Kicking my way back into shape

Well, I'm TRYING to, anyway.

Apparently Oprah is not the only one who decided to let herself go last year. I'm here to announce that yes, I too gained just over 25 pounds last year. I didn't take turning 40 as admirably as I should have. Letting go is fun. Who doesn't like putting on the feed bag, slapping their ass on the couch, and basically doing NOTHING for 12 months? The bitch is, unless I want a body like those sumi wrestler bodies the people on The Biggest Loser have, I must get it under control.

And well fuck, if Oprah's gonna get skinny again, I guess I should try as well. In my attempt to get back into shape, one of my best pals and I have joined a local "meltdown" competition to see who can lose the most weight. I dug way down in my dresser to find my "workout" clothes. My workout clothes are mostly old tshirts and lounge (pj) pants. You cannot buy cool workout stuff if you wear anything bigger than a size large an irony of the industry, I believe.

The first week, I got weighed, measured, and even had a fat analysis done. If you've ever wondered what it feels like to be truly suicidal, have a fat analysis done. There's nothing more depressing than seeing 46% of your body is F A T. Almost half of my person is considered blubber. Sigh. Not to mention the skinny bitch who does all the measuring has legs that are about the size of my upper arms.

Part of this meltdown thing includes coupons to try out various exercise classes and last night was our first one: kickboxing. Billy Blane makes it look so easy and fun. Ok, let's try it! Unfortunately, our instructor was more like a female drill sergeant. "Come on, let's go!" "Get that leg up!" "Only 30 more seconds!" In the world of kickboxing, 30 seconds feels like 30 minutes when you're raising your leg up to your waist and kicking an imaginary enemy. (I began to picture the instructor as my enemy by the end of the class.)

The most humiliating part was realizing we were unable to keep up with the two 60-year-old women in the class. Today, I'm barely able to raise my arms to type this update and my legs still feel a bit like jello.

Gee. I can't wait for SPIN class next week!

Christmas, the manic depressive holiday!

Or should I say bipolar holiday to be politically correct?! Christmas break brings about such feelings of joy and despair, doesn't it?

Joy for having more than two weeks off from work. Despair that my children will ALSO have those same days off.

Joy that it was a white Christmas. Despair that it barely quit snowing enough to get all that last minute shopping done.

Joy that I can stay up til 2am and wake up around noon. Despair when I realize on January 5 that I will still go to bed at 2am but have to get up at 6.

Joy for all the Christmas cookies, treats, and savory foods. Despair putting on jeans after wearing lounge pants for 15 plus days. I am too young yet for elastic waist jeans but they do look appealing after a dozen sugar cookies per day. LOL

Joy at seeing my kids's face upon opening their most-desired toy. Despair when the CC bill arrives and I realize I actually have to PAY for them now.

Despair that I alone (again) will wrap every mother fucking present "we" bought (aka *I* bought) the kids. Despair at all the extra laundry from new clothes. Despair at all the organization that we now have to do to fit the crap we just bought/got. Joy that my husband bought me a cocktail shaker and BOOZE for gifts this year. Joy that I got $50 in gift cards for Borders.

Despair that I have to go back to work. Joy that at least it means I'll have high speed internet. There always is a silver lining.

Caution: Woman is louder than appears in the review mirror.

Last month, my favorite season of the year commenced: FOOTBALL SEASON. Part of my love of fall is inherently connected to my love of the game of football. Every Saturday morning, I wake up to ESPN's College Game Day with my boy Kirk Herbstreet (he's on my card) and that dick Lee Corso (why won't he just die or get fired already!). On Sundays, I go to the early service at church so I can be home in time to catch Fox NFL Sunday. (I miss James Brown but I refuse to watch the mess on CBS. Shannon Sharpe requires closed captioning, I swear!)

This year, JB signed back up for football (yea!), so now I get to spend my Friday nights watching more football and cheering on the Hawks.

I use the term cheer in it's most intense form. What I do is really more of a crazed fan scream that is quite possibly the loudest in the county. People who've never met me ask others who THAT woman is...and I actually scared a toddler into crying last week! The team loves to hear me, though, in person AND on game film. While watching film a couple of weeks ago, coach told the team that, "You can hear JB's mom screaming in the background on this play." Poor JB. (But again, I strongly believe it's our job as parents to embarrass our kids in public and often.) So the next game when he missed a tackle and I screamed at him, coach went over to him and said, "Man. Your mom is pissed!"

I even seem to have a problem yelling at the television. Last week, I even was yelling during a NFL replay of a Dallas Cowboys game from 1977. Do you think they could hear me 31 years into the future yelling at them for not tackling their guy?

During Lauren's last basketball season, John tried to get me to stop and made me watch two games with no yelling allowed. I have to say....longest games I've ever watched IN MY LIFE! I just can't NOT yell.

DEAL WITH IT! (Yes, the all caps means I'm yelling) :o)

Here Piggy Piggy!

Another year, another fair is in the books!

The Monday following the Boone County Fair is fast becoming my favorite day of the year. I almost love it more than Christmas morning!

The total exhaustion of being an exhibitor at a county fair is something those of you "normal" folks will never be forced to endure and you should get on your knees and thank the Lord right now!

Oh how innocent I used to be when the week of the fair would roll around and John and I would pack the kids in the car and head up for a fun NIGHT of carnival rides, junk food and admiring the animals in the barns. (Ok. That was always JOHN's thing, but still, I supported!)

Now, we pack a TRUCK full of shit that spills over to the car. One night becomes SIX fun filled days AND nights. Countless hours are spent standing around in a urine & feces scented building watching my beloved children slap a pig on the ass to impress a judge who gives each kid the same color ribbon. Laundry piles up by the minute.

Our wallets are sucked dry of all their cash every day and our waistlines grow before your eyes with a diet of funnel cakes, corn dogs, funnel cakes, pork chop sandwiches, funnel cakes, cheese fries, funnel cakes, cheeseburgers, and did I mention funnel cakes? They cover them in chocolate sauce as well as powdered sugar now like they really did need MORE calories in them!! And WHAT the fuck do the Belvidere fireman put in their donuts?! They are definitely the "crack cocaine" of the fair. We went through four dozen in six days! That's 48 donuts, folks!

So today, we escape back to work. The buildings are blessedly air-conditioned and fresh smelling. Plus, I can SIT at my computer all day to work (and even take time to put my head on my desk and nap!).

359 days til it all starts again....

Big Bear….Big Bear Chase Me!

Last fall, John’s sister and I decided it would be fun to vacation together “Great Outdoors” style and rent a cabin by a lake where the men (and tomboy Lauren) could fish and someplace close enough to civilization (a.k.a. a mall) so the girls could escape boredom when it popped its ugly head. Being the “event coordinator” that I am, I began my search on the net for such a place. We were on a limited budget so our selection was already on the shaky side. Apparently $1500 only goes so far! But I finally found a place about an hour north of Minneapolis, MN that seemed perfect. It was right off the water and even had canoes for us to use, a paddle boat AND a pontoon boat if we wanted to rent it for $300. It had plenty of room for the nine people in our group and plenty of activities for the kids to pass the time: a ping pong table, pool table, and even a fooseball table. Perfect. The photos on the net gave impressions of mornings drinking coffee on the screened-in porch and games at the table at the kitchen table followed by movies around the T. V. in the living room.

Expectations were high.

Reality is was more of a kick in the ass. Reality was a screen porch that was missing half the screens with only three windows that opened. Reality was furniture that was about 30 years out-of-date. Reality was cobwebs on walls and ceilings. (I spent a lot of quality time with the duster all week attacking knocking those down). And was WAS that smell?!

At least there was the lake! You just had to take your life in your hands a bit in order to get to it. The dock was half falling apart and we were sure one of us was going to step right through it one day. The canoes both had holes in them. And the pontoon boat that was offered to us for the bargain price of $300, I’m amazed the thing actually floated! It looked like it had been built in 1960 after dumpster diving for parts and pieces to scrap it together.

But we did get some entertainment from the paddle boat. The kids’s first attempt on it was America’s Funniest Home Movies quality.



And watching the poor teenage girls coming out of the house holding their cell phones up in the air in search of “just one bar” was like watching religious zealots worshipping their gods. “OH GREAT CELL GOD! PLEASE GIVE US SERVICE TODAY!” In the end, we did manage to have a great time. And Lauren was crowned queen of the lake after she caught 15 fish. We each got an ENTIRE BITE of fish one night for dinner after she & JB caught six of them. “Tonight, we feast!” So will we attempt this again? Hopefully. Next time, I just know to look for rooms in a resort vs. a rental house!

Teenagers, Puberty, Turning 40--Oh my!

As you can read, I had the dubious honor of turning 40 recenly. On top of "celebrating" that milestone, our son turned 16 and our daughter is slowly beginning the decent into puberty. If you want drama, our house is worth a visit!

Two months before JB turned 16, he began a relationship with his first "serious" girlfriend. Great. As if getting his driver's license wasn't enough to worry about, now I get the double pleasure of thinking about him driving ALONE in the car with a GIRLFRIEND!! Many talks about wearing raincoats in the rain and all of that have followed in these past three months. We do totally adore Alexis and have a lot in common with her folks...so it's a good thing. But after not being interested in girls much his entire life, he seems totally smitten. It must be L-O-V-E because he turned to me one day in April and said, "Mom. Do you know what today is?" Hmm. Besides being a Saturday? I have no idea! "It's my three month anniversary with Lex."

Holy hell! We're counting anniversaries?! BARTENDER!!!!! (Chanting to him: don't forget about raincoats! Always have a RAINCOAT ON if you decide to go out in the weather!!!)

On top of all of this trauma, Lauren is totally turning into a GIRL! My little tomboy recently expressed her desire to have "real bras" in her undergarment collection. No training bra anymore for her. Hell no. She wants a BRA. Of course, the ones she like have the padded cups that I was thinking would take her a year to fill but it's actually only taken her about four months. What the fuck!?! Plus, I've had to teach her how to shave under her arms which means there is hair growing in other places I so don't want to think about AND that dreaded day of "becoming a woman" cannot be far behind. BARTENDER!!!!!

No WONDER I had to go with my girlfriends to Mexico for a full week to handle turning 40. Coupious amounts of alcohol have definitely been the "medication" of the era I'm living in right now.

Beer in Mexico

So Mexico really IS the place to celebrate a big birthday. We arrived in Mexico right around noon stepping off the plane to sunny skies and 78 degree temperatures. BLISS!

But the real fun began once we checked into our hotel, changed into our swimsuits and headed to the pool. I had told my two friends that our vacation would probably go like this: I would drink so much the first day that I'd be totally hung over the rest of the week. And I wasn't too far off the mark!

Most of you who know me, know that I drink A LOT. Not necessarily booze; everything. I drink a 44 oz. Diet Pepsi in just over an hour every morning. At lunch, it's not unreasonable to see me refill my large drink at least once--but usually twice. So when I go out "drinking," it can be really ugly! By the time I've had too much, I've had about FOUR DRINKS too much! LOL

This first day in Mexico was not to be any different. We started the afternoon off with a big ole strawberry margarita at the pool. Next came a HUGE pina colada while walking on the beach. Then, there was a super yummy "dirty monkey" concoction made from bananas, rum and coconut milk at the piano bar. All of these were drank within about a five hour period on nothing to eat since breakfast. SUCH a good idea, huh?!

So now, I'm feeling a bit numb in the face and thinking obsessively about bread. Must get some bread to sop up the booze. Of course, by this time, it's over. The time has passed that I can reasonably recover from my drunken state, but I still think if I get some food into me, I'll be ok.

We stagger (ok, *I* stagger) up the stairs in to dinner which is served buffet style. Oh goody. Now I get to hold a plate and try to serve myself food?! This is not good. Thank GOD for good friends. Shelly lead me around that buffet like a 3 year old kid asking, "What do you want to eat?" at every station. The only thing I could focus on where the tortillas...the Mexican version of bread. LOL

At our table, I was excited to see a bread basket had been brought. (See the white light shining on it and hear that choir of angels singing?) But, it was just a cruel trick. The first roll I picked up was super hard. Hmm. Ok. So it's hard. Spread some butter on it it'll be fine. It is bread, after all. I just want the soppage ability of it's chemistry makeup. Upon tearing into it, I discovered that their chef had cleverly devised a way to bake a roll that is strictly CRUST ONLY!!! Yes. I am drunk but come on! How can you bake a roll with NOTHING on the inside?

Well, after that, it really WAS over! I got up and stumbled as gracefully as I could back to our room where I promptly passed out on until 3am. Still a bit drunk I thought I'd put on some TV and try to lull myself back to sleep with that. You'll all remember now that I'm in Mexico where English is NOT the native language. It took my brain a while to remember that fact. Drunk is so not the way to cruise tv channels in another language. And forget about trying to read captions while drunk. It's an exercise in futility.

What a long night! LOL But I never did puke. That says something about me being able to hold my liquor, right? Of course friendship only goes so far...ask me sometime about Shelly "Bindy" Barclay's way to wake up a hung over friend. Let's just say, having a sea turtle shoved in your face at 8am is SO not the way I pictured my first morning in Mexico going... LOL