Fridays

I'm sitting at the tire place waiting for new tires and I don't want to get too into my book, so you are the one that benefits. Is that exciting?

I'm also drinking a cherry dr. pepper from one of those Freestyle coke machines, and I have to admit, I'm kind of excited. It's pretty tasty.

Have I mentioned that my May is crazy? Well, I took today off from work to drive my mom to see my grandma because she hadn't been able to get down there since I took her when she was in the hospital around Christmas. In the meantime, I needed new tires if I was going to make the trip, and then the lady doing our re-fi called yesterday to say that I had to come in today to sign paperwork, and hubby wanted to go see the Avengers movie for date night tonight ... Arg! And we have a pool party to go to 2 1/2 hours away on Saturday, and a birthday party on Sunday ...

But it's still good. I don't know that I'd be so positive about everything without my happy pills. Hubby talked about me weaning off of them *eventually* and I started getting that anxiety in my stomach. Maybe, but right now I'm enjoying being able to breathe so i'm not going to think about that.

Has anyone read 50 shades of gray? A friends texted me yesterday to say I simply must read it. I'm currently reading Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, and I'm also getting ready to edit a new YA novel that I'm super excited to read. Should I put the 50 Shades books in line? I do love some easy, fun reads.

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Wordless Wednesday

Baseball!

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Honestly

These moms who have three or four children and have time to blog amaze me. How do they do it? I really can’t see that they are generally SAHMs making much of a difference, because I know I’d be even busier if I were. It’s already May. This month I’m driving my mom to my grandmother’s house, attending three child birthday parties, a pool party 2 ½ hours away (for an out-of-town friend who will be home), one five-mile run, book club, a Dolphin Exploration boat ride for Mother’s Day and the hubs and I are getting away for a weekend to Ft. Lauderdale.

 

This doesn’t include work day trips, doctor’s appointments for me, my kids AND my mother, making guacamole for a work function, getting new tires on my car … where exactly does one find time for anything unscheduled these days?

 

We are having fun at home lately. I blew up the little kiddie pool and stuck it under the slide and the kids had two hours of entertainment. Two hours! And I didn’t put a ton of water in the pool, so when it got grassy and nasty I just dumped it and refilled. The neighbors came over on Saturday and neighbor-wife and I went through 1 ½ bottles of wine making strawberry and white wine spritzers (and I sent the rest of the wine home with her).

 

We’re fighting a lot over food these days though. I have had it with children refusing to eat anything I make, so I have stopped catering. I never really was much of a caterer, but when I made salad I would make something different, etc. No more. I’m making salad twice a week now, and I load it with enough “stuff” that they can pick through and eat what they want if that’s what they want to do (blueberries, craisins, veggie pasta, etc) but I am not making chicken nuggets on salad days. I’m not making corn when momma and daddy have asparagus. Eat it or not, but I’m not making any separate food, and if you want something different you need to eat what we eat first.

 

Is that too harsh? They eat tons of food all day. If they only eat a bite of dinner, it’s not going to kill them. Yesterday I made chicken with broccoli pesto pasta. The boys both had yogurt and a handful of cereal as a snack when we first got home before going on a bike ride. Henry ate his pasta with no argument (pasta is pasta to him. Will refuse green beans lettuce and spinach, but pasta with green stuff – no problem) but Spencer refused until he decided he was hungry at bedtime and then took half an hour to eat his (very small) bowl of food. I’ve previously subscribed to the “dinner time is when we eat” doctrine, but lately we’ve been giving his food back to him if he’s hungry. I don’t know. I know that most parents struggle with this but I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing. Add to that when I get second-guessed by the hubby (“we can’t force a 20-month to eat his vegetables. What if he’s hungry when he goes to bed?”) and then I truly feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. Thoughts?

 

My other general problem these days is Spencer’s attitude. When did my four-year old become a teenager? “I KNOW, MOM” and frustrated grunting at me … man, I want to ground him for all eternity. Time outs only do so much. He’s also developing a stutter. I’m trying to get him to stop and think about what he wants to say rather than wait 5 minutes for it to come out of his mouth, but MAN!

 

BUT OTHERWISE we are doing good. The kids are doing good. Henry says “Shoes” and “Uh Oh”, “Look” (Ook) and “Woah”. He still doesn’t say a lot of things his age group says (dada, any reference to his brother, milk, or anything like that) but car, truck, choo-choo, and various excited expression work for him. As long as he’s slowly adding to his speech I don’t think I mind what he decides to say. He’s also fascinated with a fork and that gets him to eat some things that he wouldn’t normally eat. Spencer’s back to being obsessed with baseball, Hubby is back to being obsessed with baseball, and I’m back to being torn between being obsessed with baseball and annoyed that I’m not getting to watch any of my DVR because of baseball.

 

Hope all is well with the rest of the blogging community! I planned on posting a cute video, but instead I need to start dinner, watch Bones on my DVR and get dressed to go for a run.

Obviously

Obviously I'm not keeping up on here lately. There's been a fair amount going on: a road trip to Georgia for my cousin's wedding, swimming at my in-laws, parties planned and book clubs attended, babies with fevers. But mostly it's been games and sidewalk chalk and herb planting and just enjoying things. Trying to enjoy things. So I'll be around but if I can't get on to update this page, that's why.

I hope you're enjoying your spring!

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Buckling down

How was your Easter/Passover/just normal weekend? Mine was excellent! I’m thinking a Wednesday photo post is in order, and I can even do it as Instagram since they’ve released it for Android!

But for today, this is what’s on my mind. I have been horribly lax about my weight/ exercise goals this year. I haven’t been running (I ran two 5ks on no training –not good), and while I have been doing weights I’m not nearly as dedicated as I should be. I’m eating terribly, drinking soda nearly daily and hardly any water. I don’t know how I haven’t gained a ton of weight (maybe a couple pounds) but I’m certainly not in as good of shape as I was for awhile there.

So now I’m back on the horse. Weight training four days a week. Running 3 days a week. SOME sort of physical activity 7 days a week (gardening, bike riding with the kids etc). No soda, and 60 oz of water a day. Stairs at work (I’m only on the third floor; this really shouldn’t even need to be addressed, and yet it does). Alcohol no more than two times a week (I was getting used to an evening beer or glass of wine far too often). No candy, and keep a lower calorie sweet treat in the freezer for when I need a bite at night.

I’m not restricting my actual food except to be more cognizant of what goes in my belly. That is usually enough for me to make reasonable choices, and if I restrict myself too much I fall off the wagon that much quicker.

So we're going to ignore the 5 jelly beans I ate on the drive to work (what? They were in my purse and I didn’t want them to melt in there!) and say that so far today I had a good breakfast, a great weight/core workout on lunch, a reasonable leftovers lunch and I’m about 20 oz into my water goal. I’ve stayed away from the ridiculous amount of candy that my assistant keeps around her desk (okay, I had 4 Robins Eggs, but that’s way better than usual).

One day at a time.

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Wordless wednesday (on Thursday)

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March Books

Besides these books, I also finished Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I thought it was okay, but I wouldn't really recommend it. I didn't identify or connect with the characters at all, and once I could predict what was going to happen I didn't want to read anymore. I did, but I didn't care about it.

World I Never Made - James Lepore I enjoyed this a lot. It was slightly predictable but fun.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - Ann Brashares I needed some light reading.

Second Summer of the Sisterhood - Ann Brashares ditto

Girls in Pants: The Third Summer - Ann Brashares and again

Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer - Ann Brashares you know where this is going, right?

Red to Black - Alex Dryden I picked this up at the library because I downloaded the sequel, Moscow Sting, for free and wanted to get to know the characters before I read the second. I haven't finished it yet - it's actually really boring. I don't know if I will finish, or if I'll bother with the second. At least they were both free.

The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides I started this but haven't finished. I'm liking what I've read so far.

Explosive Eighteen - Janet Evanovich More light reading. Not as good as the previous ones, but it's not like it's great literature or anything.

Unbroken - Laura Hillenbrand This isn't something I ever would have picked up on my own, but I absolutely loved it. Fascinating look at the Pacific POW camps and one man's journey through WW2. Excellent.