Did you ever have one of *THOSE* days?

Mine was yesterday.

It started off pretty decent. The kids got on the bus, I drank my coffee, started laundry....the usual. And then I noticed the school had called when I was out hanging a load of laundry on the line in gale force winds. Yes, I'm serious about the wind. The message that was left told me Em was in the nurse's office and complaining of a tummy ache. GAH.

I jumped in the shower, threw on some clothes, ran the blow dryer over my head a few times and was out the door. When I got to the school, Em started crying and telling me that she did not want to go home and that she was fine, but the nurse said she was pale & then flushed & then pale and yeah, so it didn't look good.

I strapped her into her carseat (while she continued to cry that she wanted to stay at school) and I thought I probably should have brought the vomit bucket. We made the 1.8mi. trek home and she did fine. No sooner than we walked in the door that she was asking for lunch. DUDE...it's only 9:30am. So she ate her snack of pretzel sticks & ice water. By 11:30 she was chomping at the bit for lunch. PB&J comin' up. Every time I went out to hang laundry she was right there with me. Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama as I am holding on for dear life to the line & clothes because the wind is whipping in a very bizarre fashion. I wondered if I would hit my head and end up in the Emerald City a couple of times.

So I am trying to formulate a plan for the day. I have promised whoopie pies & empanadas for the reunion committee. Eh, no problem. I get started on them. I also think about what quick and easy thing I can make for supper since it is a day that Bec needs to be picked up at school and brought to dance. That cuts more than an hour out of my schedule. I get all the cookie parts of whoopie pies made (chocolate & oatmeal) before I have to leave to get Bec.

Around 4:30p I tell all the kids to get into the truck (Chris had planned to be home, but didn't make it) and as I start up the truck I remember that I have very little gas. 44 miles until E. F&*^. I call the hubster and he tells me it is fine. I have plenty to get to Bec's school and to the gas station where we have an account. Ok fine. I make good time until I hit the main road. Traffic is unusually slow. All of a sudden fire trucks and ambulances race past and I see an accident right near where I need to take a right turn to get to Bec's school. I instead fly through the mall parking lot and bypass the accident all together. I finally get the big girl and we're off to dance.

We make it out of Willimantic when I notice the lights are not working near the highway. Sure enough the road is closed. DETOUR. But I don't know where I am. I don't have Garmin or TomTom. I do the next best thing. Follow the guy in front of me and hope he knows where he is going. We get through and are on the main road again. I think, ok, we should be ok on gas still....we don't have THAT much longer to go. Drive on a little way and WHA? Another F*%@ing DETOUR?! This time there are a LINE of cars. Oh and we're on dirt roads and I still don't know where I am. I'm watching my gas gauge go down, down, down and we're still on dirt roads. Finally we get to what is part of the UConn campus, but by now I am a sobbing mess. I finally get my bearings and hubby tells me that he'll meet me at the gas station just a couple miles away. By the time I reached the gas station I had 8 miles to E. EIGHT.

I get some gas, hurry the hell up and get the girl to dance (we're late now). Run her in so I can pin her bra for her and hurry on home. I arrive home after 6pm. I still have to make dinner. I still have to make the filling for the whoopie pies. Heck, I still have to roll out the empanada dough, cut them out, fill them and bake them. So I get started doing 4 things at once (never a good idea) and have Thomas help me with preparing the gourmet meal of hot dogs in beans and homemade mac & cheese. No veggies because I'm such a good mom like that.

I then try to make the filling. I do everything wrong. I work too fast. There is powdered sugar EVERYWHERE. Dude...not even kidding you. I finally just break down and cry saying I just can't do anymore, make a small platter of whoopie pies with filling that is too runny, change my powdered sugar covered sweatshirt, try to make something out of my awful yucky hair and grab my reunion notebook. Oh and two beers. Hubby drives me up the street and I share my woes with the girls. I'm so glad I went. Because honestly, that meeting was the highlight of a rather awful day.

Some days you're the windshield and some days you're the bug. Yesterday, I was totally the bug.

I love sharing food

Yes, I truly do.

I not only love having people over and feeding them copious amounts of well cooked food, but I love to share my ideas. My problem? I haven't really thought through where the best place that would be. I sometimes share a dinner menu on FB and I've shared different menus here on this blog, but I really wanted to make a place that was just food related. Lately, many of my friends have started or are planning on starting food blogs and so I thought it was a great idea. So without further adieu, here is the address of my new food & recipe blog:

http://foodlovermeetsblog.blogspot.com/


Yep, Food Lover Meets Blog. BOOOOORRRRRINNNNGGGG. But, hey - that's me.

I tend to cook pretty traditional, but I do have a fondness for Italian cooking. I use a lot of chicken, ground turkey and we're slowly getting through the last of the pork from our pig (we're not doing another). Lately we've been experimenting with different (read that as "cheap") cuts of beef instead of my favorite beef loin. On top of cooking, I bake. I love making breads - quick & yeast. I do make cookies, bars & cakes, but I think breads are more my thing.

So if anyone who is interested would like to see the different things I cook, come take a look.

Coming up with a plan

So...hubby and I are in the midst of getting ready to change some eating habits. He is also beginning to analyze how to get more cardio into his already full, mostly labor intensive day.

What brought this on? Well, he has some spots on his skin that are troublesome and he also has tennis elbow which is extremely troublesome when it comes to the type of work he does. So he finally decided to find a doctor. /gasp/ Crazy thought, huh? He's a real forward thinker.

During his first visit to said doctor (and of course by doctor I mean physician's assistant because you don't really ever see doctors anymore) his blood pressure was pretty high. Even by my standards. Of course, they told him in no uncertain terms that he "needed" to be on BP meds. Right.that.minute. He refused. Now to give him credit, they did not take his BP a second time during that visit. Each time I've gone to any of my doctors (OB/GYN or GP), they always take it a second time after I've been there awhile and it always comes down to within normal or borderline normal limits. I was totally in agreement with him on refusing meds.

Now he went back again today. It was very high. BUT, they took it again. The bottom number stayed a bit too high...the top number went down to a reasonable place. The PA told him she wants him on meds. He refused again, but told her that he would watch his diet and add cardio into his life. I, again, am behind him 100%. He also realizes that if in 3-6 months his BP has not changed with a diet & exercise overhaul, he needs to be on the meds and will do so willingly.

So within this coming week, we are going to discuss how to change his diet. I can't say he eats awfully and at least one meal a day is home cooked and mostly healthy. We rarely eat fast food or even take out because we simply cannot afford it. I think, like me, the change that will work the most will be the cardio. He has a bike so I think he'll be going through it, giving it a tune up and using it. Thankfully all the younger kids will be able to join him (sans Emma) so I think that is awesome. He also mentioned getting a kayak. We live in an area that is full of places to kayak and we've wanted one for so long. I think this may be the last little push he needed to bite the bullet and get one. (He wants us to to have separate kayaks because of some nonsense of me not paddling when we used to canoe...pppppttttthhhhhbbbbbbttttttt is what I say to that!)

I am excited for this change and I am happy that he wants to be healthy. I hope the change is life long, mostly, because I would hate to lose my best friend.

Thankful.

That is what I aim to be today.

I am letting go of bad feelings (too bad PMS...you will not best me!) and replacing them with joyful ones.

I am going to look at the sunshine and my healthy children and thank God above that I am blessed beyond measure. I will NOT allow selfish or envious thoughts to control me today. I am loved and want to love back and you can't do that if your heart feels as black as coal. I am removing the black and replacing it with yellow. Why yellow? Because it is my favorite color and the color of sunshine & happiness to me.

Yeah, so maybe this reminds you of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", but perhaps that book (and subsequent movie) hits on a truth that we all need throughout the whole year and not just at Christmastime. Love is sometimes all it takes to change someone's day, week, year - LIFE. I aim to not only change myself, but to make someone else happy in the process.

Bring on the day!

How Witchy Can I Be?

Seems this little bit of witchy-ness comes to call at the same time every month...hmmmm, could it be the notorious aunt?

So this morning as I was browsing FB with my large cup o' joe like I do EVERY day, I came across something that pissed me off on a friend's page. Grrrrr... And believe me - no one else would have been pissed. It wasn't done with malicious intent or anything. Then I browsed a bit more, changed my status message and moved on only to be irritated by the SAME person who again did nothing wrong really. It dawns on me that maybe my problem really isn't the other person...maybe it is me!? /gasp/ How outrageous, right?! Like I could ever be anything, but wonderful. (yes folks, that was total sarcasm right there)

I'm thinking that this is a problem. First off, I'm not usually like this and truth be told, feeling like this makes me feel guilty and just plain bad. It is the absolute truth that being happy is WAY better than being unhappy. So I have decided to stop feeling/being witchy. I'm not sure how successful I will be since this is a very old habit and will be hard to break, but I am going to try. Until it works, though, you might wanna stay outta my way. /grin/

Questioning Me

I've been going down the road of "self appreciation" (for lack of a better term) for a couple of years now. I'd be lying if I didn't say that it was still bumpy at times. I will go along for a bit and feel good about who I am and know in my heart that people like me and then something small will happen and I begin to wonder.

That happened today.

I question myself over and over and over, ad nauseum. Am I too pushy, bitchy, self righteous, meek, silly, shallow, deep, etc.? And the thing is, I never get the answers because I don't ask the right person. I am afraid to ask the questions to whom I need to because I am afraid of the answers really. I'm also still afraid to throw that little piece of my heart out there and bare myself totally. If I keep part of me back, no one ever has to know that I can be hurt, right? No one ever has to know that I'm not always cool & composed and in charge of a situation.

Sometimes I wonder if others obsess the same way I do...You know, the whole "am I normal?" question arises more often than not. I think part of that reason is growing up with an alcoholic parent. I learned early on that my family wasn't "normal". I was taught that it was something you didn't talk about and that most people frowned on, but the thing is, as I learn to "like" myself and in turn really TALK to other people, I am finding that so many others didn't live "normal" either. I am learning that "normal" doesn't really exist.

Perhaps someday I will just be forthright with my words and not swallow whatever bitter is sitting there. Perhaps one day, I will believe in my worth as a person, friend, wife, sister, mother, aunt, cousin without wavering. At least I hope so.

Ode to My First Born Daughter

I am totally in love with my number 2 child - just the way a mother should be.

Oh don't get me wrong, we clash sometimes. We argue. We get angry at each other and I don't hesitate to call her out when she is being disrespectful, grumpy, irritating...any of those lovely things, BUT....

She is a breath of fresh air. Her smile lights up a room and my heart. She is silly and tender, but she also doesn't take any crap. In fact, I love that she calls BS out because I didn't learn that until much later in my life. She doesn't hold grudges. In fact, I cannot remember a time that she stayed angry with anyone for more than an hour or two at best. Many times, she will laugh before the argument is even over. In this respect, she is like her aunt and father. Neither of them are wired for grudges either.

Her God given talent is in dance - more focused on the choreography. She is amazing. And yes, I'm her mom and am very biased, but she has been told that by dance teachers as well. It is a joy to watch her in a dance that she has choreographed by herself. It is even more fun to watch her teach her 3yo baby sister a dance and have them perform for us. While I may complain sometimes, I love watching her take my iPod dock out of the kitchen and into the living room to see her dance her heart out. She is focused on where she wants to go and what she wants to do. I applaud her for doing what she needs to and for sticking it out through long days. I hope we can help her get to where she wants & needs to go.

She is not moody or boy crazy which is probably two of the things that I would hate the most. Oh sure, she gets moody, but it doesn't last long and it is usually the product of being over tired from her very busy school/dance schedule. And as far as boys, she hasn't gotten caught up the way other girls have. She likes a certain someone now, however, he is 18 and her father has forbidden any type of romantic links because she is not yet 16. They see each other at dance class, he's been to our home and for the most part it seems very respectful. For now, I think they are both ok with just being friends. I love the fact that she gets so excited and talkative when he says something nice to her and the fact that she runs in to share with me.

She also knows what hard work is. Oh believe me, she is a couch potato many, many times and there are days where she sits on the couch with the remote and only moves to go to the pantry, but if she has been given a job, she does it without complaining and gets it done. She often will help clean up around the house without me asking and I think she is actually looking forward to working with her Dad doing landscaping/fence work this summer to help pay for the extensive dance classes she takes.

I remind myself that for right now, I'm still her parent first and foremost, but I know there will come a day that we can just be friends and that makes my heart so joyful. She really is amazing and I thank God every day for blessing me with such an awesome daughter.