I won't run, Forest, I won't run!

I am not a runner! Never have been, and recently decided I never will be. I've made some serious changes in my diet & exercise routine in the last 6 weeks and I feel great! I wanted to feel better so I thought, "why not run". Oh, the reasons why NOT to run (for me) far outweigh the reasons to run!

I tried it, if you ask a trainer or my husband, who sits on the couch telling me HOW to run, they'd probably tell you I didn't try hard enough. Anyone can run right? I can do it? Nah, I won't. I didn't give up, I don't feel I failed, and I am never going to say never. I'm just not going to run.

I have a friend and a sibling who have signed up for their first marathon and I'm so excited for them. Several friends around me took up running, ran a few marathons, love running for fun. They look great, are in their best shape, and talk about how wonderful they feel after a run. I admire them and think they are just a cape away from being my hero. But their stories don't make me want to run.

When I first started trying to run I wondered when I'd feel that proverbial "Runner's High". I think I felt it a few times, that is if the high is that burning sensation in your lungs that I would equate to my late teen years of inhaling from a silver pipe. Not that I ever did that, kids, no no but I've heard all about it! My husband, the couch potato trainer, told me there is no runner's high, he bragged about his miles ran back in college, and what I was doing wrong. Had I bought myself a pair of fancy new running shoes I would have planted one in his rear!

So, I resign myself to running short 2-5 minute sprints on the treadmill and I'm happy with that. Six weeks ago I was on the couch training for heart disease & diabetes, anything I do now is success and that makes me feel good. Almost as good as that "runner's high".

I won't run, Forest, I won't run...unless of course you have a box of liquor filled chocolates, even then I may just make you get off the couch and bring them to me!

Chasing the American Girl Dream

November 14, 2011

Last week the newest American Girl catalog came in the mail, and like I do every time I handed it off to my 7 year old daughter. She enjoys looking at it, dreaming of ownership, and admiring the outfits (that are reasonably priced at what it costs to outfit my own American Girl). This catalog was different, this year was different, her admiration had suddenly turned to obsession. She spent 10+ hours ooohing and aaahing over the catalog, logged onto the AG website and figured out how to fill her cart with more than $500 worth of items. She was chasing the American Girl Dream!

February 7, 2012

Must have lost my train of thought! I suppose now is as good a time as any to finish this entry. My husband and I talked, struggled with justification, and even picked out 1 American Girl doll with a new outfit. All I had to do was hit "complete checkout". But the internal war going on inside of me wouldn't commit. How do I justify a $100 doll and a $50 outfit? The satisfaction and happiness and glowing on her face Christmas morning when she woke up to a doll that looked like her should have been enough to seal the deal.

But it wasn't. We decided AG's knock off rival "Our Generation" would be just as wonderful to her. Of course this meant blaming Santa. We slathered his name all over those packages to make sure that if she discovered this was not straight from the catalog he'd be the one to blame. But she didn't blame anyone...she happily oooohed and aaahhed over the dolls, the clothes, the accessories, and she showed genuine love. The doll didn't look just like her but it had the same name which left her in awe.

I know it's not the same. I know that some of her friends are going to tell her the difference when they come over and play with her "not real" dolls, I know that one day she'll discover the truth. I hope that what she also discovers is not that she didn't have THE American Girl doll of her dreams but that she had the tea party of her dreams with her dolls and her family, that she had parents who sat in on sipping from doll sized cups, a little brother pretending to eat doll sized cake, and friends who didn't notice the difference. Those are the dreams I want her to chase, the dreams we will help make happen, and the memories created that she'll look back on one day.

From the Mouths of My Babes 2011

Look at this it's really gonna freak people out. ~Audrey

Mom, you are not going to believe me but it's really true: You are amazing! ~Audrey

Watch and Learn, Sister, Watch and Learn. ~Ian

Ian: What are those?
Mom: They are pickled peppers.
Audrey: If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peckers how many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick.
Mom: (Dying inside at her take on this)
Ian: 41
Audrey: The answer is 12
Mom: (still dying inside)

Audrey: I'm going to need some chocolate cake to celebrate my birthday every day, because everyday is my birthday.
Ian: Your birthday is not EVERY day.
Audrey: Well, in my world it is.

Ian: This book must be fiction because I've never seen a penis look like that in real life before.

Conversations with My Wee Ones 2011

I would like to think that I am funny enough to make this stuff up and provide entertainment. Sadly I can't come up with anything nearly as comical. These 2 keep me in stitches daily...here's why!

Ian: Did you know they use chocolate as medicine?
Audrey: Not anymore.
Ian: They do, they really do!
Audrey: Ian, everybody knows they have not used chocolate as medicine since
1984.


Audrey to Ian: We have sustained serious injuries
Ian: Huh?
Audrey: You have no idea what serious injuries are yet.

Audrey: OH CRAP!
Mom: WHAT did you just say?
Audrey: OH CRAP!
Mom: That is not a very nice thing to say do you even know what it means?
Audrey: Yes, it's what you say when something goes wrong.
Mom: Crap is a not nice word, slang for poop, and you shouldn't say it.
Ian: Oh, I have to go take a crap.
Mom: IAN MICHAEL!!
Ian & Audrey: fits of giggles

Confessions of an Anti-Cleaver

June 14, 2011

Today is a very special day for my son...he gets to wear the shorts he slept in last night all day today! These are the same shorts he wore all day yesterday, running errands with me, and to school. He is very excited to wear them again, he thinks this is a special treat and he thinks it makes me a very cool mom. That's the kind of mom I am...COOL! I'm also the kind of mom who hasn't had time to make sure he has clean shorts. I'm quite the slacker mom, the Anti-Cleaver.

Judge all you want, after all do your kids think you are cool or are you making them put on clean, nicely folded, starched, and ironed shorts? Hmmmm? Back your bus up June...I'm making him put on clean underwear!

As long as I am confessing I'll take the time to admit my other Anti-Cleaver-Flaws:

1. I have "cleaned" the bathroom with a wet-wipe.
2. I have not mopped my kitchen floor since March.
3. I see the cobwebs above my kitchen cabinets and think "sweet, I don't have to display fake ivy greens"
4. My kids sometimes get poptarts for dinner.

There are more...many more but that gives you a little insight.
Most moms would never admit their slacker qualities. I treasure mine. I think my ability to be relaxed and imperfect comes through in my kids. I've taught them a great lesson in enjoying what really matters and to "stop and smell the flowers". And, if you're going to be playing in a field of flowers why put on your fresh shorts!

I'm not just lazy (and cool)...I don't want my kids to grow up and their memories be that they had the cleanest house on the block, that their laundry always smelled of fresh linen & sunshine, that being organized was the only way to have order. I can still remember the pine-sol smell on our floors after my own mother spent all day cleaning. I can also remember that my own mother didn't spend time playing with us, smelling the flowers with us, or letting us wear 2 day old clothes as a treat. I want my kids to remember the things that mattered...the "treats".

So I will continue to be the Anti-Cleaver and I'll be proud of it. And maybe if they are lucky I'll do laundry today!

Hope Floats

I awake at 2a.m. with a song in my head. I lay there, it's loud...the lyrics are coming in bits and pieces and then some of the music. Why am I awake and what is this song so I can get back to sleep. I start listening and thinking, it's "To Make You Feel My Love" from the movie, Hope Floats. Okay, I can go back to sleep.

Wrong.

Why am awake? Why is there a soundtrack playing in my head? Why that particular movie?

Several weeks ago a very dear friend and I were searching for hope. Literally. She had shared a piece with me a couple of years ago and I couldn't find it in my archives anywhere. She couldn't find it anywhere. We knew it was out there somewhere. We were hopeless. And now here I am at 2 a.m. and hope is right where it's always been...

I take it as a sign and I let the sign speak to me. Suddenly (okay, maybe not suddenly but surely) nearly all of the anxiety, tension, and fears I have been carrying around for the last week start to leave my body. I need hope and I cling to this feeling like a life line that has been tossed to me in a sea of dread.

It's funny, I don't believe in God, Miracles, or Divine Intervention...but I have hope. Some of my close friends are going to tell me that my "sign" is from above...they have hope. Hope can be defined by dictionaries; or can it? I looked it up...I wasn't satisfied. What exactly is hope and why do I all of a sudden have it?

Hope is a feeling that comes to all of us...we carry it around daily, some of us lose hope, some of us cling to hope, some of us hope to find it. It comes to us when we least expect it...at 2a.m. in the form of a "sign", it comes to us when we need it most, it comes to us when we aren't even looking. We either have hope or we don't.

I have hope. I have hope that my "sign" was from the spirits & energy of love ones passed. (we'll save my earlier statement of disbelief being a contradiction to that for another blog) I have hope that the anxiety I've been carrying in the center of my chest will not rule my life. I have hope that this sadness I'm carrying over the loss of my dear Aunt will slowly fade and be replaced with happiness that was her life. I have hope that I am doing right by my children, my husband, my own self.

I have hope. Period. I didn't need to search for a piece written on hope. I had it all along inside of me. I was never, nor will I ever be, hopeless again.

Planned Spontaneity

"Planned Spontaneity", my oxymoron for the summer! For the first time, in their short summer vacation carreer, I made my kids a summer schedule. It's not carved in stone, we'll survive if we don't do everything or go over on something. Our "daily activities" are only one a day. Oh may that activity last for hours giving me lots of time to read, clean, watch a cooking show...oops did I type that...I meant give my kids lasting memories of the summer to beat all summers!

We have a blank day. I call that our "Planned Spontaneity" day. Now, secretly to my children it's the day I set aside to meet with my close friend and her two kids. A day where I dream of the 4 children going off and play nicely & quietly together so her and I can catch up. Or on the days when we can't meet Mommy becomes the best mom ever by singing "last one to the pool is a rotten egg".

When I was a kid we didn't have summer schedules. Our plan was that everyday after breakfast you went outside where you stayed until dinner time. I'm pretty sure Mom slid a tray of lunch under the door and my brother and I picniced under a shady tree. There was no chance of too much tv or wii becuase we only had 3 channels and no video games. Our 65 acres was our playground. Our woods was our fort and dare anyone to enter the woods without a password. My kids, sadly, don't live in that world anymore. Global warming & chemical laden sunblocks keep us inside most of the summer, I now live on 1/4 of an acre, and I would never let my kids out to roam free all day for fear of their abduction, calls to CPS, and who knows what other dangers lurk in the woods these days.

These days we plan playdates in the park, movie day, library day, and we have a schedule posted. And we don't forget to be spontaneous even if it is planned.

So maybe my summer schedule was made more to keep me from going insane (after all isn't that what Mom was doing when she sent us off), maybe it won't be truly spontaneous, maybe it's weird to even have summer structure. Or maybe, just maybe, this will turn out to be the summer to beat all summers! (If I plan accordingly)