kids.  Kids that age need to be interactive, and I'm glad that teachers realize that these days.  We were barely allowed to move when I was in school.  Fortunately, that worked fine for me, but I know that approach doesn't work for all kids.

Joey showed us a couple of papers that he'd written, and his teacher had him read one of them out loud.  I was almost in tears I was laughing so hard, and so was she.  I think she really gets a charge out of him.  Here's the essay; it was a compare and contrast work.  Picture it in kid-script on lined paper, being read by an almost-8-year-old:

Bengals and house cat  by Joey G

Did you know that lots of cats don't have things in common?  Even my house cat and a Bengal.  There is something very, very weird that the owners of Bengals have reported about Bengals.  If you want to know, listen very closely to paragraph #3.  I'm telling you it's very, very weird.  I don't know how funny it is!

OK, this is paragraph #2.  This paragraph is about what is alike between a Bengal and my house cat.  So, they're cats, and they both have colored coats, and they have sharp teeth and claws.  If you have heard of cats and kittens, then you know that a mom can have babies and if you own a Bengal, then you know that they are cute.

OK, we're in paragraph #3.  This paragraph that I tell you about what is different between a Bengal and my house cat (witch I don't know what kind she is) and remember this is the paragraph witch has the weird thing about the Bengal.  It is soooooo........funny!  OK let's get started with the facts.  The Bengal has front and back claws, and my cat does not (you can probley tell buy me saying "house cat".)  The Bengal hunts, my cat (of corse) does not.  OK, here is the very weird thing, (get ready to smile or laugh.)  The Bengal swims, and (of corse) my house cat does not.

OK, stop laughing or smileing and start reading.  So, did you like the facts?  OK, first I'll tell you the qustoin that I will ansewer.  So, which would I own?  I would keep the cat I have instead of a Bengal!  I would like some privacy when I'm in the bathtub!