I forgot where I was going with this….

These are the kinds of emails I get from my friends:

Also, will you stop writing so many damned entries in your blog? It makes me feel pressured.

Son #1: EW! Moooommmm!!!!!! There’s a bug in my pasta!
Steve: (bitterly) At least yours has meat in it.
Son #1: Grossssss  Daaaddddddd!!!!!!!
Steve: Mmmmm……exoskeleton…….

Several weeks ago Microsoft was having a health screening for employees and their dependants. I wanted Steve to go, so I dutifully signed us both up. They offered cholesterol screening, glucose (searching for diabetes), and a few other basic tests. I figured I was going to be pristine and Steve was going to have to go to a doctor. That was the plan anyway. How wrong could it go? I eat right, I exercise, and have a very low blood pressure and resting heart rate.

I was feeling pretty smug when Steve’s bloodwork came back and was, as I expected, pretty bad. The results were enough to scare him. However, several minutes later my bloodwork came back and MINE showed high cholesterol and high glucose. Not nearly as bad as his, but definitely very bad for someone who lives the way I do. I was floored. My family history is full of heart disease, high cholesterol and diabetes. Part of the reason I had become a vegetarian was because I had a high cholesterol test. I came home and immediately made an appointment with the doctor, wanting to understand why this was happening and what more I could possibly do (thus the work out every day comment.) The doctor seemed as puzzled as I was and decided to repeat the testing on Tuesday (thus the blown vein.)

I got some of the results today. Most specifically, I have totally normal cholesterol and glucose. The previous tests were completely wrong. They were so far off, I’m wondering if they accidentally gave me someone else’s results. I do have to say that it really scared the hell out of me. I hope Steve hasn’t now lost the sense of urgency about getting himself to the doctor. I don’t think his results were wildly wrong.

As for working out every day, I think I’m done with that. I’ve worked out every day since Sunday. I felt so crappy today, I had trouble completing my training session. It was the first time in a year and a half that I actually looked at the clock during my training session to see how much more torture I had to endure. My neighbor pointed out that if I didn’t kill myself every single time I worked out that I’d be able to work out every day. She said “That’s the problem with you athletes.” Point taken.

Why is it that I can never remember NOT to wear fabrics such as fleece, velour, wool, or any soft nap fabrics when I go to the fabric store? I went to the fabric store to buy some soft, fuzzy fabric to make a blanket for a friend who is having a baby. The fuzz/flecks/strands of every damn fabric in the store clung to my clothes. I came out looking like a serial killer turned loose in a barn with feathers, fuzz and glitter flying off me as I walked to the car. My clothes look like I’m wearing a flokati rug. I swear I didn’t notice a glitter pipe bomb going off while I was in there. Sigh. It’s hard being me. I’ve gone through half a roll of the lint roller since I got home and it still looks like I killed Sesame Street.

I’ve never been a huge fan of eggs. You can pretty much cook them any way and I don’t like them. I can sometimes choke them down, but most of the time I feel the gag reflex rising in the back of my throat and then waves of nausea roll over me. The only time I ever willingly ate eggs was when I was pregnant with son #1 and ate all kinds of weird things I never ate before. I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them Sam I am.

The problem with being vegetarian is that the quality of many nutrients derived from plants is not as good or nutritious as some animal derived nutrients. Eggs (and fish) contain Omega 3’s which are vital to good health. Since I don’t eat fish and don’t like to take supplements, guess what that leaves me with? Yuck. Eggs. The only supplement I take is the whey protein powder because with the weight training and working out I’m doing right now, it is impossible to get in enough protein.

I have found a way to circumvent the whole eating of eggs. I put egg beaters in a protein shake. It runs a shiver up my spine if I think about the fact that I’m actually drinking the eggs, but it’s better than eating them. The egg beaters do make the shake light and fluffy though. I’m Rocky Balboa. Drinking my eggs raw. <shudder> Do NOT make a protein shake with RAW eggs, unless you want to get very sick with salmonella. I’ve had salmonella before. Trust me, you don’t want it.

So here’s the lastest shake recipe.

Chocolate Protein Shake- 1 serving

1 scoop high quality, microfiltered chocolate whey protein powder
1/2 cup lowfat milk
2 TBSP fat free evaporated milk
1/4 cup egg beaters (pastuerized egg substitute)
ice 1-2 cups

Whip all ingredients except ice for a about 2 minutes- until fluffy and lighter colored. Add ice. 4 points weight watchers.  30 grams protein.

I’m gettin’ my eggs on.

Have you ever seen two frogs hugging? If not, let me tell you, it’s truly a disturbing sight. When we were in Kauai, we kept driving by this store called Two Frogs Hugging. Now if the name isn’t weird enough for you, let me tell you that there’s three or four statues out front of two frogs hugging. Now ordinarily you’d probably think there’s nothing wrong with that, but the FROGS HAVE THEIR HANDS ON EACH OTHER’S ASSES. That’s right. You read right. We kept meaning to get a picture of it, but every time we drove by we either didn’t have the camera or couldn’t get the shot. You can get an idea of how disturbing the statues are by visiting the link above. They have a drawing of one of the statues. Some statues had both hands on the ass, some had only one hand on the ass. Regardless, it is truly the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen. Who even thinks of that? If you ever get down to Hawaii, you must visit and stare open mouthed at the statues. It is truly a sight to behold.

I walked by the bathroom to see my oldest child writing and sitting on the toilet. Curious, I said “What are you doing?” He said “Optimizing homework time. This way I can do two things at once.” My thoughts: remind me to never touch your binder and I better not EVER find that on the kitchen counter. <shudder>

Since I’m on an underwear kick today, I might as well tell you what happened to my sister and my cousin. My sister has worked in the film industry for almost a decade now and travels frequently for film shoots. Sometimes they’re only in a place for overnight or a day or two. Not enough time to even unpack a bag.

She was staying  in a hotel, returning from a long trip and the night before had thrown her clothes on her bag to be re-worn (yes illegal re-wear here). Early the next morning she threw her clothes back on and trudged to the airport. She got on the plane and they took off. To add insult to injury, someone had left a dirty thong on the floor of the airplane in front of her. She tried to kick it out the way and commented to the person flying with her how disgusting it is. She kept glancing at the thong throughout the flight in sheer disgust. About half way through the flight the cobwebs are starting to clear and she notices that the thong looks familiar. “I have a pair like that” she thinks to herself. Then the slow, dawning horror, “I have a pair just like that…..and I was wearing them yesterday.” Suddenly she realizes that when she threw her jeans back on that morning the thong was still in the pants. And apparently it had worked it’s way down her leg and fell out the bottom. Thus came the dilemna. Does she try to get them back? What about the stink she made because they were there in the first place? Can anyone in anyway connect her to said thong? Did anyone see it hanging out the bottom of her pants? In the end she decided she can not take the chance of getting caught and having a flight attendent chase her down the runway waving the thong. She stared at it uneasily for the rest of the flight. When everyone was packing up at the end of the flight, she snatched up the thong and shoved it in her bag. Of course she had to really stretch for it after having kicked it out the way. Another embarassing family underwear incident. Yet again, I make a case for no illegal re-wears.

My cousin, Cathy, is mild mannered and fairly quiet, not the brash, irreverent, loud mouths that my sister and I are. She prefers to live life peacefully in relative obscurity and to not draw attention to herself. Her sister, Alesia, is more like my sister and I, and even more sarcastic than we are. Many years ago, the four of us went shopping. There were margaritas to be had at lunch and lots of carrying on as we hadn’t seen each other in a year or two. Cathy is so unobtrusive that when her cell phone rang in her bag, her face immediately turned red, embarassed that people could hear her phone ringing. She started desperately searching her purse, trying to get to it quickly to silence it. We all started to snicker at her desperation. Finally she found the phone at the bottom of her bag, yanked it out, flipped it open and answered it. Suddenly, the three of us are literally screaming with laughter and pointing at her. We’re laughing so hard we can’t speak, only point. Cathy slowly pulls the phone away from her ear and looks at it. There, stuck to the back of the phone is a panty liner. The utter horror on her face was priceless. The three of us are crying, literally crying, and are doubled over. Everytime we looked at her we started laughing again. The ruckus is drawing the attention of bystanders as she tried to rip the panty liner off her phone and shove it back into her purse. As I sit here and type this, there are tears of laughter rolling down my face all over again. We couldn’t even look at her for days without cracking up all over again. As I said goodbye on that trip, I couldn’t wipe the smirk off my face.

It’s good when things like this happen to OTHER people……

Son #1’s basketball coach called me on my cell yesterday and asked if I could make it to the gym in a half hour for him to have a basketball lesson. I jumped at the chance to get in an hour workout. It’s been a crazy week and I haven’t been to the gym since Sunday although I’ve been able to run at running club. Which, if you’ll recall, involved a lot of walking.

So I race home, run into the house and throw some clothes in a gym bag. I usually keep a few things in my locker at the gym, but for emergencies: extra socks, extra pair of panties, running shoes, but no full workout clothes. I was wearing a thong so I made sure to throw a nice, workout-worthy pair of undies into the bag. When I got to the gym and started to change, I discovered the panties weren’t in the bag. I even remembered thinking when I was packing the bag, I’d better throw the undies in on the bottom so I don’t drop them. And yet, no undies. I panicked as visions of where the undies might actually be rolled through my mind. I whimpered as I began to envision them dropped in the lobby of the gym or shut in the door of my new truck. I began to pray “Oh please God, don’t let them be here in the gym and make me have to claim them from somebody.” Then other visions started to roll in “Oh sweet Jesus, don’t let them be in my driveway at home.” I might possibly be able to pretend they’re not mine in the lobby or parking lot of the gym, but all the neighbors are going to know whose underwear are lying in my driveway. And if Michele picks them up, I’ll never hear the end of it. “Please God, oh please, let them be inside the house.” I spent the entire workout wondering and worrying that my panties were going to jump out at me from somewhere public. Luckily I did not have the added humiliation of running in a thong (you’ve been there with me on that before) as my locker motto is: be prepared. 

I can say quite emphatically that God does answer prayers of a gym rat. Especially when they are fervent, freaked out prayers. I found my underwear lying on the floor right inside the door when I got home. Thank God.

What does the doctor say to someone who is a vegetarian, works out 4-5 times a week, doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink soda and rarely coffee? In case you were wondering it’s “You should try to work out every day.”

Sigh.

Dear Hubby,

I want you to know that I love you, but I want to love you from afar. Quite frankly you’re disgustingly ill. You smell sick, you look sick and you’re getting germs all over my computer. Your red, snotty nose is grossing me out just looking at it. You don’t even sound sexy all congested like that. So if you don’t mind, keep your germy hands off my computer and throw your pile of snot rags away. Stop telling me to stop disinfecting everything. Quite honestly, it’s the only way I can cope without making you sleep in the car.

I love you from afar.

Love,

The Wife

My youngest child walks to beat of a different drummer. I think he hears our drummer, but he’d rather go with some other drummer. I worked in his classroom today. I brought apples for the kids to have a taste test and we made apple juice. The kids were supposed to imitate a scientific process by recording their thoughts about the taste of the apple, draw a colored picture of the apple and write it’s name.

The first apples they tasted were granny smiths, which I’m sure you know are quite tart. The kids were supposed to draw a face with either a smile, frown or straight line indicating whether they liked the apple. I was walking around the room and get to my son, who has drawn a frowning face with a tongue sticking out. Which of course is so darn typical of him, it made me burst out laughing.

The kids continued tasting apples and filling out their “science” sheets. At the end of class, I went around picking up the papers. I get to my son’s paper and he has drawn tiny handle-bar mushmashes (mustaches) on all the faces. I burst out laughing. He said “Wait mommy, I need to draw a beard.” Seriously, he just flat out ignores that drummer that you and I hear. lol……

I have some words of wisdom for you. When a doctor says “When was the last time you had a tetanus shot?” The right answer is always “Yesterday.” Yes, that’s right. I stupidly said “Uh, I don’t remember.” That’s always the wrong answer. Answer firmly and surely: YESTERDAY. My freakin’ arm is killing me.

And when the nurse with the needle says “Which arm do you want the blood draw in?” The correct answer is always “The one you didn’t just give me the tetanus shot in.” Not stupidly: The same arm. Because when they blow a vein AND give you a tetanus shot all in the same arm, it effin hurts. Oh it hurts.

This insightful piece of wisdom brought to you by the effin’ idiot who didn’t know the correct answers. Typing hurts. Must stop now.

P.S. Further words of wisdom: When the nurse says “Uh oh, that’s gonna bruise.” Be alarmed. Very alarmed. Medical personnel should not be allowed to utter “Uh oh.”

It’s picture day. <Cue old western showdown music- tumble weed rolls by. Sun is setting. Son and I step out to face each other in the dusty ghost town.> We’ve already had the “I’m doing your hair and you’re wearing what *I* want you to wear” argument. <more showdown music> He sees my evil squint. He sees my fingers flicking above my weapon. DRAW! “I’m doing my own hair.” “Like hell you are!” I think to myself. I let him go in the bathroom and start smoothing it down. <cue showdown music. enter cactus and horses.> I step into the light of the bathroom. Brush drawn, squirt bottle aimed. “NOOOOoooooooooo!” he yells. I shoot. “NOOOOoooooo MOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM! I WANNNNAAAAAA DDDDOOOO ITTTTT!” He’s cornered and his hair is soaking. He’s blinking the drips off his eyelashes. I whip out the hairdryer. (Note should be had here that I never blow dry it. Remind me not to do this again next year. Also he’s into the Goth look with all the hair combed straight forward. <shudder> Truly awful.) I decide that I should compromise on the hair. I like it combed back away from his face, he likes a Trump combing. I decide that the purpose of pictures is to capture how he looks at this particular point in time. So I blow dry it in a downward direction. Not forward, not backwards. I have unexpected results. A giant poof forms at the top of his head. “Moooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmm!” he howls “It looks like I’ve got buried treasure under there!!!!!!!!!!!!” I try to suppress the panic. He’s right. He has buried treasure head. I pull out all available haircare products and use ALL of them. Cremes, waxes, hair spray, ALL of it. By the time he gets on the bus, his hair is in some horrific combination of a gothic pirate.

I holster my brush.  I am relieved we have both survived picture day and lived to tell about it. <end desert showdown music.>

Do you want to know the date you’re going to die? Thanks to the I in We for giving me the day I’m going to die. Sigh.

Your Armegeddon’s day is May 23, 2054.

 I better hurry. I’ve only got 17, 405 days left. You can find your death clock here.

Can you hear that? Irritating isn’t it? It’s my idiot yellow labrador retriever who will not stop yipping. That’s right yipping. It’s not your normal ferocious “You’re on my property, I will kill you now.” barking. This says “I am insane. You were late in getting me my Prozac yesterday. Did I mention I’m insane? Yes, I’m here. Hello? Anyone hear me? I’mmmmm insannnnnnnneeeeeeeeee!” And do you know what I hear? “Hello!?! I am your extremely irritating, idiot yellow dog! Please come out here and shoot me with a face full of vinegar or the hose until I shut up! Helloooooooo! Anyone home?”

Yes, I got my degree in Dogology- translations of an idiot retriever back in 1994. Everyone should have this degree.

When the weather is hot, my youngest can not cope. Today was more walking than running. I might have mentioned to him that it was called running club, and not walking club, but I’m not sure it made an impression. And most of his T-Ball team (that I coached) was there and was under the mistaken impression that I was in charge. I had several surrogate children today following me around. I tried to push son #2 like my Dad used to push me (setting goals- ok we run until we get to THERE) but his stamina was extremely poor. My Dad used to taunt me though. I didn’t do that. I used to get the “You got be tough! You gotta be made of steel!” And many other anti-wimp speeches. Also unless there is copious amounts of blood requiring more than 10 stitches or a broken bone, you’ll get no sympathy from my dad. I can remember him making me swim when I was puking and had 102 fever. Of course, he didn’t know I had the fever until my mom got there and put a stop to it, but shouldn’t the puke have been enough? I did swim a best time that day that I couldn’t touch for more than a year though. I guess there comes a point when you feel so bad, pain is irrelevant.

There were numerous shouts of “MOOOOOOOOoooooommmmmm WAAAAAAAaaaaaalllllllkkkkkkkkk!!!!!!!!” So then I tried running backwards, in circles around him, and back and forth wind sprints to which he howled “Moooommmmmmm YOU’RE RUNNING EXTRAAAAAAAAaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” So until these kids get up some stamina, I’m not going to be able to count on running club for my cardio. Basically it’s just knee and back abuse with the added bonus of howling children. I am happy to report that there were plenty more mothers out there running today for at least part of the time. I saw one dad walking around in running shoes. I think he wanted people to THINK he was running. But I was running behind his daughter and he most certainly was NOT running. Lots of talking on the phone and sitting. Faker.

I think I need to go ice my knee now. It seems to have objected to the whole idea of running club…..

Why is it that my dear, darling, geeky husband has to turn the simplest of tasks into engineering marvels? I ask him to hang a picture and it turns into an hour long ordeal. Honestly, this is why home improvements take so long to get done in our house.

It’s now my turn for public humiliation. Lord knows my mother was the Prime Minister of Public Humiliation, my aunt, the Queen. My sister banned my mother from swim meets when we were in high school because of the ruckus she raised when we were swimming, screaming and almost falling in the pool. I used to use her screaming as a barometer to judge how close the competition was. The closer they were, the louder and crazier she went. It made me hurry. Except one time she was going absolutely ape shit at the end the pool. It was a 200 breaststroke. My muscles were screaming in pain but she was going so nutso I thought I was just barely beating the competition. When I got to the end, I was so exhausted I didn’t even look to see where everyone else was, assuming that I had barely out-touched them. I got out the pool, turned around to look at my time and realized I had beaten all the competition by almost 50 meters. She had gone crazy because I had beat my best time by a HUGE amount and managed to qualify for a new competition level. However, if that had been my sister, my sister would have started laughing at my mom and screwed up the whole race. It was still embarrassing because she almost fell in, but totally worth it.

My oldest is now at the age where I am embarrassing. Downright humiliating if you ask him, without even trying. I love this. It means that I no longer have to threaten him with punishments. I can now threaten him with embarrassment. He has school pictures tomorrow. I informed him that *I* was combing his hair tomorrow and fixing it how *I* want it. He immediately began howling at the top of his lungs. He tried running to Steve who was smart enough to tell him that I got to do his hair tomorrow. He then threw himself down and started caterwauling about how he doesn’t like the way I comb his hair. I’m pretty sure the neighbors heard him. When the caterwauling didn’t work, he tried the threat. “I’m never giving you a kiss again.” By this time I was growing tired of the commotion. I said “That’s ok. I’ll get it on the bus.” Warily he looks at me at says “What do you mean on the bus?” I replied with an evil grin, “I will get on that bus and come over and give you a kiss.” Then I did a horribly obnoxious, high pitched, loud accent imitating what I had in mind, making sure to call him a bunch of mushy, baby words. I was hugging and kissing him while he was frozen in horror. When I pulled away, his face was beet red. Steve was dying of laughter. Then he looked at son #1 and became very serious. “Oh she’ll do it, son. Believe me, she’ll do it.”

So this is my new discipline technique. It makes life SO much easier. Now I don’t have to think of any creative punishments……

I did it. I finally broke my set point. I lost another pound. Eight in total now. My pants are bagging off me so I know that I’ve lost inches too. In the last 15 days, I have lost 1.25 off my waist, 1 inch off my hips. So even though the scale has been slow to show results, I am losing inches. My workouts have been pretty brutal and I have the new ab stuff my trainer gave me to do to thank for the waist inches lost. I’d really like it if the scale started to show more drastic results. But I feel good. And the running club ought to help too….

Yes, I went to running club yesterday. It’s really quite unfair that because the kids joined the running club, I’m now a member of the running club. I had serious concerns about running on my knee. I’ve been slowly working up to a little bit of running at the gym, but nothing close to the 40 minutes of running that the kids do in running club. I admit it, I was scared. I’ve worked so hard and gone through so much to get my knee to a point where I can even walk around on it, running is so scary to me.

So what happened you ask? Well as it turns out, I’m in a lot better shape than the children. There is a God. And do you know I was the only mother who ran the entire time? Well I didn’t have to run the entire time actually, my five year old needed frequent walking after the first 1/4 mile. My oldest quit after a mile. The only other mother running quit after 1/2 mile and pretended to be needed helping the kids. It’s obvious that my knee is going to have time to work up to the 40 minutes of running. Don’t get me wrong, it hurt like hell. It still hurts. But I think I can manage it. The kids have zero stamina. Damn skinny kids. They need some meat and muscle on their bones. lol.

The other mothers cheered me on as I ran by looking at me with a mix of horror, admiration and disdain. It was all I could do not to punch the ones that yelled “Good for you!” as I ran by. Good for me? This isn’t good for me. This hurts my knee! Get your ass out here and run. Your legs aren’t broke!

So that’s the first day of running club. My legs are just a little bit sore. My knee hurts. I’ll get no sympathy from my trainer at the gym. Sigh. Oh and did I mention that Steve’s got a bug up his ass about doing a triathlon? Sigh. Yeah. He wants to do a triathlon. We were watching a Queer Eye episode where they get this guy to do a triathlon and Steve got all pumped up about it. Here’s the thing: I’ve done triathlons. I’ve done lots of triathlons. I don’t like cold water and I look like a drunk on a bike. Bikes don’t like me anymore than I like them. And I’m a swimmer. We swimmers are really good at triathlons because triathletes suck at the swimming part. I hit the water in the bottom 10% of the pack. I come out in the top 10%. But if there’s biking after that, I’m in a world of hurt. And I don’t like to lose. So if I do it, I’ve got to win at least in my age group, which in case you’re wondering, is all AARP members. But he wants to do it for fun. He’s never done one. He has no idea it’s not fun. At least it’s legal to wear wetsuits in the water now. I did triathlons so long ago, it wasn’t legal to wear wetsuits. Sigh. I’m not a teenager anymore. This is going to hurt. Surely I’m allowed to laugh at him when he finds out how un-fun it is…..

Ok, I admit it. Sometimes I put on something that didn’t come straight from the wash. I only do this if it’s a jacket, I only wore it for an hour or so, or if it’s gym clothes and I’m going back for a second workout later that day. And just so I know it’s been worn, I drop it on the floor next to my bed. Hamper diving is HIGHLY illegal and not permitted. And the re-wearing rules never apply to the kids, I never let my kids re-wear anything. If it’s been on their bodies, it’s considered filthy no matter how long they wore it. I realize that most people do not follow such stringent re-wearing rules, so I’ve come up with a procedure for you to follow to determine whether or not re-wearing is legal.

• First of all, you must determine when it was that you last wore the clothing. What were you doing? If there’s any doubt, the re-wear is not allowed. So for example, if you went to the zoo- re-wear ILLEGAL. If you were on public transportation- re-wear ILLEGAL. If you had anything to do with garbage, germ infested people, or any place that might contain germs, dirt or filth- re-wear is ILLEGAL.
• Secondly, what condition is the clothing in? If a shirt can stand on it’s own, talk back or run away, it is an illegal re-wear.
• Does the clothing smell? You must give it a thorough sniffing, because sometimes, just one armpit goes bad, and the other one is fine. I have consistent problems with my left armpit on gym days. You mileage may vary. You shouldn’t even give pants a sniff. That’s disgusting and I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. Any scent other than the scent of Tide clean, deems the garment illegal for re-wear. Dogs are not permitted to perform this chore in place of a human. They smell butts. They don’t mind things that stink.
• Are there obvious signs of a struggle? If the garment contains any obvious signs of a struggle: blood, food, mud, pet hair, it is immediately deemed illegal for re-wear.

I hope these helpful tips provide enough structure for you to determine whether your clothing is legal for the re-wear. Any violation of these rules will result in severe penalties.

     -The Re-Wearing Police

I have a friend, her name is Lucy Bilglade. Ok, that not her real name. That’s her pr0n name (achieved by taking the name of your childhood pet and the street you grew up on. I’m Mia Iona.) Her name has been changed to protect her identity. She’s one of those special women I was talking about this morning that struggled with infertility and I met while trying to conceive my second son.

Lucy has an ….interesting job and for years has had me on the floor laughing with stories of people she encounters through her work. Like the princess who reported her crown stolen. And the woman who most certainly gave birth to a clown, but decided she loved it anyway and wanted it back. Not to be undone, Lucy emerged from the patient’s room and ordered the nurse to give the poor woman her clown back. I asked her what kind of therapy she can actually provide for these people and she replied “Well it goes like this- I can’t help them. Please give them more medicine.” I asked Lucy if she’d start a blog, but for now, she said she’d have to rely on me to tell you about the woman that’s been in labor for 2 years straight with triplets. She can never quite get them all delivered in one day and apparently has to start over after she’s slept a little. It’s a hard life….

Today’s the day! Today’s the day! I’m so excited! Today’s the day! Ok, I know you’re not that excited, but I am! I want a new car! I can’t even imagine what it’s like to go somewhere and not get lost! I’m so tired of printing out the directions on Mapquest only to get lost anyway. I’ll have a nav system! Woo hoo! The only bummer is that I still haven’t emptied out my car. It’s been raining so hard this week that I just can’t bring myself to go stand in the rain and clean out my car. I’m not even sure I’m going to trade it in, but I need to be ready, right? Driving it off the nearest cliff is really what I want to do with it, but I get money to trade it in, right? They’ll give me at least a dollar, right?

The day hasn’t started off so well. My oldest child decided this morning that my alarm clock (my cell phone) annoyed him so he turned it off. That’s right folks, he just turned it off. So I woke up about 45 minutes later than I usually get up. I woke up to the kids fighting and screaming. My youngest has the perfect pitch of a scream that can break glass.

I still had a headache from yesterday. I sat in on the after-school drama program. The man that runs it has 4 kids. He’s used to utter chaos. The kids were screaming, running around, rolling on the floor, causing general mayhem and he’s calmly sitting in a chair trying the kids out for parts in Peter Pan. I couldn’t even hear myself think, much less hear the kids trying out, but he seemed ok with it all. My youngest child got the part of Michael.  I can’t even believe he’s going to do this. He’s a little shy and nothing like his boisterous, self-confident brother. But I guess sitting there watching his brother do plays all last year made him brave. And I don’t think they realized he’s 5, because kindergartners never get big parts. My son is huge. He’s the size of your typical third or fourth grader. In fact, during the school open house, parents and teachers thought my kindergartner was my fourth grader. He was standing in the hall when the fourth graders got out yesterday and he was middle-of-the-pack for height. Sigh. It’s not going to be easy for him being that tall. He’s the tallest in his class. Anyway, I almost fell out my chair watching him try out for parts yesterday. I still can’t believe he’s going to stand up in front of a bunch of strangers and do this. It will be awesome for him. I’m very excited.

Last night I made dinner for a friend who just had surgery. She’s allergic to wheat so I spent quite awhile trying to figure out what to make and checking and rechecking labels. I bought an allergen free cookie mix and made cookies for her. It was the double chocolate chunk cookie by The Cravings Place. It tasted pretty good. I think I will try it again and use prunes next time to give it a chewier texture. I’m not a huge cookie person. I’ll let you know how that goes. The kids gobbled it up, so I guess that means it’s a winner.

I made a mexican casserole, but put meat in the one going to their house. This was hard for me, because I have no idea how it tasted. I used tempeh and fake meat for ours. I made son #1 come and taste the meat and tell me if it tasted all right. He’s so picky, I figured if he ate it, other people would. I hope theirs tasted ok. Ours was awesome. That was the first time I’ve been brave enough to cook with tempeh. I’ve had it at vegetarian restaurants but never really knew what to do with it at home. Turns out that I think it’s a better meat substitute than the fake ground beef. It has a better texture and twice as much protein. So that’s my new cooking item: tempeh. It’s my new tofu. lol. When I first became a vegetarian, I had no idea what to do with the tofu. I loved it when I got it at restaurants but had no idea what to do with it at home. I still sometimes screw it up, but for the most part, I’ve got the hang of it. Tofu is interesting because it takes on the flavor of anything you’re cooking with. But I don’t like the squishy texture of it plain from the container. It grosses me out a little. But it’s awesome in scrambled eggs. I made a chocolate cream pie with it once. I do lots of stir fries with it and make baked tofu fries at least once or twice a week. But I’m still learning. Going vegetarian meant I had to totally re-learn to cook. And we eat pretty much every grain-things like Quinoa- which I had never even heard of until I became a vegetarian. It’s been hard to try and convert my favorite recipes to meatless. But I’ve pretty much mastered that now. I would like to use less fake meats and figure out how to better do it with things like tempeh and whole grains. I’m learning. Every meal I cook, I learn. 

There’s one more item on the agenda I wanted to mention. I mentioned a few days ago that I had a group of friends I met about eight years ago. We were all struggling with infertility problems. Some of these women had a much harder journey than I did, filled with years and years of infertility, treatments, miscarriages, still borns and heart break. We’re a close group, bound together by something that is very hard for anyone who hasn’t expierenced it to understand. We’ve laughed together and cried together and ached for the pain each of us suffered. My friend, Tina, the chef I’m always talking about, is one of these women I met back then. Tina sent me an email last night asking me for help setting up a blog. She’s going to adopt a little girl from Kyrgyzstan. I’ll let Tina tell you her story and how she ended up on this journey, but please visit her blog and lend your support as she documents the adoption process.

I guess that about wraps up the morning for me. The kids joined a running club, which means *I* just joined a running club, so I’m off to run this afternoon. This could be a bad thing. You know I’m still not running on my knee yet, right? Do you think someone would lend me a golf cart? Anyway, hopefully I won’t be blogging from the floor again. But if I do, do you think you could actually call 911 this time? Last time you all just sat there and looked at me.

I was doing a little blog housekeeping this morning and noticed some of my referrals from search engines had been my screen name, imhelendt. So I vanity searched it and found myself in places I’d never seen before. Wow, thanks for all the link love! I also see from my feed stats, I have a bunch of new readers. Welcome. Although I should warn you young boys that if you’re looking for more cleavage shots, I’m all grown up now. Ok, I’m not. But it was purely a scientific experiment to see if cleavage=hits. And it did. You guys didn’t disappoint. But we’re over that now, right? It was all in the name of science.

I suppose you’ve come now to see if I kicked the Boy Scout Leader’s ass. That would be too easy. I could take her. Although I’d bet you want photos of us rolling around on the floor? Get your minds out the gutter! I’d rather hang her up by her neckerchief.

Did I ever tell you about the time Steve started a fight with some woman at the airport and I had to finish it? No? Ok well, here’s what happened. We were loaded down with luggage coming back from Hawaii. We had like 13 bags. And you should know that Steve’s worst nightmare is to block an aisle or doorway. He hates that women stop in the middle of aisles and doorways and don’t pay attention. So he’s coming through the doorway and the bags start falling off the cart. He has to stop right there in the doorway to pick them up. Then this angry, bitter woman walks by, shoves the cart and says “Nice. Stop in the middle of the doorway.” Already I’m grinning because this woman is about my height (5′5″) and weighs about 100 pounds. And Steve is 6′5″ and about 250. You’ve got to be a moron to pick a fight with him. But alas she was stupid and did. He stands full height and yells at her “IT FELL, BITCH!” So then the woman turns around and inexplicably heads for me. I’ve done and said nothing. But I might have been smirking. And I’m holding the hand of my then four year old. She walks over and starts bending over to talk to him. I don’t even realize what she’s doing or saying until I hear “You know what? Your Daddy’s an assh0le” My son wasn’t looking at her and I pulled him behind me before she finished with the cuss word. I flipped. I screamed “WTF DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!” And then she tries to get around me to get at my son again. That was the last straw. I shoved her away, got two inches from her face and started screaming that if she tried to touch my son again I would kill her. Meanwhile, out of the corner of my eye, I see Steve sees that I’m fighting with her. I’m flexing and unflexing my fists trying to calculate how best to hit her accurately and with enough force to take her down immediately. I really don’t want my kids to see me in an actual fight so I’m trying to think of the best way to shut her down quickly. I’m clearly bigger and stronger than she is and yet she’s trying to attack my child. I will go to jail before I let someone touch my child. Steve saw the look on my face and that I was about to hit her and comes rushing over. I think it was then that she realized exactly how big he is. She backed off and walked away. I was livid. I don’t think I can ever recall being that raging angry and calmly calculating how I was going to hurt someone. I looked at Steve and said “Oh so you start the fight and I gotta finish it?” And he grinned and said “Sheesh, I saw you getting physical with her right away and I knew you were going to kick her ass.” I said “She tried to get at son #2.” Steve gave me a bewildered look and said “If I had known that, *I* would have gotten physical.” I grinned “Yeah, um next time, finish your own fight.” It wasn’t until five minutes later that the adrenaline hit and I felt like I had 15 cups of coffee to drink. So really that’s the closest I’ve ever come to a chick fight. No rolling around on the floor, no hair pulling, nothing. I do enjoy a good shove every now and then though. Touch my child though, and I don’t have a problem with fighting. Usually I’m not wearing a bikini when that happens though. And I’m not a big fan of mud. So if that’s what you’ve come for, it might not happen.

Where was I? I really forgot where I was going with all this. Oh yeah, I remember. People liked recipes and Reese’s Peanut Butter cups. They came for the geek talk and the pictures, the weird vegetables and the cleavage. I’m currently reviewing several marriage proposals by some guy named Raul. I would like to get to know some of you lurkers out there. So don’t be shy. I’m declaring another de-lurking day. Say hello. I see you! And I promise to have someone take pictures the next time I get into a fight. Or Steve starts one.