WHO SAYS BOYS AREN'T FLEXIBLE?

HE'S JUST DOING YOGA, RIGHT?

FICKLE

photo from wikipedia

I woke up this morning and wanted crepes. I love crepes. Experimenting with different flavors is kind of fun and this morning my helping hands (aka all four of my kids) and I decided we would make coconut crepes with some homemade strawberry and blueberry filling.

Delicious!

There is one draw-back to crepes though; They take forever to make and I stand at the stove making one. crepe. at. a. time. until everyone is full. They clean up their dishes and plant their stuffed bellies downstairs on the couch and I'm still starving and spooning batter. Then, I eat by myself and clean up the rest of the mess.

It's worth it. I get some serious love from my family when I make crepes. "Mmmmm. Mommy, you are the best cook-er ever." "This is soooo good." "Thank you, Mommy." "I love you, mommy."

Wow. A girl could really get used to that, right? I kind of wished I hadn't gotten rid of my super-hero costume; I totally could have rocked a cape in the kitchen this morning.

I felt so good about myself that I made these. Chocolate mint macaroons. I basically used the recipe I found at Picky Palate. Her blog button is on your right.


Photo from Picky Palate

Everybody loved these.

BUT..

I must have needed to be humbled.

At the request of my husband who was wishing for some comfort food, I made this cheese burger pie. I made it exactly according to the recipe and if you know me this is very rare. I always change or add things. But not this time. It's a pretty basic, old school, easy recipe. Nothing fancy or special.



Photo from Betty Crocker

Jimmy was very happy. I found it satisfying. The rest of them, not so much. "Wahhhhhh." "Um, I'm not hungry. Can I eat it later?" "Ohhhh, my stomach hurts." "What is that?!!! Sick!"

Am I raising a bunch of food snobs? Do I need to introduce casseroles into our diet? Should I stop putting pesto in our grilled cheese and instead just use plastic-wrapped cheese? Should I buy toaster waffles and hot dogs? Bologna?

No cape needed tonight.

I can't wait to see how popular I am tomorrow when I feed them the left-overs.

call the fire department!

I JUST GOT BURNED. By a barely six year old. Izzy just climbed off the bus from her institution of higher learning known affectionately as kindergarten and she was famished! She begged me to please, please, puh-leezzzz make her a peanut butter and honey sandwich. As I was using a dinosaur shaped cookie cutter to vanquish the crust, my hair fell into my face and when I took my hands off her sandwich to uncover my eyes she flipped out and exclaimed...

"You mean I have to stick my fingers in there and get my sandwich out!"

"No," I replied. "I take care of my girl." It was then that I realized the result of brushing one's hair from one's face while making said pb & h..."Oops, I got honey in my hair." I mentioned.

To this, SHE said with a smirk...

"So, you don't take care of yourself?!"

Monster vs. Mommy

I took the boys to this movie yesterday. Apparently, my time spent watching Access Hollywood to learn about current events is completely wasted because during the previews when Ty was talking about "Bob this" and "Bob that" I had no idea what he was referring to. Then, the movie began to play and Bob and I became acquainted with one another. It didn't take very long to figure out why Ty was so drawn to him; I think they are long lost brothers or soul mates or something. I will give you a brief synopsis for those who haven't seen the movie....(Do you like how I reference my readership? Like there is more than one of you...I even have to bribe my own mother to read!)

Bob is...well, Bob is basically a Blob and while Ty has a shape to him, he does have an other-worldly ability to dive on top of people and put them in scissor holds in a blob-like encompassing manner. Like when you are covered by a blob, you can free your face of goo but then your hand is covered in slime; Ty is everywhere.

Bob leaves a slime trail where ever he goes and he never stops eating. Ty uses hunger to avoid almost everything. He's too hungry to put away his toys; He's too hungry to go to bed; He's even too hungry to eat his veggies. And he's messy. Did you see my last toilet post?

Bob doesn't have a brain. Ty frequently bypasses his. "It's overrated" says Bob. Ty tends to be a "live and learn" kind of kid. Thankfully, this has not resulted in any trips to the emergency room. Insert sound of very loud knocking on wood here...

Bob tends to get all fired-up over things that don't really apply to him. Ty, in his infancy/ego-maniac/it's all about me/dramatic state quite often has to be told that I'm not talking to him and that when I say "I don't like sponge bob" it's not secret code for "Nobody likes Ty."

Bob vacillates between being goofy with a air headed-like tone and sounding very professional and intelligent. Ty actually, can be quite the conversationalist. When he's trying hard to communicate with you the process is written on his very expressionistic face and then usually the words come out. But, then again, sometimes he gives up and just yells one syllable demands at me.

Bob is "a hugger." The problem, is that when Bob hugs you, you end up inside the slime like a giant jello mold. Ty has a difficult time understanding boundaries. About five seconds ago he pulled back the collar of my shirt to see what was underneath and since he knows how to unlock doors...the bathrooms aren't safe either. If another child is sitting near me or Jimmy, Ty will, very slyly, wiggle his bony little tush in between them. He's very tricky.

Now, Bob is very love-able and funny and so is Ty. In fact, for a few brief insanity filled moments yesterday I looked at Ty and thought "I don't want you to grow up!"

Then, I realized that there was wayyyyy too much butter on our popcorn. Fake butter. There's got to be something wrong and allergy inducing with that stuff. I'll just let it wear off.

Photo borrowered or stolen from Dreamworks.

EEWWW!

THE SCENE OF THE CRIME:




THE VICTIMS: ME AND THE POOR PORCELAIN AND PLASTIC PRINCE

THE MASTERMIND: TY AND HIS LITTLE THREE YEAR OLD HANDS

THE WEAPON OF CHOICE: VERY GENERIC "BEAR CLAW" ICE CREAM. DARK CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM WITH DENALI CARAMEL SWIRLS AND CHOCOLATE COVERED CASHEWS.

IT'S DEADLY. AND APTLY NAMED, DON'T YOU THINK?

My safety and security have been compromised. Who knows when this bandit will strike again? I can never again fold laundry with the door closed. The risk is too great. I'm just grateful this brown handprint on the toilet was ice cream and not other toilet-related things.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LINC!

I have an active imagination. My brain sees things that my reality doesn't always want to duplicate. Like once, for example, after I had grown and delivered three children with my very own body I figured I'd try some of my old gymnastic tricks in the backyard. No sweat, right? Not even the well-placed mattress could spare me from the resulting jammed wrist and a gigantic head-ache.

Oops.

I have a friend named Carole. That's Carol with an E to you. She is awesome. She knows how to "embrace" life and all its' good qualities. Once I felt slighted by something that happened around us but it didn't seem to affect her. I asked her about it and this was her reply ...

"I just assume that everybody likes me and that it's nothing personal."

JUST. LIKE. THAT.

She just MAKES A CHOICE that her imaginations are going to match her reality.

And they do.

I kind of wish I knew stuff about philosophy. Or wax, for that matter. I could really go on about this concept in a manner that would impress even Socrates but again my delusions are just that so I will simply say...I think that's a cool idea.

Perhaps someday, my actual creations will behave and show up in this dimension more like the seed I planted in my head. While I do appreciate variety, sometimes when I plant a pear tree I'd like to indulged in juicy pears, not apples.

Case in point #1 I have been training and planning for my marathon to go a certain way and while the results should really be satisfying to me now...I got the apples and not the pears. And plenty of people would be happy; These apples finished faster than about 90% of all but I still really wanted a pear this time.

Case in point #2 It's Lincoln's birthday. His birthday cake was awesome! (In my head.) Here's the result; The real, honest to goodness, this is my cake and I'm blowing out the candles, reality of the thing...

A picture is worth a thousand words.



Even Socrates would be at a loss here. Keep in mind that I did my darnedest to take the most flattering picture possible. I know, it's apples. And apples are tasty.

But I had pears on the brain!

This is when I have to channel my good friend Carol with an E and just "embrace" it.

Or maybe I'll just drown it. In frosting. Gobs and gobs of apple frosting!

It is what it is.

I've been distracted. Have you ever had a project that was so big you couldn't even start it because the enormity of it clouds your ability to plan your process? A thesis, an essay, something important to you? It's huge. So it requires a blueprint of sorts and the starting point isn't always obvious. It's...confusion wrapped in indecisiveness disguised as procrastination. But regardless, it doesn't get done.

I have the opposite of that. Well, actually I have both.... My focus on one project has made it difficult to complete the others but that's another story. For months, I have been planning and systematically checking off miles in preparation for this test. A presentation of my fitness, if you will. I have been throwing all kinds of different balls into the air, calculating paces, experimenting with re-fueling calories, adjusting for and dealing with injuries and all of it before 7:00 a.m. I'm a multi-tasker. And...

I think I'm ready. I'm not feeling the stress of cramming like you would for a test not prepared for. Don't get me wrong, I'm kind of constantly a bit queasy with nerves and I'm tensing a bit. My naivete with the pain associated with recovering from a marathon is long gone. I know exactly what to expect. In the middle of the night after my 1st one I awoke to my sister giving me a handful of pills and a cup of water saying, "Honey, take these. You are whimpering in your sleep." It hurts. Bad. And though I cringe a little just thinking about it...I think I'm ready. I have reached the acceptance stage of this process. I know I have done everything I can do to this point and the only thing left is to brave it out and go hard. And I'm ready.

I'm ready to push the limits and go for it and at the end of the day, as always, I will remind myself that no matter what happens....

It is what it is.

LESS THAN 5 DAYS TO GO

My race is this weekend. As in 5 nights from now. I just got my race plan.


I'm trying not to throw up!

MONKEY

NICE! This is what happens when I walk out of the kitchen for a few minutes.





The aftermath of this, is the kid that NEVER stops eating found a bottom to the pit and said with a mushy mouthful...."My tummy can't take these boring bananas." As least, that's the closest thing I could decipher. I don't actually speak caveman/swahili.

I also think he may have developed a case of TMJ or lock-jaw because with every new bite he grimaced and grabbed his cheeks Kevin McCallister style.

Thank goodness for TY because I was really starting to feel like I needed something to do. I mean, a housewifes life of leisure tends to drag and I was about to break out the bon bons and see if Bo and Hope are still together.

Oh well. I guess I'll go drink 4 days worth of fruit servings in one sitting.

Stay tuned to hear about the amazing effects of fiber on someone whose diet usually consists of cheese and milk...

I hope I'm not jinxing myself!

I woke up today seeing daylight. I think?! Not the sunshine, mind you, though it promises to be a nice day, I mean...I might actually live through this cold I've been harboring for about a month and last week decided to take advantage of my hospitality and set up a full blown hostage situation. It was touch and go for a while there, the nogotiations have been difficult but I am now feeling hopeful that the high-powered antibiotics just might overtake my unwelcome house guest. "This stuff will kill anything from a UTI to pnuemonia" the doctor promised. I have hope though and all victims need to have hope.

Stay tuned to find out if spend another day on the couch or if the laundry gets done...

13 days

I have 13 days. That's it. For a while now, since last September to be exact, I've had a specific time goal in mind for this race. It makes me nervous to say these things out loud as it seems to create a scenario where I have to be more accountable or something. I don't want to disappoint the masses, you know. Well, I have said it out loud, lots of times, but it seems like I've been watching it all fall apart for the last two injury filled blizzard-y months. And there have been times lately where I had to remind myself why I'm doing this in the first place. It's not for the people around me, you'll still think I'm crazy for doing what I do no matter what my time is. It's not for the finisher's medal, though I do enjoy the collection growing on my wall. And it's not even for the cupcakes. It rarely occurs to me to run further and earn an extra cupcake. Though I do like the extra cupcake!

So what is it for...?

I really, actually, honest to goodness, sincerely like running. I like to work hard. I like to push myself and I like to wake up on race day, step up the the starting line and see what happens. So far, it has worked out and there really is nothing like that feeling. Setting a goal and achieving it. It's good.

I had a conversation with someone at the gym the other day. It started with this guy asking why Jimmy hasn't been coming in to workout in the morning anymore. I told him that Jimmy was working out in the evenings with these guys that were pushing him really hard. I mentioned that one day they worked him so hard he threw up. Seemingly appalled by this, the guy says that sounded like it was too much. He wouldn't ever work out that hard, he said. To lighten the mood, I laughed and said, (as I was climbing the ominous-looking stair mill.) "Well, I tend to be a Let's just see what happens... kind of girl." and then I realized how true that is.

So many people, (myself included in certain areas) just go through the motions of exercise and never really learn how tough they are.

Don't get me wrong, anyone who hangs around me during race season knows I get anxious and worked up over things and my shadow has an affair with self-doubt every once in a while. Out-running it can get kind of difficult. So, it's time to shed my backpack filled with rocks and run un-emcumbered once again.

Say goodbye the to self-doubt. Ix-nay to the expectations of others. Nyet to the leg and hip pain. Say no way to the feeling of imperfection.

I hereby welcome all the good stuff. I've husked the corn of all the dry, papery layers. I've peeled back the silky threads and it's time to partake of the sweet summer kernals. I have nourished the planted seed and breathed life into it to the best of my ability and the rewards can now be mine. It may not be perfect, but...

"Let's just see what happens."