Hot For the Holidays

I am joining in with It's Almost Naptime to try to finish off my weight loss goals. I started out great this summer but after vacation and trying to get back into school, I have sort of fizzled out. So maybe this will keep me accountable because heaven knows Tigerfan's sweet gifts of chocolate to eat after the kids go to bed are appreciated but not figure friendly.

So, here it is: the ugly truth.

When I married, 13 years and 4 kids ago, I weighed about 115 pounds. After a little summer weight loss and on a good morning, I weigh about 138. I should have taken a good let it all hang out picture but those who have been around awhile know my technology issues so I am just putting in a couple of recent pictures that highlights some unflattering rolls (oh, please be kind!).

Do ya see 'em? The rolls? Yuck!

Okay, so here is the plan:

Continue to do cardio at least 30 minutes a day MWF and 20 minutes on T and Th. Strength training on MWF and hopefully a little cardio on the weekends. I already do this but have "missed" several days this week, like this morning because I am nothing if not dedicated to being a "hottie".

Okay, I will also get back to eating between 1200 and 1500 calories a day with guidance from Sparkpeople and will start tracking my calories again because as a dedicated rule follower there is NOTHING worse than having to write down an offending food and I therefore will not eat it!

I will, however, continue to rebel on Thursday nights for popcorn and Peanut M&M's because, there are limits, people!!!

Other than Thursday nights, I will stop eating late night snacks, especially while ironing and watching Project Runway which will be relatively easy because Project Runway is now over (and, may I add that the WRONG designer won, although I ALWAYS choose the wrong designer, but Korto (or however you spell your name,) the win should have been yours!).

I have also gotten a little lazy about my water consumption so I will try to get back to my 8 glasses a day (I have been doing about 5 glasses lately).

Okay, so there it is! Feel free to hound, heckle or guilt me into being faithful to the cause! And feel free to join in yourself because everyone knows that misery loves company!!!

Happy Friday!

5 Year Old's Guide to Style

This morning Dancer was in my room as I got ready for tutorial. When I finished dressing the following conversation took place:

Dancer: Mommy, where did you get that shirt?

Me: I am not sure, I've had it awhile. Why? Don't you like it?

Dancer: Well, really, it is kind of ugly.

Me: Should I change?

Dancer: YES!

I changed!

This is the Reason They Put Warning Labels on Appliances

I knew I loved the Amish for some reason, and now I know why! Electricity has not been a friend to the youngest in our clan this week.

Saturday night, we were doing the bath routine. Luckily we began early. Dancer got out of the tub and came to get her hair dried. I love to do goofy things to her while drying her hair so we were being silly when Tigercub crawled into the room. I got a little distracted and was not doing an adequate styling job, so Dancer decided to take over. Just as she grabbed the dryer, sparks began flying EVERYWHERE! She was frozen in place screaming but apparently unable to make herself let go until I was able to jerk the cord out from the wall. She is no worse for wear although I think it may be awhile before she allows her hair to be anything but air dried again. I suppose the lesson learned here is if you have a hair dryer that is as old as your marriage, you might want to take caution when handing it to a five year old. Needless to say, I am now the proud owner of a new hair dryer with ionic something or other and a sleek new design! Oh, if only other things that were tired and worn out were so easily replaced.

Today, Tigercub decided to have a little action of his own. I did something completely quirky and off the wall and pulled out the vacuum! Oh, I kid, I get that pesky thing out about once a day now that Little Man has begun self feeding. He self feeds himself, the highchair, the floor, the wall...anyway, today I decided to do the unthinkable and leave the beast out so I could run it all over the downstairs after supper.

Now, the boys have once again lost every privilege known to man because they are having mouth and obedience issues and as a result they are very obliging...hoping to lure me into giving back at least a privilege or two. During these times, they volunteer for all sorts of jobs that would otherwise cause them to groan, roll their eyes and swear they had nothing to do with it! And so, when I went to the laundry room and heard the vacuum switch on, I thought nothing of it. Until I heard the screams. It seems that Tigercub had figured out how to turn on the beast and then been terrified of it...which is completely understandable, because the sound of a cleaning instrument in use is quite foreign around here! He had crawled into a corner and was screaming and staring at the vacuum as if it was headed in for the kill. This paired with the "screaming monkey" a friend of mine gave him to play with a couple of weeks ago have pretty well insured the poor child WILL be in counseling one day!

I wonder if there are any good therapists in Amish country?

Why Do I Feel Compelled to Share These Things?

I know you have probably been losing sleep over my Project Runway dilemma so I would like to put your minds at ease! I was wrong (shocking, I know) The show was not two hours, the second half of the finale will be next Wednesday so I really had no dilemma at all other than I am a dunce AND I have one more week of highly pertinent and worthwhile T.V. to entertain me while I iron! Whew!

In other news, I talked to my sweet Mommy and Daddy and Grandma last night. I know, for most of you out there that would not be news but my parents are a little difficult to get ahold of. Especially Momma. Especially if I call her on her cell phone which is really futile. Because, she doesn't answer it. And, if you leave a message, she doesn't know how to retrieve them so it just goes out into cell space forever.

Anyhoo, I got to talk to them last night and I was very excited, especially Momma because she started a different job this year and I wanted to hear how it was going. She has been a teacher for lo these many years now and has enjoyed it. However, this year, they asked her to be the reading specialist. She wasn't sure she wanted to leave the classroom, but agreed to do it for this year. I had not talked to her since she started so I checked in last night.

Unfortunately, she hasn't had much time to decide if she likes it because not long after school started, a kindergarten teacher quit quite suddenly. Guess who had to fill in the gap. My mom. Which, if it was me would not be a big deal because I LOVED teaching kindergarten. My mom, not so much! You see, she started college after all of us girls were in school and trudged through while working AND taking care of a family of five (she is awesome)! When she began, she would have liked to go into medicine because she LOVES science but decided she would be too old by the time she got through and went into education instead. When she graduated, her first job was a kindergarten class. She HATED it! Now, let me tell on myself just a bit. I remember her coming home one day a couple of weeks into school and telling us the story about this HORRIBLE little girl (5 years old) that she had. She was naughty and every day on the playground, she would go around flipping birds. My mom continued on saying she just didn't know how to make her stop or what caused her to do this but it happened every day!

People, I promise, this was my response:

"Momma, how does she catch the birds?"

I was at least junior high or high school by this time. And as my mom described the scenario, I was picturing this little five year old running around the playground catching birds and flipping them and I was STUNNED!

My mom then had to explain to me that she was not, in fact literally flipping birds. She was giving children "the finger", "flipping them off", you get the picture!

Anyway, she is now back in kindergarten purgatory for the time being. Thankfully, a new teacher has been found and starts Monday so after a week of transition, Momma will go back to her reading specialist duties, full of thanksgiving I daresay!

She did offer me the hope that if I were to move back to Salt Lake, I could almost certainly find a job in the school system since they are so desperate they are even hiring non certified folks to teach, however, the thought of putting my sweet princess into a kindergarten class with 30 (yes, 30) other students makes the thought quite horrifying!

I guess we'll stay put for now. Keep homeschooling the clan and watching baby ( who will hereto fore be referred to as Tigercub due to his affinity to growling at everything) grow. And I will NOT, under any circumstances teach my kiddos to flip birds!

A Little of This, A Little of That

I can not come up with even one thing blog worthy right now. Not one thing.

And so, a list of rambling thoughts going through my head.

1. I have the BEST Daddy ( my momma is pretty great, too) he faithfully checks in to the ole blog about once a week to keep up with things around here and even commented on someone else's blog just cause I told him to, isn't that sweet! He has always been a good Daddy. Someone I could talk to, share with, call for advice. God blessed me with such great parents and I am soooo thankful!

2. Baby has decided that sleep is highly overrated. He likes to sleep about 1 hour at a time. All night long..up and down, up and down, trying to convince him that sleep is a good thing and will make mommy a much happier person. This morning, he decided that he had absolutely had enough of it! At 4:45 a.m. Yes, I had to get up BEFORE 5:00 and I don't even have the satisfaction of knowing I exercised. I wonder how much Benadryl you can give to a 9 month old?

3. Tonight is the season finale of Project Runway!!! I am so excited. However, it comes on at 8:00 while we are still on our way home from church. Usually I DVR it and watch it at 9:00 when I start ironing. But tonight I think it is 2 hrs. So I cannot start watching at 9 or it will stop recording and then I won't see the end. Which means I can't start watching til 10 which will make it midnight when it ends. What a dilemma! And, what will I watch when it is over?

4. Why is it that when the economy is going to pot, so is our insurance. Until this year we have had AWESOME insurance! Not anymore. We got the bill yesterday for Tigerfan's yearly mole removals--over $500 and they have not yet sent us one for Football boy. AND, Tigerfan has to go back to get more removed on one. And insurance--not paying a dime! Not till we reach $2,200. We will reach $2,200 on or around December31, I feel certain!

5. I should be doing school. The kids are on lunch break. Also referred to as time for mommy to regain her sanity (I use the word loosely). They are using this time well by stuffing pillows in their shirts and wrestling one another. And people wonder if we homeschoolers can really give our kids a good education!

6. I think Tigerfan has successfully begun grooming his fourth little LSU fan. Baby crawls all over the house growling at anyone and everything he sees. Right now he is growling at the hard drive and playing with the pretty green button that turns the computer on. I think it might be time to go--before my littlest Tiger erases more than just my blog post (which really is mediocre at best and would not be life altering if destroyed).

Have a great day!.. I'll be back eventually with something enthralling I am sure. For now I would like to leave an encouragement. So many of my blogging friends are down and discouraged right now, going through far worse trials than time management issues or being too busy. So, for those who just need a little word remember:

...Weeping may endure for a night,
but Joy Comes in The Morning.
Psalm 30:5

The Weekend in Pictures

Yes, I said pictures! Because I can post them now! Yay, me!
We're off!

Shopping for purple and gold!

Three boys and a "feaux"hawk

Visiting Mike:

Sliding down the Indian Mounds:

Sharing peanuts with Papaw before the game:

Saturday Night in Baton Rouge!

Lessons Learned from Blogging

I have been tagged for yet another meme. Some people might frown on being repeatedly tagged for memes. I, myself, am quite appreciative! It gives me something to blog about that requires very little thought or creativity on my part and that is exactly what I need at this stage in my life.

I was tagged by my bloggy friend, Aimee, from The Mother Load. And, people, she needs some love right now. So, before doing anything else, jump over to her blog and just tell her Jesus loves her or something because I know EXACTLY how she feels and I wish I could just hug her, hire a babysitter and get away with her and enjoy some peaceful away time. But I can't. So, this is the best I can do!

Okay, now down to business. The meme is simply to tell five things that I have learned from blogging.

1. I have learned that just because the whole free world likes to read Big Mama and Boo Mama and I like to read them, it does NOT mean they (the whole free world) want to read me. Now, I know that probably seems obvious to you, but in my early blogging career (hah!) I was quite saddened that I did not have a following, in fact, I still do not have much of a following. But now I am at peace with that.

2. While at one point, I was striving for a feeling of significance, I have learned that what I love about blogging is not being acknowledged by hundreds (okay, not even tens) or having a "super blogger" comment, it is the relationships that I have begun to build, the bloggers I truly think of as friends, even though I have never seen them or even heard most of their voices. It is reading a blog from another person in the same place as me and not feeling so alone or like such a failure, it is reading someone's blog who is past this stage and seeing that there really is light at the end of the tunnel and that maybe, just maybe, I will not completely screw up my children!

3. I have learned to post pictures!!!! I know, for many of you, that is not a big deal but for me, on Wordpress---ugh!

4. I have learned that no matter how tired you are, if you have a really good story or idea for a post, somehow you really can muster enough energy to stay up just a little longer and that, often that leads to checking other blogs, which can lead to finding a new blog and before you know it, you have found the energy to stay up MUCH longer and you now have to be up in 5 hours and yet, you don't regret it a bit.

5. Blogging is addictive!!! Why is it so interesting to read about other's lives? Why does what would be mundane if it happened to me seem so amusing when someone else talks about it? I now think of everything in terms of "Can I blog about this?" "I wonder if I should take a picture so I can post it?" "Should I ask this person if I can write about their embarrassing moment or just do it and hope they don't read it?" I have learned to prioritize but in my early blogging days, I spent far too much time reading, commenting, posting almost daily and searching for other blogs to read, etc.

6. Okay, I know the rule is five, but I just thought of one more I HAD to include. Everyone loves to get comments. Before I had a blog of my own, I lurked on many. I NEVER commented. When I began blogging, I longed for someone to say SOMETHING. Of course my daddy and sister commented me through the early days but I have now learned that it isn't just me. And while I can't always comment (usually because I am feeding the baby while I read the blogs) I do as often as I can even if it is just to say I am still there. I used to think what was the point of commenting if I didn't have anything "profound" to say, then I started commenting EVERYWHERE because I heard that is how to get readers. Now, I read a few blogs, comment as much as I can and do the "Happy Dance" anytime I get a comment on my own blog.

Now, I must proceed with tagging some others. You may notice a trend with me, how the same people are tagged every time. That would be because they are the only people I know who will read this blog and might actually do the meme. So, without further adieux, I will AWARD (that is for you, CJ) the following bloggers the tag:

Purple Diva
Happy Mommy
P.S. He Loves You
Four Little Penguins
Growing With It