The Gym and the Shower

As many may know, I have been a crazy workout-aholic lately.  I want to snap this body back into shape...I have let myself go a bit since I've started college again and let the overwhelmed-ness of myself get the best of me.  I've been a bit more stressed about doing really well in school, making sure the boys are doing well with their schoolwork, making sure Liam is not losing his shit on someone at school, thinking about keeping the house clean, making sure everyone is eating well (we're happily vegan now!) and happy doing the eating (you can't make nasty tasting vegan stuff and expect kids to eat it), all of that along with the normal everyday stuff like meal planning and grocery shopping, getting to therapy once a week, lawn stuff, multiple parties and taking care of other people's this and that.  I spent most of September being COMPLETELY overwhelmed.  And what does this girl do when EVERYTHING is getting the best of her?  She goes to the bed...and she takes the three year old and a small set of movies and her textbooks (ehem...now the strange e-books) with her!

Sitting on my ass, has induced this fabulous phenomenon...IT HAS GOTTEN LARGER!!!  I feel puffy and super fat.  Five pounds really is a bunch to pack on in a month, for me anyway.  So, I got it in my head that it is time to get back to that place that I pay bi-weekly for...that place that has a really nice babysitting service attached to it...THE GYM!  I had been away during the summer because it was always crowded and the kids didn't like it.  I've also discovered, taking these e-books with me!!!  On the iPad.  I can do a 24% incline climb, burn off 300+ calories, do 2.5 miles and read a huge chunk of the required lesson for the day, all on the treadmill in about 30 minutes.  I finish with 3.5 miles on the bike for 15 minutes...read a little more.  Once I'm done, I usually just go grab up Mia and we go home.  I try to work in a shower, soon after we get in, but she is a little hellion when left to her own devices.

This tiny person can single-handedly eat every banana and apple in the house, put on a movie, tear her entire wardrobe out of her dresser, rip her bed apart (to make what she describes as a "slide"...thanks, Liam and Aedan!), pour out bubble solution all over the kitchen floor and then play with the bowls and things in the cabinets...ALL IN THE TIME IT TAKES ME TO SHOWER!!! And I speed shower!  Seriously, I don't spend more than 7-8 minutes in there!  This is why until today, I haven't shaved my legs in what turns out to be a while!!

Solution #1: Bring her into the shower with me.  This works occasionally, but I'm not the shower sharing type.  I use that time to think...quietly...alone!  Don't get me wrong, I love my little chatterbox, but there's a time and a place for her chatter.

Solution #2: USE THE BABYSITTING SERVICE TO IT'S FULL EXTENT!!!  We are alloted two hours of babysitting time, per day. I use just under one hour.   I have decided that Mia has such a fab time there, anyway, so why not??!!  I need to organize my bags, etc, But I am going to blissfully shower and shave and DRY MY HAIR and do my makeup and get completely dressed for the day, at the GYM!!  All without having to listen for the fridge to shut for the sixth time, denoting that she has helped herself to half of the very expensive (for cereal only) soymilk or yet another tiny apple.

Let's see how this works out...

;)

Eleven years ago, today.

Eleven years ago, this morning, I lay asleep in a hotel room in Houston, Texas. The room phone rang. I sat up and sleepily answered. Mark was on the other end of the line. He quickly told me to turn on the news...a plane had hit a tower in New York...he didn't know what happened. 

I grabbed the remote and clicked on the Today Show. They were reporting on this plane that had hit the World Trade Center, North Tower. I was in total shock. Disbelief! As we sat in the surrealism together on the phone, watching the news in silence, I caught sight of the second plane in the distance and whispered into the phone, "Oh my God, there's another one...". And it slammed into the side of the second tower. I jumped to my feet! "Oh MY GOD! They hit the other one!!!!". Mark had to get off of the phone. I sat on the bed, curled up in the comforters, tears streaming while I watched the panic in NY. 

Then they began reporting of yet another plane hitting the Pentagon. I was terrified! I rushed over to the window of the hotel room, facing eastward, I gazed hard into Downtown Houston...waiting for some plane to go careening into one of their towers. I called my dad and my mom. Sobbing on the phone to them..."I just want to come back home!". As I got off the phone with them, I sat still, watching the news broadcast. 

Then I was back on the phone with Mark and the second tower began to crumble. I stood straight up!  "oh my God, Mark, the tower is falling!!!". He had to go. I called my mom at work again. "Mom, the second tower fell!! You need to go get the kids from school!!". She said that everything was going to be ok. I cried that I really wanted to come back home! I searched in my mind for a way to get back to the safety of my family...I almost couldn't bear being alone in that hotel room. I could take the train back...I could rent a car...my dad could drive to get me ...Mark and I could cut his training meetings short and just go back. Something!!

Then more planes hit other places...more buildings fell. I was numb. I remember walking to the lobby of the hotel, in my boxers and t-shirt to get out of the room. But all of the televisions in the lobby were playing the news too. I went back. 

The rest of the day was blank for me. I kept an eye on downtown and watched the UHAUL truck parked in the driveway of the hotel all day. I watched lots of Martha Stewart Living that afternoon. 

Mark came back to the room and as we got ready for dinner, we watched Comedy Central for a break in the craziness of the news.  The first thing that was on was Saturday Night Live. It was insane (for the day). A skit came on and involved a Martian ship crashing into the Washington Monument. In the midst of this skit, it was cut off. And changed completely, to something else. Mark and I looked at each other in disbelief. We couldn't believe that someone would "forget" the subject of the skit and allow something like that to play for all of North America!!  Following SNL, Jon Stewart's Daily Show came on. This man broke my heart. On this day, a raw wound was reopened and it was brought to my attention that this affected EVERYONE!  

Jon Stewart - Daily Show

We carried on. Went off to dinner, constantly watched the news feeds of the buildings falling, over and over and over and over. 

This event in American history is probably one of the most traumatic in my life. I will NEVER forget. It is so disturbing.  I will never forget those innocent people, not knowing what was going on in the building below them, only waiting for their inevitable deaths. 

I pray for them and their families. Those who have to live through this day, in the sad...terrifying memories...of how the one they loved lost their life. I pray for all of them. May their lives not be forgotten...but remembered for the greatness that they lived on. 

Smarty, smarty pants

There was a time in my life...long ago...when I was in a very long relationship with a guy.  I was in love and he was a bit off.  Always in trouble, blah blah blah.  He was probably just a spoiled brat...now that I look back, that's exactly what it was.  Spoiled brat with no boundaries = adolescent with a drug problem, getting arrested often, very threatening to me as time went on.  Drugs are an amazing thing in the personality change department.  He's been in and out of Huntsville...joy.

Anyway.  As I was assisting Mark and his repair of the pipe on the side of the house, yesterday, I had a flash of one day in 1996.  I was drove up to this person's house to visit for a few minutes.  He and his dad were outside, his dad working on this person's truck.  I immediately asked why he wasn't doing it.  He looked at me and said that he had no idea how to do that stuff.  I was baffled.  Standing there staring at him for a few minutes...I couldn't believe it.  Were there actually guys that didn't know how to work on cars?  Again with the naivety.  My confusion turned to disgust.  I thought...'seriously? What the hell? I just replaced the transmission filter and pan (my dad handed me the box of new parts and pointed to under the car...set me loose on it), changed my own oil, helped drop the gas tank to empty the sludge out of it, in my own car!  And you can't change a battery?!"

We weren't together much longer.  Not because of this situation, there were plenty of contributors to the deterioration of our relationship.  We were certainly not on the same plane of intelligence and mental capacity for ANYTHING!  I began to realize that when he would accuse me of using "college words" when I spoke to him.  Oh dear...bless his heart...hahaha!

Thinking back to that moment when I realized that this person has no capability to be the man I expected him to be, I knew I needed more.  I needed what I saw as a real man!

I needed a man who already knew how to do anything or could figure it out or knew where to look to find out how to do it.  It drives me nuts when I am presented with a person who is clueless about something and has no clue how to find the information about it.

I credit my parents for all of this.  From the time I could read a bit, I was told to "go look it up" by my mom and my dad usually would explain things to me in very technical detail.  For those who know Mark, know...YEAH, so I married my dad!!  Big whoop! Wanna fight about it?!  HAHAHA!  Who would be a more perfect mate?  My dad is an awesome person.  Anyway, Mark does this to people.  The very detailed technical explanation.  He can't help it.  But it really attracted me to him.  This man is probably the smartest person I have ever met...aside from myself.  HA!  Many have said this about him.

Sure he is twelve years older than me.  But he has a fab emotional immaturity that helps to keep him young.  I knew from the beginning that he was good at everything he has done and will do.  When he fails at something, he will keep trying, because failure is not an option.

Who wouldn't be attracted to that, over a person who has no idea about ANYTHING?!

A Bee-otch once said that he's handy to have around.  She wasn't lying...a big change for her...but telling truth all the same.  HA!

I'm glad to have my handy guy to be my perfect definition of a "real man".

I praise my deity that our soulmate status was maintained, that we could return to each other again, because we needed each other.  We NEED to be with each other, to maintain the level that we are at together.

Act your age...not your shoe size.

We are vegan, for the most part.  Sometimes we cheat a bit, out of the need for something convenient or for my love of feta cheese, occasionally.  HA.  But almost daily, we eat an entirely plant based diet.  It is obvious, the health benefits of this.  I have family history of heart disease, diabetes, cancers, dementia, stroke...on and on.  Mark has family history of heart disease, obesity, cancers also.  It's a no brainer that a plant based diet will take a great part in avoiding these things for ourselves and our kids.  Combined with regular exercise, ANYONE can avoid heart attacks, strokes, cancers, obesity...ANYONE.

I like to counsel people about the food they eat.  In my work as a midwife, I have discovered that there are a huge number of people out there who think they are eating nutritiously, however, they are most certainly NOT!  I was naive!  For the most part, people very rarely eat any veggies on a daily basis.  And fruit...for-get-about-it.  It's a meat and refined carbs world.

I don't judge people...too much.  Ok, that's a lie.  I judge the hell out of the mom in line at the grocery store, fighting her hyperactive, overweight, screaming three year old, to keep her in the basket while she checks out.  What's on the conveyer belt? White bread, kool-aid, sodas, frozen dinners, sugary cereal, cakes, pre-formed burgers, bologna, "processed cheese product".  NO FRESH VEGGIES.  NO FRESH FRUIT. But she doesn't give this menu a second thought, while she pulls out a sippy cup of red liquid, just to shut the kid up.   What's revealed? Oh, those amazingly shiny, silver teeth!!!

I judge these people.  The people at Souper Salad with their plates piled high with a tiny bit of salad and a huge amount of pasta salad, all covered in full-fat ranch dressing, with a side of baked potato soup and five bread sticks...oh and a baked potato loaded with butter, cheese and real bacon pieces.  Then they sit down at their table, salt their ENTIRE PLATE and order their Diet Coke as their chair groans from the two hundred and fifty+ pounds just placed upon it.

I judge the people eating at Subway, very little actual veggies on the FOOT LONG SANDWICH...don't forget that cheese, ham-product and RANCH DRESSING!!!  The people at Jason's Deli, these people with their five inch thick roast beef sandwich, covered in melted swiss cheese and a side of salty potato chips and....a Diet Coke.

I have come up with a bit of a theory.  Location is key.  I believe that the majority of the population feels that if they are in a restaurant with a salad bar or a deli sandwich shop, they are automatically going to be eating healthy, by default.  Anyone who has taken a philosophy class in logic, knows this IS NOT a valid argument.  It's a sad thing.  So many people have no idea how to eat a proper, fully nutritious diet.

And they feel that the Diet Coke is the only "healthy" choice they can make for themselves.  The "pseudo-sweetener" makes them feel better that they aren't getting an extra one half of a cup of sugar in their diet.  But along with their fake sweetener, that big-ass meat and cheese sandwich, they are consuming over 50% of their daily allowance of FAT, 122% of their allowance of protein...headed for a bit of kidney failure...oh and 82% daily allowance of sodium.  YUM!!!  It seems that a big veggie salad with some balsamic vinegar and medium Coke, would be a much better choice.

Darwin's "survival of the fittest" certainly stands this day, regarding the homosapien-American population.  However, in this day, it is not in regard to our survival fighting off the neighboring lion or bear.  Those who poison their bodies with huge amounts of animal and dairy protein, solid fats (those foods which are refrigerated and can be removed from the leftover container IN ONE SOLID PIECE), those people will perish much more quickly than those who eat the plants and fruits of the plants and trees and the grains and legumes produced by other plants.  How will they perish?  Heart attacks, strokes, complications from high blood sugars and an injured pancreas, breathing complications from being obese, genetic modifications causing cells to have a "glitch" and begin to reproduce as cancer cells.

Oh and if you're obese and have heart and breathing problems, you can't escape from that lion attack...if the situation ever presents itself.

This brings me to my chosen title.

There are so many grownups out in the world and around me.  Those who have had heart attacks or cancer scares.  Those who are uncomfortable in their skins, mainly because they are overweight.  They are smart people.  They know how to read.  But they still act like children when it comes to eating properly.  They moan and groan at the thought of eating a veggie.  I DO NOT understand this.  Not one bit.  Why are people acting like kids? They know that eating better, eating more veggies and fruits and whole grains, less fats and meats and dairy would make them healthier.  They know this because I have told them this...and it's EVERYWHERE!!!  But still they act like children and reject anything that's not sweet, laden with fat, or salty.  Act your age!!!  You're not eight years old anymore.  You know what's good for you and what will kill you!  You know that smoking causes lung cancer.  You know that eating saturated fats in meat (animal muscle...aka cholesterol) causes plaque buildup in the heart causes heart attacks.

And too often I have heard the snarky response, "Well, I've got to give my medications something to do..."

I might just knock out the next person who says that to me.  So you're that much of a spoiled brat that you'd rather take a pill, than eat better and get off of your ass and go for a walk?  You'd rather not do any of that than actually be able to save money and side effects of the meds and basically feel better all around, by eliminating the original problem?!  Because it's too much work and you can't comfort yourself with food?

This is another aspect of the Darwin theory.  If these people are that stupid and that lazy, then yes, they will not be the fittest to survive.  Those meds only work so well, before one craps out and then it's too late.  Dead.  Done.  Over.  Survival of the fittest.

I will say this: Veganism rocks!  We all feel great!  And of course, we're not eating mush and strange things.  If anyone knows me at all, I'm a foodie.  I still have the best tasting things for us all to eat.  Because, of course I believe the statement "Eat to Live, Don't Live to Eat", but I love to get creative in the kitchen, creating lots of tasty things.  I just leave the meats, eggs, dairy, processed sugar, refined grains, and pesticide laden things at the store for someone else to consume.

All in all...I'm glad to do this way of life for our kids and for us.  It's the most important thing.  Food and water is the basis of life.  It begins at the mother's breast and continues with the child sharing the food from her mother's plate, then her own.  If it is begun well, it will continue through their entire life...a very long and healthy life...my prayer to my deity every night.

Happy veggie eating...try something new this week.  You might be surprised...it might be yummy!!

School is coming

This year brings so many changes.  The boys are starting school at the beginning of the school year, I am going BACK to school, Mia is home with me for the entire year...on and on.

It is three days until the first day of school.  We all start on the same day.  The boys are going nuts with excitement.  In turn, I am losing my mind...ready for it all to just get started.  I realize more and more everyday, I am not cut out for young child-motherhood.  I have known this all along.  I am easily frustrated with the strange nuances of the preschooler.  I am in love with the conversations I can have with my eight year old.  I know that I will continue to love the words that come from my kids as they are older than seven or eight.

I was always told that I seemed older than my age.  Always.  I was an only child (with the exception of two much older half-sisters), until I was six years old.  I was very mature.  I've never been able to truly relate to kids my age or younger.  I'd rather talk with adults, then and now.  It's still this way.  My therapist continues to "encourage" me to build friendships within "mommy groups".  The idea of this makes me want to peel my skin off.  I don't want to sit around talking with other moms about their babies or kids.  I don't care about their kids.  I feel like there is very little intelligence in these conversations.  Also, I have a certain way that I raise my kids, it's usually different from the way most moms and dads (in "mommy groups").  I don't do attachment parenting, I don't do the psycho-Christian parenting thing.  I do discipline my kids, I do give them love, I do provide for them.  I don't coddle them.  And anyone who walks around in the world can see that most parents out there, do exactly this.  It annoys me.

My perfect scenario?  Have a handful of friends who have ZERO kids, and are happy with that.  In doing the mental evaluation of friends thing, I'm well on my way to achieving this.  Most of the people I surround myself with have NO KIDS or have part time kids.  I'm good with this.

I can't believe that, even though I have always been adverse to dealing with kids, I've been a stay-at-home mom for over 8 years!!! How did that happen?!  I do adore my kids.  I like that we have raised them to be responsible, thoughtful citizens.  I suppose that overtakes the whole "not typically liking kids" thing.  It's almost time to send them all into the world (school) and for me to return to the real world...with grownups!!!

I can't wait to be around grownups again!!