2007 January

The Ice Storm

January 15, 2007 · by Elizabeth · 13 Comments

We got hit with a half-inch of ice overnight, fortunately we did not lose power, but my husband’s office building did, so he is home today. The boys were already off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so it’s a whole day of togetherness.

So far, I have done the following:

Made homemade pancakes for breakfast

Made homemade chocolate chip cookies for snack

Made homemade turkey club sandwiches for lunch

Why so much cooking? Because my husband and boys are DRIVING ME CRAZY. They have the LOUDEST VOICES on the planet. The boys play Lego Star Wars II on the GameCube and SHOUT back and forth to each other, even though they are sitting right next to each other. My husband is hard of hearing due to years working at Kinko’s with those louder than heck copy machines blasting away, so he watches TV with the volume set to stun.

My only escape is the kitchen. If I gain back the three pounds I lost, I’m blaming this damn ice.

Filed Under: Family ·

Let it out? No thanks

January 12, 2007 · by Elizabeth · 18 Comments

So apparently it’s been Delurking Week this week, and I was supposed to put up the button on Monday and invite all my half-dozen lurkers to come out and leave a comment. Oops. Besides, right now I wouldn’t be able to put the button on my sidebar even if I wanted to, because although I love the colors and design of this theme, the coding is some kind of PHP that I just don’t understand. Even someone who has custom-designed tons of blog templates couldn’t understand it. I checked a book on PHP out of the library but I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet. Well, button or not, it’s not too late! Why not delurk and say Hi anyway?

I have to complain about advertising now. Have you seen the TV commercial for the “Kiafest January Sale” featuring car salespeople wearing white shirts, red ties and khaki pants dancing around and singing “So Long, Farewell” from The Sound of Music? The first time I saw it I turned to my husband and said “those actors need to call their agents and fire them NOW”. One of the actors is actually scowling, looking totally bored as he twirls around in step to the music. It doesn’t make me want to buy a Kia, that’s for damn sure.

Even worse, a new ad for Kleenex I found in the February issue of Parenting magazine. This one is so bad, and so disgusting, I just had to tell the whole Internet all about it. Hopefully Kleenex wasn’t getting ready to send me any free samples or anything. (P.S. ParentBloggers? If you let me join, I promise to review all products fairly-E.) If you have the magazine, turn to page 80. See how page 81 is a piece of heavy cardstock with four faces on it? Each of those faces has a flap in front of it. Don’t do like I did and try to lift the flaps UP, you will just tear them. The perforation is actually on the side. (P.S. Kleenex? The perforation was really hard to see and I tore the first two flaps clear off-E.) Under each flap are the words “let it out”, and a lovely graphic image representing what a big sneeze feels like. Nice. There’s a rushing waterfall (ewww), hurricane winds, fireworks, and a wineglass in the act of shattering, which if that’s what your sneezes are like, stay the heck away from me.

Turn the page, and this is a portion of the actual text written there:

“It’s time to LET IT OUT. Don’t hold back, Don’t keep it in. Don’t you dare put on a brave face. It’s time to LET IT OUT. Open the floodgates. Uncork the bottle. Unclog the pipes. Release the hounds. It’s time to LET IT OUT. Laugh until you cry! Scream until you spit! And when tons of stuff stuffs up your nose BLOW it LOUD & BLOW it PROUD! It’s time to LET IT OUT.”

Ahem. May I please make a suggestion? Please do NOT scream until you spit, because that is just gross, and if you need to blow your nose, could you not blow it “loud and proud”? There are just some things that other people don’t need to hear, and you honking into a Kleenex is one of them.

As if all of that wasn’t bad enough, there is a website. Oh yes. A website where you can create an account and then upload your photos and short videos of you or your loved ones “letting it out”. There is a BLOG. The Welcome post reads, in part, “Weâ€™ll be here blogging every week and giving you an opportunity to let out your tears, joy, excitement, frustration, laughter and even your snot.” Okay, Kleenex, ENOUGH. I know snot is your business and everything, but you are asking me to think about it WAY too much. On the right side of the home page are the three “Most Viewed” videos, and the bottom one is of a kid who has a STREAM OF SNOT coming out of his nose, and everyone is laughing about how funny it is that he is TRYING TO LICK IT. NO NO NO NO NO!

I can’t talk about this anymore or I am going to hurl. Why don’t you tell me what commercials are bugging you the most? OH, and it’s Future Milfs Friday! I lost three pounds and am down to 173 today. I’ll take what I can get.

Edited to add: The theme I refer to in the first paragraph is NOT the one you see here now. It was a different theme that I experimented with and then abandoned to come back to this AWESOME design. Just thought I’d clarify that.-E.

Filed Under: Stuff I think about ·

My daughter thinks she’s a dog

January 11, 2007 · by Elizabeth · 7 Comments

We didn’t have a dog when the boys were toddlers, so I had no idea how influential our dog would be on Kaitlyn’s development. After 13 months of ignoring her and running away as fast as he could when she got close, our dog Elvis is now begrudgingly allowing Kaitlyn to touch him, especially if she is holding food of any kind, or a Nerf football.

Did you know that most dog toys also make excellent teething toys for babies? It’s true. I bought a gigantic rubber bone for Elvis at Target, which Kaitlyn clamped between her teeth and kept there the whole time we were in the store. It’s not odd to see a kid with a dog toy in her mouth, right? Right?

Yesterday I caught her shoving a piece of peeled apple directly into the dog’s mouth. Right after she picked up the Nerf ball he was chewing on and sunk her teeth into it. I can’t even think of something witty to say, because it is just so GROSS.

It’s amazing how much a baby changes as soon as they have their first birthday. Just in the last few weeks, Kaitlyn has picked up a bunch of new skills and words. Her first word continues to be her favorite, “hot”. I need to get that put on a t-shirt. My husband taught her “up”, which she manages to draw out into several syllables so it sounds like “uhhpuh”.

It took me a few days to figure out what she was trying to say when she kept repeating “fffff”. While picking up a bunch of stuffed animals, I showed her a soft stuffed dog and she beamed and said “oofffff”. It’s like “woof”, without the w and with a drawn-out f sound. “Ooofffff” means dog, obviously.

Not that this is necessarily just a dog thing, but she has also started fetching us things, which is cool, except she doesn’t have the coordination yet to walk and carry a beer at the same time. By this summer, she should totally be our beer fetcher. There’s also the handing us things, like picking up random pieces of trash and then presenting them to us with this look of expecting high praise for her gift. Gee honey, a used bandaid! Thank you so much.

Fortunately, the gestures she has learned are not dog-related. A few weeks ago, I was combing her hair and talking to her about it, and when I stopped she put her hand on her hair and brushed it forward. I said “that’s right! hair!” Now, when anyone says the word hair for any reason, she runs her hair through hers, always on the right side, from back to front. Oh, and if anyone says the word head, she pats her head, and if you ask her to show you her belly, she pats her stomach! Clearly, she is a genius.

It’s disturbing that I have forgotten that these are all normal things that babies do. I do not remember Ryan or Nathan doing any of this stuff, at all. It makes me sad, that I have lost those memories, because those are moments that are so precious, the first time a baby does something. Especially when it’s the first time they shared a rubber bone with their dog.

Filed Under: Being a Mom, Parenting ·

You set the goals, now get started!

January 9, 2007 · by Elizabeth · 7 Comments

If you made New Year’s Resolutions to lose weight, plan your menus or declutter your house, like I did, you might be wondering where to look on the Internet for help. Googling any of those phrases will bring up hundreds of thousands of search results, MILLIONS for weight loss. These are some of the sites that I have found useful so far.

WEIGHT LOSS- Now obviously, this is going to depend on what your goals are and what kind of diet you want. Right now I am using Weight Watchers Online, which costs fifteen dollars a month charged three months at a time to a credit card. Weight Watchers meetings cost around twelve dollars a week, and can be useful if you like going to meetings, which I don’t. There are some great tools available at WW Online, including the POINTS calculators and the tons of recipes. I also recommend the community message boards, where you can post a question about pretty much anything. There are boards for different age groups and interests, and I always get great answers to my questions.

If you aren’t interested in Weight Watchers, or want to use a free website, you have got to check out SparkPeople. I like that they call themselves the Web’s Largest “Healthy Living Community”. There is so much to do on this website, and it’s a lot of fun. You can track your weight, your nutrition, your fitness, and see it all on spreadsheets. Want to keep track of how much sodium you consume in a day? Check a box and it’s all calculated for you. There are great message boards, and SparkTeams to join. Mine is Stay at home Moms, and each week I get an email from the leader with a challenge for the week. Best of all, I get my very own SparkPage (as you can see, it’s in desperate need of updating).

(And, I am not going to reach my goal of losing 40 pounds in the 40 weeks preceeding my turning 40, which is in exactly three weeks.)

(Damn)

HEY! Let’s talk about CLUTTER CONTROL instead, mmmkay? You’ve probably heard of the FlyLady, who has a great website and an unbelievably positive attitude about decluttering. I find it hard to get excited about shining my sink every night before bed, especially since it usually still has dirty dishes in it. If you sign up for her emails, BE FOREWARNED: you will get an email every fifteen minutes ALL DAY LONG. Okay, maybe not every fifteen minutes, maybe it’s every twenty. I will say, though, that it was from this site that I got the idea to divide my house up into “zones”, and just focus on one each day. Also, the “Boogie Fling”, where you put some music on, grab a trash bag, and dance through the house finding things to throw away is fun. I don’t know about the weight loss plan, though, it’s called “Body Clutter”, which is a little icky to me.

Next up is my absolute, long-time favorite organizing website, Organized Home. Click the link, and look at the Main Menu on the left sidebar. Scroll down to the Free Printables section, and click on Printables Gallery. Here is where you will find free calendar pages, blank menu and grocery planning lists, forms for the babysitter, cleaning checklists, fitness and diet logs, and they all look great. I have this week’s menu written on one right now. You can put together a Household Notebook using the printable forms and any three ring binder. Also, at the bottom of that page is the Declutter Success Stories. You can peep into people’s houses before they decluttered, and after. This is a site that is definitely worth a look-see.

Finally, a comment I got on my New Year’s Goals post from Beth Dargis led me to her website, MySimplerLife. She calls herself an “encouraging coach”, and she has put together an amazing prgram to help people declutter their lives with as little stress as possible. Register for the Weekly Simplicity Tips, and she’ll send you a link to a free PDF calendar with one little decluttering task for every day of the month, all year long! Some of them are as simple as cleaning out ONE bedroom dresser drawer, or organizing your kitchen towels and potholders. There are also program and e-courses you can purchase for one-on-one help with Beth.

I’m having some trouble getting started. I walked a mile at the Y on Sunday, but I’ve been eating a LOT of junky crap like donuts over the last couple of days. I just wish something would *click* in my brain and all the self-doubt and sabotage would go away. Sometimes I wish I could just go somewhere, alone, for like three months or so, and not have to focus on anything except me. I daydream about a small apartment, barely furnished, where I get just that day’s food delivered every morning, and there’s nothing to clean or organize or worry about except my weight loss and fitness.

And then I wake up to reality. This is going to be HARD, friends. Help.

Filed Under: Health ·

No more Missus Fat-a**

January 6, 2007 · by Elizabeth · 20 Comments

Yesterday, I was sitting on my bed putting on my socks when I happened to look up and see my reflection in the mirror. I was sitting sideways, and I was absolutely shocked, sickened, dumbstruck by what I saw. I know how much I weigh, and I know how tall I am, but until I really looked at my profile, I hadn’t made the connection in my head.

I. Am. FAT.

I could not believe how much space there was between the outside swell of my breasts and the curve of my back. I got a tape measure, and ran it right around my bra line. Do you know what it said? FORTY THREE INCHES. Which equals THREE FEET, SEVEN INCHES AROUND. I still can’t quite believe it.

There is a lot of positive energy going around the Blogosphere right now regarding weight loss. Two of my good blog friends, Dana and Bridgette, have already agreed to be my weight-loss buddies. And now, Mom-O-Matic has created the Future MILFs club, for those of us who are determined to pull that hot thin woman out from all the fat she’s buried under.

I can use all the support I can get, so if you are looking to lose weight this year, join us. I’ll be dusting off my other blog, True Diet Confessions, and posting meals, recipes and tips there. I’m not going to pretend that I’m not scared, because I am. So far, I have failed at every attempt I have ever made to lose weight and keep it off, obviously. I went to college weighing 95 pounds, and now twenty-plus years later, I have added EIGHTY pounds to that. Nathan weighs eighty pounds, and I can’t even pick him up. Yet I ask my body to carry around that much weight every single day. I don’t want to be fat anymore.

P.S. I checked out a book about PHP coding from the library yesterday, and I’m hoping once I’ve read it, I’ll know how to add things to my sidebar. I probably should have checked to see what code this blog theme used first BEFORE I uploaded it, but I didn’t. HTML I understand. I can add things to my sidebar with HTML. This code? I have no freakin’ clue. So that’s why the MILF badge is in a post instead of the sidebar where it belongs. Damn, this having to be responsible for your own website shit is HARD.

Filed Under: Health ·

So THAT’S What Grownups think is funny

January 5, 2007 · by Elizabeth · 12 Comments

All these years of watching TV with my kids has apparently jaded me. With shows like Spongebob Squarepants and Fairly Oddparents, you get almost instant joke gratification, rapid-fire sight gags and wordplays one right after the other. Comedies for adults, on the other hand, require a certain amount of time investment before the payoff.

Take, for example, the show I just rented at Blockbuster, “How I Met Your Mother.” I remember watching the first episode and thinking it wasn’t all that funny, and not seeing how I could possibly relate to this group of twenty-somethings hanging out at bars. Then, I watched four episodes back-to-back, and now, I get it. I LOVE it. I love Ted, have a crush on Marshall, and think Barney is still believable as a ladies’ man even knowing that Neil Patrick Harris is gay. I’m still not sure I love Robin, but Lily-Alyson Hannigan is adorable. The jokes are subtle, and you have to pay attention at the beginning to get the references at the end, and again, I LOVE it.

Now, if only I could get into “The Office” and “Ugly Betty”, I’d be all set.

Filed Under: Stuff I think about ·

I’d rather call them New Year’s Goals

January 3, 2007 · by Elizabeth · 12 Comments

Heather’s goal was to declutter her house.

Belinda’s goals are to get back in shape, get her household organized, and to get back to planning menus and cooking food from scratch.

Gidge’s goals include losing weight, getting in shape and getting rid of all the clothes she doesn’t wear.

I know it’s going to seem like I’m copying, but dude, those are my New Year’s Goals too. Really.

There is not a single room in my house that couldn’t use a complete decluttering. I’m talking a “Clean Sweep” put everything out in the back yard and start over from scratch kind of deal. The worst of all is the basement, which is where we keep all the boxes of things that we don’t have a place for on the main floor of the house. As much as it pains me, I think I am going to have to…go through the boxes and give away…BOOKS. I counted at least 15 boxes of books down there, including old books my kids are never going to read again, and books I saved from my days as an English Major that really don’t contribute anything to my current life and aren’t going to impress anyone when they eventually make it upstairs to the bookshelves that my husband promises to start building, some day.

I’m going back on Weight Watchers, and we will be going to the YMCA at least twice a week. I’m hoping there’s a trainer there or something because it has been a LONG time since I moved my muscles in any kind of purposeful fashion, and I don’t want to hurt myself

I’m reinstituting the Daily Housework Schedule once the boys go back to school. Every room of the house will get special attention once a week, plus I will get a handle on the laundry. I’m also planning something interesting to help with the menu planning-I’m going to go through all of the cookbooks that I own and each week make a main dish, vegetable and dessert recipe out of one of them. I have to count to see how many cookbooks I actually have, but I know I have at least fifty. There are many of them that I have never once made a recipe from, and that seems a shame to me.

Of all of these goals, weight loss is the one that is the most important to me. I have decided to not be so hard on myself this year. I just want to lose some weight, and keep it off, even if it’s only five pounds. I know my diet needs cleaning up, but I’m not going to declare that I will no longer eat a certain type of food, because I know that will just set me up to fail.

Whatever our goals are, let’s keep each other posted on how we’re doing. If you decluttered, take and post the before and after photos. If you lost weight or stuck to your exercise goals, share your success. I know I could use the support, I bet you could too.

Filed Under: Personal ·

Recap-Xmas 2006

January 1, 2007 · by Elizabeth · 13 Comments

It’s not too late for a Christmas post, right? We were at Sam’s Club yesterday, sitting at a table drinking gallon-size sodas and Slurpees, when Kaitlyn spotted a little boy at a nearby table. She toddled over, with her drunken-sailor walk and her hands flapping in what passes for a wave, and when she reached the little boy she just stood there, fascinated. He reached out and patted her arm, and she shrieked with delight. I said to Chris, “I have no memory of the boys at this age. It’s really sad how much I’ve forgotten.” And he said, “you’ll forget this, too.”

NO. No I won’t, because I have this blog, and therefore a place to record the little things that would otherwise go unremembered, starting with memories from Christmas. I was really happy with our decision to scale things back this year in terms of travelling and gifts. I was much less stressed than usual.

Christmas Eve morning, we went to the movies and saw “Night At the Museum”, which I enthusiastically recommend. Ben Stiller proves he has range as an actor, and Robin Williams actually acts. Kaitlyn, however, HATED being forced to stay in the area defined by our five seats, so Chris and I had to take turns walking her around the perimeter of the theater. It was fortunate that Chris finally took her down to the very front row, where there is space between the seats and the screen, and no one was sitting in that whole section, because she fell asleep with a bottle in her mouth, gagged herself and threw up. Good times.

We spent Christmas Eve with my Dad at his house, which we do every year. This year, we were joined by my new Stepmother Jean, her daughter Lori and her son Carlton. As a family, we got an absolutely awesome gift from my Dad, a one year membership to the YMCA. We’ll be going there tomorrow to get our membership cards and enroll Kaitlyn in the FREE daycare (sweet!). The boys scored huge boxes of Legos, Ryan’s makes a Star Wars ARC-170, and Nathan got a Lego Creator that makes a motorized Helicopter. Kaitlyn got a cute gift from Hallmark, a snowman with two penguins and a Christmas tree, they sing, the tree lights up, and the penguins shake little jingle bells. She loves it.

Oh, and before we left for my Dad’s, Chris announced that he had a gift for me that he had to give me right away. A little backstory-I have a pink sweater set that I love, but it went through the wash with something dark and got dye on it that won’t come out, which I discovered when I wore it on Thanksgiving. I was really bummed out, because it was pretty much the nicest thing I owned to wear. Well, that wonderful husband of mine went to Macy’s and bought me a new pink sweater set, so that I would have something nice to wear on Christmas Eve. AND, he bought a hand-beaded necklace from a friend of ours, also pink, because he thought I would look nice wearing it. He is the Best.Husband.EVER. I didn’t get a good photo of the sweater, but you can see the necklace here, this was taken Christmas morning.

Christmas morning found our tree surrounded by a few gifts for each of the kids, not too few and not too many. My favorites of the gifts I bought were the three stuffed animals from Kohl’s, every year they sell a different plush toy with the proceeds going to Kohl’s Cares for Kids. This year, it was toys from Dr. Seuss books. Nathan got a Grinch, Ryan got Sam-I-Am, and Kaitlyn got a Star-Bellied Sneetch. I have a feeling this will be the last year that Ryan will want a stuffed toy for Christmas though, now that he is a grown-up ten years old.

I was thrilled to find that my husband had put a lot of thought and effort into gifts for me this year, especially since I had thought we weren’t buying each other anything. Until he authorized the purchase of my Zelda:Twilight Princess game, and then bought himself Gears of War for the Xbox 360. And then I totally broke that rule by buying him Green Day’s Bullet In A Bible DVD and Zippo lighter that says “Computer Tech” on it. In addition to the sweater set and the necklace, he also bought me this SnowMommy from Hobby Lobby-with a little SnowBaby and everything!:

That afternoon, Chris’ family joined us at our house for a sandwich buffet and even more gifts. Chris’ Dad bought Kaitlyn the cutest Pooh Bear Walker/Ride-On toy, Nathan got a ton of just-like-Legos that build Army vehicles, and Ryan got a Robotic Dinosaur. Plus, Chris’ Dad gave each of the boys a Toys R Us gift card to spend, and us some cash. Which brings us to the final chapter of our Christmas story, the post-Christmas spending of gift cards and money. It’s like Christmas just goes on, and on, and on. Ryan used his gift card to buy Lego Star Wars II, Nathan bought a Bionicle and a giant rubber dinosaur thing, and THEN, Chris pooled the rest of the cash and bought us the XBox HD-DVD player. So we can now watch High-Def movies on our High-Def TV. We may never have to leave the house again.

Coming up next is my New Year’s post, in which I hope to define my goals for the year and begin facing the fact that in 29 days, I will be Forty. If you’re watching the Tournament of Roses Parade today, think of me, I’m watching it too!

Filed Under: Family ·