....after I slept off all my evil.....

I am about to get my life put back together.  I hope.

This is an attempt to catch us all up to speed for the past month. It may take a few blogs though.

Amy- I have been doing my thing driving all over Hell and creation in auto-pilot as usual for this time of year.  Six or seven days a week we are going somewhere at some point during the day.  I just try to breathe my way through each day knowing somehow it all gets done.

I am still exercising my butt off....or should I say my butt on, cause nothing is still happening....on the scale anyway.  I have taken about 10 of the 16 Power classes that I need to take at at the gym in order to get the free t-shirt that labels me as a weight lifter...sort of, in my eyes anyway.  I am surely getting more muscles.  I can see a bulge in my arms where there has never been one before in my life.  My butt actually looks round like a butt should look, instead of just fading into my thighs.  My stomach is certainly more flat than it was and my pants are fitting much better and some are even a little big or too big.

The problem here is that my scale is sabotaging me.  So I had D hide it so that I could only weigh on Sundays.   The first Sunday I weighed 189.  D was happy for me cause I was finally in the 180's.  I wasn't, cause I knew the moment I ate a piece of ice I would gain 3 pounds.  He scolded me for not enjoying that small victory. In my mind I have been this place so many times that I truly am not in the 180's till it is a consistent number.

I was not too discouraged however.  I gave myself a year to do this right and I have been sticking to it.  I rarely cheat and I exercise 5 to 6 days a week 40 minutes or more.  So this past Sunday I was excited to weigh because I ate especially well chosen foods that week.  I knew I had pushed myself doing the exercise and I was hoping for a 187 minimum.

The scale said 190.  I became so angry inside that I thought I might grow some devil horns that would surely expel a blazing fury so hot they'd burn the roof off my house.  I controlled it though the best I could.  I left the bathroom, went to make coffee and get the kids moving.........and then the evil tidal wave of death and destruction that likes to throw stuff when I am infuriated hit me.

So I marched right back to the bathroom where D was blowing his hair dry, picked up the scale, stomped back to the front door, stepped out onto my front stoop, and I launched that scale as far as I could with my new arm muscles "that weigh more than fat."  I meant for it to bounce on the ground and bust every spring and gear inside of it.  On the first bounce as it hit the ground I felt a minuscule amount of satisfaction.  I wanted to throw it one more time but I refrained cause I knew I was going to church in a couple hours and I needed to get rid of this evil in me before I could praise the Lord properly for the good things in my life.

The kids get up.  D comes out of the bathroom to eat breakfast.

D- Where's the scale?

CB & Sky - She threw it in the front yard.

M- You threw the scale in the front yard?

CB- Yeah she did!  It went way over there see?!

D- (looking out the breakfast nook window) Nice distance.

A- I threw it into the front yard. Yes I did.  If anybody brings that scale back into this house I swear bad things will happen to you.  I don't know what they are, but don't test me.

When I left for church the idiot scale was in the front yard.  When I came home from church the idiot scale was in the front yard.  When I came home from the gym the idiot scale was not in the front yard.  I was so mentally exhausted from my emotional torture of weighing that morning, only to find all my good eating and exercise had been in vain....months and months of not eating delicious morsels of goodness, shin splints that wake me up in the middle of the night, sweating, sweating, sweating, pushing, pushing, pushing....only to still weigh 190....I took a bath and went to bed at 6:30pm and didn't get up till 7:00 am the next morning.

BUT, not BUTT, but.....BUT, during the Power class at the gym I had likened myself to this fairly big woman in the class, like we were equals in weight.  I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror at the gym and I noticed that I didn't look her size at all.  I mean I was still bigger than I need to be of course, but I wasn't as big as I perceived myself to be by the number on the scale.  The scale doesn't change the fact that I can feel and see a muscle in my arm that has never been there before.  It doesn't change the fact that some of my pants are too big now, not all of them, but some of them.  Those are my small victories, that I should thank God for.

I am going to choose to dwell on those things.  So I can be thankful in all things to God for giving me endurance and patience to persevere when my flesh wants to quit, the spirit in me is still willing to keep my temple, in which Jesus resides, clean and healthy.

I am not going to weigh anymore.  My sister in Christ, Sarah, told me I should pick out a pair of pants I want to get into and use those as a gage for my success. I think that is the better way to go for me.....for my family too.

I found this note hanging out of my drawer where I keep my exercise wear in my closet the morning after I slept off my evil. ( you can click on this pic to get a better view if need be)

My heart overflowed and spilled all over the place with love for this oldest son of mine.

I CAN DO all things through Christ who strengthens me...... Philippians 4:13


*

Do these pants look too tight?.........

I have been exercising my butt off lately.  I determined myself to a years worth of healthy eating and exercise to see if I could really change myself, as a whole, by the time I am 41.  I am not "dieting" per say, cause that don't freaking work, just being  more aware of what I put into my body and at what quantity.

So for over 5 weeks now I have been exercising about 40 minutes a day.  Mostly treadmill and elliptical.  In this time I have managed to shave 16 minutes off my 2 mile run.  so I went from 40 minutes to get to 2 miles on the treadmill to 24 minutes to get to 2 miles on the treadmill.  Which sounds pretty good to me.  I should be seeing some weight come off right?

W R O N G!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For 4 weeks I was exercising commited, eating properly and NOTHING!!!!!!!!!  Pull my hair out strand by strand with a pair of freaking tweezers people!!!!!!!!!!!

My pants are surely fitting much better, but that flippin scale in my bathroom is SATAN.

My sister told me that I shouldn't count on the scale to show that I am growing more fit, to be patient, that if my clothes were fitting better something was happening......I should focus on that.  She also said that I needed to add some sort of weight resistance to my routine.  That would help burn calories.

So I did.

Last Friday, not yesterday but the one before it, I lamented to Derrick that when I got on the scale that morning....if it didn't show I had lost some weight I was was going to pick it up and throw it into the front yard and if he brought it back into the house I would kill him with it.

So I stood on the scale.....it read 195.  I was some what satisfied.  I know most of you are like WHAT?  She was happy with that number???  She needs to lose some weight!  Well, duh.  

But let me tell you this, when a fat girl commits to exercise and eating seriously healthy and really tries hard for 4 weeks and doesn't shed a single dag gone pound and some days even gains 4 pounds from breakfast to lunch (and Maysie is my witness on this) that is discouraging as shizzle.  I mean  I felt like I lost 28 hours of my life in vain.  I don't want to be a muscular & fit 200 pound girl.  I want to be a reasonable weight fit girl.

So I saw the 195 number, this meant the scale had moved down 5 pounds.

D- Well....what does it say?

A- 195...

D- (breathing sigh of relief for me, cause he knows my temper these days is not controlled easily) Oh thank God....

....but this was the day I gained 4 pounds by lunch and ate the exact same thing D ate for breakfast that was a "healthy breakfast."

I tried not to think of though.  I kept on with the idiot treadmill and adding the idiot weights to my routine.  

This morning when I weighed, I weighed 193.  I think it is surely the weights that is helping.  So that was really good advice my sister gave me.......for my body anyway.

I have gotten to the point that the exercise is becoming something I feel like I need to do everyday...not want to do everyday, but need.....and if  I don't, I feel like I have cheated myself.  Who said that? 

 In what parallel universe would I have ever spoke those words.  Cause forever it seemed to me that while I was wasting time on a treadmill things weren't getting done in my house somewhere else.

Yesterday Zac had soccer practice and I decided to go a little early and try to "jog" around the track.  I wanted to go before everyone else got there so if I looked like an elephant being stung in the butt while skinning a tight rope no one would see it but me and Z.  Z is the best encourager for me.  He constantly pushes me telling me at least I am trying. He doesn't want me to be unhealthy, over weight and die an early death because I didn't at least try.  

I said to him, "Do these exercise pants look too tight?"

Z- Who cares they are exercise pants mom, they are supposed to be tight.

A- Yeah but, you know, your friend's parents will see me and all...

Z- So what, at least you are trying. They look fine, they look good in fact.  I don't think of you looking fat that way. You always look nice to me.

My heart felt really good.

...the very first time we went to the gym together, I was feeling nervous and intimidated and relayed this to him.

Z- Mom it's a gym, all kinds of people go to a gym.  Not just body builders. There will be old people, young people, fat people, and skinny people....you are in the middle of all of those.  Just suck it up we are going in.

Which we did and had a pretty good time.  

Back to the track.....I believed that if I could run 2 miles in 24 minutes on a treadmill I should surely be able to run a minimum of 1 mile on the track.

Um, wrong.  

Running on a surface that does not give tried to make me pee in my pants.  I walked the first lap to warm up, then ran 1 lap holding my bladder by sheer power of the mind, walked it off 1/4 of the 3rd lap & ran 3/4 of the rest of it, walked 1/2 of the 4th lap & ran 1/2 of it....then my walking buddy showed up and we walked about another mile and quit.

My mind thought running at the track was not fun at all. I don't desire to do it ever again. I will walk that track from now on.  I can't say why, but the treadmill with all its faults is so much easier to do.  My brother-in-law runs the marathons and he's in the running clubs, my sister she runs the 8 miles and she is fixin to run some big run and all....I don't know how they do it, I really don't.

I guess I will just keep on keepin on till I get somewhere that is satisfactory for me.  I still have 10 months or so to get to my one year goal and assess what has become of this commitment.

We are getting 2 truck loads of mulch today.......hopefully this will appease my need to fill a space in the day with exercise.

I don't want to wear skinny jeans.  I just want to feel satisfied when I look in the mirror, whatever weight that is.................as long as it's below 150.  I could be satisfied with 150 and fit. 

I think.

an egg- laying sea turtle & was hit by a gas-guzzling S.U.V........

Dear Blog,

The other day I saw a bumper sticker that said, "Nuke a Gay Whales for Jesus"

Which goes right along with the Bizarro cartoon in the paper..." A quadruple environmental tragedy today here, Brian, as a whale, tangled in a tune net full of dolphins, beached itself on top of an egg- laying sea turtle & was hit by a gas-guzzling S.U.V."

Then there was this article I read in Parade some time ago that told me....

...it was time for back to school when, for many families, the ABC's meet ADHD...according to the CDC 4.5 million children have been diagnosed, but "experts" don't know what causes it. New research points to pesticides particularly organophosphate- a man made toxin originally developed for chemical warfare and now used extensively in agriculture.  Scientists in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives write that children exposed to this in the womb have a higher chance of developing attention problems by age 5.


the article goes on and on and then states that possibly one million children are misdiagnosed. That some children just may be inattentive or behave poorly  because they are 5....


but to be better safe than sorry always wash your fruit and vegetables first.......


..... and take your child's age into consideration before getting an evaluation........um really?  This tid bit of info goes right along with do not put your hands flatly on an eye of the stove if it is cherry red, you may burn your freaking skin off moron.

At the risk of sounding completely judgmental and governmental conspiracy driven......this is my take on some things that make me want to poke my own eyeballs out or give someone a paper cut on purpose.

If your child spends most of his/her time in the house, on the computer, playing hand held games and watching TV and eating crap food and he/ she is getting on your nerves....that child does not have ADD or ADHD.

That child has PDD, Parental Disengagement Disorder.    Some parents need to get off their butts and cut the flipping TV off, get off the internet, and parent their children properly.

Do I believe some children respond better when taking medication?  Absolutely.

 Some kids need it and they need their parents to administer it to them properly...they need to freaking give the kid the medication themselves, make sure the kid freaking swallows it, and makes sure it given every day at the same dag gone time....I know a  kid in 3rd grade, whose parent tells him to take his medication which, he says he does, then he spits it out, his mother does not make him take it regularly nor does she refill his scripts when he's out.  That kind of parenting should be a dang crime.  She is doing her child a severe injustice in life.....and it affects all the children and adults this child comes in contact with....all day long.

On the medication as prescribed, the child is a different child altogether.

Some of the kids though,  are just drugged up and therefore more quiet and sedentary...and more pleasing to the parent who wants to do what the heck they want to do with minimal parenting.

How is it that 4.5 million children come to be diagnosed with ADHD??  It is absurd.

In the extreme sarcastic corners of my mind I see a woman with a colic baby and the doc's saying, "Here, just put some Ritalin in the bottle, this child has ADHD. Better yet, you take the medication yourself and then breast feed, it's more naturally administered that way and won't damage his self esteem  as he becomes an adult."

I swear some mornings while we are trying to school I vow with my hands raised to the ceiling, to put Cole on the yellow bus and never homeschool him...cause he gets on my nerves some days.  He behaves disorderly, disruptive, inattentive, and certainly hyper.......why?

Because I am schooling the other three, and he wants me to sit in the floor and play cars, read to him, color  with him, watch a movie with him, he wants Zac to wrestle with him, or Maysie to shoot video's with him....does he have ADHD?  No!  I could totally take him to the doctor explain his behavior and I swear I believe I could acquire medication.  However, the minute one of us switches our time to him to engage, the behavior immediately changes.

I don't mean we watch a movie with him or something surely quiet...I mean engage in an activity. It may be playing cars, walking the dog, putting up laundry together or making beds together...his behavior changes instantly.

I do believe they put entirely to much crap in our food.  God did not make our food to have a longer lasting shelf life or more nutrients and vitamins than He put into them Himself, certain small chickens aren't supposed  to be unnaturally plump for our consumption.

For sure some children are reacting to be over chemical-ed.....and certainly any one of  my children could be one of them. I mean for pete's sake we deal with OCD issues constantly in two children, two children have digestion issues & even I have been have had some issues with food lately & stomach pains, two of the children could be considered "hyper" by some......I mean pick a child, any child, any where....allergies galore these days,  environmental and FOOD allergies more now than ever! Autism, through the roof.  Cancer, through the roof. Alzheimers......Why???

Cause in the name of the almighty dollar our food is genetically modified and chemical-ed, if that is even a word.

I hate to sound manic, but gee wiz folks, I need some people to give me a break from being inundated with politically correct bullcrap. I am bored with that and unaffected.

I need some parents to quit excusing their children with ADHD and dag gone do some parenting that includes showing respect and discipline.

I need to be detoxed from all the chemicals.

I need some Midol & Lindor chocolate truffles probably too.



.

with a stop sign shaped tool................

Mondays......

Last night I totally took the girls to clogging practice. No lie, Ms.P left me hanging for a business venture possibly, so I was own my own with 5 girls for the night. I wondered what the heck I would do with myself at first cause Monday is gab yer head to the point of complete and utter emptiness.

I thought to myself, "Self....you could finish yer book tonight. Except yer eReader light is out of batteries and it isn't back lit...forget turning on yer car lights and draining the battery again. What to do???" In my mind flashed Z's DS game Rhythm Heaven....I would play his game FINALLY, in peace. THEN I was super excited to be on my own.

Nothing is ever as it seems though. When Smalls and her trusty side kick Spunky finished their class, the 5 girls headed off the McD's like we always do for some not nourishment. I had to get some gas first though.

**I got out

**I pumped the gas to full tank.....without my Kroger card which was deplorable.

**I got into the car.

**The flippin car WOULD NOT crank.

tick, tick, tick. tick, tick ,tick

Insert the whole jaw dropping syndrome again with all peeps great and small seated in my car.

A- WHAT??! REALLY??!

SB, May, Smalls, & Spunky - Oh no! I can't believe this!(etc, etc, etc)

I get out and this fellow and his wife that were filling the 2 cars they own and every single gas can from here to the TN border with their Kroger gas card at .40 off a gallon.....were in disbelief also. They were pumping when I pulled in. The husband tells me he doesn't have cables and we discuss for not more than 40 seconds how insane this situation is. I am gabbing with him and making the call to D......again, to come and rescue me.

It's cold and rainy...he isn't feeling my vibe and we are disgruntled with one another cause he is asking me questions I feel are inconsequential and he thinks I am not listening again...and I feel like not listening cause his questions are not helpful. I want him to say, " I am on my way," and he wants me to say "Oh never mind, the car cranked false alarm," or something of that nature.

While I am trying not to get frustrated with his tone of voice at my situation that is completely not my fault, Gas Can Husband has located an Old Navy Truck Man with jumper cables.

EXCITEMENT! I try to hang up with D so I can help this fellow make sure both ends do not touch, in the cold flippin rain, and show my gratitude....but D will not quit lamenting to me on the phone. I want him to be quiet and hang up now and he wants to know what's going on.

I HATE talking on a cell phone, can't stand it....even when not in dire situations. It just bugs the crap out of me.

D- CALL ME WHEN you get the CAR CRANKED! BYE! (D loves his cell phone, even though at this point he was on our home phone. Both D & my mom...the two of them, would lose all consciousness without their cell phones.)

Gas Can Husband connects the cables up completely different than Mr. P has told Ms. P and I.

Gas Can Husband connects the cables up completely different than D has told Ms. P and I.

Three men connecting cables in three different sequences...all telling me with confidence their way is the right way......and at what point the battery could spew rabid, clothes melting, flesh eating, acid onto your face......all three different.

The six of us females have concurred on this: At birth, males are given the knowledge of how to hook jumper cables up. I don't care what order they do it in, they do it with confidence and authority.

My car cranks right up.

Rejoicing!! Not near what it was when Ms. P & I did the man deed. But it did feel good to be rescued and rather quickly in the cold rain.

So I walk over to tell Old Navy Truck thank you for letting us use his cables and how grateful I am that he hadn't left the gas station yet.

Cause it's the south, he wants a hug. I gladly give him one. I am grateful.

Gas Can Husband is bringing the cables over and telling Old Navy Truck Man some man words about my car, that I don't care about. Gas Can Husband is happy cause I am happy....plus he's getting .40 a gallon off every piece of equipment he owns that will hold gas.

I pat his back and tell him "Thank You" and he squeezes my shoulders as in a half hug, cause he's glad to help a car full of gals. Gas Can Wife is happy too, cause her husband is the super hero who saved the day.....plus she's getting .40 a gallon off every piece of equipment he owns that will hold gas.

Well....Old Navy Truck has been talking to a One Legged Man, who makes BBQ sauce, while we are having Monday night drama at the Shell. One Legged Man, one legs it on over to my car and discovers that my battery cables are loose and this is why my completely fine battery has repeatedly acted incompetent.

The three men agree that One Leg has discovered the answer to all of the worlds problems. They all shake their heads in a concurring manner....I do this also. It feels like the right thing I am supposed to do.

One Legged Man tightens the cable best he can till I can get home for D to tightened it properly with a stop sign shaped tool.

Then he declares the car good for another 100,000 miles.

One Leg informs me that he saw me give the other two dudes a hug and he wants one too. After all, he is "the one who discovered the loose battery cables."

We all cackle a bit, I hug him and he reminds me that the Shell gas station sells his BBQ sauce inside and for me to go and buy some. The three males shake hands. They are heroes who have saved 5 females and they have been hugged properly for it......plus Gas Can Husband has gotten .40 a gallon off every piece of equipment he owns that will hold gas.

After that, food was gotten at the drive thru.... Smalls & Spunky played in my car with it running, while I played Rhythm Heaven on Z's DS....and SB & May made it to their class on time.

Furry Bunnies and Rainbows........

crickets marinated in camel spit on a stick or something...........

One afternoon while I was having problems with the perpetual hemorrhoid(that I am now over thank you) I had decided to take a bath. I had found my jar of TOA(Tired Old Donkey) hiding in my cabinet. TOA is mostly epsom salt. This excited me more than it should have.

I poured almost the whole jar into the tub and put the water on entirely too hot. I know the water was too hot because the parts of my skin that were submerged in the tub water were a sun burned red color. The parts of my skin that were outside of the water were a tannish brown.

Relaxing……….relaxing………………….relaxing…………………

!!!!!!!BUST THE DOOR OPEN!!!!!!

S- (with her Diary of a Wimpy Kid book) HEY MOM! Will you help me fill this book out please?

A- No

S- Mom, please…

A- No I am soaking my butt. Lock the door please.

!!!!!!!!!!BUST THE DOOR OPEN!!!!!!!!!!

CB- Mom can I get in?

A- No CB! I am burning my skin off…on purpose. Look at my legs. You see how red they are? You don’t want to burn your legs off do you???

CB- Mom…you can just put some cold water in, then I can get in with you. Besides I already heard you tell Sky you were soaking your butt off not your legs. (I wish it were really that easy to rid myself of excess buttocks.)

Cole is rolling his Hot Wheels up and down the side of the tub making this horrible, unpleasant, not relaxing noise.

S- So. What is the worst thing I ever ate?

At Easter, instead of an Easter Egg Hunt I do a scavenger hunt. Sort of a like The Amazing Race on TV with “Detours” (where the 4 siblings have to complete a challenge together before they can get the next clue) and “Road Blocks” (where they select one of the 4 siblings to complete a challenging task before they can receive the next clue).

I will try to blog on this stuff later…. if I can remember.

What is The Amazing Race without an eat something yucky food challenge?

Before Sky was really old enough to do the hunt fully, Zac had to eat 2 pieces of Kibbles and Bits dog food. I can feel you thinking, why would a parent ask their child to do this awful deed…..but hey, they don’t go to school where kids can subject them to this kind of atmosphere. Somebody has to complete the daunting task of making them "normal.".....after all, this goes under the category of "it tastes like chicken," right?


I mean for real, once this kid told me tree bark tasted like chicken. So I took a rock and scraped some tree bark off of an idiot tree and ate the flippin stuff. I really believed the dang tree tasted like freaking chicken. I liked it so much sometimes I still eat it.......fried......just kiddin.


...side tracked, sorry.

Sky is an eating machine. She loves all food… meat, veggies, tuna, sushi…if I eat it, she will too. She adores eating all creatures great and small from the sea, unlike me in this way(cause you know I like to eat tree bark....just kiddin, sidetracked, sorry).

Two years ago the food challenge was eating a ¼ of a peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich.
(I actually like to eat this sandwich about once a year.)

May and Zac totally bugged out of the challenge and refused to eat the sandwich. I mean it was ¼ for petes sake. It wasn’t even like I asked them to eat crickets marinated in camel spit on a stick or something(or tree bark).


.....so they zoned in on “Mikey.”

Sky said she would not eat it either. I told them that the game was finished then. They would not get the next clue until the challenge was completed. Now…most parents would have given in and gave them the next clue, but I swear I’m just hard that way. This way when I need them to know I will stick to my word, good or bad…they know it’s true.

The beauty of this too is... they all want their perspective prizes. The clues have been set. They can’t get to one without the other. So it was over……no prizes. Life is like that you know. You don’t always get what you want without some sacrifice. People don’t cave in and give you what you want without getting something in return all the dang time.

Somebody had to eat ¼ of the peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich.

Sky did it.

Maysie and Zac worshipped her for a full day. Whatever she wanted that day, they gave her…..because they were grateful that they didn’t have to eat the sandwich.

..........Back to the bathroom taking my bath……

S- So. What is the worst thing I ever ate?

A- Well, let’s see...........Think back to Easter a couple years ago….what did I make you eat that was really gross?

Then she says….

S- I don’t know, Mom. You’ve cooked lots of gross food before.

A- Sky, get out of this bathroom with that retarded book right now.

CB- Mom? When yer done soaking your butt off will you play UNO with me?

Is there really no rest for the weary....ever?

If Tim & Joe are at the mall, how old is Betty?.............

Oh gosh yesterday I had a day where my mind would not work. Like I was helping May with her Algebra and suddenly I just couldn't do it.

So I looked at the answer and tried to work the thing backwards. I could not do it. The problem was by far not the hardest problem we have ever done. It was an age problem that should have been fairly easy once we plugged the numbers in the right spots.

COULD NOT DO IT

I am like why can't I get this freakin answer right?? May was completely frustrated with me, then Zac interrupted with another easy question from his math. By this time my brain was completely and utterly fried and I couldn't even do Zac's math. It was like he was speaking French to me or something and I just couldn't hear him right or understand what he was asking me. Zac got frustrated with me.

I'm all, "LOOK!! I can only do one math problem at a time and right now I can't even do one. EVERYBODY go to your rooms and do a different subject while I figure this idiot problem out before I just die twice and grow a dang beard or something!"

That's what they did. I sat at the kitchen table well past lunch trying to figure out what the heck I was missing. It just was not that complicated of a problem. I called D at work to just get him to do it, didn't answer his phone. So I called my girlfriend Ms. SWAT so she could just give me the answer, she didn't answer. However, her 16 or 17 year old kid that has already graduated from high school and is now in college answered the phone.

A- Look, I need you to give me the answer to this math problem. Can you do this for me without judging me.

.... cricket, cricket.....no answer on the other end

A- Does this mean yer going to judge me?

Ms. SWAT's son - I don't know yet.

So I give him the problem he comes up with the same answer May and I have gotten. I felt validated. Then he takes a pause while I read it to him again and he spouts off the answer with no problem.

I get him to explain it to me like I am a kindergärtner.

Everything in my universe suddenly lines up properly....furry bunnies start hopping across the bedroom floor and rainbows color themselves across my ceiling...pink hearts & glittering stars rain down around me while all the angels in heaven sing.

I end our conversation with gratitude and adoring love that he absolutely would not take from me in person.

I put aside my parental shame and general lameness at not being able to do the idiot math problem. Since my mind has clicked back on "Go" mode, I quickly call Zac down to explain his math problem to him. His universe lines up properly & he celebrates by declaring he is done for the day and popping a bag of Doritos open.

We are all pretty delirious. My house looks like a bomb went off in it.

Mays says to Zac - Who thinks these math problems up anyway?? I mean they are like:

• If Tim & Joe are at the mall, how old is Betty?.........45

• The lake is 400 square miles. Four Tuesday's ago they drained it, next year it will be 6 times the size it is today? How many trees are in the forest?..........3

• Two years ago Betty planted a tree but before she finished planting the tree, she buried her train set underneath it. When she digs the train up in 40 years how fast will the wheels move?.........35mph

• If the cookie jar holds 37 cookies and Jack is 37 years old, how much lemonade did his mother make?

Z- NETFLIX! It's free!

.......we all start laughing, we are truly done with school for the day.

...............................................

I was fixing May a microwavable noodle dish of some sort for lunch last week.

Obviously the meal is hot when it comes out of the microwave.

I put it on the counter top "to sit for 2 minutes."

I peeled back the clear packaging to let it vent a bit and stir it a little.

One cheesy noodle came out and landed half on the counter top and half on the meal container.

I thought I would flip the hot noodle back into the dish. The blasted noodle stuck to my finger and was burning my fingertips off. So I slung in a panic downward motion to get it off.

The flippin scalding cheese defied my panic and went in the upward position onto MY FACE....... AND BURNED MY FACE! Can you believe that?

Dig on this now, one little dot of cheese hit the one mole or beauty mark, which I prefer, under my nose....... AND BURNED A HOLE IN MY "BEAUTY MARK!"

If you have ever scratched a mole or done something that causes a mole harm, you know they bleed horrible and take forever to heal. It looks like a big zit under my nose.

I didn't get the mole on this pic but who cares.

I mean for real....I do have the flippin "cheese touch."

*

Do you want some of my whoop, whoop?.......

D got a facebook. He is addicted to it, though he claims he is not. He was conflicted about what exactly it meant to add "friends" to your list. We had this long overdrawn out discussion about "friends." Then like, one of his first status updates was some business about about how I said his "friends" weren't his "real friends" and can he get a "whoop, whoop" if you are his friend and fa lala lala la la la la.

I am like, slow yer roll dude, that is not what I said at all. But as is common practice I gave him a mulligan and let him have his FB fun. Cause you know how it is when you first get on FB...it's a time eating machine that you think about incessantly.

Well of course all of his friends are going to "whoop, whoop" him, for crying out loud. No amount of explaining I do is going to take back that inaccurate status update.

So all day long his phone is dinging to show someone else has given him a whoop, whoop. He appended a certain high pitched voice to the whoop whoop as the day progressed. By the end of this particular day D has a whoop whoop dance to go with it.

He is feeling very FB encouraged and asks me if I would like to have some of his whoop whoop.

I am like, "I don't know man, if it's anything like yer couscous I need to think about it."

....he is still getting whoop whoops and he still does the dance, even after nearly two weeks.

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A- Cole what would like for dinner?

CB- uuuuummm......I think I would like to have some chips with some tater tots. (he's serious)

A- uuuuummmm.....Let me see......hoooooww about, no. Try again.

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We had this awful bout with chiggers a couple weeks ago. They were awful. Zac, May, and I all had bites all over our legs. They were rampant at the soccer fields apparently and lots of folks I had spoken with had bites on their legs also. I was Google-ing endlessly one day to find a source of termination for the incessant itching on our legs......fingernail polish worked great for us.

A link for Urban Dictionary came up. It read something to the effect of

Chiggers - Chegroes -

Politically-correct name for biting insects; ie chiggers.

This caused me to snicker a little, but not too much cause I didn't want to get honkey guilt.....

Warning: Urban dictionary can be mind contaminate, but some of the new phrases and meanings, are pretty witty.

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I took Cole to the Kroger Deli so as not to feed his addiction to the sight of Golden Arches.

I swear if you take a child to McD's one time it is a permanent life addiction until they reach 40.

When it suddenly catches up with them and then they have to take a probiotic and some Colonix to regain some sense well being and decontamination.

Anyhoo....

CB- I don't want to eat at the Deli

A- I don't care CB. There is no way I am going in McD's today, the smell makes me gag.

CB - You can just hold yer nose Momma, that's what I do when it stinks.

A- No, CB ...you'll like this stuff I promise. Little, tiny chicken legs and green beans, it'll be good trust me.

CB does love the 5 little chicken legs he has picked out and the beans. He is smacking his lips in the back seat on the way home.

CB- mmm......mmmmmmm.......mmm...Mom I love these chickens. I am gonna save these two for Skylar and Zac.

A- Sky can't eat those Babe, go ahead and eat them. I will buy Zac some legs later okay?

CB- Mom what's this stuff say on the top? (he's holding the lid up pointing to the ingredients list)

A- That's the ingredients. It tells what they make the chicken flavoring from.

CB - Well.......I love these ingredients.

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and Michael Jackson's hair to blow up.........

So I turned 40 this past Sunday on the 12th.

To me this signifies(God willing) the beginning of the next half of my life. I certainly want to do things a little differently now than say I did 5 years ago.

It turns out that D and I were able to go to the Biltmore Estate for a couple days by ourselves. My mom came in town from Atlanta to keep our kids on Friday. Shortly after that, D and I headed toward North Carolina. We were to stay at his parents mountain house in Bryson City then tour the Biltmore on Saturday.

On our way over we stopped for lunch at this place called The Apple...something or other.....it consisted of a few nice log type buildings. One building a cafe, one a super cool general store with old fashioned candies, jams, jellies, banjo bird houses and stuff. The third log building sold quilted goods, candles, and other things women generally go nuts over like cool book marks, nice dishes, and monogrammed stuff.

Lunch was delicious. The stand out items from lunch were the house made potato chips, they were outstanding. I could have eaten way to many of them and in a hurry. I had a peach fritter that wouldn't stand a chance against my Momma-Bet's(grandmother) apple fritter.

Walking into the general store you get slammed in the face with the smell of rock your world flavored coffee beans ready for the scooping. There was this one maple coffee that I was just about to stick my face in and suffocate myself, but I refrained. So this hiker/runner type couple enters the store behind D and I. They are from the north and not very chatty. I know cause they commented on the smell of the coffee and I had just lifted my head from the barrel of maple delicious goodness...

A- You have to smell this one, it's amazing. They all smell great.

Husband (half smiling like he smells dog dooky) - yeah

Wife - Well we bought coffee last night. (she moves on past me without ever looking at me)

A- OOookay then.....

I move onto the old fashioned candy and what do my wondering eyes spy but CANDY CIGARETTES and bubble gum cigars. Remember the kind that you would puff and powdered sugar came out like smoke? I hadn't seen those in like forever. Because who buys candy cigarettes for their kids to pretend to be smoking for petes sake.

uumm ....me.

I bought a pack of the bubble gum, powdered sugar smoke ones, a pack of the candy stick ones that taste like stamps with the red tip insinuating fire, and 4 bubble gum cigars......cause that's the kind of parent I am.

The kids and I had just been discussing how when I was a kid, we walked to the Tenneco gas station up the street. we'd buy 3 cent a piece gum or if we were lucky enough to have a full .35 we'd get a candy bar.....an by the way while you are there get your mom some Benson & Hedges Lights. I'd buy my mom's cigarettes and buy myself candy ones and pretend to be smoking. All the kids I knew bought their parents cigarettes. We'd pull in the gas station and our parents would send us in to buy the cigarettes so they didn't have to get out of the car.

For real, I mean we didn't think anything about it. Today if you sent your kid into a gas station to buy cigarettes somebody would probably report you for abuse.

Nonetheless, the kids were intrigued by the thought of bubble gum cigarettes that blew out powdered sugar like smoke. When I saw them I knew I had to get them. I also found honey sticks in all flavors. They wouldn't touch the ones we bought fresh in Santa Fe though.

When I got the stuff home Cole wouldn't touch the bubble gum cigs. The powdered sugar looked like smoke to him and he wasn't having any part of that....even when I showed him the cigarette was purple and you could eat it. It was funny and it made me feel good about his decision making too. The other 3 were basically just trying to puff the sugar out and thought the gum was horrible. It was back then, and it still is now... horrible tasting gum.

The stamp tasting candy stick ones...Z ate like they were steaks. Of course he is at the stage where he might eat a stick of butter if there is nothing else within his immediate grasp.

I am glad they got to see them. It showed me that my kids even the young ones are quite able to distinguish between things that are good for them and things that are not. They understood these were for fun and it was fun to puff the sugar and turn red in the face trying to get it all out, but that was all it was.

I love that my kids are cool that way. They react accordingly cause they aren't expected to overreact. They don't have to be explained all this philosophical hullabaloo about ......Now children these aren't REAL cigarettes and they are just for play...we all know cigarettes aren't good for your body....isn't that right children? Now we all know matches start fire and fire, young people without the brains to think, causes cancer and Michael Jackson's hair to blow up...blah, blah...blah...blah...blah, blah....

Okay where was I?

In the store. I bought some awesome Minnetonka Moccasins also.

While I was paying for my bad parenting products and my shoes, I totally saw the hiker wife going beserk in the scoop your own coffee beans section. No lie she was scooping hard and so fast filling her clear bag to capacity. D said he saw her spilling beans all over the floor. In my heart I felt like hiker wife was an idiot. She talked to her husband like he was her pet, I didn't like it. The hiker husband was kinda sniffy too. I didn't respect him too much for letting his wife talk to him like that....but he was wearing the coolest Keen shoes and I did respect that he treated his feet well.

Gotta a lot of stuff to get out...it may take a few blogs but it'll all get here eventually.......

when you put a platypus in someone's bed it's called a platy-prank.............

Uncle Charlie to Maysie some time ago - What did you do to your hair?

M- I got it highlighted.

UC- Yeah one time I highlighted some strands of my hair....the ones that were more important than the others.

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May to me one night before dropping them off at Awana - Are you going to fix your hair?

A- Yes.

M- Good. It looks like the curly wall of terror and doom.

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Z in the car on the way to soccer practice - Did you know that a platypus is poisonous?

A- No

Z pretending to be a geek and dorking out someone else dorkier than himself - Hey, ya know that kid over there?.....Well, he got bit by a platypus. Now he has platy-pox.

M (from the back seat somewhere)- ....and he had to take some platy-pills and rush to the platy-porcelain pony when he had to platy-poop. He had to platy-pray to the platy-pope for healing so he wouldn't become platy-paralyzed.

A, Z, S, & CB (insert much laughing)

M- You have to cook platypus eggs in a platy-pan......and when you put a platypus in someone's bed it's called a platy-prank.

A, Z ,S ,& CB (insert much laughing)

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Getting in the car for practice one night, it's just me, Z, and one other kid, I can't remember which one, probably Cole. Cole is in his car seat Z climbs all the way to the back of the van. I am like why is he sitting all the way back there?

A- Why are you sitting all the way back there?

Z- I don't know I just felt like it.

A- Well, sit up front or in the middle?

Z- Why? What difference does it make where I sit?

A- Number one because I said so. Number two because I am your mother not your chauffeur. I don't chauffeur you around from event to event cause I have nothing better to do...because that's my job. I purposefully drive you to those events because I want to watch you play. I want you to have a good time doing what you enjoy. So when you sit up front it acknowledges to me that you understand I am not your maid, I am your mother who chooses to take you to your happy place.

Z moving up front huffing a bit.....I know he is rolling his eyes though I cannot see it.

Z- Why Lord......do females have to be so dang complicated all the time?

The way I see it....I'm just breaking him in well for his future wife.......

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I haven't had the time to blog or do anything that remotely causes my brain to rot in decompression since school started and it's not going to get better any time soon. The only thing I can do is drive from place to place and try to "keep up with the Jones' " which I despise. I can't stand running all over Hell and creation throwing money out of my car windows in the form of gas and losing what feels like a life time in the drivers seat of my car. Keeping the files in my mind in order so as not to skip something is a freaking chore these days.

So one morning while lamenting in despair over my Outlook calendar looking like someone threw up lego blocks on it in the form of activities that steal my valuable time.....Cole shuffles into my room in the early morning darkness and crawls up in my lap. He nods back off to sleep.

I notice his top lip pushed forward as he sucks his thumb hard. I can smell his breath, it wreaks of a good nights sleep. I can see the veins in his eyelids, smoothly covering his big greenish eyes. I notice his stark white hair bleached from the summer sun and his tan body hanging all over me. His legs have gotten so long that they hang over one side of my chair and his head is hanging over the crease of my other arm on the other side.

My baby is so long all of the sudden.....in fact he isn't even a baby or a toddler, he's a little boy. When the heck did that happen? I try to hold him more like a baby to see if it will change my perspective, but it doesn't.

He's really big.

My last baby is a baby no more.

I pulled him close to sniff his hair and his face to see if he smelled like a baby. He smelled like shampoo from the night before and that's it.

CB(sleepily)- Mom.........quit smelling me. I took a bath last night. My stomach wants something delicious to eat. It wants toast with no butter and chocolate milk.

This means he wants toast with butter. If he sees you put the butter on the toast, he won't eat it. If you serve him the toast with no butter...he won't eat it. So you have to do it all in secret, then everything is furry bunnies and rainbows.

I completely forgot about that despicable calendar of events for the day. I realized that my baby boy was really a little boy.......

........all the time with all of my babies is forever gone. It was really a jagged little pill to swallow for a few minutes. My throat physically squeezed tight and my eyes tried hard not to get wet.........



.....then suddenly..... I felt euphoria.

It came to me, I would never ever, ever, ever, have to potty train again.

All the stars in my universe were aligned properly after that.

A little Nook..... or two, part 2........

Saturday morning D and I got up and had coffee on the back deck with each other in peace. He read his phone and I read about my new Nook through the manual loaded on it. It was awesome to hold and I felt cool.

I sort of felt really white. Here we are way up on a mountain with all this great scenery and animal sounds....and both my husband and I are stuck face down in our electronics with our perfect little children snuggled in their beds while we sit together in "peace" on the back deck of a vacation home......with our minivan in full side view.

Once the kids got up, ate, and we packed our cooler for the day, we took off for Deep Creek park.

We grabbed a picnic table, plopped all our earthly belongings on top of it and around it to be sure everyone knew this table was well taken.



I walked up the path a mile or so with them the first time, so I could take pictures of them on the way down. I knew once we got going I'd be leaving my camera behind. OOOOOO h yeah, everyone was gung hoe that first walk up, toting their own tubes & couldn't walk fast enough.

Once they put in I took off down way to catch a few shots.

This was around 10:30 am or so and no one was at the park yet. We had the run of the creek to ourselves and few other folks.

By the time we left around 4:30 pm that afternoon the park was packed. There wasn't a single parking place anywhere, trying to find a picnic table would have been a serious joke. The creek was so full of tubers that as far down as I could see, was nothing but a sea of neon orange, Santa Fe sky blue, and lime green tubes. It was the complete opposite of our first run of the day.

The water was super cold all day. This was a great help to those of us who fell off of our tubes every 10 minutes or so. D set CB up so that we could be attached to him by way of a rope which was brilliant. This way if he flipped or got to far ahead we were on him quick.

Well of course D brought him down with flying colors the first run. CB had a ball, couldn't wait to go again. It takes a little while to get back down once you put in. D announced he was going to sit the next run out and let me take CB. He would start the grill for lunch. D explained to me CB roping technique. I listened and we took off.

We are 1/4 to 1/2 of the way up. CB doesn't want to walk anymore. I am toting his tube and a heavy black tire tube (cause D and Z claimed those were the better tubes vs. the brightly colored lighter tunes. More durable = MORE HEAVY, with no handles) I am toting 2 tubes. Sky is not wanting to carry her lighter tube. Now Z is toting her tube. CB is starting to whine about he's hungry and he doesn't want to walk. It's a long walk for small stride legs.

In my show no mercy mind I'm all, Oh no dude, yer butt is going up and walkin too, yer the one who wanted to go a second run immediately and didn't want to take a break, get to steppin Larry.

Z ends up putting CB on his back and telling Sky to tote her own tube. Z hauls CB a good ways up while carrying his own tube. It takes us forever to get up cause Z and I have to keep switching off with our heavy tubes and CB and Sky and their tubes. I proclaim a minimum of 50 times that I am never getting a heavy black tire tube again...... I don't care what they say, I want a dinky neon tube with handles. I notice at the end of the day we are the only fools who even got the heavy tire tubes......not gonna do those again.

At the top we put in. I work the rope and fall off my tube at least three times cause I am just not that well balanced and coordinated enough to lay back and just work it. So I am sitting upright. This causes me to get hung up on the rocks....um...........all the way down. It makes CB worried cause it is taking so long to get down and he is cold, tired, and hungry. This young, hip, fit, hiker type couple on the side sees me working the rope. They stand up and cheer me on.....for real.

"Way to work it Momma! wooooooooooooo!!! You look like a pro! You own the creek Momma!!!!! Aren't you supposed to be sitting on the bank chillin out? "

A- YES! What happened to that?! Go get my husband and tell him I need to chill out on the bank with my Nook & a soda!

Couple - Yer almost to the bottom Mom feel the rope, be the rope!! (they LOL) You're a PRO MOM!!!

A- YES!!! (swooshing on by) I am the creek master! Go and tell the world you have seen me!!!

Couple - (laughing, hooting & cheering)

I loved them cause they must have seen me trying to be a good mom and ready to get off that tube.

So we finally get to our picnic table pull out spot and it has been over an hour since we left. My arms are killing me and CB is super cold and hungry. He immediately starts crying and telling dad I fell off the tube and got hung up on every rock. D thinks I am a tubing moron, I think cause I can't lay back and do the rope. I feel the need to sit up on the tube to be alert. Which obviously worked against me at full strength.

D has made the most delicious hot dogs and hamburgers for us. I am bow down and worship grateful. After lunch D is ready to go again. D, M, and Z sneak off without CB & Sky while they are playing around in some pools beside our table.

I am thinking I am so done today. My arms are killing me to the point that putting a pickle in my mouth seems like an Olympic event that someone should give me a medal for. I need that couple to cheer me on to raise my arms to drink my soda.

"you're a pro MOM!!! You own the caffeine free diet soda, work it, feel the soda, be the soda!!!"

We have partnered up with these older than us couples(in their late 50's and 60's). We watch their tubes and they watch ours for picture taking and bathroom breaks and general cutting up.

D has had a jolly good time at my expense agging CB on about what a terrible tuber I am and how Dad is really the king of the creek. The more CB tells of our experience down the creek, the more D aggs him on, the more the old folks laugh. Finally D takes him down one more time and then claims he is done tubing for the day. He is getting sore and scratched up also, even though he has not fallen out.

Alas the 3 oldest kids want me to go with them one more time. I don't have to take CB which is cool, so I hop up ready for some action.

I fall off and get stuck on the rocks cause I am an awful tuber all the way down. This bald man with straight white teeth is behind me steady laughing and having a barn hootin laugh out when I get hung up and flipped in this one rapid.

He hollers out, "Don't worry about it! It looked pretty Momma! (insert hillbilly laugh out)"

He hits the same rapid and flips. I hop on my tube. I am on the tube but not floating frontward the way I should be. I hollered back cause I can see his head pop up out of the water and he's pulling his pants up, "Don't worry about it Poppa, It looked pretty!" I see his smiling white teeth and bald head......his face reads that he is so busted, but a super good sport.

Z has been the gentleman on this ride down. He waited for me all the way so he could get me unstuck and help me when I fell off. When we pull out D is packing up and I am thankful. All of us are scratched up, exhausted, and sore....not just me. On the way home despite being scratched up & exhausted we are relaying constantly how fun the day was. We all thanked Maysie relentlessly for suggesting we come to the mountain house for her birthday.

It was a super good time. The whole weekend was awesome.

I have no idea why everyone called me "Momma" this weekend.

I may need to make some adjustments to my outer shell.