Mommadosey

So I’m sitting at my daughter’s gym listening to the thump thump thump of the trampoline.  My son is sitting next to me talking to himself; he insists he’s talking to his DS.  The women on the other side are having loud conversations about their kids, their husbands, and some nasty parent/teacher at their kids’ school.  The gymnastic coach is teasing the girls on the trampoline while trying to casually flirt with some cougar mother on the sidelines.  My phone rings, and my husband asks the standard Tuesday evening question, “What’s the plan for dinner?”  And the only thing that comes to mind when trying to write on my laptop today’s entry for this blog is “I don’t understand how my brain could be too fried to write a simple blog entry when I haven’t used it all day.”

So I went to a friend’s house this weekend for a party.  And after visiting her spotless like it’s still new home, I was motivated.  I want my house to look the same way.

No more letting the kids get away with never making their beds.

No more letting the kids get away with shoving their toys in the various corners around their rooms and calling it clean.

No more letting the laundry pile up on the stairs waiting for them to take it up and put it away.

No more ignoring the fact that the children have written on the walls, or picked at the bathroom wallpaper by the toilet,  or got makeup on the carpet, or broke the “no food upstairs” rule, or ripped the door off the hinges by hanging on it, or used lotion to clean the tile, or smeared lip balm on the walls.

No more!

I was going to get this house into shape.

And first on the list was my childrens’ gross rooms.

Yesterday I made good progress.

Together we worked.  And we worked. And we worked.

Two trashbags, a frank discussion about responsibility and making of the beds, and 8 loads of newly discovered laundry later I decided the kids needed some new storage options.  So I got online and bought shelves, containers, and furniture.  The kids were excited.  I was excited.

The house, I think it was excited.

So this morning I woke up motivated, ready to continue my project.

I went upstairs expecting, especially after the tears that ensued when I threatened their personal destruction, at least a made bed and rooms that were no worse than the night before.

And what did I get?

Unmade beds, laundry not put away, toothpaste all over the bathroom (don’t even know how to explain that one), the toilet not flushed, and toys out everywhere.

When did they have time to play?

Then I went to my car to get out a birthday present I was hiding from my husband.

There it was.

An ink drawing.

On my leather seats.

On my car, a car which is the first new car that I’ve ever owned, that is not even a year old.

Frickin’ frackin’ shhhaazzbit son of a biminyncricket fudder fodder botchen fuokker!

It’s a good thing they were at school.

And then I felt it.  It was a tiny shudder and a moan.  At first I thought it was from me.  And then I realized no, it was from the house.

Perhaps it realized that spotless like new?  That wasn’t going to happen while my family was living here.

I’m sorry house.  I love you.  Really.  I do.  Spotless like new?  Someday.  Probably after the last child goes off to college.

You only have 11 years to wait.

Sometimes I have something to say that doesn’t meet the 100 word requirement for Today.com.  Sometimes I only want to use, oh, I don’t know, 140 characters?

What’s that you say?

I should get on Twitter?

Dude.  I’m already there! You should follow me. No really. You should. I might even follow you back. Cool, huh?

Anyway,  I thought should share with you parts of my little time line.  In fact, I think I’m going to every Friday share my thoughts from the week.  In fact, I think you should too and leave me a comment.  And then I’ll read yours, and you’ll read mine.

It will be great!

And it shall be called…

Tweet!  It’s Friday 

The bold orange letters mean that you say it in a deep echoey announcers voice.  You know, kind of like the guy who does the monster truck commercials?–”Friday.  Friday. FRIDAY!  At the Mommadosey fair grounds!  Tweets like no other!  TWEET!  IT’S FRIDAY!”

OK.  I completely lost you didn’t I?

No?  Well,  I was also thinking I need some bling or a button or something to go with this idea.  I would love for somebody to volunteer for such a great task.  Somebody?  Just e-mail me at kellyology[at]gmail[dot]com.  Then your people can talk to my people and negotiate a badge for your blog on my sidebar in exchange or a review of your blog or something.  Just let me know.

Anyway, back to

Tweet!  It’s Friday 

(You totally used the voice this time didn’t you?)

Here are mine.

• Me to Da Boy–You do realize you’re talking to yourself. Him pointing to the DS he’s playing with–No. I’m talking to King Richard.
• Apparently Dylan is having on fantastic party–per the lady yelling into her cell phone in the Dr’s waiting room.
• Just argued with appt lady about past appt & discovered I was wrong. Write it down because as you know, I’m NEVER wrong.
• I’ve asked the children to let me watch the President in silence. So, they are now bringing me slips of paper with questions on them.
• Sun shining while it’s raining weather always creeps me out a little.
• My right eye has been twitching on and off since Thursday. Hmmmm… I really thought it would stop when the kids went back to school.
• I am happy the husband is coming home from Bellingham today. I’m not happy to give up his half of the bed.
• You know those people who have sprinklers on in the pouring rain? Just realized I am one of those people.
• Exploring #mytowntweetup this morning. Who knew there was a group of locals in my area who will never ask me “Twitter? What’s that?”

(My town in #mytowntweetup is actually the name of my town.  But hey man, I don’t know you.  You don’t need to know where I live.  Not yet anyway.)

OK.  So I’ve showed you mine.  Now it’s time to show me yours.

Come one.

Don’t be tease.  Leave a comment.

So yesterday I read Today.com ’s notice that we have to take down our Entrecard widget, and my first thought was, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!  We wants it, we needs it. Must have the precious. They stole it from us. Sneaky little Todayses. Wicked, tricksy, false! Nooooo-o-o-o-oooooo!  “

Then I started really thinking about it.

I really must have quite the Entrecard addiction to be channeling this guy at the thought of losing it.  And what do they say about addiction?  What’s that first step?

“We admitted we were powerless over our addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable.” 

Well I don’t know if my life has become unmanageable, but I certainly am spending a lot of time dropping those cards.  I am dropping cards instead of reading your blogs.  I am dropping more cards than I was researching material.  I have been dropping so many cards it’s to the point that while I was on vacation I felt the need to spend an hour every night dropping cards!

OK.

Maybe I did have a leeetle problem.

And Today.com taking away my precious Entrecard?

Well that was kind of like when your Mom insisted that ripping off the band aid quickly really was the best way.  Sure it stings at first as the hairs are ripped off your body.  But then you end up with that beautiful pink skin that only comes from a newly healed wound basking in the glow of a new day.

OK.  Perhaps I’m being a little mellow dramatic.   It is just a networking system after all.

***Sob***

OK.  I’m better now.  What’s that second step?

“Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

Really?  I’ve never been good with the people having power over me.

What’s that?

“But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.”

 Oh Sam, you always know just what to say.

 For more Wordless Wednesday 5 Minutes for Mom or Wordless Wednesday .

This week Hot by BlogHer challenged us to one of three options, a diet challenge, a fitness challenge, or a personal challenge.  I’d like to say that I was chomping at the bit to start one of these challenges, but I wouldn’t be where I am if I had naturally been chomping at the bit to get myself at my healthiest now would I?

And it would be easy to say my Spring Break vacation this week was the reason for my failure in reading Hot by BlogHer on Monday to find out what my challenge was for the week.  But I had my laptop with me on my trip.   I had no excuse.

So it probably surprises you and me when I tell you I accomplished the fitness part of Christina’s challenge.

I kind of fell or should I say walked into it.  You see my husband got the brilliant idea that our hotel, one mile away, was close enough to the amusement park to walk to.  Normally we would have driven and paid for parking.  But we could see the  closest roller coaster from our hotel window, so I said to him, “Absolutely.  We should walk.  Plus it might burn off the calories from the junk we’re about to eat.”

That first walk was holy mother of God horrible.  I was pathetically out of breath.  My shins hurt badly.  And by the end of day one at the park, my feet were calling me all sorts of horrible names when we walked back to the hotel.   You see I avoid cardio like the plague.  I hate it.  And these walks to and from the park were probably the first cardio experiences I had had in a long time.

But we did it again the second day.  And the third day I suggested rather than standing in line for another horrible meal, we leave the park and…gasp…walk to a restaurant where I got the most delicious spinach salad.  I added an extra walk.  Can you believe it?

But you know what surprised me the most about the walking.  On Wednesday, our first day home from vacation I found myself itching to go outside, enjoy the sun, and walk around the neighborhood.  And I did the next day.  And the next day too.

There’s just something about being outside with the wind blowing in your hair, breathing in fresh air, sun or not, enjoying the crunching of your feet on the gravel, or the dirt, or the grass or the concrete. There is something about focusing on moving one foot in front of the other.  It feels great.  It feels peaceful.

I think sometimes we get so caught up in getting our business done.  Whether it’s work, or meeting people at the gym, or working out to the tape that we spent that money on, we never make it outside anymore.  We never feel the ground beneath our feet.  We never explore unexplored territory.  We never see anything new.  And you know what, sometimes finding the quiet outside and being in the world is all we really need to be the best we can be.

Maybe.

Or maybe I’ve been in front of my computer too much lately.  Or I really enjoyed the sweet conversations with my kids.  Or I just needed a break from my every day routine.  But it’s no matter the reason.  The walking outside, it worked.  And I feel great.  I only hope that I can keep it up another week.

My husband is the biggest hypochondriac I know.   I swear I faked an illness once, and he caught it!

But lately I think I’ve caught his hypochondria.

First of all I have the “this is the rheumatoid arthritis (RA) kicking in” syndrome.  Every time I have an ache or pain, or on a day I’m feeling exceptionally tired, or every time I catch a little too easily another illness that my children bring home from school, I think it’s the RA that my mother, her brother, and my grandmother passed down to me.  No really.  I’ve been tested 3 times in the past two years.  I really think it’s coming to get me.

Then I have the breast cancer fear.  My Mother’s sister was diagnosed with it at 39, the age I am now.  I feel like I’ve been doing pretty good about doing the self-exams and getting mammograms.  But on my birthday my Aunt sent me a card that said, “Happy Birthday!  Get a mammogram.  This is the year I was diagnosed, ” and the paranoia kicked in full force.  I mean this is the year!  You know?

Then I have the “every time your Father goes in to have his moles checked he has cancer taken off” fear.  It didn’t help when one of my husband’s good friends died from Melanoma in his late 30’s.  It was horrible.  And you know they never found the source?  But I’ve always done the good job with the sunscreen, and I’ve never was one of those girls in the 80’s with the fake bake tan.  So I should be OK.  Right?

Then Grey’s Anatomy last night talked about one of it’s main characters having stage four skin cancer that had spread to her brain.  My husband’s friend died 2 weeks after getting this diagnosis.  I ran to the mirror to check out all of my moles.  I got online and looked for every picture I could find of cancerous moles.  And I swear every mole online, every mole, looked exactly like all of my moles.

Holy Crap!

I made an appointment this morning.

I think I have a problem with my skin.

Or it could be I’ve caught the hypochondria from my husband.

Quick.

Somebody fake an illness so that I can catch it.

Last year in my mission to live a more healthy lifestyle I dropped a clothing size. I was pretty happy with having achieved this goal, and for some reason being one size away from my ideal clothing size satisfied me.  So, I just went into maintenance mode.  Now before you get the wrong idea you have to know that I haven’t gained any of the weight back, and when I look in the mirror standing up I’m happy enough with what I see.  I’m not elated, but I’m happy enough.

But then last weekend I stayed in a hotel that has those full length mirrored closet doors that face the bed.  I had taken my trusty little netbook with me on the trip, and one evening I was sitting on the bed with my legs crossed checking my e-mail and caught a glance of myself in the mirror.

My head did a double take.

Holy crap!

What it the world was that?

It was a roll.  OK.  It was a roll and a half.  OK, OK.  It wasn’t so much of a roll as it was a complete and totally well formed MAN GUT!

A MAN GUT!

What in the world?

When did that happen? (Probably sometime between the birthing of my two children and developing a nasty computer habit)

A man gut.

Crimeny.

Then and there I re-affirmed that I have to drop another size.  No proper woman should be sitting around with a man gut.  I mean they’re not called man guts because they belong on women, especially women who have to take the kids to the neighborhood pool in just a few months.

Geez louise.

Talk about a good motivation for Hot by BlogHer .  I would love to get that man gut image out of my head. Pronto.

So this week my family and I are traveling.  It’s spring break.  We have grade school children.  It’s what we do.

But while I’m gone feel free to still visit me over at Twitter .

I promise to be slightly entertaining and keep my cheering for the Oklahoma State Cowboys down to a minimum.

Wooooooohooooooo!  Go Cowboys!

But before I go I have to tell you a little story.

My kids both do Kumon .  Kumon, for those of you who don’t know, is an academic program that helps kids with Math and English.  The kids who participate have homework every day, 7 days a week.

Yeah.  It’s a hard sell some days to these kids of mine.

But they do it.

So today I finished grading my son’s Kumon, and told him to go put it up.

He fell down on the floor to his knees with his arms outstretched with a “Why is this happening to me?” look on his face.  I half expected a “STELLLLAAAAA!” to come out of his mouth.

“What’s wrong?” his father inquired.

“My whole day has been like this.” he complained about to cry.  “This has happened to me 5 times.”

His father now laughing, “Are you talking about getting your Kumon box out again and putting your homework away?”

“Ye-e-e-esssssss.” he cried.  “This day has been horrible!”

Oh Lord.

I think the drama gene has kicked in.

I don’t know where he got it.

Oh and…

 Go Pokes!!!

Post Note:  When I read this post to my son his only reply was, “You know I pulled a muscle when I dropped to my knees.  No really.  It still hurts.”  I swear.  You can’t make this stuff up.

OK.  So I’ve always had booty.  Alright, alright.  We all have bootys.  But I have a boo-tay.How do you know you have a boo-tay?  Well it’s simple.  If your top is at least 2 sizes smaller than your bottom, you have a boo-tay.

If you are 5′5″, weighed 117 when you got married, and you wore a size 8 pants (the smallest size you’ve ever worn on your booty), you have a boo-tay.

If you’ve married a self-declared ass man, you probably have a boo-tay.

I have a boo-tay.

And most days I like having a boo-tay.  It’s certainly better than the alternative, the flat ass.  And fortunately for me, the boo-tay is in style.

Yay!

But let’s face it.  This past year I’ve fallen off of the wagon.  Sure I don’t weigh any more than I did last year, but this year…well, let’s just say my fat to muscle ratio has switched.  Completely.

Then I saw an idea from A Mommy Story .  Why don’t we all work together?  We could offer support.  We could commiserate.  We could offer suggestions to each other.  And if we all do it together, we all could be Hot by BlogHer !

What a concept.

Hot by BlogHer.

I am so in.

Why don’t you join us?

Oh, and it is now at this point I’m supposed to post my goals.

1.  I will be switching back to my healthy eating habits and drop 10-15 pounds before July.

2.  I will find a cardio workout to do at least 3 times per week.  (I am cringing as I write this.  Oh well.  It’s a must have isn’t it.)

3.  I will get back to doing yoga every evening to help me sleep better.

4.  I will embrace the boo-tay.  I will love the boo-tay.  I will understand when the boo-tay says to me, “I’m sorry. I will never fit into a size smaller than 8.”

5.  I will do what it takes to stay focused.  I mean it’s only until July.  Right?

Right.

Now you.

Go!