I Got Nothing….oh, wait, here’s something

I have nothing to say, but feel the need to post. So I went searching for a meme, and found one that actually fits something that happened this week.  So, not an exciting or insightful post, but one relevant to our current life. Here you go:

It’s that time again for this weeks Saturday six and this weeks theme is Doctors & Health, so without further a do let’s get on with it:

1. Do you rush straight to the doctors when you feel ill? Me? Absolutely not. I have to be pretty sick to go to the doctor for myself, although I do keep up with routine visits, thanks to good insurance and my advancing age (ahem). With my kids it’s usually different, mostly because I know kids have still developing immune systems and they catch so much. Belle was sick this week, and I gave her a few days to get better on her own and then called the doctor on Day 3 of a 101-103 fever.
2. Do you have trouble trying to make an appointment with your doctor? For a sick visit I’ve had no trouble. Routine visits I usually have to wait months for.
3. When was the last time you visited your doctor? I had Belle in yesterday for a sick visit (it’s viral, so it was a waste of a co-pay, and she feels remarkably better now, so I guess all is well). My last visit was in the last month for my annual physical.
4. When someone close to you is ill, are you caring and considerate or do you try to stay away so you don’t catch anything? If one of my kids is sick I pretty much have to be as caring and considerate as possible, since it kind of goes with the job description of “Mom”. I’m rarely sick, so unless they have strep throat (which I am a magnet for), I don’t worry much about catching anything from them. Also, we get flu shots each year, so that helps my stress level around that.
5. Have you ever made the excuse that you are ill to get off work/school/college etc? I haven’t taken a sick day for myself in awhile – I did have walking pneumonia a year or so ago that I finally broke down and saw a doctor for at the insistence of my co-workers. The doctor recommended several days of rest, so I took the next day (a Friday) off and lay on the couch all day. It was delightful. I’m fortunate to have a very flexible work situation, but if I did not, I would not be above calling in “sick” to get some personal time.
6. What really annoys you about people when they are ill? The whining.

If You Only Knew….

Amber, over at Mommy Mania, has given me an award!

I’m truly thrilled to get it, but as with so much in life, I feel like an impostor in accepting it. But, like so much else in life, I’ll take it when I can get it! If you only knew!

So, here’s what you do:

1. Admit that ONE thing you feel awful about involving being a mom. Get it off your shoulders. Once you’ve written it down, you are NO LONGER allowed to feel bad. It’s over with, it’s in the past. Remember, you’re a good mom!
2. To remind yourself that you ARE a good mom, list SEVEN things you love about your kids, you love doing with your kids, or that your kids love about you. These are the things to remind yourself of EVERY DAY that you rock!
3. Send this to FIVE other Moms of the Year that deserve forgiveness and a reminder that they, too, are the best moms they can be!!! Remember to send them a note to let them know you’ve selected them, and add a link to the person who nominated you!

Here are my answers:

1. I HATE that I feel angry so much of the time (I have a post half-written on this). My kids are, generally, sweet, kind, funny, lovely people. Yet they push my buttons and my patience is often in such short supply. I dread the thought that the memories they will have of me are being tainted. And it’s all my own fault.
2. Seven things? I’m not sure I can think of seven things! OK, 1) My kids often say I am “the best mom ever”, usually in response to my saying yes to a request, but hey, I’ll take it. 2) Belle in particular loves to tell me she loves me. Often. (16 times a day? A minute?) 3) The kids love to make things with me: dinner, cookies, most anything. 4) When I announce an outing I am the star of the day. 5) My kids have a fantastic sense of humor. 6) My kids love books, love learning and love to ask questions. 7)Krystal in particular is a thoughtful friend. I think I am raising them with good values, but the proof is in the pudding, and this particular pudding takes a long time to set.
3. I’ll mention 5 moms I happen to read, but they’ll have to stumble upon themselves here. Janet, Starstruk (her kids are grown, but you never stop being a mom), Marcia, Snickollet and Jen.

Meet my dog, the escape artist

I posted back in October about the small fenced in area my friend and I created for Tessie. It has been working great. It is so nice to be able to open that sliding glass door and let her go, do her thing, and come back in. Sure, she plays games with it during dinner (out, in, out, in, out…..in), but without it I’d have to be putting a leash on her everytime and taking her out. In the snow. Many, many times per day (she’s still a puppy, after all).  The fence was a spur of the moment thing and not in the plan when we got her, but it is the best thing I’ve done with respect to her. Aside from the bells. So awesome.

But yesterday I was working at home, and as is usual, Tessie asked to go out, and in, and out several times in the course of an hour or so. Just because it’s fun, and not because she has to actually pee that much. I was very busy with work and realized after a rather long stretch that Tessie hadn’t asked to come inside after going out the last time.

So I went to look for her.

And she was not in that little fenced in area.

YIKES!

I called her and fortunately, heard her dog tags jingling on her collar. I was able to get her to come to me (“come” is not a command she has mastered) by using a super-excited tone.

I suspected that she had climbed on a mini-snowbank on the deck and jumped over it onto the open yard, so I got a shovel and got rid of most of that snow pile. Which was made possible by some rare warmer weather. Phew, problem solved.

Except it wasn’t. The next time she went out, a scant 10 minutes or so later, she was gone again. And not via the snowbank.

I poked around the “chicken wire” running under the deck, and found an area that she had dug out at the bottom to scoot out by running under the deck into the yard. Hmmm, what to do about this?

I have 4-5 cinder blocks under the deck, left there by the previous owners, so I drug one out and put it in front of the part of the “chicken wire” and breathed a sigh of relief. All’s well, right?

Well, today work was even busier, and I was on a phone meeting when Tessie was outside this afternoon. I peeked out at one point during the meeting and she was missing. Again. All is not right! Cue pulling hair out!

When my meeting was over I went out with her and stood and watched for a bit. And that brazen hussy went right over to that cinder block and started to crawl right through the holes! I could not believe it. (These are not standard cinder blocks – the blocks and holes are slightly bigger than the usual kind.)

I did two things next. One, I got a towel and wrapped it around the cinder block to cover the holes, which I know is a temporary fix, at best. And two, I called the local Dogwatch franchise to see about getting a system installed. I had been thinking about it anyway. When the weather is nicer we’ll be outside a lot, and not hanging out in that (poopy) fenced in area, and she will not be happy if she can’t be with us. Still, it’s quite pricey.

Meanwhile, I am thinking of changing Tessie’s name to Houdini. Or Copperfield.

No Room in the Frig!

I’m on day, let’s see, Day 9 of Weight Watcher’s. I had my first weigh-in after being on the program for a week yesterday, and had a loss of 1.2 pounds, exactly in the healthy range. They recommend a loss of 1-2 pounds per week as a healthy rate of loss. I must confess that, although I’d read that time and time again since I first started reading teen, and then women’s, magazines, it wasn’t until I lost my post-marriage weight that it all made sense. You have to make gradual changes to make them a habit, and to ensure you can keep that weight off. And lest you think I was unsuccessful because I’m back at it, I want you to know that I lost 18 pounds nearly 4 years ago, but have gradually put back on about 7 of them. My goal is to drop those 7, plus maybe a few more.

But that is not what I came here to talk about!

Since I’ve been on WW, lo, these past 9 days, I’ve been trying to eat better. Which is kind of the point, no? And I am! I am eating healthier, feeling better, and trying to figure out how to make myself remember all this when I feel like throwing in the towel. I really do feel better when I eat better. Who’da thunk??

But I have a problem I wasn’t counting on.  My refrigerator is full! I am shopping more frequently than usual (1-2 times per week, versus 2-3 times per month) and even though I go in planning on only a few items, inevitably I come out with far more. And the fresh stuff (roasted broccoli and cauliflower is my current go-to, ever-so-delicious snack!) takes up a lot of room!

I really need to figure out a way to feed us all on this for awhile till it gets down. A lot.

My Current Pet Peeve, also known as, Can’t people follow simple directions anymore?

We live in a “neighborhood”, and our house is on a corner. Our mailbox and driveway are on the side street, and not the street that is in our address. In fact, thanks to the previous owners, the mailbox sports our street number, and our street name. Got that?

In just the last week my doorbell has rung unexpectedly on three different occasions. Two of these rings occurred after dark,  after the kids were in bed, and it was a little unnerving.

Upon answering the door (with my barking ferocious 7 month old dog in tow) I have found:

• Domino’s Pizza delivery person
• Pizza Hut delivery person
• Cable TV technician

And that’s just in the last week!

I’ve also had guys attempting furniture delivery, Terminix responding to a pest call, flowers delivered on Mother’s Day (sorry, my kids can’t quite afford that yet) and many more pizza deliveries. (Apparently they really like pizza.) As you may have guessed, these are all for the people who live on the side street, with the same house number as mine.

Isn’t it pretty universal that the street the front door faces is the street the house is actually on? And if not, perhaps the street name on the mailbox isn’t obvious enough?

I wish I knew how to handle this. I don’t know the neighbors, but the only thing I can think of would be to let them know how often their delivery people come to my house first, and to ask them to be clear about directions when they order anything, but even that would probably be only about 50% successful.

Oh well, at least it gives me something to blog about.

Five Alive

Belle turned five years old today – Happy Birthday, baby!!

Except you aren’t such a baby anymore, are you?

Friday the 13th

Well, our Friday the 13th started a day early. Last night Krystal and Belle were playing in the bathroom – Krystal tried to pick Belle up and carry her like a baby, and she slipped and Belle fell. I was downstairs and heard much crashing, followed by crying. I flew up the stairs to find a crying, bloodied Belle, and a big sister who was falling all over herself apologizing (which is how I know she felt like she really caused it). Her lip was bloody and she has a massive black and blue mark on the side of her face, along with several blood blisters along her gumline. I have no idea how that happened, but I suspect she’s going to find eating and drinking a little painful for awhile.

Now me, I’ve always been a fan of Friday, the 13th. Call it the rebel in me. And how fun that we’ll have another one next month!

Here is my little sweetheart at school, on the day of the Sweetheart Dance (and I am so ticked that I cannot get this to be properly oriented – it looks fine on my computer!!!):

And what trick would you like to do?

Every year the pre-K classroom at our daycare hosts a Sweetheart Dance. It is always near Valentine’s Day, and the children practice “cheek-to-cheek” dancing for weeks leading up to it. It’s a formal event, and girls are expected to wear dresses and boys to wear ties. Belle has been asking daily for two weeks  if today is the “tea party”, and this morning she picked out the dress she will wear tomorrow – I’ll be sure to post a photo.

Tonight on the way home Belle was all a-buzz with the plans for the big day. She reported that one of her teachers had told the kids she was going to wear a suit and tie to the party. Belle said she told her “No, you can’t, because you don’t have a p_enis!”

Luckily she couldn’t see me in the front seat, as I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or be mortified. But she wasn’t done.

“But Keith has a p_enis and boys are so lucky to have p_enises! I wish I had one! Because boys can do tricks with their p_enises!”  [Yes, she really did say p_enis that many times. At least.]

Oh, and by tricks? She meant to pee standing up. Which I must confess is a trick I’ve often wished I could perform.

New Ways to Spend Money

I posted some time ago (pause, while I find that post) about my internal dialogue about losing 5-10 pounds.

This morning I stepped on my bathroom scale and blanched. It was higher than it has been since I was on my way down nearly four years ago. I can’t say I was surprised, since I’ve been feeling a little chubbier than usual lately. Still, it was not pleasant to have that validated.

So on my way home from my morning at work I swung by a Weight Watchers location and went to my very first meeting. I handed over my credit card for my first month’s payment ($39.95) which includes unlimited meetings and their online tools. I also got introductory materials to take with me, which will be mine to keep forever. I was quite surprised when my initial weight, at noon, fully dressed, was almost a pound lighter than my  “first thing in the morning” weight had been a few hours earlier at home. I guess I’m glad it’s going in that direction, and not the other!

So we’ll see. Five pounds would make a difference, while I think I’ll feel and look better if I can get to ten pounds less, and find a way to stay there. I liked what the leader (a man!) said – “This isn’t about dieting, this is about living!” Who wants to die, when they can live, right? I do have food issues, which I’ve mentioned before, so I don’t see this as the be-all, end-all. I still need to deal with my relationship with food. But while I’m handling the emotional/mental part of that, I can be managing the mechanics of eating less and making better choices.

Did I need to spend $39.95 to do that?

No, but sometimes you have to put your money where your mouth is, and frankly, I’m worth $40.

Running, I Miss You

OK, let’s see where we are on this. Can we get a time line, please?

September 2008 – Tessie the dog entered our family. I altered my work schedule to be home with her full time for the first two weeks.

October 2008 –  I started working from home at least half days, again, to accommodate the addition of the pup. The longest stretch she’s been alone has been about 5 hours, but most days it’s between 3-4. Since my office is a 10 minute drive from the house, this makes this ever so much more possible. I don’t think I can recommend anyone get a puppy unless they can have someone home a good portion of the day. Obviously in the beginning we’re talking about house training, but even after that it’s about companionship, socialization and preventing boredom.

November/December 2008 – Winter arrived in earnest. And by this I mean: cold, snow, ice, snow, cold and on and on. Which means there’s not a whole lot of outside-ness going on.

I say all this to say that with finagling my schedule each day to be home at least half time, meet all my work obligations, parenting responsibilities and still be a responsible dog owner, I have not been getting outside to exercise. At all.

Which brings me to my point (I do have a long winded way of getting to this). Running is my exercise of choice – it’s the only type of exercise I’ve found that makes me feel as good. And while I’m mostly talking from a physical standpoint, I also have to add mental to that list. Given the winter I’ve been having, I think my psyche could really benefit from a good run these days. I take my iPod and listen to podcasts mostly (my favorites focus on “Lost”, Disney, football, and “Heroes”). But just getting out and moving my body, breathing fresh air and living in the moment.

I miss running. I need to find a way to work it back into my day. It’s times like these when having a parenting partner would come in real handy.