Bits and pieces - too tired for confessions.

I started out to do a wine and love Thursday, but this has been a little bit the week from hell, so all I got down was that I love book club. God, I love book club. Here's what I had to say:

This week I’m loving:

- Book club. I’m so glad that I took the initiative and started a book club. We’ve been going for a few months now, have read some great books (I haven’t been a fan of all of them, but that’s the point sometimes, right? Every book has had its fans in the group). It’s nice to get out of the house once a month and hang out with a different set of people than I normally would, have good food and good drinks and good conversation. Because of the diversity of the group it’s made it necessary to go out rather than rotate houses, and we’ve been making the rounds at local dining and drinking establishments. I don’t know if we’re going to ultimately decide on a restaurant to keep holding meetings at or if we’ll keep changing it up, but I’m flexible! I’m just up for the fun!

In other news:

The germiness of earlier in the week has escalated to the summer cold from hell (times two and possibly soon to be times four). The kids have been up coughing for hours at night, low grade fevers, congestion, all-day whinefests ...

...and Wednesday night we elevated one side of Henry's crib to alleviate the congestion, and he fell out of his crib. The time was 12:44am. It was the scariest moment for me in his life. Somehow, he managed to fall from the crib, clear the humidifier and land on his hardwood floor with nary a scratch, bruise or anything. I watched him for two hours scared his brain was going to start swelling and he was going to stop breathing. He: is fine. Me? Still not so much.

...and Spencer's fever spiked a bit Thursday, so he gets to visit the doctor bright and early today.

...and Henry's now been up since 4:30am, too tired to do anything but whine but unwilling to sleep. Here's to hoping the doctor will sneak a look at him this morning too.

...and Hubby is coming down with it, and I have a scratchy throat and a sore ear. I've washed all sheets, kid pillows, and sprayed down all toys with disinfectant. Please God let this run its course soon. I'm beat.

...and I'm exhausted. That's all I've got, folks.

Weight Watcher

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So I have not been making healthy choices in my meals these days. I think it’s by the grace of God that I haven’t gained any weight, given the pulled pork sandwiches and bacon ranch chicken sandwiches and pasta and the creamed spinach and banana nut pancakes and the chocolate cake and the beer and the wine … you get the point. It’s all been deliciously naughty, but I need to shape up if I am to continue to lose any weight at all.

I’ve never been good at denying myself things, which is why when I started this weight loss journey I decided to make changes in my diet instead of cutting things completely out. Brown rice instead of white, wheat pasta instead of white, water instead of soda, unsweetened tea and coffee, etc etc.

This worked for awhile, except that lately I’ve been allowing myself the occasional Dr. Pepper which has turned into two a week (I know that’s really not bad amount, but I really don’t need it and shouldn’t be drinking it). Also, worse, I’m not drinking the water that I was getting so good at drinking. While it was close to 60-80oz a day for awhile, I’m struggling for 30-40 now.

And portion control, which has never been my strong suit. I need to focus on this most of all. Chocolate cake and milk for dinner probably doesn’t help either.

Additionally, I really need to start actively training for this half marathon that I’ve agreed to do in February. Any ideas?

What are your downfalls? And how do you cope? And do you have any training suggestions for someone who doesn’t do well on interval training schedules? Or android apps to make training schedules easier?

TOT-head and shoulders, knees and toes

Or at least head, fingers and toes. That covers movies, right? I keep forgetting to link to Chelsea, so I'm doing it first. TOT, via Chelsea!!

1. What color are your toenails painted?
Timely Turquoise, but sometime tonight hopefully they will turn Gorgeous Grape. I really hate to paint my own nails though, so we'll see.

2. What colour are your fingernails painted? Nada, I go au natural on the fingernails.

3. What is your favourite brand of nail polish? Whatever I can find on sale: Sally Hanson, Mabeleine (why am I having such a hard time with that word?). Whatever as long as the color is cute.

4. As the norm, do you DIY your nails or get mani/pedis? I used to always (every 3-4 months) go for a pedi, but I could buy a new bottle of polish every 2 weeks and still not spend the amount of money and still have cute nails. So we're going DIY, even if I don't like doing it. Also going DIY: hair color. FYI, do not decide spur of the moment to switch from "medium golden brown" to "medium golden mahogany brown". These are not the same color.

5. Have you ever had a gel mani? Do you recommend it? Never had it.

6. What is the last movie you watched on television? (TV, Netflix, Redbox, etc.) Conviction, Sunday night via Netflix. It was very good.

7. What is the last movie you watched in the cinema? Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2, in the fancy shmancy THX 3-D IMAX theater. So. Worth. It.

8. Is there a movie that everyone talks about as if it is a classic but you haven’t seen? I've never seen a single James Bond movie, hated Citizen Kane, and only recently saw The Godfather.

9. What is your favorite movie soundtrack? Hmm. Empire Records and Cruel Intentions. I absolutely love both and can't choose a favorite. Juno and Garden State are pretty good too. I don't really buy soundtracks, so these might be the only soundtrack albums that I have, unless you want to go back to Annie.

10. Have you ever seen a movie and thought it was better than the book it was based on? Recently I read and saw Never Let Me Go, and I thought the movie was much easier to understand and flowed better (although both were depressing as hell).

Weekend fun with a germy punctuation.

It was a great weekend, full of new friends, old friends, children’s museums, pools … and one that left me googling the incubation periods for the common cold, as both kids woke up in the middle of the night sick.

But before then, we were golden! My neighbors came over Friday night and we celebrated Mr. Neighbor’s birthday in style: shrimp ceviche, rotisseried barbeque chicken, grilled squash, creamed spinach, chocolate cake, malbec … it really was a feast. We made half, they brought the other half, and we sat on the deck until we were overcome by bugs and a slight drizzle.

Saturday I made omelets and coffee and we ate breakfast out on the deck and enjoyed an overcast morning – lack of sun makes for a much cooler morning when it generally feels like the armpit of hell sometimes around here. We went to the children’s museum for something cheap to do with the kids (we have a membership) and spent a good part of the late morning/early afternoon there. Then we went window shopping for a co-pilot style bike trailer for Spencer … which no one carries in store. I sadly found it cheapest on Wal-mart’s web site with free shipping, so the allure of not having to step back in a store overcame me. (ps - I had photos to add from my phone, but it's refusing to mount right now so I guess not)

One of my closest friends from high school and her daughter (my goddaughter)have been in town this month from where they live in Belgium (I know! Belgium!) and they leave Tuesday (sad face). So Sunday we started the day with homemade banana nut pancakes and turkey bacon and then we packed up our swimming trunks and headed to her parents’ house for an afternoon of pool fun. The kids had a great time, we had a great time, and it was so nice to see Shelly and Rachel one last time before they head back to the land o’ 50-degrees.

We stopped for an early dinner on the way home, and I should have known something was wrong with Spencer, but I just assumed it was all the chlorine and sun. You know how kids get. He fell asleep on my lap in the restaurant with my headphones in so he could listen to the Beatles instead of the loud horrible country that all steakhouses put on. He felt warm, but I again thought it was just the sun (no burn because he was doused head to toe in sunscreen, but you still get sun). When we got home, I put him in bed and at 3am he climbed in with me. At 4am, Number 2 woke up and I put Number 1 back in bed, this time realizing he was pretty warm so I gave him Tylenol. At 6am he climbed back in with me, saying he was cold. The boy was drenched – obviously his fever broke, and he kept asking for more medicine so I gave him his vitamin. I felt terrible leaving this morning – handling two kids is hard enough without them both being sick (Henry has a cough and a runny nose, and Spencer has the fever and a cough).

It was evidently not a good day for anyone - Henry didn't nap, Spencer was that irritating I-don't-feel-well-enough-to-stop-whining-but-well-enough-to-not-lay-down-all-day. I felt bad being at work but I'm also kind of glad I didn't have to deal with any of it.

Hopefully they are feeling up to snuff soon.

Friday confessions

In the spirit of change, I’m going to a confessions-style Friday list. So here are my Friday confessions:

-- I am so full of doubt with Henry. I touched on this yesterday with my wondering if there’s something wrong with him other than teething, but it’s more than that. I’m scared to take the pacifier away (we’ve started withholding through the day, which may account for some of the crankiness even though he’s not huge on the pacifier). I’m scared to take the bottle away at a year, I’m nervous about the switch to sippy cups and to milk and when he can ride in a different car seat and ride on the bike seat. Everything about changes when he becomes not an infant anymore freak me out. This is especially strange given that he has always been so ahead of the curve on doing things that I should already feel like he’s not a baby. But I don’t. What do I do?

-- I am officially not spending money anymore. I got my credit card bill, and while it did have the bunk bed and accoutrements on it, the rest … well, let’s just say I spend too much money at Target (all of it on sale though, ahem). Of course, as soon as I decided this I realized that I have about 6 baby birthdays in the next month to purchase for, a bridal shower, a baby shower, a wedding in October and two trips to Delaware. So while I won’t be spending money on ME, there might be some issues.

-- There may be issues, but there will be no more new shoes.

-- I hate the treadmill. I hate it. I’m pretty sure it’s out to get me, because the first time in a month that I tried to run on one, it kept arbitrarily putting me up to a 2.0 incline while I was already dying a little trying to go faster to get my stupid run over with. I moved it down, it moved me back up.

-- I don’t know for sure that I have ten confessions this week.

-- My mother used to hate family walks, because she said they made her feel like a family of ducks. I think of this every time I get my family to go for a walk. But it’s so much fun!

-- I especially think of this when we SEE a family of ducks while on our walk.

-- I crave ice cream. Bad.

-- I'm 800 miles past my oil change mileage, and I know that they undershoot it, but I'm way over. Because they actually wrote the 5k mileage instead of the 3k mileage. Hubby is going to take my car to get an oil change while I'm at work tomorrow, and I'm supposed to take his car.

-- I brought work home every night this week, and I haven't done a lick of it.

Wine and Love

This week I wasn't feeling inspired by any of the Writing Prompts, so I've decided to join in on another meme. This one comes from Walking with Nora:

Things I'm wine-ing about:

• Henry's teething situation. He has been such a crank, and he's been waking up screaming every single night. I feel like we should take him to the doctor because he just seems to cry so much, but I don't know if I'm overreacting or if there's really something wrong. When the teething started I took him in several times because I thought he had an ear infection, but no. Now I'm second guessing everything - I think I'm even a less-sure parent than I was with the first. Is it just the teeth? Is he sick? Is this normal? We have no snot, no high fevers, no lethargy. Just a bad temper.
  
• My lack of friends. This is a sore subject for me, because I actually have a lot of friends, but I don't ever feel like I have someone to call on my drive home, or go out for drinks when I've had a bad day, or who I can confide in and who confides in me. The relationship with my old best friend was toxic, and she hated my husband and needed me more than she allowed me to need her, but at least I felt comfortable randomly calling. I feel like my old friends don't need me, or think that I don't need them because I'm married with kids. I crave friend-type companionship, but sometimes it feels like all my friends have left me for new friends and don't feel it necessary to include me.
  
• My training. Training has not been going well, least of all because my neighbor has been going with me and I'm finding it hard to get the drive to push her and me too. I am one of those few people that a) trains better alone and b) runs better outside than on a treadmill, no matter what the weather. I need to carve out yet more time to run, but do you realize how hard that is?
  

Things I'm loving:

• Harry Potter DH2: I took a half day and we went to a fantastic little cajun bistro in Ybor for lunch (fabulous food, terrible service - don't go right when they open, evidently) and then went to the best theater in the city to see it in 3D with THX surround. I usually don't care about all that gobbledy-gook, but it was worth it - awesome! Two thumbs up.
• The little personality that Spencer has become: Sometimes I get down on him because he can be so loud (I know, he's a toddler and a BOY) but yesterday I suggested a family walk and it was so funny to hear him jabber for 1.7 miles on his tricycle. I tried so hard to commit every piece of conversation gold to memory, but I failed. We need more family walks.
• My weight loss: After I hit 30 lbs down, I stopped pushing myself so hard. I do work hard, and I make hard choices with my food but if I feel like a spoonful of peanut butter with chocolate chips (the only sweet in the house) at 9pm, I have it. Despite those spoonfuls, I'm continuing to lose weight and that makes me happy. I'm 12 lbs away from my final goal weight and beyond the actual number, I feel so much better at this weight. I don't get hot so quickly, I don't get tired with the kids so quickly. I feel like actually doing things instead of laying on the couch. We got home from our walk yesterday and put on bathing suits to play in the sprinkler for awhile. And I like wearing a bathing suit!
• My budding friendship with my neighbor: If you remember Project: Neighbor, you know that I was trying to befriend my neighbors since we moved in. We have, in the past few months, really become friends and I love her! Husband's okay, good to hang out with them as a couple but Amanda and I talk so much lately. I'm so glad they moved in next door. Maybe she'll eventually be the one I call when I need a glass of wine after a bad day or just to talk. I found out on Tuesday when we went bike riding that she was doing the same things trying to get to know me! Ha! I'm not psycho!

So there you go. I'm loving more than I'm whining this week. I'm pretty sure that makes it a good week.

TOT- the zoo

1. What is your favorite zoo to visit? I've only ever been to Lowry Park Zoo, which it's been said is #1 in the country as voted on by Parents magazine. I don't know the difference since I've only ever been there, but it's nice.

2. Do you visit a zoo very often? Not really. My in-laws had a membership and took my older son a lot because they live close, but I've only gone once or twice in the last five years or so (the last time being when S was about 18 months old). They have $5 day a couple times a season which is nice so I don't have to worry about everyone getting my money's worth out of the day.

3. Do you have a membership to a zoo? Nope.

4. When you visit a zoo, do you stay all day or just an hour or two? I think about 3 hours is our limit. What do you do there all day? We usually visit all the animals and then spend a bit in the water area, where they have interactive fountains for the kids. That's always the most popular spot anyhow.


5. Do you buy food at the zoo or pack a picnic lunch? Hmm. I think when we've gone we go between meals, or before lunch and go out to lunch afterward. I always pack snacks though, because you know the moment it costs $8 for a side of fries, kids are all about eating.

6. What is you favorite animal to see at the zoo? The giraffes. Hold on, I have a picture here which is really unflattering to me but was awesome:

7. What is your least favorite animal to see at the zoo? The manatees, because you have to go through that tunnel and I hate walls of water.

8. What is your favorite memory of going to the zoo as a kid? I don't have any.

9. Do you visit the gift shop when you go to the zoo? Yes, but we're still at the point where kids don't ask for things, so it's like a place to play and then leave.

10. On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the best and 1 being the worst) how nice is your city’s zoo? Apparently, Parents.com rates it pretty high!

What's with TODAY, today?

I tried to write today’s post unsuccessfully several times, but I was feeling sorry for myself so I came off sounding, well, like I was feeling sorry for myself. Not something I wanted to immortalize in a blog post. So I will say that this weekend, save for a couple nice hours with MamaFuss and kids Saturday evening, was not really a great weekend for me.

There were a couple bright spots though. Happy hour was delightful with a few people that I wouldn’t really say that I’m good friends with, but I had fun with them. There was one good friend and three acquaintances, and I found myself at the end of HH wondering why I didn’t talk to those people more.

Saturday, despite torrential rain through the middle of the day, the kids and I were able to meet up with the Fuss crew at the new-and-improved Largo park playground. The playground was nice before, but now it is amazing! I wish I lived closer; we would definitely be there more often. It was exhaustively hot but nice to see friends that we unfortunately do not get to see that often. Spencer pouted a lot when he had to leave Caroline, despite that he refused to play on the merry-go-round (he’s a timid one). I tried to upload photos, but blogger has thwarted my attempts, so poo.

Sunday was a very bad day for me, but I made up for it by taking a lovely 2-hour nap which helped my disposition immensely. People who don’t understand how I could sleep through children waking up at night: I actually slept on the couch while Hubby watched the soccer game and both kids played on the floor. The whole time. I didn’t wake up until #2 started screaming like he had shut his hand in a door (FYI, he hadn’t, he was just really tired and thusly went straight to bed, do not pass go).

This week has the potential to be better, I hope. I am taking a half day on Wednesday so that Hubby and I can have an afternoon date of lunch and Harry Potter. I’m supposed to have book club Wednesday night, but one of the members is out of town and wasn’t able to come last month so I’m thinking about trying to push it to next week. I otherwise have no plans. None. Maybe I’ll run, how’s that for predictability?

Friday friday friday ... FRIDAY

-- This week has been fairly uneventful for me. I might have nothing to talk about.

-- Oh who am I kidding?

-- Do you ever have secret thoughts that you can't ever blog about, or facebook status, or really even talk about with anybody and they drive you nuts? Even though the individual thoughts are no big deal, thinking about them to yourself drives you absolutely batty?

-- Yes, I'm batty.

-- I almost posted on Thursday but I came across as such a whiny bitch that I didn't want to post it. Since it's still irritating me and I CAN post, here goes. I can take parenting advice like a champ. Honest. But when it comes from someone who never ever seems like they have problems with parenting, I want to wring their neck. Who are you to tell me what works best? Everything's always butterflies and unicorns with you!? Seriously. I wish I could complain more, but I don't know how to say it without sounding like even more of an ungrateful bitch. Whenever I give advice (solicited or unsolicited) I always preface that it worked for my kids, or that I acknowledge that I have been lucky where they have been good with ______ issue, but these are my thoughts. I never presume to know more than said parent. I hope that always comes across, and I hope anyone I've ever tried to give advice to knows that I've had eight million of my own issues in parenting, my own doubts, and anything that has worked has been through trial and error.

-- It's not all butterflies and unicorns here.

-- And by the way, since I haven't said so in the last six seconds, teething is the devil.

-- I'm going out for happy hour today after work for the first time in years. I'm slightly excited! I'm only staying for an hour, but hey! It's happy hour! I'm cool enough to go!

-- I was not at a midnight showing of Harry Potter this morning. I'm actually a little sad about that. BUT I may be taking a half day off mid-week to go see it. Ha!

-- BIG NEWS! We have decided to take the whole family to Delaware in October for my friend's wedding. I've never traveled with children, and I'm terrified. Any suggestions? Advice? Suggestions of fairly inexpensive things to do with toddlers in the Philadelphia area (I'm not paying $60 a piece to see the real Sesame Street, no matter how cool it is)? I promise not to bitch about solicited advice, I swear.

-- Oh, and I JUST REMEMBERED that we are celebrating my birthday at work today, and there will be carrot cake from the best carrot cake makers ever and so this better be an awesome day. Also, I should definitely work out on lunch, between the carrot cake and the wine. Yay.

Tens

I could have updated on Monday about the nothing I did all weekend (thank you rain) or the nearly 10 miles I ran/walked on Sunday (2.9 miles run in the morning, 1.8 walk in the afternoon, 4.8 run/walk with my neighbor in the evening). Alas, the horrific headache I woke up with prevented me from being able to have an intelligent thought so I was relegated to actually working on Monday morning instead (ha!)

Plus, Monday was Hubby's birthday, so he brought the kids to have lunch with me at Carmelita's Mexican restaurant. And then I came home and cooked steak and zucchini with wine and we had key lime pie and coffee ... okay, maybe I should be running more. But yum!

So instead, here are this week's Ten on Tuesday, from Chelsea:

1. When you are on a plane and the kid behind you is kicking your seat, what do you do?
Glare at the mother. Then look compassionately at her. Then feel conflicted for getting irritated to begin with - thankfully this doesn't happen to me that often.

2. What food that you KNOW is bad for you and you shouldn’t have, but you love/eat it anyway?
Banana ice cream and carrot cake. And bacon-wrapped jalapenos and bacon avocado cheeseburgers (this is more dangerous, because I'll always pick savory over sweet)

3. What is your favorite book of all time?
McTeague by Frank Norris. Tender is the Night by Fitzgerald. Beach Music by Pat Conroy. What, don't you have at least three favorites? Give me an hour, I could give you a dozen more recommendations.

4. If I came to visit you in your town, where would we eat?
When my friend Becky came to visit from Delaware, I took her to Vallarta's (favorite Mexican), Frenchy's (favorite seafood) and Winghouse (favorite wings). If you were around for brunch I would add The Brunchery and Datz.

5. You have 500 dollars and 40 minutes to spend it at any store you want. Where do you go?
Loft, almost definitely., or maybe DSW. If I only have 5 minutes, the Coach store.

6. What blog do you read every day/the most often?
I read all my subscriptions as often as they update, but I make sure to read every word of Chelsea, Molly, MamaFuss, Stacie and Suzanne.

7. What’s the longest you’ve ever been stuck at an airport?
6 hours, in the Miami airport when I was already 2 hours early and then my flight was delayed by four. I hate MIA. The planes are always (wait for it) M.I.A.

8. What’s your daily makeup/face/cleansing routine?
ha! Well, I'm not a good daily face-washer, but I don't wear a lot of makeup: occasionally tinted moisturizer, blush, eye shadow and mascara. Lipstick on my drive into work. I wash my face in the shower, and I rarely get daily showers.

9. Where is your farthest away friend?
My high school best friend and my goddaughter live in Zonhoven, Belgium, but RIGHT NOW she is local for the month. I'm so happy about this! I'd better see her more than once!

10. Where is your favorite place to go hiking (or to enjoy nature)?
We stayed at Fall Creek Falls TN once and hiked up to a couple of the falls. It was awesome, and I wish I could go back and do some of the more challenging hikes now.

Friday

I usually have no problem whipping up a few dozen points of meaningless nothings for Friday … but today I’ve got nothing. Nothing, I tell you! Okay, well maybe something, let’s see:


- I have hardly worked out this week at all. I was too tired to go to yoga on Wednesday, which was the last day of my month Groupon. I did my 5k on Sunday, and ran on Tuesday and Thursday and that’s it. And I really don’t know that you can count Tuesday as running, it was more of a halfhearted jog/walk to get us out there. Thursday we still weren’t in it to win it, so we did “interval training” … or more conventionally known as walk/run/walk/run. Ha!

- I did buy another yoga Groupon though. This one is closer to my house, 10 class punch card for $39. I didn’t look at the class schedule before getting it though, so I may have to be creative in what classes I take.

- Henry still has no interest in walking, but if he’s standing while holding your hand and you let go, he’ll stand there for a minute deciding what to do before dropping to his knees and crawling off. It’s great fun to do this to him over and over and over …

- I had to buckle down and finish Never Let Me Go last night, because it was on my Netflix and I didn’t want to watch the movie when I was still reading the book. I’m not sure I liked the book – I think I needed more explanation. I’ll weigh in on the movie, because it seemed that I might actually like the movie more (which is a revelation).

- This rain just will not stop! I’m not a huge fan of heat, but please give me just a little sunshine!


- Oh wait, I may (or may not) have been talked into some topless tanning on my birthday and got a little burned. Not pain burn, but tender-to-the-infant-grabbing burn. So I’ll be okay without sun for now. Where are the movies and the cuddle blankets?

- Yes, we have a cuddle blanket. It was my great grandmother’s quilt, and any time I ask Spencer to snuggle with me, he runs for the cuddle blanket even if it’s eight million degrees. Must start opting for cuddle sheet in the summer.

- We gave Spencer a haircut with Hubby’s beard trimmer on Tuesday. Obviously I have had enough with the bowl cut. New cut: not bad, needs some product. S hates product, but I’m going to see if he has his own if he’ll let me faux hawk it. Because that is just so cute.

Writer's Workshop: My Child's Obsession(s)

For this week's writing prompts, I chose the one that spoke to me: an open letter to my sons' obsession.

For Spencer:

Dear Caillou:
Please stop being such a whiny bitch.
Yours,

Dear Super Readers:
Thank you thank you thank you so much for currently overriding Spencer's love of Caillou.
Sincerely,

Dear Tampa Bay Rays:
Please start hitting the ball. And make sure you keep Zobrist and Damon on your team always, because those are Spencer's favorite players. And maybe Spencer could through the opening pitch? He's only three, but he's got a great wind-up.
Always,

Dear Morning Routine:
I shouldn't be resentful of you. It's probably good to know that the moment he walks out of his room he wants cereal, sippy cup (even though he no longer drinks out of a sippy cup) and Disney. And a waffle, if available. And Henry, if awake. I know you irritate me when I'm trying to get ready for work, but at least I always know what he wants.
Eternally,


and for Henry:

Dear food,
Eat eat eat eat eat eat eat eat eat eat eat ... yum. Thank you for making my youngest so happy. He's not fat, so I don't know where it's going.
Truly,

TOT - red, white blue edition

Usually via Chelsea, but this week contributed by Molly

1. What do you traditionally do for 4th of July?
Traditionally we don't have any traditions. We never really do fireworks, and most years I can't honestly remember doing anything. This year we had a great party with lots of kids in the pool and fantastic food. It was a fabulous time (although we started a bit too early and everyone was gone before dark, but we had a small firework show which was the first one S didn't completely freak out about).

2. Did you follow your tradition this year? How did you celebrate yesterday?
Oh, I guess I should have read ahead. See above. Mmm, ribs. Mac & Cheese. Beans. Burgers and Dogs, Guac, Bacon-wrapped jalapenos, sangria ...

3. What's the best fireworks show you've ever seen?
Chicago two years ago, we went for Taste of Chicago. They do their big fireworks celebration July 3, and it was awesome. Also, on the 4th we were at the top of Willis Tower (Sears) and watched all the suburban shows from above.

4. Have you ever been injured by a firecracker? No, but my shirt did catch fire during a bottle rocket war in high school.

5. Burger, Brat, or Hot Dog? Must I choose? I usually get a hot dog. Catsup and Mustard only, please. But those ribs were A.W.E.S.O.M.E.

6. Do you sport red, white and blue on our Independence Day?
Not really. This year I wore a black sundress and red flats. And red and blue dangly earrings, so I guess I did, but more chic, I think. I hope.

7. If you had to be from any country other than the USA, what country would it be? My friend Shelly lives in Belgium, and that always seems like a nice place to be. Not honestly interested in living anywhere else though. Visiting - totally different story.

8. Charcoal or gas? charcoal ideally, but it's such a pain. We live by our gas grill.

9. What's your favorite thing about this fair country of ours? Has Casey Anthony been convicted yet? I think it's our justice system. **update - they found her not guilty. Pretty sure I need a new favorite thing.

10. God Bless the USA, My Country Tis of Thee, or the Star Spangled Banner? I like 'em all. Amazing Grace, and all that.

ps - today's my birthday! :)

Celebration!

Happy independence day! The 4th of July always means to me a time to be with friends and/or family. It helps that my birthday is tomorrow and I spent many years having birthday parties that no one could/would come to because it's a national holiday. But 4th parties - everyone's up for that now that we're older!

I celebrated last night by running the Mease Midnight Run 5k and beating my PR by SEVEN MINUTES. My last timed 5k, Miles for Moffitt, timed in at 38.05. Last night's was 31.16. This also isn't entirely accurate because since it's a small race, the timed from the gun instead of crossing a timer mat, so I probably beat that by about 15 seconds. My phone app clocked me at 31.07. I don't honestly know how I did that, except that I kept pace with my uncle and cousin who ran it with me, posting only 20 seconds behind them. I don't think I could have kept up that pace alone - I had an 8 minute first mile!

It was rough once I came down from that euphoria; my stomach has been in pretty rough shape this morning and I didn't sleep well last night. All worth it - I am in awe of myself for how far I've come.

Today we are having a party. I'm super excited - ribs are marinating, deviled eggs, bacon-wrapped jalapenos, beans and guac and sangria are done, mac & cheese is starting now. the larger kiddie pool is blown up, the house is still a mess, and there are a bunch of friends and family and kids headed over. Can't wait! Hopefully there will be pictures this time - I'm getting terrible about taking pictures of anyone exceot kids lately.

I hope your holiday is fantastic!

Second Quarter Books

I seemed to have a hard time getting centered on reading this quarter, and I read a lot of chick-lit. I'm over apologizing for my love of chick-lit. I do feel like I should have been reading something a bit more meaty. Maybe next quarter.

April

Stuck in the Middle - Virginia Smith

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress - Rhoda Janzen*

For you Mom, Finally - Ruth Reichl

Wings - Aprilynne Pike

Divine - Karen Kingsbury

Hero at Large - Janet Evanovich

Medium Raw - Anthony Bourdain (abandoned, forgot what a pompous ass he can be)

Born Round - Frank Bruni

Motor Mouth - Janet Evanovich

May

Before Ever After - Samantha Sotto

Sarah's Key - Tatiana de Rosnay*

Wicked Appetite - Janet Evanovich

Winter Garden - Kristin Hannah

Uncharted TerriTORI - Tori Spelling

Four Corners of the Sky - Michael Malone

13 Little Blue Envelopes - Maureen Johnson

Heart of the Witch - Alicia Dean

Blood Crimes - Dave Zeitserman

June

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - JK Rowling (real version)

Such a Pretty Fat - Jen Lancaster

The Passage - Justin Cronin* (abandoned after 250 pages, hoping to pick it back up next month)

Life's a Beach - Claire Cook

Can You Keep a Secret? - Sophie Kinsella

Perfect Timing - Jill Mansell

Bitter is the New Black - Jen Lancaster

*Book Club books

Friday

-- Spencer woke up just as I was leaving for work yesterday. But he didn't ask for Disney, cereal or sippy cup this time.

Momma, can you wake Henry up?
No baby, Henry's sleeping.
But he needs to wake up because I need to play with him!

So cute. I appeased him with Max & Ruby.

-- Spencer. Loves. Wipeout. I had to promise to DVR it so he would go to bed.

-- I'm thinking of cutting my hair all off. I've gotten to the point again where it takes forever to dry, and half the time I don't like how it looks once it dries anyhow so usually I just have it up all the time.

-- Henry has no interest in walking. He stands against the couch with his head arched onto the seat, and then takes a step to face-plant into a pillow on the floor. He thinks it's hilarious. But why bother trying to walk? He can move so fast on his knees or holding onto things!

-- If you want to keep an under-one busy for a good 20-30 minutes, pile a bunch of different sized pillows on the floor. Don't pile them UP because then he'll fall over them while climbing. Just lay them all over the floor and observe crawling, face-planting, rolling and general cuddling with the pillows. It's adorable.

-- There are so many movies coming out that I want to see! Harry Potter! Muppets! What are you looking for? Are you like me and won't get anywhere near actually seeing them? (ps - it's on my resolution list; I've only seen two and the resolution is six. I need to get hopping.)

-- For Mama Kat's writing prompts yesterday, I nearly wrote about a parenting pet peeve of mine. After going through every submission on the subject, I think that I'm happy I chose to go lighter and telling the world about my bad dates (there are more - don't think you've seen the last of that!) I think that I'm judgmental. I know that I'm judgmental, but with an open mind. Everyone makes snap judgments. It's being open to know that your original observation might be wrong. Some peoples' rants made sense to me, and some just seemed mean. But overall, it just made me want to step back and remind myself that none of us are perfect.