Belling the Baby

Remember the story about the mice who wanted to put a bell on the cat so they would always know where he was?




The boys have subscribed to that philosophy around here. They got tired of me freaking out because Tigercub would suddenly disappear and they would be forced into a man hunt. And so...they belled the baby!




Notice the little green band around his ankle? That is the wrist bells from their instrument kit! Surprisingly, he leaves it alone and we ALWAYS know where he is....until I have had all the jingling I can take! Hey, it works for us!

The Decline Continues

I may have stated once or twice that I have been having a bit of trouble pulling myself together recently. What I once thought I had a grasp on, I now realize was always just a step from slipping out of my hand.

Friday I had a little bloggy rant and I had one person comment that indeed, I needed to be more organized. And while I TOTALLY appreciate the spirit in which that comment was offered, the comment is a little like telling someone who just had a limb removed that they need to get help or they will bleed to death. Or telling a drowning person that they should really swim to shore. Or commenting to a flunking student that they should really get their grades up. I KNOW I need to be more organized. I get that! I just don't know how.


Now, if you can help me out with that, feel free to just comment away. Or call. Or visit. Or send a little team of organizing fairies!


Anyway, My point is that I realize life has gotten a little out of control. BUT, just in case you do not believe me and in the interest of full disclosure an utter Internet honesty, I would like to present you with some after pictures. I didn't take before shots. These lovely little pictures are from Thursday. After I spent 2 1/2 hours cleaning. Remember...these are the AFTER pictures:

I would like you to notice the very clean table in the background! Martha Stewart should be calling any day now!

I cleaned again today! The whole floor has been vacuumed, the table is clear again, and the rest of the house? Well, it looks just about the same!

Halloween

Okay, in the interest of time and sanity...we are going with the brief, not at all amusing, but terribly cute, holiday in pictures. We always go to our church's Halloween alternative Fall Fun Fest. This year, Baseball boy was invited to a friend's to go trick or treating. We allowed him to go because he was sooo excited and had never been trick or treating before! Thus, I have no pictures of the little guy...don't judge me, I am doing the best I can!


Anywhoo...we went the route of cheapness on costumes. Baseball boy wore his LSU jersey and borrowed football pants and pads. Voila--football player!


Tigerfan reprised his role as LSU superfan adorning himself with as much purple and gold as he could find. Last year, Tigerfan even painted his face like a tiger...this year, no face paint, oh well!


Dancer was going as an LSU cheerleader (do you see a theme here?) until Thursday. Thursday, she had rodeo day at tutorial and loved being a cowgirl so much, she decided to go with that.


Tigercub suffered at the hands of a tired mommy and had no costume. Nothing.


So, Friday morning I had to go get a haircut and my "stylist" asked what the kids were wearing. She said I should dress Tigercub like a cowboy. I said I had considered that but all I had for Tigercub was bluejeans. When she was through with my hair, she volunteered to put Dancer's hair in some cowgirl braids and then told me to wait a minute. She disappeared upstairs and returned with tiny little boots, vest and chaps for Tigercub! What a blessing!

Okay, so here are the pictures...Halloween '08:

Please notice the lovely Halloween decoration (aka: dead fern) that is gracing my front porch!

The kids had loads of fun, and fortunately for me, decided riding horses, climbing rock walls and bouncing in hoppers was way more fun than playing "silly" games for candy...so, although we have plenty, we did not come home with the extreme amount of sugar that we have in the past! Which is another blessing considering my struggle with pre-holiday weight loss!

The final Halloween blessing, which, actually, was the first was a little surprise gift from CJ, the Purple Diva, she sent my kids a wonderful box of Halloween goodies (which they finally got once I convinced Tigerfan it wasn't a gift from a crazy person filled with anthrax) just because she is the absolute sweetest thing on earth! You really must go check her out if you don't already because she will make you laugh EVERY DAY!!! And her energy level, at least on her blog, is comparable to that of a two year old boy...need I say more?

Hippo for the Holidays

As you can probably guess from the title, this has been another BAD week. Why is it that as soon as I PUBLICLY commit to weight loss, I go from doing okay to just blowing it constantly?

In my defense, and it is a pitiful defense, my life has just spiraled out of control. It has been right on the brink lately but I have managed to hold on to one tiny thread and keep going. Not this week.

I have posted in the past about my desperate need for a time management course. I even asked Tigerfan for a personal assistant for Christmas but he ignored me! Well, my lack of organizational skills has finally hit me smack in the face.

For several months now, my schedule has been something like this:
5:00 a.m. get up and do cardio for 30 minutes
5:30 a.m. breakfast and quiet time
6:00 a.m. shower and get ready
6:45 a.m. get the children up and begin the day, fix breakfast, do morning chores, etc. I also use this time as our "read aloud" time for school so while the children eat, I read to them from our current novel.
8:00 a.m. (hopefull) officially begin school. We usually begin by starting the laundry, doing pledges, learning a song for church choir, reciting our heart verses, and doing our Bible lesson. All of which I need to be present and involved in. Then, the children can choose what subject they work on next and we get started.

I assist with school where needed and try to keep laundry going. However, by keeping laundry going, I mean realizing one load is through, putting it in to dry and starting another...going to pull clothes I do not want to dry all the way...putting them in a basket to take upstairs to hang up to dry...getting distracted by a child needing assistance...realizing the dryer is through...putting clothes on the couch to fold...getting distracted by a fussy baby... by the days end, I usually have a basket of wet clothes weighing approximately 500 pounds and a couch so full of unfolded clothes that no one can use the living room!

11:30 a.m. we would break to fix lunch
12:00 eat with Daddy and then the kids take a break while I visit, clean, and probably find myself something to eat because in all likelihood, the baby needed to eat, then Tigerfan came home and needed lunch, and then the kids needed something, and soon everyone has eaten and left the table and I have a mess to clean and have not yet eaten, as a result in a frustrated and half starved craze...I grab whatever carbohydrate is close by and devour it. Most recently, that has been the Halloween candy stash! (this is not one of my prouder confessions)

Anyway...the rest of the day goes much like this. We often do not finish school until 4:00 at which time, it is time to fix supper, get baths, prepare for the next day, do night time activities...etc.

By the time the children go to bed, the house is a disaster, the laundry isn't done, I have not prepared for teaching at the tutorial, etc. So, I begin trudging through it all. Folding laundry, hanging wet clothes, ironing, ironing, ironing, cleaning the kitchen, preparing tutorial and on MWF doing my strength training. The result? Most weeknights, it is between 11:00p.m. and 1:00 a.m. before I go to bed and then it all starts over at 5.

I am not whining, I am not proud of this...it just is how it is. But this week, I have hit a wall. My body just physically can not take this much more. I am tired and cranky and stressed and my faith tends to waver a bit. The problem? What do I do? This week, I overslept 3 days! 3! That means no exercise and no quiet time and that means a scary mom! I know I am failing in certain things. I know the kids should have to help out more. But, usually, while I tell them they are helping that day, we get entrenched in school, and housework becomes undoable. By 4:00, they are tired, I am tired and the work involved in getting them to do chores then is just more than I can do!

So, here I am. The scale tells me I lost another pound (although one day this week it also told me I weighed 119 pounds). I do not see how that is true. Unless chocolate, muffins, and chips have become a healthy food group, I think there is a mistake! Regardless of my weight, however...I want to live a healthy, balanced lifestyle and I am not. I just do not know what to change or cut out to make life more manageable. And the busy season is just about to start!

I did not mean to make this post a whine fest, but I am REALLY frustrated. Any advice out there? I would love for it to include a weekend retreat with my husband and an unlimited amount of fat free, calorie free chocolate, so if you could incorporate that, it would be great! Hope all you other Hotties out there had a better week. And there is always next week, right? I'll get started on that...right after we celebrate the candy and calorie laden Fall Fun Fest at church tonight!

**I forgot to link to the host site! For more Fit Friday posts go to It's Almost Naptime!

Conviction

You may have noticed that I am not exactly a deep thinker. I am that one in Bible Study who actually writes down exactly what is in my Bible or on a particularly profound day in my Bible commentary. I am the one who sits in awe when someone who read the same exact thing I did comes up with this profound meaning while I begin checking to see if we are reading the same Bible...cause I just didn't get that! I am a true Beth Moore wannabe! But, I "ain't!"

I have never aspired to be a great theological blog or really an inspirational one. I just started blogging as a way to stay connected with my family and the outside world, a way to stay sane. I have tried to be true to my faith and occasionally have made mention of what God is doing in my life, but certainly have not been profound in what I have said.

You can probably continue to expect that same level of mediocrity, because, that is just who I am. But, yesterday we had a revival speaker at church, and ya'll, he NAILED me! We live in some scary times. The economy is SCARY, the elections are SCARY, our education system (at least locally) is SCARY, the international issues are SCARY, the threat of terrorism is SCARY! But, we have a God that is more powerful than all of those things and I am not sharing him with people. We have a hope that is far greater than a president or a great teacher or even a Nobel peace prize winner. We have the Author of Peace, the Creator of the World, the Great Physician! The One and Only True God, there is no other, not money, not fame, not political power, not a great prophet or and under god. Just One and HE is in control.

I think of reasons all the time why I don't share my faith. I am home with my kids, I don't know any lost people, I live in the Bible belt...everyone knows God around here. I have shared a bit with my next door neighbor and I teach S.S. and tell my tutorial kids. But I am not passionate about telling people or sharing my faith with people. Yesterday, our preacher said to turn to the person next to you and just ask, do you know Him? I will show you. I will go with you. I will lead you. Do you want me to go with you? I looked around and my family was all around and I know that they know. So, I sat quietly and did nothing. Last night, he talked about our apathy. We live in a world that just doesn't really care that much, we don't have a passion. He asked, what could make me stop loving, serving God. Of course, the right answer is nothing. But in the middle of the night last night, I woke up from a dream about my sweet Dancer. My first thought was, God, please not my little girl. I will serve you, I will honor you, but please NEVER take my little girl...I am not willing to give her up. Then I heard Tigercub, stuffy and struggling to breathe in his baby bed and I thought, "not the baby, please never the baby!"

And I realized, I am not sold out 100%. Am I really willing to serve Him in thick or thin? In good and bad? What if something happened to a child? Would I still be faithful? Because really, I am not faithful now. I am apathetic, I find excuses, I go through the motions. But I want to be sold out. I don't ever want anyone to wonder where I stand. I don't want to get so bogged down in day to day that I forget the eternal.

So, in case you are wondering, this is where I stand. I believe in God the creator. A God, who through His own amazing power created land and sea, heaven and earth, animal and man in six days and rested on the seventh. I believe in His one and only son, Jesus, who left the glory of heaven and was born in poverty on earth, who lived a perfect life, who died taking the punishment of MY sins and who raised again to overcome death for ME...and for you. I believe that we are separated from God because of our sin but that He loves us enough to forgive us for those sins if we will just confess those sins and ask for forgiveness and I believe He has eternal life for us in Heaven if we will accept this free gift!

One day soon, I hope to add a page sharing my testimony and sharing my beliefs for anyone who may wonder or question, but for now, this will have to do. My prayer is that if ANYONE reads this blog and doesn't know Jesus, they will begin to ask, begin to question, begin to read their Bible. And, if anyone wants to ask me, I will always be here to share my faith and scriptures to back it up. If you don't have a Bible...I will get you a Bible. If you have a question, I will TRY to answer a question or point you to someone who can. So, thank you for letting me let it all out today! I feel much better now, and you can too, if you will only trust Him! So, I must ask: Do you know Him? Would you like me to go with you and show you how you can?

And now, in keeping with the lighter side of things, as our speaker was talking about apathy last night he made this comment which, do to my love of all things amish, I found hilarious: Sometimes when he begins sharing about Jesus, he can just feel how little people care, Like a bunch of Amish men in Circuit City! I'll just leave you with that! :)

Calling Flylady...Someone needs your help!

To those who had a wonderful first week for Hot For the Holidays...I curse you! Okay, not really. But my week, not so good!

Did you see the great ONE blog I posted? My blogging tells the tale of all success stories this week!

I did most get in my required exercise (according to Sparkpeople) by Wednesday, but have not done one bit since then, although I totally plan to today. Sometime.

Eating has not been so successful. I have found I just do not have the time to track my food through Sparkpeople. I guess I need to just do it the old fashioned way...with pen and ink (gasp!) I always do great at breakfast, but then things quickly decline. I think my problem is not having a lot of healthy choices around here. Which I would, if I would get them at the grocery store. Which I would, if I would make a list. Which I would if I could get my life organized and find time to sit down and write one instead of realizing that I cannot feed my children because there is NOTHING in the cabinets to feed them with and if I do not want a visit from Social Services, I must go to the store NOW! And I probably could get organized, if I could just get my house in order and find that darn household notebook I started 5 1/2 years ago! Which I could if Flylady would fly over here and homeschool my family, fix meals and give me life changing lessons until they all became a habit and we would all live happily ever after in a clean, well stocked home with lots of healthy food options and a skinny mommy everyone would be jealous of.

Thank you for letting me rant. We will now return to trying to do better this week. In all fairness, this week had been plagued with projects for tutorial, Extra stuff to do for church and I had a HORRENDOUS headache Wednesday that just sucked the life out of me. But, today is a new day!

Despite it all, the scale reads that I lost about 1 pound, although if I weighed at a less opportune time, it would probably have a sadder tale to tale. However, I did not gain any, so I guess I can't complain. Good luck fellow hotties and may this week find you eating right, exercising, and becoming your inner hottie (okay, when I first typed that, I accidentally typed hootie which leads to a whole new post subject about how the little weight I have lost seems to be coming from the "hooter" area, which is just wrong!!!)

That's Gotta Hurt!

I am about to throw this @#$* computer out the window. I hate it when machines outsmart me. A decent post must wait for another time because my HOURS of time spent here today have been fruitless and my children are going NUTS. So, just to tide you over until another quality post from me is possible, let me leave you with this little ditty.

Dancer has been entertaining Tigercub for me while I fought with this beast of a computer! They were wrestling in her little playhouse when she exclaimed, "Mommy, help! He is pinching the guitar out of me!"

If I let them play a little longer, we could be a regular Partridge Family!