View From the Shoe

Mr. Doodles - The Final Chapter

2011-11-09T06:42:00.000-08:00

So. I guess with a title like that you can tell the outcome of this story.

Saige was at her dad's last weekend and when I put the babies to bed I realized the guinea pig wasn't really very spry. (Yes. Mr. Doodles is a girl. What? Miss Doodles is a stupid name.) I sent downstairs and told Mike the critter wasn't doing well. We really had no solution since I am both unwilling to handfeed the thing canned pumpkin and spend 300 bucks at an exotic pet vet.
When I went up the next morning she wasn't moving at all. I called Saigie at her dad's and broke the news because I didn't want her to return home to a missing critter.
There was much crying, gnashing of the teeth and garment tearing. Then I did what had to be done and prepared to pick the cage up and move it outside, so Shaby would stop trying to feed it. That was the extent of my plans because The Coach is in charge of dead things. (I am in charge of throw up.)
When I went to pick up the cage Mr. Doodle's head turned toward me and she shuddered. So of course dropped the cage and went running and screaming, "Zombie Guinea Pig!!!" all through the house. Finally I called a friend who distracted me while I threw a blanket over the cage, put it in the back yard and then locked the door.
I called The Coach and told him it was his problem and when he got home he had to put the thing out of its misery and never tell me how it was done. Also he could not scar the body because Saige wanted a burial. Sigh.
By the time he got home the critter had the decency to die on its own. We perserved the body and buried it Monday after school. She was heartbroken.
Her brothers were so sweet to her. At different times throughout the day I saw both of them walk by and pat her on the shoulder. That is pretty nice for them. They usually walk by and pull her hair or take something from her.
I knew the inevitable was a request for a NEW pet. It finally came last night when she ask if she could have a parrot!!
Saige - (still crying) Can I have a parrot?
Me - (shocked) Why in the HELL would you want a parrot?
Saige - So I could have someone to talk to.
Me - You have FOUR brothers and sisters. Talk to them.
Saige - (wailing) None of them caaaaaarrrrreeeee.
Me. - I'll pay them to care!!

Can you just imagine what a parrot would say at my house?
"What's for supper? Squawk!"
"Squack. He touched me!!!!!!!"

What would your parrot say?

(p.s. Without my knowledge Saige made an old picture of Mr. Doodles the screensaver on our computer. Now everytime I logged on I am eye to eye with his beady little stare. Creepy guinea pig zombie!)

Oh The Joy!!

2011-10-28T13:10:00.000-07:00

There are many truly joyful times in a parent's life.
The first time a baby says, "mommy" or gives a kiss.
A good grade or a kind gesture.
Watching siblings play together (right up till the fight.)

I think it is safe to say potty training is NOT one of these joys. I will say for myself it has bever been a huge deal. Of course I have probably forgotten some of the hassle since a little time has passed. Shaye is refreshing my memory.
If I had to pick out some of the joys of potty training in my search for the silver lining they would be
~Going to the bathroom thirty times a day to only witness any results about three times a day. (Obviously some of this list is going to be facetious.)
~Listening to Shaye try to say "panties".
~Having all the laundry clean due to multiple "accident" loads.
~The exercise I get sprinting with a twenty three pound two year old under my arm.
~ Having someone in the bathroom with me to cheer for me when I go successfully.
~Alternatively laughing and getting frustrated when she insists on dressing and undressing herself.
~Hanging out with Shaye alone in the bathroom singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider".
And finally
~The amazement that came from realizing Shaye had successfully flushed an entire pair of panties while I was trying to find the wipes! (Who thinks this is going to end in a call to the plumber?)

This marks a first.....a celebratory "THE LAST". I was a bit sad when breast feeding ended. I may have been a bit sad at THE LAST first word, first steps, first birthday. But this last is a relief...THE LAST potty training!! And soon............THE LAST diaper!!

Of course there will be grandkids, but I am certain Ty will listen to me and wait until Shaye is out of the house before he has any. Because I said so. Right?

Crickets and Mosquito Bait

2011-10-12T07:18:00.000-07:00

Crickets because that is all you have been hearing from this blog lately.
We are having a great time here and doing lots as usual. There are just many things going on here and it turns out there is only a limited number of things I can do well, or even mediocre at one time. Plus every time I think of a writing a blog I feel like I should explain my absence and it isn't inspiring to come up with excuses, so let's just skip it.

I love Texas. I consider myself a native Houstonian having moved where when I was four. I heard other parts of the world have four actual seasons, but I have never experienced that so I am pretty good with the two we have here. Summer and not summer. This past summer was brutal. It was HOT. Many weather related records were broken like - earliest day over 100, latest day over 100, and most consecutive days over 100. Add to that extreme drought. (Expected to be the worst on record here in the history of EVER!)
Things are going up in flames here left and right. I think over 1600 houses have been burned down in wildfires.

Because I hate, hate, hate the cold. I try to roll with these desert-like conditions. This summer I tried to get the kids outside as much as possible, but since it was still 100 degrees at 9:00pm that was difficult. Maybe I should have taught the kids to sleep walk. I usually ended up whisking them to the park at the crack of 7:00 am and toughing it out outdoors until about 8:30, by which time it was sweltering and we escaped into the air conditioning.

The good part of the heat and drought though was that there were way less mosquitoes this summer. Last summer we about got carried off by them despite my BIL's mosquito killing concoction of Windex and fabric softener. (??)

It has rained twice ~~in the last decade~~ in the last month and now the skeeters are back with a vengeance. I tried to take the babies outside to play last night and had to wonder once again, "What makes Tayte so delicious to mosquitoes?" I have never seen anything like it. You can almost see the swarm of bloodsuckers heading his way when he leaves the house. Are they just hanging around waiting for my juicy baby to venture outdoors?? At one point he even had his very own repellent fan we clipped to his shirt. That was in addition to the later of OFF we applied and the citronella candle we forced him to carry. (Just thought of a new invention......citronella scented outdoor toys like Frisbees and balls!)
Does he smell good to mosquitoes?
Is it his infectious smile?

Maybe they are attracted to the luminescent skin. (Which I have witnessed sunburning outside for fifteen minutes in FEBRUARY! Maybe this kid just isn't cut out for Texas.)

(Don't ask why he is sideways.........I just wanted to complete a darn post! I don't have time for obstacles.)

The good news..............as long as I stick close to Tayte I never get a bite?

Look at him. You wanna bite him too don't ya?

Do you have a delicious person in your family?

Got any solutions?

Better Late............Or Maybe Not

2011-09-09T07:28:00.000-07:00

About a hundred years ago my parents took me to Vermont. Ok. It was last month. It feels like a hundred years ago. I did "compete" in a triathlon, but I also was a tourist as this was a tri-cation. We had a ball. It was so much fun having my parents all to myself. Usually I am wanting for attention while they throw money and candy at my children and tell them how cute they are.
We left outta Houston on Thursday. All day my MIL who was at home taking care of the kids was searching for the keys to my truck. I can just picture her searching every nook and cranny because she is focused like that. Not like me. I start looking for something and while I am doing that I find something I had previously lost, like a book, then I start reading it and forget what I was doing. (Kinda like this story........)
Anyway right before I checked my luggage I got an idea. I opened up my suitcase and there were the keys to my truck. Shaye had been helping me pack. I was worried about what else she might have stuck in there.

My mom and I turned into a giggling mess while the safety precautions were being recited on the plane. My dad tried to pretend he didn't know us.

Oh! It's been a long time since I have pushed my mom around in a wheelchair. I guess she had forgotten she permanently fired me from that job. Hey!! I only let her go down an incline once. I only ran into another person once and I did do ANY donuts!!

Once in Vermont we made plans to see the sights. My mom told my dad. "We are not going to ____________. If we take her there she will tell everyone we only took her to lame stuff!" FINALLY! I have struck fear into the hearts of my parents with my blogging influence.

First we got lost in Burlington. I think part of the problem was map scale. We were looking at the map of Vermont as if it were the map of Texas. I guess maybe we should have paid more attention to the scale and less attention to the beautiful GREEN around us.
Second we got lost in Burlington.
Third we got lost in Burlington.
:)
Friday before the race we headed to New York and see Fort Tygonorrhea.
Who knew you could take a thirty minute car ride and be in a whole other state. Cool.
Fort Typonderosa is a fort used in both the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War.

Apparently they shot boats invading from Lake George. I was just trying to sound smart there. I don't know the name of the lake.

My dad broke off from the tour and was clearly trying to decide if he could round up the necessary materials to fire this cannon.

This is my reenactment of a boat landing at Fort Ticonderoga. (Yes. That is the real name.)
After the race we tried to go see the house of Ethan Allen. There are no pictures of that because we never found it. It was three miles from us and we drove thirty miles to try to find it. Again....scale. During that trip we did go visit what my parents insist was an island, but it was clearly connected to Vermont by a strip of land. My parents and I are just going to have to agree to disagree.
The landscape there was gorgeous. Everything was so green and lush. I hate the cold, but I would love to return for a (short) visit in the winter to see it all covered in a blanket of snow.

The food in Vermont was delicious!! The night before the race we went to a diner and I was afraid to order anything good because I didn't want to puke on the course. Soooooo. We returned immediately after the race and I pigged out.

This was my first lobster roll and it was DELICIOUS. Also it was 1400 calories. I know because they had the calories listed on the menu. I noticed that last time I was up north too. I wish they would start doing that here in Texas. I feel a need to know how many calories are in chili con queso and guacamole.

My dad refrained from ordering the 2000 calorie dish he really wanted the first night, but he dove into it the next day.

Sadly he had to abort his mission. He just couldn't finish the meal. Really he barely made a dent in it, but he was exhausted from trying.

All in all I had a great time. It was so very incredible of my parents to haul my adult butt up there and entertain me and watch me race. Next year the race is in the same place and I hope to be able to return with The Coach.
My parents stayed in Vermont after I left and got out just in time to miss the bad weather that plagued the area. I hope that Vermont bounces back from the flooding soon. It is a beautiful place and all of the people I ran into there were super friendly and welcoming.

I Lovermont

2011-08-31T05:26:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of the summer I blogged about how I had qualified for the triathlon National Championships and my parents were taking me.
They did.
Today I am going to write about the race and then tomorrow the trip itself.

Swim

Here I am enjoying a pre race cocktail. Really it's just gatorade.
I think I was in the 87th wave to start. The waves before me had swum in deceptively straight lines leading me to believe there was little current or pull. So I jumped in under that false assumption and started about ten minutes of treading water. While I was treading water the announcer announced, "Susan Williams is in the water." Susan Williams is THE U.S. women's Olympic medalist from the U.S. I was swimming with her. We were neck and neck.....right until the horn sounded.
I quickly realized that I was out of my league as the rest of the field pulled ahead of me. I dealt with that through the first and second buoy and I was being overcome by the next wave at the third. Then it all fell apart and I considered quitting as a lifeguard tried to beat me into returning to the course with his oar. The sun was in my eyes, I was swimming in circles, I had a cramp, and some jerk told me I was swimming sideways. (Just for the record....I MEANT too!)

I am the one splashing around out there WAAAAAYYYYY of course.

The only thing that kept me from giving up was thinking that my parents had funded the whole trip and my mom had walked all the way to the race start. If I had quit then it would all be a waste. I never did see that fourth buoy, but I did spot the fifth and figured I might live, so I continued swimming and finally made it to dry land. I thought I had been out there forever, but it turns out it was right at 38 minutes. Not much off my usual pace.
Swim - 00:38:17

Does this outfit make me look fat?

I managed not to pull a glut getting out of my wetsuit and headed on to the next phase.

The Bike
I had rented a very nice tri bike for the occasion instead of paying for my own bike to me dismantled and rebuilt numerous times. It was awesome. Shifting was different as were the aero bars and the handle bars, but all in all it was fine.
The idea of hills had me intimidated ever since I signed up for the race. The first 2.5 miles were total incline. And to mock me the people ahead of me were FLYING downhill to finish up their bike. Usually my heart rate is usually only around 180 when I am going all out. On the bike my heart rate stayed around 225 the entire time. It was definitely hard, but not impossibly so. Vermont was beautiful and I had plenty of time to see it. I figure I was in last place because whenever I rode passed a volunteer or officer they started up their engines as if they were done with their shift.
It was quite exhilarating to look down and see my speed as 37.00 mph after the turnaround. Since I had never ridden the bike other than on the trainer for the fitting I was really praying the brakes worked. Whew.
The cramp I developed in the swim was noticeable on the bike, but not traumatic. (That's foreshadowing by the way.)
Bike - 1:27:30

Hallelujah! I survived the bike. Oh darn....it's time to run.

Run
The run is never my strong point and the feeling that I was in last didn't help. Neither did the half mile climb to start us off. UHG. I walked it and my side was killing me by the time I got to the top. I walked/ran as best I can. Five people from my age group passed me which filled me with hope AND despair. Each time I thought, "I wasn't last! But I am now."
At one point I was walking and a nice older (very older) lady competitor ran by me and asked if I was injured. I told her I had a bad cramp and couldn't breath and she encouraged me to run with her nice and slow. I did run with her for probably a mile and a half and I am so thankful for her encouragement. She was a previous world qualifier and very interesting too! By the time she ran off I only had a mile left.

Run - 1:13:22
Finally I reached the finish line and received my finishers medal. Both my dad and my mom were there to congratulate me. (Everyone else had packed up and gone home. Ok. Not really.) I was very glad my mom was able to see me race. I was even more glad my dad had pre agreed to a big honking LUNCH!!
Total - 3:23:46

Can you see them rolling up the carpet after my finish? Kidding.

Sometimes it is important to just keep going because it turns out I didn't do as poorly at the race as I thought I was doing. I was over my best olympic distance time by about four minutes. Really with the hills and the unfamiliar bike and all that wasn't too bad.
I came in 106th out of 107 in my age group. Of course if I were just basing my performance on that I would be disappointed, so it is a good thing I am not. It's like I told my dad. I was still getting passed, but I was getting passed by a much better class of athlete!

I was really looking forward to putting that 1800 calories back in my belly!!

I was an experience I am lucky to have had. I hope to get a chance to return next year and do a better job since I have one national championship under my belt! Can't wait. (Mom and Dad - I will try to save up some money between now and then!!)

Tomorrow I plan to fill you all in on the vacation part of this trication.
Try to contain your excitement.

Partypolooza!

2011-08-30T06:28:00.000-07:00

I have been AWOL. I know. Hey! I've a little busy. (Said with my best New Jersey accent - which isn't that good. In fact it sounds a lot like my Howard Cosell.)

Anyway. I have been getting farther and farther from blogging as I feel worse and worse about not blogging. I figured the best way to make a comeback was to just write something. Anything.
Here goes.

August saw three different birthday celebrations at our house.

Shaye Baby turned two. How is it possible she is two? It goes so fast, yet at the same time I can hardly remember our family without her antics.

We had a small celebratory after lunch party. The good thing about having Sweet Aunt live a block over is that once her and her four boys show up it is an instant party!
I made a lemon cake from scratch that called for about five cups of sugar.....in just the frosting. (Talk about a party.)

Shaye had several presents, but only one gift bag. When she turned to exclaim over one of her treasures I just snuck the next gift into the bag. Genius.

Tell me please how two year old girls know they love a hat and a purse?

Next it was Tanner's turn.
The BIG 13. I can't imagine how he got this old!

His birthday is actually in July, but with the cruise and all it kept getting pushed back. It was his year for a real party though, so party we did. He chose a go cart party. Great fun was had by all.
Just in case you didn't believe me - here are the pics.

Sweet Aunt and Cade

The Coach and Tayte

My Best Peep Pree and her girly.

The Birthday Boy himself.

Speedy Saige

And of course no party is complete unless one of your "grown" ass brothers gets kicked off the go cart track.........I'll let you guess who got kicked off - Guns or Uncle Bachelor.

And last but not least the sweetest three year old on the planet turned into the sweetest four year old. (My blog, my opinion!)

He is pretty excited. He wore that crown all week. I think it had finally met its demise though.

You might be wondering why we are having a donut party at 8 am in the park. I'll tell you. Tayte was dying to have a party in the park. The forecast for the day we planned to have his party was 108. We decided there was NO WAY we were going to go into the scorching heat to grill. So...we bought up a couple dozen donuts, stuck some candles in one and ta da........Party!!

Again if you don't believe me....here's a pic. See? Invite Sweet Aunt and Sweet Uncle and their sweet boys, throw in one Gramma and one babysitter and instant party.

Just for the record Shaye totally approved of the donut theme.

So... not even counting my trip to Vermont, and school starting back up....thing have been hopping around here. And I am infinitely grateful to be celebrating another year with each one of these kiddos.

I hope to stretch this streak into two by writing about the National Championships tomorrow. I hope you will drop by!!

Bittersweet Relief

2011-08-15T06:55:00.000-07:00

Summer is over.
I am going back to work.
Probably it is just the nick of time.

I have run out of time killers.

Remember when back in the 80's tv writers went on strike. That was about the time I first discovered David Letterman. It was also about the time my parents, my brother and I took a roundabout driving vacation to visit some family friends in Ohio.
During the day my brother and I would sleep in the minivan and ignore my parents as they pointed out hand powered corn gins and quilt shop after quilt shop. Early on in the vacation my idiot brother kept count of how many different state license plates he saw. Out loud.
By the time we got to the hotel every night Uncle Bachelor and I were wide awake. We would take a swim in the hotel pool and then get ready for bed and watch Letterman. By that time I was pretty delerious from the drive and Uncle Bachelor was delirious from the sheer fact that he was still alive after being forced by my dad to be my "victim" so I could practice my life saving skills. (Hey! The hair carry is a legitimate life saving technique. And my dad thought it was funny.)
Letterman would come on and Uncle Bachelor and I laughed our heads off. Partly because Letterman was funny and partly because my dad would sit on the bed and say repeatedly, "That guy is NOT funny. He thinks he is funny, but no one else does. He's stupid!"
Anyway, during the writer strike they would do Network Time Killers. Obviously to kill time on the show. My favorite was What is Hal Gurney Wearing? Every night he was wearing the same thing - tan chinos, blue oxford and so on. Hilarious. My dad thought otherwise.

Back to the summer.
I am out of time killers.
Indoors during the heat of the day we have done markers, play doh, cartoons, cleaning, blocks, wrestling.
Outside we have eaten popsicles, rode bikes, gone to the park, chased squirels, sidewalk chalked, watered plants.
We have walked the mall, shopped at the toy store. We have blown bubbles, visited Gramma and picked The Coach's vegetables.
Saigie and I even laid in bed one afternoon and ate a whole package of cookies.

I am tapped out. I am out of entertaining ideas.
I will miss the "lazy" days of heading to the park and cuddling babies after nap, but.........
It is time for me to go back to work. The babies are headed to day care for the first time in their lives. (They previously had a sitter. She moved.)

I am going now to answer a hundred questions a day from different teenagers instead of just Tayte. I am going to refuse to clean up after them instead of following them around with towels. I am going to put on heels, make up, and even a bra.

It will be a nice change of pace. Until about Thanksgiving. Then I will be ready to be home again.

Any big changes coming your way?

Summer Showoff

2011-08-14T17:44:00.000-07:00

I am linking up with Shell to show off some summer highlights. You can do it too!!

So there you go. It is nothing fancy, but here are my favorite summer snapshots. I need to order them now to display them in my classroom this year as a reminder - Summer will come again.

Link up your Summer Fun for a chance to win prizes from Ubisoft.

It Was Hot

2011-08-10T07:55:00.000-07:00

Sorry. Not describing anything scandalous here. Just a race recap.

I did the Bridgeland Tri on Sunday. It was a sprint length tri, 500 m, 13.5, and 3.5.

I haven't raced since June what with the cruise and then signing up for the race in Vermont. I was really looking forward to this race. I wanted to knock it out of the park. I wanted to beat this chick at practice who has been slacking off and telling me how it is hard to workout when she would rather sit on the couch with her new boyfriend. I wanted to run 3.5 miles at a 9/mile pace.

Instead here is what happened.

We showed up early on Sunday after listening to the fishing report. My group of loyal supporters was happy to be there. Don't they look like it? Body marking and transition were WAY backed up. There was talk about delaying the start. I got ticked. I was already a bit miffed that all of the men's waves started before any of the women's. Great. I wanted to run in the searing heat. My bike rack was the one furthest back. Uhg.

I had to stop and remind myself I can not change the weather, or my bike placement, or the timing of the waves. As I read in an Ironman's blog not long ago, "The only thing I have control over is my attitude." I wish I could say I only had to remind myself of that once, but by the time I stood in an ant pile waiting for my swim wave to start I had already reminded myself multiple times.

I swam well. My strategy was to start WAY left. It added a couple of meters to my swim, but it kept me out of the "scrum" of swimmers and that was nice. It was a straight swim course with no turn around which was also nice. I was able to swim in the proper position without having to stick my head out of the water to check my position. My time was a whole minute faster than in practice last weekend. Probably it was the best swim I have had this season.
Time -11:39, 16/54

My attitude was improving as I had one leg under my belt and I felt like if everything went well. I felt I could make my A Goal time of 1:27:00. I figured that time would put me in the top ten in my age group and assure that I beat the chick who was hanging out with her boyfriend!! My bike sounded so much better than it had in the past since I had some minor repairs done. The bike route was crowded. There were a few instances of scary passing. At mile 8 I saw the chick pass me. I wanted to keep her in my sights in case she had a rough run and I could still catch her. I spent the next few miles really pushing myself to keep her in view. By the time I finished only two people from my age group had passed me. My A Goal was still within reach, but it was going to require the best run of my life!
Time - 41:17, 17/54 (19.6 mph)

All summer I have been working on my running and finally it was beginning to pay off. Conversely the week before the race I had run for crap. It is Africa hot here and running in it is hellacious. It's awful. I tried to run in the heat about four times the week before the race. I have to say that none of those times was I completely successful.
I started to run and my legs already hurt. I figured I had gone out too hard on the bike. I told myself to ignore it for 30 minutes and move on. I had heard a hard core triathlete from my team talking about how the pain just had to be ignored. I was ready to try it. Mile 1 - 9:29. Mile 2 was through a nature trail. I started sneezing and snorting and coughing. Other people were losing time blessing me!! I told myself to ignore it for 30 minutes and move on. Mile 2 - 10:20. I got discouraged.

Did I mention it was hot? I am not using this as an excuse. It was hot for everybody and many racers handled it much better than I did. I am just saying....HOT. I weight myself before the race. After the race I drank two cans of Coke, a can of grapefruit juice, and half a bottle of water. Then I weighed myself again. I was still down three pounds. That is a lot of sweat!!

By mile 3 I had let the heat, the allergies, and all the people passing me affect me. I slowed way down. I walked a few steps. Walking in a triathlon seems to do something to me mentally. I felt totally defeated. I walked a little more. Mile 3 11:20. By the time I got to the turn many ladies from my age group had passed me. It is really hard to finish top ten when eleven people pass you on the run! I did run the last .65 of a mile at a decent pace to finish that infernal inferno run.

Time: 40.14, 33/54 (10:52 pace)
Total: 1:35:17, 23/54

By the way...I did beat the chick with the new boyfriend. She had two flats in the bike. I feel bad for her. She was having a good race. I didn't want to beat her like that. It doesn't exactly count.

You got any regrets lately?

(Side note - Wednesday morning I was scheduled to do a hard bike/run brick. I ran a 8:35 mile. That was the first time I had run under a 9 minute mile probably EVER. Why didn't I do that on Sunday?)

Saigie's Try

2011-08-08T06:00:00.000-07:00

Saigie did a triathlon on Saturday. I couldn't be prouder of her. It was the Bridgeland Kids Triathlon.

The distances were supposed to be one lap of swim in the pool, a 2 mile bike and a .5 mile run.

Saige said they made her swim 100 meters like the big kids even though she kept, "trying to tell them."

At the finish line I waited for her and told her brothers it would be two more minutes before she got there. Right when I said that she showed up and she was TRUCKIN'!!

I was so happy for her accomplishment. As was the rest of her athletic supporters.

Shaye hollered for about thirty minutes straight. It was the cutest thing. "Go Saigie!!"

And remember no matter what the pesky brothers may claim about Saige's athletic prowess. If it were easy, they would call it football!! :)

More Decor, Less Danger

2011-08-03T08:18:00.000-07:00

Two posts in one week. Woo hoo.

After only a year in this house I finally got around to decorating Tanner's room. The problem was that Tanner wanted to pick his own theme and I was stifled by that kind of request. He wanted ocean/fishing theme. Everything I found fishing was too country and the beach type stuff was too girly.

But finally I painted the wall making a God awful mess in the process and then I called Mom over to do the tough stuff. She brought her friend Carol. They used to decorate together before Carol moved. Basically they decorated anything that would stand still long enough. If their bossing and giggling can be tolerated they do great work!!
First they taped the wall.

Then they painted it. They may have also requested I quit taking pictures of their butts. See? I told you they were bossy.

The finished wall looked like this. Well it isn't quite finished. The fish needs an eye. Details.

While they were doing that I was basically screwing up everything else in the room and hammering many holes int he wall. Then I would whine until they came and fixed it. This picture of Tanner and his record setting trout is what prompted this whole decor idea.

That is one huge trout at 29 inches long

These curtains I designed myself. We found that rod for a whole two dollars. We weren't sure what we would use it for, but at that price we had to buy it. I can't believe we didn't get two or three. Then I stuck that net over it and stuck some fishing lures in it and called it a day. (Then it fell down and mom and Carol had to fix it. )

The babies were quite upset that we hung up their toy, but they got over it.

I feel like I should go upstairs and take a picture of the room now finished and cleaned, but on the way up there a million thing would happen and I would not get to come down here and post the pic until later and then I would have lost the opportunity to post two such quality items in one week.

I am definitely lowering my standards. How about you??
Last home dec project I am hoping to complkete before school starts is painting the guest bathroom. That shouldn't take too long or make too much of a mess. Right?

Whassup?

2011-08-01T05:57:00.000-07:00

Ok. I did not go on another cruise.
I got an i-phone and I got addicted to Angry Birds.

Ok. That is not true either. (Only partly true.)

I have been training hard.
And I have been napping hard.

These things have cut into my blogging time.

The fact that my sweet Tan Man turned 13 in July and got a Facebook has not helped. It is hard to blog with a teenage boy breathing down your neck and asking when you are going to be finished.

Here is what is on tap for the next for weeks.
- start the babies at a new day care.
- pull together three different kids' birthday parties. (Really would it kill Shaye and Tayte to share a party? Seriously I am asking for your opinion of shared parties.)
-go back to work.
- back to school shop for the kids.
- buy a wetsuit for Vermont. I am actually in the process of e-baying one as I write this. I will let you know how it turns out.
- cheer Saigie on at her first triathlon.
- potty train Shaye.
- complete the Bridgeland Sprint Triathlon

I am going to try to blog every day this week and read blogs every day this week. Cuz I am all about goals.

Do you have any suggestions for must have apps I need for my i-phone?

Inevitable Crash

2011-07-21T05:18:00.000-07:00

It was bound to happen. Sooner or later I was going to crash my bike. It is a wonder I am still alive.
(By the way that whole statement was a slight exaggeration. As is the rest of this post. I was not injured.)

I have had to change my approach to riding since I signed up for that Vermont race. You may remember me whining about the hills. So I had to practice hills which I am unfamiliar with.

I got distracted and I fell. The following picture may be hard to look at. (Not really.)

See?
I would usually go for my Sunday ride outdoors in the 100 degree heat. I would usually peacefully coexist with eighteen wheelers and road kill. My coach suggested though, that I stack some books under my front wheel to simulate hills. I did this on Sunday. (See, history does come in handy.)

Out of the kindness of my heart I didn't wake up any of the older kids to watch the babies. The Coach was at a baseball game. I figured the babies would eventually get bored of watching me ride in place and go watch cartoons. I would have been better off with the trucks and the road kill.

They kept coming over to me trying to hand me things, or in Shaye's case just staring at me. Then they emptied my night stand. After that they jumped on my bed. Then they really started making a mess. At one point I turned my handlebars while yelling at them to turn off the bath tub water and put the cat down and my bike fell off the stack of history books I had them on.

Whew. I didn't fall over. It about gave me a heart attack, but no real damage was done.

The last fifteen minutes of the ride Tayte finally did get tired of watching me ride in place and went and drew a picture.

Here it is again. His explanation of the picture - It is a hot dog person and a biscuit person.

The hot dog person has glasses.

When The Coach got home he asked, "Did the trainer ride not go well?" It turns out he was asking that based on the state of our bedroom when he returned. Hmph.

Please tell me I am not the only person who has ever tried to crash while ON the bike trainer!!

Decor Danger

2011-07-20T04:48:00.000-07:00

I am going to have to reassess my previous notions of the most dangerous job in the world. It may be decorating. My mom and I embarked on a simple project this week. We wanted to change this plain, blank wall into a decorated wall. Easy enough huh?

First I spent a couple of hours going through old pictures on Snapfish and ordering 8x10s in black and white. The next day I went and picked them up and then I visited three different Hobby Lobby stores to procure 14 frames. I chose black "floating" ones. Mom and I figured if we put some colored art paper behind the picture it would serve as a mat at half the cost. Plus since the frames were on sale for half price they were only five dollars each. What a bargain. Unfortunately every time I go into Hobby Lobby I find some other decor item that I NEED, so really no money was saved.

For example, isn't this pillow adorable?

Day three of this project we sent the kids for a nap and assembled the pictures. (After a fifth trip to the store to exchange the art paper for the correct color of art paper.)

When I snapped this picture my mom told me NOT to put her on my blog.

Sorry Mom.

Pictures matted.

Finally we got to actually hang a picture.

All was going well until we got to the part of the wall I couldn't reach. How DO those decorators get so high? Books? They helped me reach to hang one or two pictures.

But this was a better solution.

Yes. This project involved hanging upside down from the second floor. Professional decorators must be limber!!

I told my mom I could no longer feel my feet. She said, "My Lord, Heather. I didn't know your feet weren't on the floor!" This is the same woman who says, "My Lord, Heather why can't you work out at the gym like normal people?" I love her.

We were in the home stretch when I decided I could put a ladder up on the books I had stacked to reach that empty space there that was too high from the stairs and too low from the upstairs. The lladder balanced on books on the stairs didn't work. While I was retreating down the stairs with the ladder I knocked over the broom (I may have used that broom earlier to sweep up glass when I dropped a picture from upstairs and it shattered. I had purchased an extra frame just for such a circumstance.)

Back to the broom.

It landed on the remaining two pictures and then I stepped on it. Of course the glass on the pictures broke. Ugh.

I didn't have two more extra frames.

So this is where we ended yesterday. I will make yet a sixth trip to Hobby Lobby to get two more frames.

Tomorrow I will prevail.

What kind of projects do you have going on? Do you have a picture wall, or do you think they are lame?? And finally the last question. How long do you think it will take all the kids to realize Tanner got featured on the wall one more time than the rest of them?

Cruisin'

2011-07-15T06:08:00.000-07:00

We had a lot of fun on the cruise. It is hard to narrow down exactly what I want to write about. I mean really how many days do you even want to hear about the cruise?

First let me tell you about the driving in Jamaica and Mexico. It made riding with Ty seem like a walk in the park. It probably isn't entirely our #1 Jamaican driver's fault as I have never been in a country where they drive on the other side of the road. There were funny signs up in the city that said things like, "Stay Alive. Ride, Walk, and Drive Good." I really wanted to take a picture, but I was too busy holding on for dear life as we were careening down the street.
Before we got off the boat in Cozumel I kept noticing all these posters on the boat discouraging people from doing motorcycle/scooter excursions. I soon found out why. The short taxi drive from the pier to our excursion was harrowing. At many of the intersections there are no stop signs or lights. Apparently the driver with the biggest cojones has the right of way. Unfortunately there is no way to tell whose are bigger. Apparently we were using the Softball Taxi Cab Co. Before I covered my eyes I counted three cyclists we nearly creamed.
Other than the driving though our excursions were super fun. We did Dunn's River Falls, snorkeling, and The Amazing Race. (We came in fourth due to my restroom stop and Mike's mis navigation.)

The next notable thing was the food. It was all good, but not great. There was a wide variety. Mostly at breakfast we went to the breakfast buffet. I like breakfast. Mainly I like to start eating it within about thirty minutes of opening my eyes. This was a problem as some people on the cruise mistook the breakfast buffet for some kind of art class. I mean really how many different ways are there to arrange scrambled eggs on a plate? Dinners were awesome. We ate late so there were few kids in the dining room which was a nice change. We drank wine and relaxed. Other than the pounds I carried back I have also reawakened my favorite habit of eating something sweet after dinner. I am going to have to nip that in the bud. (As soon as I finish this after dessert bowl of Lucky Charms.) The Grand Mariner souffle was awesome. I really had to restrain myself not to ask for seconds, and thirds.

I also have to get out of the habit of dressing up for dinner. The kids think I am weird.

Finally there was relaxing. The Coach and I strategically laid out so I could be in the sun and he could be in the shade. We read books.

I read Water for Elephants which was awesome. The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver was a little slow in places. I also was officially one of the last people on the planet to read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I really liked it other than the sexual attacks. I want to read the next book in the series, but I am afraid it may be too much for me. (Has anyone read it? Can you tell me if it is much more violent?)

Also there was napping. We stayed up late every night so it was pretty much a given that we were going to have to have a nap. It was great to spend so much uninterrupted time with The Coach. Really that was probably the best part. No matter where we had gone it was just nice to be able to talk to each other without the kids, or cell phone, or whatever else interfering. I had kind of forgotten what The Coach's voice sounded like...and I really like his voice. It was also nice to remember that he still does cute things like steer me around by the small of my back and get me tea when I run out at lunch.

And finally it was great to come home to the kids. I was so excited to see them. They looked like they had changed in only a week. Shaye Baby still tells me, "Hi Mommy!" about sixty times every day and waves her little hand at me. Maybe she thinks I am leaving again.

Well it is glad to be back. I can't wait to catch up with ya'll. What's been going on?

I Really Am Back

2011-07-14T14:39:00.000-07:00

Despite what you might think I did not abandon the kids to live in Mexico. In fact I was very glad to see each of them.
We had a great time and I will eventually write about it. The problem is I let my 13 year old get a Facebook and now my computer time is even less since it is imperative he connect with his friends. Life threatening I tell you.

I do have things to write about like driving in Mexico and a running workout in a parking garage. Let's not forget what all I ate to achieve a five pound weight gain. (Woo hoo!!)

First I have to make a long list of chores for the kids to do so I can get some computer time!!

I missed ya'll!

For Real This Time

2011-06-30T04:56:00.000-07:00

You might wake up one morning thinking, "Why can't you sweet babies sleep past 6:30?" You might roll out of bed and start fixing breakfasts not even thinking about Vermont, or even knowing there is such a thing as USA Triathlon National Championships.

You might turn on cartoons and sit down to read emails with a peach, strawberry, spinach smoothie and you might open up an email that says.

Congratulations HEATHER , you have qualified for the 2011 USA Triathlon Age Group Nationals after your finish in the TriGirl Super Sprint Triathlon ranked among the top 10 percent.

You might do a little dance and be amazed since you never even knew such a thing existed. For a few moments there might be ponderments (yes a word) about if it would be feasible to go. After remembering the cruise that is about to happen and the 40th birthday girl's weekend coming up in the fall, you might decide to just forget all about it.

UNTIL

Until you mention it to your dad and he thinks August in Vermont sounds like a great idea.

The next morning Dad may call and say he and Mom have decided to move their summer vacation from San Antonio to VERMONT and they would be glad to take you with them!!!!!!! (You may have the best parents EVER!!!!)

Your husband might sigh lovingly and say, "Have fun."

That's right ya'll. I am going to the USA Triathlon Age Group National Championship!! IN VERMONT. (All the second person was kinda lame, but I was referring to myself.)

I registered and then I looked at the course maps.

I think that little box down there represents hills. It looks like about 400 feet. Can someone break this down for a coastal type girl? Is 400 feet that much?? Am I going to die?

Here is me all registered to go.

To Do List
Rent wetsuit. It's going to be around 60 there I read.
Learn to change flat. Wouldn't that blow if I got all the way there and blew?
Figure out how to ship a bike!!
Get faster. I have about 50 days.

And as an added bonus.
I won't be able to do the Clear Lake Race with this.

Darn schedule conflicts.

Has anyone done one of these races before?
Any advice?
Should I stop eating bacon and egg hamburgers now? (Better yet stop mentioning them?)

Do you think the numbers of participants in this race is low because it is clear to Vermont and that is why the e-mailed me? Probably. I don't care. Don't burst my bubble.

Let Go

2011-06-29T04:52:00.000-07:00

"No really. Let go of the children."

I am afraid that is what my husband is going to be saying to me this week. I have mentioned a couple of times we are leaving for a cruise in the near future. Did I mention we weren't taking any kids.

I have been away before. I left the older three four years ago and went to Hawaii for ten days. The younger two I haven't left as much, probably no more than a weekend with my parents or The Coach's parents if they came in town to watch them.

The older kids visit their dad various weekends. We only live about ten miles apart so no matter whose weekends it is we can count on everyone being together at various sporting events and more sporting events. When they go for a week though I still have trouble letting go. I am not trying to say their dad is a bad guy. He does things differently than I do, and he has a tendency to be a "Disney Dad", but he loves them and he does take care of them. That isn't to say I don't worry about things like what they are eating, watching, and hearing. Really though it isn't parenting, or anything that makes me worried, just the ins and outs of not seeing them everyday.

Like I already said that babies have rarely been away from me unless I am a work. Yes, The Coach and I do go out and we do leave the kids with Ty, Sweet Aunt, Gramma, or Mia. It is rare though to go a day without seeing them. For the time we are going they will be in Illinois. The Coach's mom, Mia, is very excited to have them. We haven't been back to The Coach's hometown for a while and she is anxious to show them off and show them a good time.

I am sitting here trying to write what specifically I am worried about. I have no specific worries. The kids' dad, and the kids' Mia are perfectly able to care for them.
But really...........can anyone do it as well as me? :)

I need to let go and have a little faith in the prayers I will pray every day for their safety from danger, germs, evil, and junk food.

I am sure the week will fly by and I will be back home with their bickering and whining in no time. Meanwhile I guess someone else can listen to it.

I asked a few posts ago if the kids of bloggerland leave for a time during the summer or not.
Today I would like to know if you have any tips for peace of mind.

The Third Thursday

2011-06-28T06:06:00.000-07:00

My besties and I realized earlier this year we live within ten miles of each other and we rarely get to spend quality time together. Sure we get together with our friends, or do an activity with some of the kids, but as far as having time to actually talk and catch up. There was none.

So we instituted Third Thursdays. On the third Thursday of every month we go eat, shop, see a movie....whatever. It doesn't really matter what we do as long as we are together.

This month crept up on us and before we realized we had missed Third Thursday, so we swiftly moved it to Fourth Thursday. It was just as good.

The night got off to a slow start. I don't know if it is just this particular nail shop, or all of them but whenever we drop in or call for an appointment they tell us there are openings and we will get right in. Hours later...we won't be falling for that again.

This is me waiting patiently while P$ and Sarge are both getting a pedicure.

After I saw this though I wanted a pedicure any more. You would think a Sarge would be tougher than hot towels.

In the end though I got double toe bliss while both technicians worked to catch up. Ahhhhhh.

Once our toes were beautified we headed off for some eats. Good thing. I was starving by then. We went to the 59 Diner. I don't think P$ and Sarge were super excited, but I was. I got that bacon, egg, cheeseburger I had been craving and a jamoca almond fudge shake. Delish!!

It was thick and I couldn't get anything.

Some bawdy humor may have been volleyed about.

Or maybe Sarge was just laughing at my chin hair. I had to ask.

(I had forgotten my camera that night and P$ used hers. She wouldn't give it to me for any shots of her or a group shot. I must remember camera in the future.)

We discussed what was up in our families, kids and so forth. We also discussed the trip we plan on taking this fall when all of us will be turning 40* - We had to have a conference call with Jen who lives in Austin.We may have had to tell her, NO CAMPING! Just saying.

We had a drink and went to a movie. That is right. We are awesome. Four venues in ONE night!! After the movie, Bridesmaids, we realized it was midnight. We are party animals!!

I have tried to write about my best girlfriends a few times, but I just can't seem to capture what I feel with words. I met P$ in the sixth grade when I borrowed a dime from her for lunch. I met Sarge in the seventh grade when I said next to her in math. She wanted to be a police officer even then. I met Jen in homeroom in seventh grade.
New friends are great and I always appreciate meeting new people.
But you can't make old friends. No one else knows my high school boyfriends. No one else remembers my parent's rules or my pesky brother.

No one else would be willing to go around town one day taking stupid pictures of me just so I would have something to blog about.

I have the best friends in the world obviously or I wouldn't have wanted to hang out with them for the last 26 years, and they wouldn't have put up with me if they weren't as totally cool as they are.

***Sarge, Jen and I will all be 40 in September. Young and virile P$ won't be 40 clear till April. Just for the record.

It's My Turn - FMBT

2011-06-27T22:00:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone,
I am very excited to be a guest host of FMBT today. I look forward to meeting all of you. Click here or here to head on over the regular (or far from it) going ons of this family.
And please check out the real hostess!!

It’s everyone’s favorite day of the week again, Tuesday..

So that means it’s time to link up & follow for

Follow Me Back Tuesday

Hosted By:

Survey Junkie, Little Yaya’s & Boobies,BabiesAndABlog

With Guest Hosts:

Nancy from Finding blessings in everyday life

Heather from Heather's View and the Shoe

How it Works

Follow all 3 Hosts & Guest Host's - Spots 1-5 leave a comment w/ a link to your blog so we can follow you back ( only leave a comment that you follow if you actually follow )

Snag our button & make a F.M.B.T. post.
After you post use that link to add your blog to the hop along with your blog name

( NO BLOG HOPs & GIVEAWAYS PLEASE ) These entries will be deleted.

Follow the blogs you like & Follow Back who follows you ( Remember to leave a comment so you can be followed back )
And most importantly - Have Fun and Come back and see us every Tuesday !!

Link up every Tuesday at 12:00 am est

Totally Awesome

2011-06-27T05:13:00.000-07:00

Awesome is Tayte's new favorite word. Actually it has been for a while.

I did an interview with him the other day.
Me: Tayte, am I your favorite mommy?
Tayte: (distractedly) Yes.
Me: It is because I am so pretty?
Tayte: Yes. You are awesome.

I have the poor thing brainwashed.

Totally Awesome Totals for the week.
running: 21.57 miles
cycling: 56.85 miles
swimming: 5500
weights: 1x
YOGA: 1x - Yes. I made it to ONE yoga class. Yeah me!

I am trying to get as many workouts in as I can before we go on the cruise. The Coach said something about me not working out while we are on the cruise. I wonder if he will notice if I just swim fast circles around him while we are snorkeling! Actually he seems fine with the four forty five minute treadmill sessions I am supposed to complete on board the ship.

I asked The Coach to take some pictures of me in my "evening/dinner" dresses and he asked if I shouldn't wait to do that AFTER the cruise. Duh. I"l have plenty to write about after the cruise. I have NOTHING to write about now.

So.
Anyone care go wager (not really) on how many treadmill workouts I complete?
Would you rather see just shoes, or whole outfits, or nothing. (If you pick nothing I will NOT pose nude....I'll just not put any pictures.)
While I watch this The Coach is watching True Blood. What do you think of this show. Good? or Vampire Porn? (I am not saying that can't be a good thing, just smutty good.)

You are My Sunshine

2011-06-26T19:28:00.000-07:00

One of Tayte's very favorite songs. So cute.
I was rewarded by Rory at Mom's Time Out .
Her blog is a great Canadian blog where you can truly get a time out!!
Thanks Rory.

I am supposed to tell you something about myself and then choose others to receive the award.

I am racking my rain here to think of something to tell you, but unfortunately I have told you everything.
How I would rather my daughter fold clothes than do homework.
I am allergic to everything including latex. Go ahead make jokes about the number of kids have. Everyone else does.
You already know I am my mom's favorite.

Shees. I really should have paced myself.

Oh. Here I thought of something.
When I was little I thought monsters lived under my bed, but not just any monsters. Ankle-less monsters. And since they had none...they wanted mine. So for two or three years I always got in bed by taking a running start and jumping up into that four poster bed from a as many feet away as I could to save my ankles. Getting out of bed in the morning was no problem because of course they monsters only come out at night.

So there. Now you know. I was a crazy kid.

I am supposed to pick ten blogs to pass this award on to, but ten seems overwhelming so in true Heather fashion I will just do nothing and say that I enjoy all the blogs I read so check some out on my list over yonder!!

Thanks Again Rory!!

Question - Did you have any strange childhood imaginings?

This Just In

2011-06-23T12:35:00.000-07:00

Nothing is "just in". Nothing is exciting.
I just couldn't think of a better title.

I haven't written about tri training lately, so I am going to do that. Just in case you think all I am doing around here is grounding kids and taking naps.

I have three areas to discuss. (Really just two. I'll have to think of a third one while I write.)

1. Nutrition
I texted my sista-girl buds and told them for our girls night I wanted to go to the 59 Diner and have a fried egg hamburger and a milkshake. Sarge texted me back that it sounded like a great meal for an athlete. It's ok. She can make fun of me all she wants since she called me an athlete.
Other than that we are holding strong on the sugar limitations. No sodas have been in the house diet, or regular. As far as I know there have been no pop tarts. It turns out that left with no other choice the kids will eat strawberries, blueberries, cantalope, watermelon, apples, and oranges. After about two weeks they will even quit griping about it.

Here is Saigie enjoying a peach. Do you like her hair feather??

I finally ventured into the realm of smoothie-ness. I have been making delicious sugar free smoothies with greek yogurt, berries and peaches and spinach even. It is good to get some protein in the morning and even a couple of servings of fruit/veggies. I hope to keep this up when school starts. Rushed breakfast is the hardest time for me to make decent food choices.

Here is Ty lamenting the loss of his morning Pop-Tart. He did admit though that his workouts are going a lot better when he eats something more nutritious for breakfast.

2. Failure
I could really use a win. I don't think I have completed a run in like two weeks. That completion was awesome. The first time I have run six miles in under an hour!! Woot. Followed by two weeks of crap!
For example, this morning I was supposed to run 7 miles starting at warm up pace and slowly getting faster. I didn't make it.
Biking has been more difficult than usual. Two workouts a week I am supposed to get up to zone 4 heart rate and my legs just aren't cooperating. They kind of feel like big useless sacks of sand.

My imagine reasons are: resumed weight training, heat, workouts geared to building back up to olympic length triathlons, waking up to late and then dealing with heat.
My imagine solution: fried egg hamburger and beer and a cruise.

3. Critters
I have seen a lot of critters lately.
I have seen snakes, bunnies, squirrels, armadillos, a deer, buzzards and one possum who was walking right down the sidewalk at 5:30 am.
I don't know about vermin behaviors, but I guess the severe drought has them searching for water. Or maybe they are searching for Popsicles because the snake was right on my front porch. (Oh why didn't I take a picture!?)
The neighbor lady I accosted when I first moved in told me today she was running over the weekend and ran right past two coyotes thinking they were deer. She said one was pissed and lunged toward them. I guess after that he decided it was too hot to attack her or her dog. I will be on the look out.

It started raining today during my run which was nice. My arm started stinging and I realized I had through a swam of flying ants. There were about fifteen on my arm. These are the last five or so that managed to hang on for the entire run. (It is hard to take a picture of my own arm. Even more so when this creature is hanging on to my legs letting me know she was NOT happy to stay at home with the brothers while I ran.)

I got slightly spoiled by the Texas drought and I was quite shocked when I woke up to rain the other morning. I had to set up the bike trainer. I asked Ty to come take my picture. He smiled and said, "ok" then I never saw him again.....so just imagine me riding my little heart out here.

I thank all of you with low entertainment thresholds for making it through the whole post!

Do you know if any tried and true solutions for sand bag legs? Do you like fried egg hamburgers? Have you ever fed a snake a Popsicle?

Coed Campout - Follow Up

2011-06-22T04:57:00.000-07:00

Thanks all of you for playing along. It was nice to hear different viewpoints. Like I said we certainly don't have to agree.

The setup to this post is here.

Basically here is the denouement. (Once when I first teaching I was being observed and got nervous and I said that word as it looks...day-now-ment.... Of course my observer was a former English teacher and I got RIPPED!!)

Here is the aftermath of the incident.....

Ty got in the car when I picked him up and started chatting happily about the camp out. He didn't hesitate to mention there were girls there. He didn't try to hide that fact.

I got very quiet trying to figure out what was going on with girls being there. He just kept on chatting causing me to think maybe I was over-reacting, so I stayed quiet.
After a few minutes I guess he noticed my white knuckles on the steering wheel or maybe my clenched jaw. He asked, "Are you mad at me?"
I told him I had to think it through and determine if I was overreacting or not and we just shouldn't talk until then.
He said he was sorry and that he wondered why I had allowed him to stay.
Duh............Ya told me it was you and one kid. A GUY kid.

So when I got home I discussed it with The Coach. I was really hoping he would say it wasn't a big deal about the neighbor girls and we would deal with the shoddy answer to my text and move on. Instead I went from being the ticked one, to being the voice of reason as The Coach's head exploded and he started looking up military schools on the internet.

The main issue was the fact that I asked who "they" were and Ty did not release all the names. Point 1 - I didn't ask the right followup question. Point 2 - I shouldn't have had to.

As far as the parents......the girls who slept over have lived next door their whole lives. I am sure they are like sisters to him. I am certainly not trying to make anything sordid out of an innocent sleep over. I would have appreciated it had they checked with me, but again the main responsibility is on Ty and me.

He was reminded of OUR expectations. My thinking here is that the first time (well now second) time Ty spends the night with a girl I want it to be at least a big decision, not just some casual thing that happens. I could be wrong in my thinking, but hey..I have been wrong before.

. P$ didn't see any problem with the coed sleep over part.
That is fine with us. P$ is just as dedicated to raising morally sound children as I am. She was allowed to have coed sleepovers when she was a kid and everything turned out just fine. ( I wasn't even allowed to have a boy in my room!)

So there are both sides of the story.
Ty was grounded for two weeks for lying by omission. He seemed to accept his fate. Maybe he even thought he got off easy. I mean really grounded is better than military school.

Furthermore this explains why Ty has been in so many of the pictures I have posted lately. He wasn't allowed to go anywhere without The Coach or me!!

Have YOU ever been to military school? What was the most (non illegal) trouble you ever got into growing up?

The Incident

2011-06-21T11:13:00.000-07:00

I was thinking the other day about how when I post something everyone who comments pretty much agrees with me. That's great because I am always right. There I go being hilarious again.

The thought crossed my mind that maybe bloggers just feel like we have to agree and that is not true. So I am going to tell you about a recent incident at our house and tomorrow I will follow up with the consequences occurring here.

See...you won't know if you are agreeing or not!! Aren't I sneaky?
I am looking for a little bit of controversy. Not a lot. Just enough so that I do not have to start watching soaps or anything.

Just for the record my very best friend in the whole world, P$, and I don't even agree on this. And we still love each other.

Here goes.

A couple of weeks ago Ty, my 15 yo, had the chance to go fishing with his dad during "my" weekend. I let him go and him and two guy friends and two girls friends had a great time. On his way home we had the following text conversation.

Ty: They want to know if I can spend the night?
Me: Who is they?
Ty: Trent. We are going to camp out in his backyard.
Me: Sounds cool. Have a great time. Call me in the morning.

I did a tri the next day and in the middle of my nap - of course - Ty called me to come get him. I did.
In the car he started telling me about all they fun they had during the, "camp out".

I thought Trent was the only one who was going to be camping so I asked who else was there and he said, "Amanda and Taylor."

Ok - So........I won't tell you which side P$ is on, or what side I am on.
You tell me....what would YOUR reaction have been?

I Have to Choose Just One?

2011-06-20T05:15:00.000-07:00

I was listening to morning radio the other day while they were discussing a study done on marriage. The claim was that most divorces would be avoided if a spouse would just eliminate ONE annoying habit or trait.
I started thinking about The Coach's (very few) annoying habits.

No Middle Ground - I have asked him before if he could maybe develop some mid level reactions. Right now we get either 0 or 10. Kill the dog? Drop a candy bar? It gets the same initial reaction from The Coach. (Hypothetically speaking....we have never killed the dog to test this theory, but there was a guinea pig incident.)

Asks One Million Questions - He is a thorough person and that is a good thing. In the process of being thorough though he asks 3,398 questions. If I do not know the answer he asks the same question over and over worded differently as if that will make me know the answer. Probably this wouldn't bother me so much if his son had not genetically inherited the trait. He peppers me with a constant barrage of questions on a daily basis causing me to lose patience with questions in general.

Magazine Placement - I am not a good housekeeper and I do not care. However I hate to have items lying around on tables and counters. For some reason The Coach insists on fanning his Sports Illustrated out on our entry way table as if our living room were a dentist's waiting room.

I was having immense fun amusing myself, drinking my coffee, and mulling over The Coach's annoying traits when a thought slammed into my brain, "What annoying trait would The Coach want to rid me of?"
Gasp. It occurred to me I may have annoying traits.

Morning Person - I start talking to The Coach the second he rolls out of bed and when he doesn't chatter back at me I am assume he is mad. Maybe more annoying than the fact that I am so sparky at 5:30 am is the fact that after five years I can never remember that he will not really be awake until around 9:00 am. Conversely I cannot usually keep my eyes open past 9:30 pm, yet I force him to go to bed with me.

Only Caring about Where the Magazines Are - Our house is not the pig sty is used to be, but The Coach would definitely like it a little cleaner. Contrastingly I am more concerned with ~~blogging~~ ~~training~~ playing with the kids and actually taking them outdoors and stuff. I try to cover this up by having an emergency cleaning session when The Coach calls to say he is leaving the field. I guess he doesn't notice.

After that it is probably a tie between my pajamas, bad breath, training complaints, and forgetfulness.

It is a good thing I can cook.

What annoying trait would you erase of your spouse's?
And the more difficult question....What annoying trait would your spouse eliminate of yours?

Never Kiss a Gift Gun

2011-06-19T05:46:00.000-07:00

From time to time I try to reward The Coach's awesomeness with a gift.
He is awesome with his athletic supported-ness, and his sexy mustached-ness

It never works out. Here is an example.

Idea:
The idea was to buy The Coach something for Father's Day. He bought me a cool bike for Mother's Day. We got him one too and he said that is good enough of a gift. I have been spending a butt load of money to get ready for the cruise, so I wanted to get him something. (Ok. The most expensive thing I bought was a 100.00 swimsuit, but to me that is a butt load of money.)
He wouldn't give me any hints and said not to get him anything. We do the budget Dave Ramsey style so it is pretty hard to get hold of any secret gift money. In the past I would skim money from the grocery money, but with Ty's current 4000 calorie a day intake that just isn't possible.
So I scraped up some allowance. I fibbed about some gas money. I Craig's listed some junk around the house. I cashed in our ATM rewards points and I was off.

Gift:
I headed to the gun store with my dad. There were about a million guns there. Ty was in heaven. I knew The Coach needed a .20 gauge. My dad found a few .20 gauge pumps. One looked pretty good. I really wanted to get him a over/under though as I have been intrigued by those since I was a kid shooting my dad's. The shooter cracks it open after two shots and it spits the empty shells out. Awesome.
Anyway I found a used one for 200.00 dollars more than I had scraped up. (Ty offered to lend me the rest of the money. Isn't he sweet?) I decided to put the balance on our credit card we never use.

Interruption:
Hey. You know...if you joke in a gun store full of nervous sales people packing major heat that your husband might get a text that the credit card has been used at the gun store he might not come home fearing a PMS induced murderous rage....no one will laugh.

Back to the story:
I filled out the paperwork for a background check, and all was going swimmingly until I got to the first question. It said, "Are you going to be the sole owner of this weapon?" It was a trick. The penalty for fraudulently buying a weapon for someone else in Texas is 10,000 and ten years in jail. I know because it is on billboards all over the city.
So I passed the background check and bought the gun. My stomach was in knots. The Coach would either be majorly excited, or majorly PISSED that I had put something on the credit card we never used. I was developing ulcers while I waited to see which.

The Problem:
When I got home The Coach asked me to accompany him to the suit store to buy a suit he has to have for the cruise. As we got into the truck he asked me, "Can I have that red credit card for the suits." I calmly handed it over, but inside I was dying. He never uses that card!! It only has a low limit. What are the chances? I needed to smoke. I don't even smoke.

He shopped FOREVER which is a whole 'nother post. Finally he made his selections and we waited for the world's oldest and slowest sales person to ring us up. I was in agony! My newly developed ulcers were beginning to bleed. Finally he slid the card through and started wrapping up the deal.

Then
He
Said

"I am sorry. That card was declined."

The Coach started to argue with him that there was a 0 balance on the card and I interrupted him saying, "I need to talk to you." I went outside and burst into tears.

Of course I had to spill the beans and explain I had bought him an expensive gift. Of course he was not mad at me, but was very excited to get his gift. I gave it to him that night. I think he likes it.

It is tricky to buy a gun for someone who may be upset that you spent money! Again..not a funny statement to nervous gun shop sales guys!!

What is the best surprise you have ever pulled off for your spouse? Are you good at keeping a secret?

She is Baaaaaaack.!!

2011-06-17T06:59:00.000-07:00

Saigie has been gone on vacation this week with her best friend and her mom. They had a great time. We went to pick Saigie up and she was glad to see us and enjoyed being the center of all of our affection. We missed her very much
We got into the car and exhaustion set in.

On second thought maybe it was annoyance.

Extreme annoyance. Ty seemed to need to make up for lost time.

I am not sure what Ty is doing here, but I am sure it is annoying.

Awwwww. I think they missed each other.

Do your kids go out of town without you in the summer? Does it drive you crazy?

Clear Lake Tri

2011-06-16T05:39:00.000-07:00

Sub Title - My Butt Thanks YOU, Dad

My dad took pity on me and my repeated lamentations about my butt. More specifically my bike saddle was killing my butt. It got to where I didn't even want to sit in a regular chair any more. Which is unfortunate as is hard to drink wine lying down. I mean it can be done, but it is messy.
Anyway he offered to buy me a new seat. I declined because expensive.
I went to the bike store to get a new fit and the bike guy pointed out that the rails on my seat were bent. He gave me a loaner to try out. I can't say that I like it.
My tri coach suggested a different seat and it was in fact expensive. I called Dad up to see if the offer was still good. It was. Whew....he hadn't spent the money on my pesky brothers.
It has gel and it is one of those "cut out" seats. I have used it twice now. Once on the road and once on the trainer. The road day was terrible as far as zones and speed and I was afraid it was the seat, but now looking back I think my legs were just toast last week for some reason. It feels good and I can sit in a regular chair again. That's good. The red wine stains were ruining the couch.

Next Sub Title - I Hate Sadist Triathlon Route Planners

My next big race is supposed to be the Clear Lake Olympic Distance Triathlon in August. I haven't signed up for it yet. Here's why.

You probably don't remember but this big causeway was mile five and six of the Kemah Olympic Distance race I ran in April. It was a killer.
For some reason the event planners of the Clear Lake Tri have decided to use this damn bridge again except this time for the bike.
Are they freaking kidding me?
I mean I live on the coast. There are plenty of miles - you can actually see them - stretched out end to end not changing in elevation at all. In fact they are pretty much at sea level. I do not know why the planners had to put the bike route out of the way to include this structure. I hate them. I am sorry. I do.
I know some of you encounter hills daily and I respect you.
You know that saying, "Run for the Hills"? Well I don't do that. I run from them. Bike too.
Sigh.
What is a wimpy triathlete to do?
Anyone know any good hill workouts to do when there are no hills in the area?

What do you like to avoid? Heat? Hills? Wind? Cold? Dairy Queen?

Once Upon a Time

2011-06-14T05:14:00.000-07:00

It is summer time and I am reminded of Single Parent Vacation. This is a vacation sponsored by the church for single parents and their kids.
I went on the vacation two different summers.

The first time I took part the group was headed to a Dude Ranch in Bandera, Texas. I got the kids ready and we drove three hours to get there. We had a blast. We ate roasted marshmallows, and rode horses. The kids swam in the pool and played horseshoes. There were Bible Studies that I to this day remember as being very valuable to me. Especially at that time.

One day toward the end of the vacation the activity for the day was a river tubing trip. You know the type. Tubers sit in an inflatable inner tube and lazily float down the river. No problem.

I had three kids at the time. Saige was probably 3, Tanner 5, and Ty 8. They were adorable. I embarked on the journey. There were other families tubing and one nice father of three offered to help us. I told him I had it under control. (I sometimes have a slight problem asking for or accepting help. Unless I need my mom's help. Then I have no problem at all! Thanks Mom!) I got Ty and Tanner in their tubes and put Saigie on my lap. .

We got into the water and started our relaxing float. The group was inching further and further away from us. I tried to get the kids to paddle a little to catch up, but you can probably figure out how well that worked. I wasn't to worried. I could still see the group and I felt confident that someone would eventually wait for me. About ten minute later I heard Tanner hollering from behind me. He had managed to get stuck on some tree roots sticking out of the bank of the river. We were getting further and further from him. I hollered for someone ahead to help me, but no one heard. I hopped out of my tube and swam to Ty. I placed Saigie on his lap and I hooked my tube to his feet. I gave him instructions. "Do not move for any reason at all. Hold your sister. Do not move."

I swam against the current and fetched Tanner in probably the only twenty feet of river that was over my head. I pulled him back to where Ty had floated. While I was gone Saigie had lost her shoes. Thank God Ty did exactly what I said and didn't move for any reason. I rounded up the shoes. Got Saigie back on my lap and continued to float on.

I didn't think that much about for the rest of the float. That night I laid in bed and thought about the day. I was overcome with cold chills. I had put my baby in the lap of my eight year old and left them? In a river that was clearly over their heads? They could have drowned. Both of them. I was breathless from the thoughts of what could have happened.

Even now I am wondering. Why didn't I pull Ty and Saige with me back to get Tanner? Why weren't they wearing life jackets? What even made me think going tubing with three young kids was a good idea?

Whew. I have to stop now, my blood pressure is rising.

Thank you God for protecting less than brilliant parents and their babies!

Do you have an harrowing experiences that keep you up at night?

Week One!

2011-06-13T05:14:00.000-07:00

I thought this summer I would work on my blog and really write enjoyable stories about my family and capture pictures to fulfill the scrapbook part of this blog.

Ha!

Instead I have been reduced to doing what I am doing right now, hiding out silently in the study while dinner burns so no one will realize I am doing something for myself. If they realize it all hell will break loose. Someone will hurt themselves. Someone else will spill something and inevitably someone will need the computer urgently.
So be very quiet while I quickly fill you in on our week.

Tayte rode a horse and got a trophy at his soccer party!!

We have eaten multiple Popsicles on the front porch. Yes. Popsicles must be eaten in the partially nude. That's the rule.

I promise I really do put clothes on Shaye Baby in the summer.

Saige is lucky to have a little brother and sister so she can enjoy "baby" things under the guise of helping them!

We found this water park to walk to Wednesday night while Ty and Tanner are at church. It took Tayte a while to get get brave, but they finally did. Tayte was so cute explaining this to Ty. He told him, "Aren't you proud of me? Say you are proud of me."

And finally we have been enjoying the first fruits of The Coach's vegetable garden. He has planted zucchini, beans, tomatoes, peppers, onions and lettuce. So far just the tomatoes have been ready.

So we accomplished some goals. I took pictures. (It looks like it may be the last week for that since someone - Shaye Baby - stole the SIM card from the computer and hid it somewhere. I think her goals this summer is to drive me insane.) We went to parks and we relaxed. I read two books and I am in the middle of two.
I think we have reached our nutritional goals and our Forced Family Fun goals.

My totals for the week were.
Run: 19.55 miles
Bike: 59.57 miles
Swim: 4200 meters
weights: 1x

I did not meet the yoga goals with the football and volleyball workouts the kids had. Maybe this week!!

Aren't you proud of me? Say you are proud of me.
Just kidding of course.

I am fixna to pour a glass of wine now and try to catch up with some of y'all!!

Is it summer for you? How is it going? OR How much longer do you have to wait?
What is your favorite local word? Mine is "fixna".

No Wonder

2011-06-09T04:19:00.000-07:00

I lost nearly fifteen pounds this school year. I still have like two to go. My wine consumption may go up while I am at home with the kids, so that two pounds may never happen. Whatever.

Before losing any weight I went and had my resting metabolism calculated. Basically the result was that I could eat around 1500 calories a day and maintain that same weight. I get to add back in the amount of calories I work off training for triathlon. That could be any where from 300 - 1200 depending on the workout schedule for the day, usually 600ish.

I monitor the calories in order to lose weight, but also to make sure I have enough fuel to train for an endurance sport.
One of my goals this summer was to help the kids eat healthier. This morning I ~~nagged~~ talked to Ty about the amount of calories he was taking in. By 11:30 am he had eaten the following.
Colossal power bar thingie
bottle of Muscle Milk
large orange
one Totino's pizza - the whole pizza, not a slice.
Cesar salad with chicken
Immediately after the pizza and salad he fixed himself a bowl of cereal I could swim in. I exploded. I told him it was no wonder there was never any food at our house and our grocery bill was more than our mortgage!! (Not really) I pointed out to him that it was 11:30 am and he was getting ready to exceed 2000 calories of food!!

I marched into the computer room ready to prove my point. I looked up the daily caloric needs for a 6'1, 255 pound 15 yo. (I had to look up 19 yo. They didn't have this information for that size of 15 yo.)
3350
3350 - A DAY
3350 calories a day to main his current weight.
I read on. It also stated that for every hour of exercise a person of this size completes 600 calories should be added back in. Ty works out for two hours every morning with the football team, but I am only going to add 600 cuz I figure for some of that time they are getting instructions, or on a water break. Mostly I will not add 1200 calories back in because I just can't fathom it.

I asked him if he wanted to lose any weight and he said, "some". (His coaches have told him to trim some fat, but they don't expect to lose actual pounds while lifting so much weight. Just in case you thought I was encouraging my child to be obese.) To lose one pound a week would want to eat 2850 calories a day.
I can't even imagine.

No wonder our pantry is always bare and my wallet is always empty.

If could eat 3000 calories a day and not gain any weight, what would you eat?

Lexicon Love

2011-06-07T04:19:00.000-07:00

I have never wanted a smart phone. First they seem only to be as smart as the person holding them which doesn't hold my promise for me. Second they seem to turn some people into technology addicted future carpel tunnel patients who are reduced to using them to check the weather every fifteen minutes and look up directions to a restaurant they have already been eating at for the last three years.
Besides I would rather spend that thirty dollars of data plan money on cheap jewelry and GU every month.

Until now.
My work buddy, Shawna, has the coolest app on her phone. (Yes, even cooler than the app The Coach has that alerts him to upcoming PMS.) She has a word of the day app. We have been having loads of fun with it. We learn the words and then make sentences out of them. Yeah. I know. We might be nerds.

Here is a sampling. (Look em up yourself. It's late and I don't want to type definitions to words you might already know.)
lambent
deleterious
banshee
iota
nicitate
numismatist

Sentence - Had I possessed one iota of lambent insight I would have recognized him for the deleterious soul he was.

Look at that! The opening line to my future best seller.

Or
I nicitated at the numismatist who was screaming like a banshee as I pulled a rare coin out of my cleavage.

Ok. That one was lame.

Write me a sentence using any of those words, or any other words that might be your favorite, like somnambulate. I promise I won't steal the sentence to use in any future novel!!

Thanks in advance for the entertainment.

Matter Over Mind

2011-06-06T04:14:00.000-07:00

I know. It's backwards.
Yesterday I competed in the Tejas Triathlon - Sprint distance in Sugarland, Tx.

I posted a goal for this race as 1:18:00 based on my times in my last race.*
After I posted it I laughed.
Then I cried.
Then I was sickly.
Then I couldn't breathe.
It got hot out.
Then as the race got closer I kept thinking of humorous ways to write about my failure. Thinking up failure recap posts before packet pickup has even occurred is probably a bad thing.
This race kicked my arse last year in a bad way.

The night before the race The Coach found out the next game in his baseball tournament was at 8:00 am. He wouldn't be able to concierge** the race for me for the first time ever. I was resigned to having a crappy race.

I trucked myself up to the race and before I had even completed the mile walk to transition I realized I was having some severe digestive problems. (To put it mildly.) I made three more porta can stops before I even got in the water. (At that point I wished I had made another.) I texted The Coach that I was having problems. Too bad he wasn't there to take pictures of the porta shitters as he calls them.

I got into the water determined not to swim an extra 100 meters as I had at this race in the past. I started off on the far right with the plan of staying close to the buoys. By the time I got to the second buoy I had crossed diagonally through the wave of swimmers and situated myself in the most crowded place possible. I am sure that was just as enjoyable for the swimmers I ran into as it was for me. It was crowded and I tried to hang, but many people were doing breast stroke. Getting kicked by a breast stroke kick is way more painful than a flutter kick. It is also harder to get around a breast stroker. I had swallowed ~~duck poop~~ water and had a goggle full of water, but really I should expect that by now. I finally had to breaststroke too in order to map out a better route. The rest of the swim went smoother.
Time: 14:40 - This is actually the time for both the swim and T1 as there seemed to be some timing glitch?
Place: ? (Probably 9)

I transitioned to the ride feeling no better about the whole race. That is the feeling that comes when your bike is the last one on the rack after the swim. I soon started to feel better as my mph seemed pretty solid. I saw a pack of ladies in front of me and I thought if I could just hang with them I would be doing well. Honestly I didn't give more than a passing though to saving something for the run. I was thinking my run would suck no matter what. I kept the pack in sight for the first loop and then I lost most of them on the second loop. The bike seemed to be over before I knew it and I felt pretty confident.
Time: 36:36:4
Place: 10
Pace: 21.3

T2 was long. Probably because I was dreading the run. This run kills me every year. In order to make it less painful this year I tried to familiarize myself with the route before race day. I do better when I can spot something I recognize along the way. I thought back and remembered that the path along the drainage ditch is always the part that has done me in in the past. This strategy seemed to help. At least no one with a walker passed me this year! I didn't see anyone from my age group pass me, but the head of the 35-39 pack blew by me in the last mile. I just kept saying to myself, "run, run, run". My strategy was to skip water stations until the last one where I poured water over my head and took one sip of Gatorade. I made the turn into the drainage ditch and tried to keep my pace under 10:00/mile. Finally I saw the little white bridge that signaled proximity to the finish. I kicked in it probably too late I could have started running faster sooner.
Time: 28:34:8
Place: 12
Pace: 9:31

Total: 1:21:11.9
Place: 11/20

The reason I call this Matter Over Mind is because my mind had highly underestimated what my body was capable of . I so badly wanted to do better than last year. And I did. I improved on my time by ten minutes.
I didn't think I would though.
I thought I would suck.
There is a difference between psyching yourself UP and psyching yourself OUT. I did the latter. My body had to override my mind this time and prove myself wrong. If those two would ever get together I might be phenomenal.
I don't know that I could have hit my goal time, but I probably could have shaved off another minute in transition and maybe another minute in the run if I had been in a better mental state.

So to recap the recap................

On the pro side
Good bike. (Must have been a fast route all the times were good, but that's cool. I can live with that.)
Did my first race solo and lived, or more to the point didn't get lost and mugged.
I realize I have got to spend some time working on my swim which used to be my best leg.

Con side
No pictures as I was solo.
Sucky attitude caused me to forget to enjoy the first half of the race.
Drought caused lake to extra duck poopy.
My son called me in the middle of my post race nap. Grrr.

*Apparently when I originally set my goal I failed to factor in that last year is was an 11 mile ride. 12 miles at 19 mph should have been 40 minutes. This would have made my goal time 1:24:00.

**Term stolen from Rock Star Tri who is currently on hiatus.

So. Overall all, not bad at all.

What experiences have exceeded your expectations lately?

Can You Hear Me Now?

2011-06-03T07:00:00.000-07:00

As you all who are following my life with anticipation of my next move will recall, I fired my triathlon coach.
Then the next day I rehired him.

Since then he has acted a tad like he may be scared of me. Than again maybe he is just squirrely.
I just wanted to use the word, "squirrely". Now I have. I can move on.

He called me today. He asked me how my workout plan was going and asked if I was doing ok and if I was happy.
I told him I was fine and that the only concern I have is that I have been exhausted lately.

He was concerned about my exhaustion and asked if it was the workouts specifically or just life in general. I told him it was life in general and that I wasn't getting any sleep.

Interruption -
For some reason have been waking up about 2:34 am every morning for about the last three weeks. I then cannot go back to sleep until about 4:00am. My alarm clock goes off at 4:30.
I have been falling asleep while driving which is what I always do when sleep deprived.
Back to story.

He suggested that I take a break and have a slow week the week after my next race. I agreed that as much I didn't want to do that it would probably be for the best and maybe between a workout break and the first week of summer I could get some rest.

He said, "Your son will be out of school. Is that your only kid?"

Interruption -
Remember I took Ty with me to the team fartleks the other day?
I used to take Saigie to the team track workout, but I decided it was traumatic for her to see me near death wheezing and cussing.
Remember one of my problems with this coach was that he didn't seem to remember me from one week to the next since I hired him in February?
Now he has SEEN and spoken to two of my kids. I don't expect him to remember them, so that is fine. A lot of his clients probably have kids.
Back to story.

I explained to him both when I hired him and when I rehired him that I cannot rely on group workouts because of my schedule with my FIVE kids. I explained to him that if the crux of his plan was group workouts this team was not for me.

Back to the phone conversation, I told him (again) that I have FIVE kids. I told him Ty was my oldest and that they ranged in age from 15 to almost 2.

He said, "HOLY SHIT! I am impressed you manage to do any workouts. I would be tired too. You have five kids?" (I am sorry Mom, but that is what he said. And I am nothing if not completely accurate on this blog.)

I wasn't mad about it. I am not exactly annoyed by it, more like humorously confused. I started ruminating over some of our past conversations. I just wanted to use the word ruminating.

Once I faked embarrassment while we were taking our shoes off that mine socks didn't match. We were commiserating on the hardship of finding two matching socks and I said, "Seven people's worth of socks are impossible to keep on top of." What did he think I was talking about? Was he listening?

Another time he was admonishing me for not running faster, yadda yadda yadda, at a track workout and I responded, "I just come here to get away from my kids!" Well it was more like, "I GRUNT just come GASP WHEEZE here to get GASP away from WHEEZE my kids." What did he think I was talking about? Was he even listening? He laughed so I assume he heard me.

The workout feedback he requires we complete after workouts often includes things like, "I would have liked to swim the other 500 meters, but I had to pick up a kid up from school, take one to art, and take one to the doctor to get a Polly Pocket shoe extracted from her nose." Does he even read the logs he insists I keep? (Does he not read my blog?)

Sigh.

I am not going to fire him again. He is knowledgeable and I have shown improvement. The Coach is disappointed by this decision. He was still hoping to have a reason to beat him up.
I am not even really trying to complain about the fact that he does not remember me or more specifically my situation.
I just am wondering, "Does he ever listen?"
If not he is missing out on my number one excuse for any failure in my life including, but not limited to, a messy house, late grading, forgetting friend's birthdays and running slowly.

Are there people in your life like this? Do you do this? Do I? (I guess you wouldn't know. Unless I have done it to you that is.)

Blog from Shaye

2011-06-02T05:00:00.000-07:00

Hi Mom's Blogger Friends,

It's me, Shaye Baby.
I am not sure exactly what you know about me since I can't read, but it occurs to me I might getting a bad rap on this blog. I have been referred to as, "ornery" in real life so I can only imagine the accusations that are flying around here.

Please rest assured I agree with the ornery assessment, but I am here to set the record straight as far as the reasons for it.
Here is a day in my life.

I am awakened around 6:00 am most days, but other days I stand in my bed and call for a parent to no avail. If I didn't know better I would think people were ignoring me, but I don't know why. Shouldn't we all be getting up?
After that rude awakening someone usually shoves a pop tart into my hand and plunks me in the car soggy diaper and all. No one asks me what flavor Pop Tart I want, or if I even WANT a pop tart. Some days I really would dig a nice plate of eggs Benedict.

By 6:30 I am dropped at the sitter and I have a pretty good time with all the little ones there. After nap time Mom comes to get me. (By the way I insist on calling her Daddy. Just because.)

For the rest of the afternoon and evening my mom flits from room to room. Who knows what she is doing, None of the possibilities are good.
She could be leaving and I would stuck here with one or more incompetent siblings. I work to make sure that happens as little as possible. Screaming helps in this area as no one wants to be left home with a screaming baby.
She could be having a snack and not giving me any.
She could be folding laundry which I must unfold as soon as she turns her back.
Generally in these situations getting hold of a Sharpie or fighting with the cat seems to get her attention.

Sometimes I manage to get distracted by a toy or usually some kitchen utensils. This is great until one of the siblings comes by and decides whatever I have is theirs, or otherwise needs to be ripped from my grasp. Now I could talk, but what is the point when an ear piercing scream works so well? If it doesn't work....I hit.

Another reason I have to scream is because people are always trying to "help" me. Rarely are they ever trying to help me do what I want to do and that is frustrating.

Two of my favorite pastimes are refusing to talk and refusing to come when called.
People are always trying to get me to say things. They tell me, "Say cow, Say Saigie, Say Night Night." I don't want to say any of that crap. I am not a dog who does tricks for Pete's sake. I have my pride.
Running away is great fun. Especially when no one is playing with me. It is an instant game. If I have a toothbrush, or someone's cell phone it is even more fun. And. I am fast!

So you see I am not all that bad. I am the youngest of five and it is important I don't let anyone forget I am here.

What do your kids do for fun?

Snarky Kid

2011-06-01T04:19:00.000-07:00

I generally like the vast majority of my students. Sometimes it takes a while to get to know some. Some just aren't pleasant, but they usually have a reason.
Everyone once in a while though I just come across one that I don't like.
At the beginning of the year I try to give students a fresh start every day. I try to pretend they didn't say something hateful the day before or refuse to wake up. By about the end of February though I have run out of nice.

This year I had a student I didn't particularly like. He was a tall, good looking, middle class kid. As far as I know he didn't have a reason to be snide, condescending, or irresponsible, but he was. He came in from another teacher about six weeks into the year because of a scheduling snafu. It is amazing how one kid can change the tone of a class, even when there is already twenty six kids in the class. He was one of those rare kids who had the ability to make me feel self conscious while I was teaching.

Suffice it to say we went round and round. Routinely I called roll and he purposely didn't answer. I counted him absent. (Which was cutting off my nose to spite my face. I just had to go make corrections at the end of each six weeks.) One day I was fed up with his snarky interruptions. I mean really if the students are going to disrupt the lesson I prefer them to at least be funny. I kicked him out. (I rarely EVER kick a kid out or send one to their dean.)

By the end of April I had not only run out of nice, I had run out of fake nice, and then patience. I just tried to avoid the kid. Maybe I too became snarky.

I went to my box one morning last week. There were a few thank you notes in there. One of the health teachers requires her students write a letter to their favorite teacher and thank them for what they learned that year. Here are some excerpts:
"Thank you for treating us literally like we are your own kids."
"I appreciate you for being interesting even when you were irrelevant."
"You scream a lot, but you are a lot of fun."

Then I opened on from my snarky student. It was long.
Basically it said that he had learned quite a bit of history this year and he was sure his TAKS scores would reflect that. He said he wanted me to know that I was a good teacher and that he did like me. He explained that we just butted heads because we were both sarcastic. He hoped I had a good summer.

I nearly cried. I felt so terrible. I had looked at this kid and only saw someone who didn't have any obvious excuses for being a pill. I tried for a while to give him a fresh start and then......I gave up on him. I didn't give up on his learning as I always thought he was getting the lesson. I didn't think he was struggling with or worried about his grades. Apparently though he was worried about his scores. He came into my room that day and smiled at me for the first time all year and told me got commended in social studies. I was shocked that he even cared, but he did.

I don't have any ending to this story. I would like to say that I will remember each kid has needs and I will never forget. I would like his note makes up for an entire year of snark, but that would be a lie. I will say though that things are not always what they seem and I am not perfect, but I will try again next year.

Did any of you ever give any of your teachers a hard time? Why? Would could the teacher have done differently?

3 More Days

2011-05-31T05:39:00.000-07:00

There are three days left of school.
Due to the budget cuts in Texas schools I was laid off of my summer job.
The Coach and I discussed it and decided it would be more profitable for me to just not work this summer.

For the first time in six years I am going to be a stay at home mom! (For the summer.)

One of the great things about teaching is the multiple opportunities a year to make or revamp goals. This is convenient because I have long given up on the goals I made for New Years. Last year my summer goal was to visit new and different parks. It was a pretty slacker goal, but we moved twice last summer and I worked summer school.

(Sniff. Look at Shaye Baby so little last summer.)

Here are some of my goals for the family this summer.

Better nutrition. We have fallen into some bad habits here towards the end of the year like Pop Tarts and cokes. I told the kids we would be sugar free this summer. That is probably stretching things a bit, but we will try to reduce the junk. (The older three claim they are going to live with their dad. Ha!)

Exercise. Because it is Africa hot here it is hard to get out and romp around during the day, but without multiple sports during the summer we should be able to return to Forced Family Fun in the evenings.

Here is one of our past "fun" efforts! Again The Coach would like to remind everyone his tumbler is full of Tom Collins. (Look at Tayte. He was a BABY!)

The Coach and I got bikes for Mother's Day, so we can cruise around the neighborhood in style.

Scheduling. If I don't watch it the kids will be watching cartoons all day while I ~~blog~~ clean up the kitchen five times after each kid eats. My plan is to go out while it is bearable and get the babies tired enough for a nap. A rule I always stick to is that breakfast ends at 9:00 After that the kids have to wait until lunch to eat. Tanner is usually the last one up and has to sprint to the kitchen like O.J. Simpson in an airline commercial to make the deadline.

Tan Man's cute self will be denied breakfast if he can't get downstairs after the kitchen has been cleaned.

Also important in the scheduling area is my workouts. I will get to sleep late compared to the school year, but I still need to get up early to do the workouts before the oppressive heat sets in. Plus a big goal is to get to yoga class a couple of times a week.

Obviously I need to work on my yoga since this is the only pose I know!

And finally I need to take more pictures of this patriotic baby!! All of them really. I haven't been as good about it as I should be lately. Just one more thing they will need therapy for one day.

Got any goals or plans this summer?
Got any advice on keeping my sanity with five kids at home for the summer?

I've Got the Shirt

2011-05-30T06:39:00.000-07:00

My next race is Sunday and I am getting a little freaked out.
I have done this race before a few times. It was actually the first real sprint I ever competed in. It is a nice race, close to home.
I would like to win this race and if just one year they would change up the divisions to be something other than age groups I might have a shot. For instance there could be a group for people who have completed an Ironman. Those people have discipline. They are truly in a class by themselves.
I however, could be in the Wine Drinking Mom Division. Maybe I would have a better chance at first place.
I would like to enjoy this race but every year it kicks my butt.

I have a myriad of ~~excuses~~ reasons why.
It's hot. Of course it is hot in Houston, but it is the first truly scorching race of the season.
The race directors always throw in a couple of extra bouys to trick me and I have historically ended up swimming an extra 200 yards just for fun.
The race includes the longest three mile run in history. I don't know what it is about this particular run, but it kicks my butt every year.

To makes things worse the last three weeks my training has been sub par.
I have a myriad of ~~excuses~~ reasons why.
It is hot. (I am not complaining. I am just pointing it out.) Sleeping an extra hour and a half Friday morning seemed like a such a good idea until I had to do my ride after school. It was 96 degrees and I think every 18 wheeler in town was headed west with me. My easy zone 2 workout climbed to upper zone 3 even though my average speed was 15mph.
I am exhausted. I keep waking up at 2:36 am and twiddling my thumbs for no apparent reason. I seem to fall asleep about ten minutes before that 4:30 alarm.

Still though I do have a goal for this race. (No I don't. I just typed that and realized I need a goal.) I decided to apply my last race times to this distance and calculate a goal. It wasn't easy. I suck at math.

600 yard swim - 18.00. That's terrible. I am going to adjust that to the same time as last year - 13.00.
12 mile bike at 19mph - 34:48
3 mile run at 9:05 pace - 27:15
Transistions - 3:00

Total (rounded) - 1:18:00
Last year my time was 1:31:26.
Wow.
That is quite a reduction. I am not sure if this is a reasonable goal. Great. Something else to think about at 2:36 am.
A time of 1:18 puts me 13th out of 31 according to last year's results.
I bet I could be top three if I was in the Got Laps in During Adult Swim - Division.

Do you have a race that is your nemesis?
What division would you win?
Ever go through the training blues? Do you have any tips on escaping them??

Creepy Traumatic Facebook

2011-05-27T04:02:00.000-07:00

Hey,
Head over to Shell's Blog, Things I Can't Say. She chose me as BFF today because she is awesome and probably had a feeling I was getting ready to stalk her in order to be her real BFF. I still may.

I am very excited and I am going to eat cupcakes all day to celebrate. I would love it if you celebrated with me.

Back to the usual strangeness around here!!

Facebook just became creepy and traumatic.

I clicked on the Friend Finder button to look up an old teacher friend.
Little did I know Facebook had hundreds of potential friends in mind for me.

One suggestion was blogger I read. I like the blogger so that itself is not creepy. What is creepy is - How did Facebook know I even read the blog? Is my Google communicating with my Facebook? If so, that is creepy, but in a good way as we are Facebook friends now.

The next suggestion was a neighbor of mine. I figured Facebook had compared our addresses and decided we should be friends. That seemed weird because it hadn't suggested any other neighbors. I quickly realized that it probably HAD suggested other neighbors and I just didn't recognize them. Facebook knows my neighbors better than I do! CREEP-Y. But still good creepy as I "friended" the neighbor too.

Next I came across a suggestion to befriend my high school boyfriend, Stodd Stones - name changed to protect the innocent. Actually I was glad to see him and I did scroll through his pics to see his kids. I didn't request to be his friend though because The Coach and I have a Facebook rule. He is allowed to friend all past girlfriends, flirts, and skanks who hit on him after a couple of beers, but I am not. Besides Stodd has never requested to be my friend either so I figure he may have some form of the rule in his house too. (My husband says it is creepy that I checked out his pics. I don't think so. We had been friends since the 7th grade and our break up was one of those amicable "I found someone else at college" type deals, so I am NOT creepy.)

Back to the story.

After that the suggestions got even creepier. They began to remind me of my painful adolescence.

I recognized Jonny Dames - name changed to protect the innocent. I sat next to him in seventh grade biology. He once told me that my runny nose was annoying. Well! If I friended him now I would point out that I am allergic to every tree, plant, pollen and grass in Texas. I would also point out to him that it was a good thing my olfactory senses were compromised because he had a sweat issue. Anyone else might have been annoyed by the smell.

And finally not knowing the residual trauma they were putting me through Facebook suggested I friend Jarius Dones - named changed to protect the cruel. Back in elementary school I developed a crush on Jarius Dones - mostly because Rusty Roup (Real name. I couldn't make that up. ) reported that Jarius like me. I talked about him at home, Jarius this, Jarius that. My parents were mildly shocked when they attended a school function and realized Jarius was black. I guess it wasn't what they were picturing. What can I say? I am an equal opportunity crusher.

Anyway Jarius covered up his intense love for me by not speaking to me for five years. Then in the eighth grade he felt the need to point out to me and the whole gym class that my left boob had grown in, but not my right. Looking back I guess a bra would have corrected this problem, but who knew?
I was almost compelled to friend him and let him know that I now have two matching boobs. I quickly realized the prime time to do this passed about fifteen years ago before I started having kids. Oh well. I do hope to glance through some of Jarius' pictures one day and see that he has a large zit, or maybe wrinkles. I will gather my friends around and we can all laugh at him as payback.

I don't know how though I am going to get back at Facebook for making relive that trauma.
Maybe Facebook could suggest a good therapist.
Creepy.

Have you come across any old or interesting friends on Facebook?

Ty Fartleks

2011-05-26T05:51:00.000-07:00

Fartleks.
The good news is track workouts are no longer my most hated tri workout.
Guess what is?

My first experience with fartleks was awful from the moment I got lost, confused and frustrated trying to find my team in Memorial Park until I gave up running and stumbled cramping and sweating back to my truck for a smoke. (Kidding. I don't smoke.) I think the whole experience was payback for the times The Coach and I would ride through Memorial Park before church looking at runners while we were eating donuts.

After the first attempt at fartleks I came to the obvious conclusion - Misery LOVES company.

I informed my son, Ty, the next day that he would be attending fartlek training with me next time.
He informed ME that he likes to run in the neighborhood so if necessary he can stop in for a brownie.

A little while later he came to me and we had the following conversation:
Ty: So hypothetically if I went to run with you at Memorial Park, how long is the park?
Me: The park is quite large. We would just run a portion of it which is a three mile loop.

Ty: Who in the hell made such a long loop? That's stupid.
Me: Ty, I was planning on running it twice.

Ty: I may go with you and run it once, but while you are running around it the second time I am going to sit and eat a cheeseburger.
Me: Yeah. Try that in the park with thousands of hungry runners.

Fast forward two weeks - during this two weeks please imagine many failed workouts. These failures span anywhere from not starting the workout to giving up on a five mile run after two pit stops at 4:30 am. Also throw in there some nutritional difficulty that left me wanting to eat my own arm about 3:30 every afternoon, but instead resorting to Taco Bell.

I had given Ty a choice: he could either go with me to run fartleks or he could stay at home to babysit and The Coach would go with me. (Little did he know The Coach had already refused.)
Ty decided reluctantly to come along, but he did complain about his legs, sore from football weight lifting.
(Also there was a slight discomfort which apparently occurred when he applied Icy-Hot to his upper thighs in too close of proximity to his "parts". For reasons that are not clear he has been begging me to blog about this ever since. I guess he didn't want Tanner's "ball sacky" hands to get all the attention.)

I told him jogging would help loosen up his sore legs.
His reply, "My coach says that too, but I don't think the claim is backed by science. I think it is just something people say to fat kids to make them run."

He promptly fell asleep on the recliner. He never does this so I took pity on him and decided to leave him. When I got ready to leave I couldn't find my keys, so I had to wake him up as he drove the car last. (I know. It keeps me up at night too.)

I was already running late so of course he decided he wanted to go.
He got a shirt out of the dryer which is where he has been getting all his clothes for the past two days. At some point I am going to have to point to him a dryer is for DRYING and a dresser is for storing.

I got lost again, but we finally found my team.
The plan was to run a mile warm up and then alternating hard/easy quarters miles for the next five miles. Ty's plan was to run the warm up with me then wave goodbye.

It was awful. Apparently the gods really frown upon eating of donuts in front of hungry runners. It was 96 degrees at 6:30p.m.. I cramped up immediately. I tried to just keep on going. During the "easy" quarters my heart rate wouldn't slow down. I finally just started walking/running. When I finished the first loop I ran in the opposite direction to find Ty. I didn't really have any worries that my man sized son had been kidnapped, but I was shocked that he hadn't made it any further. When I finally found him I started walking with him. Within two minutes he said, "I just don't understand why we have to walk so fast!"
We were walking a 14:30 mile.
We met back up with the team and I informed Ty it had taken him one hour to jog/walk three miles. I knew that was pathetic even for him because he can run a nine minute mile. He informed me that for twenty minutes he had been in the "porta shitter" and he had "destroyed" it. I let him know how much the running community probably appreciated him.

Overall fartleks still suck.
But the company did make it more enjoyable.
Ty was quite impressed with the other, faster, runners on the team. Overall I think it was a good experience for him. And he got a McFlurry for his trouble. (What can I say? The kid has some persuasive dimples.)

What is your most unfavorite type of training? Would company help?
Any other suggestions on making it more enjoyable?
Also do you think I could blame my crappy performance on giving blood that day??
Or am I just crappy?

Dear Daughter

2011-05-25T05:18:00.000-07:00

Saigie,

You are going to be ten this month. Although I am excited for you and I know you are growing into a young lady I do not envy you this time period. Nowadays they are referred to as the "Tween" years. They are fun years and they are awful years. I myself spent three years of middle school trying to convince people I was a girl. (It's true. I haven't mentioned it before. I try to block it out.)

They are fun years because you can do more and more things by yourself like bake brownies and ride around the neighborhood on your bike.

They are crappy years because your body has been taken over by hormones and it doesn't always look, feel, or act they way you want it to.

They are fun years because you can begin to make friends you will have your whole life. They will remember fondly the pimple so big it got its own name and the awful shoes you insisted on wearing.

They are crappy years because kids your age can be cruel when they don't know any other way to get over their own insecurities. They can tease people who don't deserve it. It's because they are worried about their own problems, but that is hard to remember sometimes.

I am looking forward to being able to to share interests with you and be the mom of a young lady.

I am not looking forward to your unpredictable reactions to rational statements like, "We are out of orange juice." I am not looking forward to seeing who wins the "eye rolling" battle. (I will win. It will be ugly.)

I do want you to know though that this too shall pass. You won't always be a tween. Your body doesn't want to betray you for the rest of your life. I want you to know that although my role in your life may be changing I have never loved you more. In a few short years your body will emerge from this awkward phase and you will be even more beautiful inside and out.

So when things seem impossible and depressing and confusing, remember I am here and I love you. My lap will still hold you. And remember when I am invading your space and infuriating you with my rules - that's my job.

Also remember your brother, Tanner, has vowed to beat the crap out of any boy you ever bring home, so pick a large one! (In a few years!)

Got any funny/awkward tween memories you care to share?

The Grocery Store Ruined My Day

2011-05-24T05:48:00.000-07:00

The day started off just fine. It was the last Monday of the school year.  A rest day so I got to sleep clear until 5:30 am instead of working out before the crack of dawn. The kids got into the car without fuss. I had all the required flavors of Pop Tarts. Things were looking good for a Monday morning.
After work I headed to the grocery store to do the grocery shopping.   An hour later I parked my cart behind two others at the check out. No problems.  I appreciated the rare joy of shopping alone without Shaye cussing out strangers and Tayte asking repeatedly for gum. The manager waved me over to an empty lane and my day took in instant downward spiral into a stress induced race against the clock.
I was in check out purgatory. The lady ringing me up said she hadn't checked in twenty years. It kinda showed. I smiled patiently as she tried six different numbers for my red onion. There was really no point in rushing her since Methuselah was sacking the groceries and he was in no hurry. I snatched the dog food, milk, and some other items off the belt and threw them in the cart unbagged to speed up the process. I felt sorry for my now rushed self, but not as sorry as I felt for the lady who got in line behind me with only six cases of Coke. Finally I escaped. Thank goodness Methuselah didn't insist on helping me out with my bags. I began to cart my now melting ice cream out to the car.

On the way to the car a nice lady alerted me that I had dropped my industrial size package of toilet paper. I had to abandon my cart and go back for that.
Once in the car I started reviewing my receipt. My grocery budget was off by about forty bucks! I found only one problem. I was charged for a 9.00 book of stamps I didn't buy.   I trudged back in and got the whole nine bucks back!

I made the rounds to pick up the babies, and Ty. For some reason this child still can't seem to figure out how to get a ride from the parental unit WHO WORKS AT THE SAME SCHOOL HE ATTENDS.

As soon as I drove up to the house. The Coach left to do some (made up) coaching responsibility. I tried to put the groceries up, but Ty and Tanner eat them as fast I can empty the bags. The babies themselves went through a Popsicle an fruit snack pouch each. I found as I was unloading that Methuselah had tied a tight, tight knot in each and every grocery sack. I guess he could read my mind and that was payback for my mental grumbling.
I got the groceries put up.
The band uniform ironed.
I complimented Saigie's new Bible. (Sweet Aunt bought it for her because she accepted Christ last week.)
I loaded all the kids back into the car to take to art class and band concert.
Right when we got to the point of no return where the next highway exit is far far away Tanner realized he didn't actually have his horn. For a band concert.
Turned around.
Headed out again.
Finally dropped Saige off at art. Ten minutes late.
At this point both Tayte and Shaye started screaming incessantly in the back seat.
Ty flipped through annoying songs on his ipod/car radio.
I found the place to drop Tanner off . Fifteen minutes late.
With a deep sigh I headed home.
My phone rang.
It was the receptionist at the art class.
She needed to inform me there wasn't actually art class today.
I turned around.
I blame Methuselah.

I did make it home and I did cook dinner.
I also realized I forgot corn. I guess it is back to the store today as it is an essential ingredient in corn chowder. I will try to avoid Methuselah and his wife.
:)

What is your least favorite thing about grocery shopping?

Dream Job

2011-05-23T05:33:00.000-07:00

Growing up I always wanted to be a teacher. It has turned out to be a pretty good gig. I get the same vacations my kids get. I work the same hours they are in school. And I get to live out my fantasies of being a stand up comedian within the confines of the curriculum.

As glamorous a job as it is lately I have been day dreaming of a career change.
For the past few years I have thought that I could parlay my quick wit and love of the outdoors into millions of dollars as a Beverage Cart Girl at the golf course.

Really I wish I had majored in this. I could have taken classes like Bad Jokes for Older Men, and How to Calculate Tax Mentally. Let's also not forgot When Not to Yell on the Golf Course. I think I would have been on the dean's list instead of struggling to get that 2.7 I did majoring in English and history.

My husband who is generally a very supportive man thinks Beverage Cart Girl in an inappropriate summer job/career for a wife and mother.

Of course when I got the chance to be the Beverage Cart Girl over the weekend at a Lone Survivor charity golf tournament I was ecstatic.

This is Vibeke and me - ecstatic!

First I tried to steal the REAL Beverage Cart Girl's cart and she tried to beat me up. (See? I should have taken a class.)

(This was not our cart. We didn't know.)

After that it was smooth sailing and my sister in law, Vibeke, cruised around the golf course taking care of the golfer's hydration needs.

Here are just a few reasons being a Beverage Cart Girl is better than being a teacher.

1. The cool ride!

2. People are always glad to see the BCG. Seriously I have never been so popular in my entire life. As a teacher the kids often cheer when I announce I will have a sub. But as BCG people were smiling at me and sometimes even waving me over.

See how happy Uncle Bachelor is to see me? I am pretty sure he is reaching for his wallet. Which leads me to the next reason.

3. BCG gets tips. Teachers never get tip other than, "make sure you get your grades in on time."

4. As the driver of the Beverage Cart I got free cold beverages all day.

I may over indulged in cold beverages and been ready for a nap towards the end of the tournament.

5. Volunteer BCGs cannot get fired. Even if a slight bit of damage to the course occurred. I am not saying we caused this damage. I am just saying it happened and no one got fired.

6. I got to hang out with The Coach, my dad, and my brothers all day. Whereas "Take Your Family to Work Day" is probably frowned upon at my current position.

Guns - I am not certain, but I don't even think he was packing.

The Coach

So here are the end of the day totals.
5 hours of beer cart driving
2 free meals
12 salami sticks
6 cold beverages
1 Snickers
1 coke
2 bottled waters
52.00 in tips which Vibeke and I split.

I really think I missed my calling in life.

What is your dream job?

New!!!!

2011-05-21T20:54:00.000-07:00

Thank you Beth!!

Wasn't she super sweet to make me this new header and button? I love it!!

Funny how when I first started writing this blog I wasn't even thinking about running shoes. I was just thinking about the lady with all the kids, but it has also turned into a place where I can write about all my triathlon adventures. (And The Coach's too!)

I am very excited about my new stuff. Obviously I need to work on the placement of that header a little. In the meantime I have all those dots where the title used to be. (Any hints at being able to just delete that?)

I really appreciate my button Beth so I just want to say thanks again.

Attempting to Snuggle

2011-05-19T19:57:00.000-07:00

I read a stupid article the other day in a stupid magazine about how "HAPPY FAMILIES" snuggle.

I immediately felt an immense amount of maternal guilt.

The truth is I do not like to be touched. I am not one for casual hugs and I HATE to have someone's arm around me. Even my tough military brother, Guns, has been known to panic if he accidentally is in a situation where he might accidentally brush up against me.

I try to get over this with the kids because I understand they will surely end up in therapy if I constantly scream every time they touch me. I really can't afford therapy on a teacher's salary, so I try to put aside the fact that Tanner's hands are always moist and when Ty leans up against me my lower body goes to sleep.

The other night I was sitting on the couch tolerating the tv watching pile. Tanner entertained us during the commercials by doing animal impersonations. (Hilarious. I should put up a video of his rabbit impersonation. Animalination?)

When I announced I was ready for bed Tanner started telling me good night while rubbing his moist hands up and down my face. I told him to stop. I said, "You have been sitting in here for thirty minutes and that whole time your hand has been in your pants. Don't touch me."

Apparently he mistook these as words of encouragement.

He started rubbing both of his hands on my face. To prevent my escape Ty (245 lbs) sat on my legs. I was trapped. I finally screamed, "Get your penisy hands OFF of me!!" I truly felt the need for disinfectant at that point. Tanner replied, "They aren't penisy, they are just ball-sacky."

Well. I am glad there was clarification as to what was going on down there.

The Coach finally walked by in the process of locking all the doors six times. While the boys were trying to pretend they weren't mistreating me I made my escape.

I have washed my face forty times since.

I am not so sure snuggling is the key to a happy family. I personally am much happier when I am not being touched.

Here is another happy suggestion in the article that does not make me happy.........
Letting kids help with dinner. That does not make me happy. It makes dinner late. It makes me hungry and therefore cranky.

What "wonderful happy suggestions" do you find almost unbearable??

I Will Not Blog....

2011-05-17T06:27:00.000-07:00

.....Before I Slog.

Through all of this crap on my desk. There are three weeks left of school and I am falling apart. I can barely see the kids over the piles of crud on my desk.
We have TAKS tested, EOC tested, AP tested.
I have seriously been tested!
And finals are next!

I just wanted to publicly resolve not to blog before I collate and staple finals, find scantrons, sharpen pencils, and update my gradebook.

Except I had to tell you.

1. We will be celebrating Doodles one year birthday this week. Seriously. Saige made up invitations and everything for the guinea pig!
2. I went to the bike shop to see about new bike fit/saddle because my butt is killing me. The bike guy made some adjustments and then said, "You may want to consider a seat with a larger surface area." Just what do you think he was trying to imply?
3. The Coach is out of the playoffs and his re-entry into civilian life has been less than smooth!
4. Tayte actually kicked the ball at soccer on Saturday.
5. I took Tanner to the doctor to get a diagnosis for his motor skills problems. Tanner got embarassed when I described his messy eating and said, "Well unlike you I don't have to be reminded to put on pants!" Lovely time explaining THAT to the doctor- I had been wearing a swimsuit in the car. (Also for reasons I am not sure of Tanner insisted on being called "Jorge" the whole time we were there.)

Because it is seems to be getting close to rerun season on tv. I thought I would link back to some previous entertaining posts. (At least in my mind.)

Really this was all a plea for distraction. Please don't make me grade all this stuff!!

Driving Me Crazy

2011-05-16T05:52:00.000-07:00

A while back I wrote a post comparing myself to Abraham Lincoln. What? You don't see a comparison?
He aged rapidly due to the stress of trying to keep the nation unified and out of war.
I am aging rapid because my 15 year old is learning to drive.

All my life I have been ridiculed about my driving. (The truth is my passengers just lack a certain sense of adventure.) It is ironic to me that now I seem to be solely responsible for preparing my son for wide world of vehicular transportation.

He is improving. At least I no longer feel the need to roll down the window and shout warnings to other innocent folks on the road. I quit pressing 911 and anticipating the split second before our fiery demise to hit send.

Here are his main three problems.
1.Sloth like reflexes - As Ty is learning to drive I often think back to his toddler hood. Especially those times when we would go for a checkup. The doctor would whack Ty in the knee cap with that hammer thingy and nothing would happen. Apparently the boy has no reflexes to speak of. Reflexes come in handy when attempting the "Left Turn of Death" in the Houston area. I have tried to teach him to inch out in anticipation of actually turning in the leftular direction. I prepare him in advance by saying, "As soon as that red car passes you need to go." Nothing happens. By the time Ty actually moseys out into traffic we are in jeopardy of being T-boned by the next car - which was five minutes down the road at the start of this adventure.

2. No sense of direction - (Yes. There is a slight possibility this is hereditary.) Again I am reminded of his little boy self. At the age of ten I was finally willing to let Ty leave the cul-de-sac to play with some kids on the next street. He said, "Could you walk me over there? I don't know the way." After we turned that ONE corner I told him to be back in thirty minutes. He replied, "Can you come get me? I don't know how to get home."
So I spend as much time giving directions as I do tutoring the driving - "Ok. You will want to slow down, turn on your indicator.....Good. Well Ty! Turn here....don't you recognize OUR HOUSE!! I swear the only place he can find on his own is McDonald's. Even with the directions there have been plenty of mishaps. It is not unusual to tell him to turn left and then find myself turning right from the left hand lane. The last couple of times this happened I didn't say anything wondering what Ty would do. He didn't notice we were going in the complete opposite direction of our destination.

3. Break/Gas/Park Confusion - Among the scariest of his might be his parking. He gets into the garage or spot fine, but after that it is a guessing game. One more than one occasion he has exited the vehicle without putting the car into park. This is very disconcerting to passengers, but I think we have all learned our lesson. We do not exit the vehicle until Ty does. Also on more than one occasion while attempting to park he has hit the gas instead of the brake. As lovely as I think the Armada would be in my bedroom I would really appreciate keeping that garage wall intact.

As soon as we conquer all those problems I plan to work on a new set of lessons.

**Choosing the road instead of the ditch.
**What to do if another car is actually near yours.
**A fresh brownie is not a reason to pass on a two lane road.

Wish me luck!

PS - Dear Mom and Dad,

I am sorry for every time I nearly ran over the curb. Also I am sorry I didn't understand that "right on red" implied stopping to check for oncoming traffic. I love you and I am glad you survived my driving lessons.

How about you? Any driver instructor tips? Anything you need to apologize to YOUR parents for?

Genie in a Bottle

2011-05-11T05:19:00.000-07:00

If I were to be able to grant my children three wishes I would ignore their requests for money, chocolate pop tarts, and someone to do their chores and instead give them these three wishes.

1. I would give them love. Different kinds of love. I want them to experience sloppy innocent high school love. The kind where the girl must write the boys name on a notebook over and over. The kind where the boy must give her his ring to lose. (Or not lose would be even better.) I would wish for them a mild case of unreturned love - so they know how it feels and will be kind if they ever receive it. I wish for my boys the kind of love that makes them want to protect a woman and keep her safe and I wish for Saige a man that lives to take care of her - even though she doesn't need it. (I wish that Shaye Baby would not clock any man who tries to help keep her protected and safe.)
Not only would I grant them romantic love, but love for people of all colors, of all walks of life. I would want them to have this love in such a quantity it leaves no room for hate in their heart.
**And I want them to have sibling love. The kind that actually causes them to be nice to each other because what good is loving someone if you still beat the crud out of them over a slice of frozen pizza.

2. I wish for them contentedness. This is a dangerous wish for a kid who would be perfectly happy living in a double wide owning more fishing poles than pants. I want them to be as ambitious as their goals require, but to always remember no material item will ever make them happy - except maybe DVR.

3. I would grant them the ability to hear God. I (sometimes) listen for God's plans, but I don't hear them. I need a billboard to reveal his direction and even then I second guess, "Surely He meant that billboard for some other Heather". I would grant my kids the ability to submit to God's will and to be faithful His will will pan out.

I think these three things will serve them better than money, health, friends, or pop tarts. Because really submitting to God's will is the key. If they can do that everything else should be pie!

What three things do you want most for your kids, or for any kid?

Talk the Talk

2011-05-10T05:39:00.000-07:00

Shaye Baby is 21 months old this month. So far she can say a few words that I understand and a few words in what can only be French*. I don't speak French so I have no idea what she is saying.

When Ty was a baby he started saying a handful of words at ten months. He had to for self preservation. I was 24 and most of my baby knowledge had been gained from books. The books said to talk to the baby all the time describing everything thing you were doing. Since I kept up a steady stream of conversation Ty had to learn to talk (and drive so he could go to the store and purchase some ear plugs.)

Tanner was fourteen months when he got tubes in his ears. For a week after that he gasped in suprise when his toys made a noise and he started talking shortly thereafter.

I don't remember when exactly Saige started talking. But I do remember it seemed like she started talking in complete sentences. I don't remember her doing any baby talk. One day at dinner she was telling my dad about a doll the boys had ripped the head off. My dad asked her how it died. In dramatic fashion she grabbed her neck and said, "Like this! AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!"

So with the first three I never worried about talking.

With the next two though I did which is strange because generally I worry LESS about these two realizing babies are durable!

Tayte was about 18 months when I mentioned to the doctor I didn't think his talking was up to par. (Of course by that time I had quit reading any baby books and really couldn't tell you how many words he was supposed to be saying.) The doctor suggest I wait until his 24 month check up and see if he had progressed. Finally he started saying words. I am pretty sure his first word was, "water". In fact it was the only word he said for about a month. If we were driving and saw a lake, pond, ditch, or puddle he would excitedly scream out, "WAAAATEEEER!" for the next four or five miles. It was like riding around in a mini-van with Helen Keller. Now he keeps up a steady stream of conversation from the time he jumps out of bed fully energized at 6:00 am until he crashes into bed at 8:00 pm.

I just started last weekend wondering about Shaye. At 21 months it seems like she should be saying more than:

Mom

Daddy

ball

bad dog

On the other hand she clearly understands everything I say. I know because when I tell her to do something she laughs and does the exact opposite!

There are several things she uses the same words for and I decided based on her pronunciation of baby (bebe) she is French. (Thanks Joann for helping me come to this conslusion.)

*I also decided she was French based on her behavior. She has many stereotypical French characteristics. She likes good food. She is stylish. She only wants to bathe twice a week and she is snotty to strangers. (Oh I am just kidding. I came across a website listing stereotypes of different countries.)

Have there been any areas of your kids' developement you have worried about unnecessarily? Any strange first words? Anyone have some French tapes I can borrow?

Tri-Girl Super Sprint

2011-05-09T05:24:00.000-07:00

Sunday I ran a super sprint tri. Basically it is a very short triathlon. I had posted my goal the other day as 53:00:00. Did I make it?? Stay tuned.

We got up at the butt crack of dawn as usual. Saige got to come along as well as The Coach's folks who have been visiting for a couple of weeks. Mia (The Coach's Mom) took pictures which was nice because when I got the camera back I actually had pictures of the race instead of other women's boobs and port-a-potties.

Here is Saige and I messing around before the race. Actually I am messing around and she is trying to pretend she doesn't know me.

The water was cold, but at 200 meters the swim was not long enough to mess with a wetsuit. I am just slightly in second in this picture. We started from land which I had never done before. My plan was to start at the outside and then cut over in front of everyone there by missing the "scrum" of swimmers. Had I executed that plan I would have been good, but instead I swam about 30 meters then made a hard left into that densely packed group of gals. The getting run over and under definitely slowed me down.
Swim 6:07.5

I put the swim behind me and headed off on the bike. I concentrated on focusing and riding faster than 18.0 mph. Not too many people from my age group passed me.
Bike 25:19 (19mph)

When I got off the bike I saw The Coach and he hollered, "You better run if you are going to make it!" I started thinking that maybe my swim was worse than I thought. My plan was to run fast no matter how much it hurt. It was only two miles. I figured I gave birth to five kids I could do this.

When I ran past the coach toward the finished he looked shocked. Later he told me, "I thought I had two more minutes to wait for you and then my mom said you were coming around the corner".

Run 18:10:04 (Let's take a minute to enjoy that.)

I have never run faster than a ten minute mile in a race. Actually I haven't even run close to a ten minute mile.

Look how hard core I am. I was even injured! (There was a rock in my shoe from transitioning from the swim to the bike. I didn't want to stop to fix it.)

I enjoyed a water with The Coach while waiting for the results. He is not drinking coffee out of a pink mug here. That it my finishers prize! I am wiping my mouth because there was water on it. He is wiping his mouth because I kissed him and he claimed I was sweaty and yucky. Hmph.

Finally the results were up and fought my way in to see them.
Final time - 52:18! I beat my goal by 42 seconds.
AG Place - 5/60. I have never been 5th in ANYTHING. I spent the rest of the day smiling!!
Total Place - 54/326

I am proud of myself for putting the swim behind me even though I was sure it sucked and I am proud that I focused on running fast (for me) for two miles even though it was uncomfortable. What I have learned lately is - running fast is uncomfortable, but not deadly.

After the race I came home to this future triathlete and ate fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, and mac and cheese. And wine.

I played ladder golf with the family and I am pretty sure my brother, Uncle Bachelor, and I were the Champions of the Entire Civilized World.

Do you have a competitive hobby? What is your greatest acheivement at it? What did you do (and eat) for Mother's Day??

If there was an award for............

2011-05-08T07:00:00.000-07:00

I have been regretting opening up my blog to The Coach. He has written a couple of things that will remain drafts, but what he wrote this week I have decided to post because it is sweet and I am out of ideas.

Enjoy.

I'M BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!! I asked Heather to write her Mother's Day post. I don't feel it's right for a mom to write about herself on Mother's Day, she should have a day off, so I'm going to do it for her. Besides she's busy cooking my Mother's Day lunch, cleaning the house, doing my laundry, taking care of the kids, and washing my truck right now. HA!!!!

If there was an award for............

The Hottest Mom my wife would kick ass. My wife is amazingly gorgeous. She has given birth to five kids and still looks like she's in her 20's. Somehow (I don't know how and I think she's not all that intelligent sometimes), she manages to take care of five kids by herself for most of the year and still train for triathlon's. It's amazing.
She doesn't dress like a "mom". She has very cute clothes. So cute that I don't even have to pick them out for her anymore. There's only been one time in my life that I haven't thought my wife was the hottest thing around. That incident may or may not have involved a wedding, some wine, and some vomit. I can't recall.

Most Items of Crusty Food in Car Heather would win this one hands down. Before I start explaining this. I understand her situation and basically living out of her car. I don't want to hear any chirping from the peanut gallery. SHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

I've never in my life seen someone's car such a disaster. Seriously, when we pull up to a stoplight and there is a homeless man on the side of the road, I really just want to tell him that he can jump in the car. I'll drive around the block, and he can see how full he can get off the Pop Tart crumbs, 3/4 eaten sandwiches, middle licked out Oreo cookies, dropped french fries, half licked suckers stuck to the leather seat. That's just from my wife's seat in the car.

It used to drive me absolutely nuts that her car was such a mess. I have since then realized that she is constantly in her car driving the kids somewhere. She is awesome at getting the kids where they need to be. They may be 45 minutes early, 10 minutes late or show up on the wrong day, but by golly, she's going to get them there. She now does a pretty good job of cleaning it out when she gets gas. I don't even say anything to her anymore because I know that she is doing the best she can do and she's not purposefully making messes to piss me off. That's what I used to think.

Loving Each of Our Kids in Their Own Special Way She would definitely win this award. All five of our kids have their own personalities. My wife finds a way to meet all of the kids needs. She does piss one of them off occassionally but they all know that they can go to Momma and get some luvin'. What she may lack in discipline from time to time, she definitely makes up in hugs and kisses. She does a great job making them all feel special...even Tanner.

Wine Consumption She would probably win this one too. Our wine budget used to be about $20 a week. That's about five bottles of Yellow Tail Cabernet. Now, because my wife can't function without a slight buzz. (Just kidding!) our wine budget is at least $100 a week. I don't know if it's that she is drinking more wine or that she is drinking a higher class of wine.

Wow. Those are some dubious honors. Let me just say.

1. Thanks

2. chirp

3. Thanks for that too.

4. You are making me sound like a wino when the truth is that you started drinking my wine.

I hope everyone has a great Mother's Day!

CMA - Career Momming Average

2011-05-06T09:38:00.000-07:00

If being mom were like being a professional baseball player there would be a channel on t.v. so we could relive our best moments. I decided that Mother's Day is a good time to think back and ponder great motherhood "plays."

Here are my best three motherhood moments. (Other than just the fact that I managed to birth them!)

1. The party we threw for Tanner's ninth birthday.

The rule at our house is each child can have a birthday party every other year. Tanner generally gets the short end of the stick with the summer birthday. This particular year my brother, Guns, offered his place for the party. The invitations promised it would be the "World's Messiest Birthday Party"including chocolate syrup relays, whip cream and cheeto hairdos, and an egg toss. To rinse them off we rolled out a super long slip and slide. During the party one kid exclaimed, "All the cokes we can drink out in the country?!! This is the party rocks!!!!" We finished the night off with fireworks and the kids carried me around on their shoulders singing my praises. I was the coolest mom ever!

Honestly I had to take a break after posting these pictures because it made me miss their young little selves so much I wanted to cry.
Indulge me for one more.

Thank you.

2. My proudest moments are anytime the kids do something compassionate, or courteous whether or not they are recognized for it.
Examples - A counselor at Tanner's special ed meeting asked me, "You know what I always notice about Tanner?" I braced myself. "He always opens doors for people." How sweet. (What a relief.)
Ty got the freshman student of the month award earlier this year. The teacher who nominated him wrote that he always has a smile on his face plus kind words and a helping hand for his teachers and classmates.
Saige told me the other day she made a new friend because the girl looked sad and many people don't talk to her because she is in speech. Her compassion made me so proud.

3. They will eat anything, at the table, as a family. This is equal parts hard work and luck!!

And now for the blooper reel. If I am going to celebrate my awesomeoness I should also admit to defeat on occasion.

1. While pregnant I was driving with Ty in the car when another driver decided to make a left turn English style. I may have yelled at her. When she gave me the finger I may have rolled down my window and proceeded to cuss at her over Ty who was big enough to sit in the front seat. It may even possibly have been one of two pregnant road rage incidents that summer. Maybe. I can't remember.

2. There was the time I was going to teach them and The Coach a lesson about their dinner table language. They were discussing their junk yet again at dinner and I yelled out, "I had to scratch my sweaty c___ today!" The kids are going to all need therapy. (But they did quit discussing their parts at the dinner table.)

3. I was sitting on the back porch talking to my dad and we were discussing a friend of mine from high school. I said something like, "That slut always stole my boyfriends."
Then I heard Saige's small sweet voice from behind me, "Momma, What's a slut?"
Oops.

I just hope it balances out eventually.

Got any highs and lows you want to share? I can't wait to hear them.

Have a great Mother's Day no matter what side of the celebration you are on! And be on the lookout for the Mother's Day post written for me by The Coach!

Dick and Jane and Randomness

2011-05-04T06:50:00.000-07:00

I haven't been reading much lately. Pre blog I used to average about five books a week. Post blog I have read three books so far in 2011. (The Time Traveler's Wife, Taking Lottie Home, and some chick lit I can't remember the title of.) (What is the proper way to denote a major work of fiction now that underlining means it is a website? Anyone?)
I miss reading and recently realized I need to resume. My dad lent me a Ken Follet book. It is a work of fiction set in the time period around World War I. (My students think I am so "cute" for reading this in my leisure time. Hello? I teach U.S. History.)

Wow. Maybe I should have eased back into reading with a light romance, or maybe a short story.

I began reading it on Saturday and am now on page 270. The plot just started to roll after 200 pages of lengthy, but very interesting character introduction.

I woke up Monday with sore arms and I couldn't figure out why. I don't lift during the racing season. I finally realized I had been lying on my back reading the book outside and my triceps were sore. I bet that book weighs about fifteen pounds. It is kind of like leisure reading and a workout all at the same time.

My dad thought I was on to something and suggests that in future I tape a barbell to all my reading material.

I came in late from track workout last night and thought I would read a little while I ate dinner. My oldest was sitting next to me doing homework and three out of the remaining four were in bed. I figured it was a good time to read without being interrupted by people who can't reach anything they need or who want me to chase them. I was wrong. Ty continually started telling me long stories about this and that which ultimately had no point.

I finally said, "Ty. What does it mean to you when a person is quiet and looking at the open pages of a book?"
His reply, "You have to read, but you would like a distraction."

No.

When I started falling asleep last night I tried to toss the tome onto my nightstand. My night stand fell over. I now have to have Dad reinforce it. (Not really.)

Pre blogging I used to carry around a small notebook with the names of all the books I wanted to read in it. Sometimes I had a list of over fifty titles I would look for at the used book store. Currently I have two or three lists of two or three books and I can never find the lists.
Do you have a system for keeping up with books you want to read?

Summer will be here in just 22 short days, not that I am counting. I plan to resume my library and reading habits so I would like to know from you what is the single BEST book you have read lately? (Just so you know I do not read fantasy, or sci fi. I just can't hack it, but if you think you have read one that is phenomenal I might try it. Maybe.)
Also, has blogging affected your reading habits?

Mother's Day Goals

2011-05-03T05:35:00.000-07:00

My goals for Mother's Day are:
1. To sleep late without anyone bringing me breakfast.
2. Rake in a lot of gifts.

Kidding of course.

I have a race Mother's Day morning so I will not be sleeping late. I would like to get up and drag all the kids and The Coach to the race with me, but we have a logistical problem. Five kids, two adults, a bike and a double stroller don't all fit in the Armada. I could drive a separate car, but I don't drive so well and it's early, plus that would be irresponsible gas usage.
This race is a super sprint so it is fairly short - a 200 meter swim, 8 mile bike, and a 2 mile run. I did pretty well last year, but I was slowed down by the two minutes it took me to get my helmet on. (Thanks whichever kid was messing with my helmet the day before.)
This is the first triathlon I ever competed in back in 2008. It is nice to see that all that working out has paid off and I can actually almost sprint the entire race when my previous goal used to just be lurching across the finish line so I could have a Coke. (And a donut, who am I kidding?)

Last year I did the race in 57:24.5.
I am going to go out on a limb here and put forth a goal time.
54.00

Whew. I wasn't nervous until I actual wrote that down. Now I am a wreck. I think that is going to be a real stretch.

Here are some things that may work against me.
1. Swim - It is unusually rough in Lake Houston this time of year. The first year I did the race ladies were having to be pulled out right and left. (Their screams for help made it really hard to concentrate.)
2. Wind - It has been REALLY WINDY here lately. I fail to understand how I can go for a ride and be against the wind both out and back.

Here are some things I have going for me.
1. I have been riding in the wind a couple of times a week so hopefully I am used to it.
2. I have been doing way more speed work than I have at any other time in my triathlon training, so I am thinking an under 20 minute run is possible. I will keep telling myself I gave birth to five kids, surely I can run fast for twenty minutes. (Right?)
3. I know to check my helmet before I leave transition.

So that is my goal. Barring that I hope I at least do better than last years time. It would be discouraging to do all these workouts and then not be any better off than I was last year.
Regardless it will be fun. My in-laws are in town and they are going to come watch the race. My Sweet MIL says she will take some pictures. I am pretty sure there won't be any pictures of other women's boobs on my camera when she is done.

What are your Mother's Day plans?
(And........Ya got any triathlon tips for a sista?)

Sleeping Arrangments

2011-05-02T05:14:00.000-07:00

Opposites Attract?
You bet they do.

The Coach and I are completely opposite in the areas of
Finance
Sense of humor (Mine is fine. His is that of a ten year old boy. A socially misfit ten year old boy.)
Movie tastes
Sleeping Arrangements

This last one is by far the most distressing since basically people sleep every night and those other things only get brought up every so often. (Although I am always funny.)

I think an acceptable bed time is 9:00.
He thinks an acceptable bed time is 1:00 am.

I stay up until 10:00 because I HATE to go to bed alone.
He goes to bed at 10:00 because if he doesn't I pout. Then when he wakes me up a a cold woosh of covers at 1:00 I pout incoherently. Then when he tries to get "some" pointing out that I am already awake (how else could I be pouting incoherently) I may become livid and not be able to go back to sleep. But I will still not be in the mood for "some".

He thinks it would be cool to have a t.v. in the bedroom.
No.

He listens to his i-pod all night.
I snore. LOUDLY. (But in a very ladylike manner.)

He likes it COLD.
Therefore as I have discussed before I sleep in long pajama pants, a hoodie, and knee socks.
He thinks I should wear sexy jammies.
I think it is COLD.

He thinks he should get half of the bed as well as half of the covers.
I say that if a person turns on not one, but TWO fans in the bedroom he obviously doesn't need any blankets and I will need the extra room on the mattress for shivering.

He thinks I should shower in between working out and going to bed.
(Ha. Just kidding. I do that. Most of the time.)

I think that a nice "mood enhancer" is some cuddling or neck kissing. Maybe reintroducing himself after baseball season.
He thinks a nice "mood enhancer" is turning off the fans before I come to bed.

What are you and your "other" opposite on?

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

2011-04-29T05:29:00.000-07:00

I have had some minor running victories lately which of course led to the inevitable crash reminding that I am a mere mortal and a clumsy, old triathlete. (It's ok. I am good with that.)

Tuesday I headed to the track to do the speed workouts with the rest of the team. The workout was:6 x (400 zone 5, 800 zone 4 - 40RI) I got there early because I figured it might boost my self -esteem to not be trying to finish the workout as maintenance guy is locking up the track. I was about halfway through with the workout when the coach got there and for a surprise decided we should run the hill.
There is a big astroturf covered hill at the school. It is very steep on one side and just steep on the other. He decided up and over would count as one and we should do six. (Ok. Maybe he said six to eight, but I was keeping focused on that number.) I did six and then he told me to do another. He hates me.

Wednesday's plans provided for an easy zone 2 run. No problem. Except that because of my recent running improvements I thought I could do an entire zone 2 run at a sub ten minute pace. I took off running and I did the first two miles around 9:45. Then I fell over in a zone 4 heap and some middle school kid had to resuscitate me. Not really. But I definitely BONKED and I was lying dazed on the sidewalk (not really) I thought of the all the things that may have hindered my performance.
1. The 7 hills and speedwork I had done the evening before.
2. The 92 degree heat. (Ok. It was only 88, but I have taken literary license with the rest of this story.)
3. The guy who drove by and honked and yelled, "Hey Baby!" Because as everyone knows that IS the best way to pick up woman. I had to stop running and track him down. Not. (But I did consider getting in the car with him because he was headed in the general direction of a Sonic.)
I went home and vowed to run the plan forever.

Yesterday's plan = running intervals. Again it was 92 (88). Again it was afternoon, not my best workout time. But I went. Halfway into that epic fail I realized - now back on the plan I was doing three hard runs in a row. I gave up and decided just to do the easy run I had ruined with ambition the day before. Even that sucked like a Hoover. I did it though.

I no longer remember what the point of this is besides that I had written about training in a few days.
Oh yeah!
FOLLOW THE PLAN!!!

How good are you at following the plan??

My Dog is Dumb

2011-04-27T05:25:00.000-07:00

And I am not just saying that because the whole neighborhood saw my underwear.

Clem is a Golden Retriever. She is a sweetheart.

She lets kids ride her and she cleans up the kitchen floor. That is her best trick.

My dad trained hunting dogs for a while and it is his motto that a dog is always learning something even if the owner isn't meaning to teach it something.

Apparently Clem somehow learned running away is fun.

Early on I tried to teach her not to leave the house even if the door was wide open. This is possible. My dad's dog would not leave the house unless someone told her, "Ok." I was diligently teaching Clem this, but sometimes when I was getting gum out of someone's baseball pants, or taking a hair dryer out of a sink full of water children opened the door and Clem went out it.

In our old neighborhood she was rewarded by ten or twelve elementary school kids chasing her around. They would chase her round and round the block and then three or four of the kids with the most endurance would show up on our porch with a smiling Clem. If I could read Clem's mind I would bet she was saying, "Look. I brought you all these kids. You like kids. I am a good dog. Good dog!"

Apparently all those kids chasing her was positive reinforcement because now when she gets out she is ready for a chase. She won't ever try to run away. If I turned around and went back in the house she would just lie on the front lawn and wait for someone to come by. Hopefully someone who would chase her.

Yesterday when I got home and opened the garage door she came barrelling out of the garage. I didn't realize someone had put her in there because of a possible storm.

Side note - Apparenetly we also taught her that she would be safe in a storm if she hoisted her 65 pound self up on top of the first dining room table I have ever owned. and ran back and forth on it leaving claw marks down the length of it. Yes. That will protect her from a storm. For sure

Back to the issue, the best method in the new neighborhood for catching Clem is to chase her around the block on the bike until she gets tired and then she will gladly let herself be leashed. I hopped on Tanner's Mongoose and went after her wearing my work clothes, a wrap dress and three inch pumps. It looked like a storm was coming. I had to go catch her, because she didn't have any access to a dining room table and therefore would be totally unprotected in the event of a storm. It was very windy.

Another side note - What is with the Texas wind lately? It is brutal. (That was not a complaint. If it is not cold I am not complaining.)

The good news is I was wearing girl boxers. The bad news is everyone in the neighborhood knows I was wearing girl boxers. ARGH. I was hoping to make it a few weeks before I exposed myself again.

Oh who am I kidding. I would rather play chase than be ridden too.

What weird things does your pet do?

Pesky Brothers

2011-04-26T05:03:00.000-07:00

I have read several posts recently that remind me of my little brother, Uncle Bachelor. Since all my family clamors to be the subject of my blog I thought I should write the post.
First thanks for the inspiration.
Joey wrote about her daughter's birdhouse.
Mr. Daddy wrote about the Clean Plate Club.

Uncle Bachelor was the mischievous sort. He was sweet, but he would fight with the neighbor. Seriously though, Uncle Jason rode around in a red plastic fire truck for years. Who wouldn't want to beat him up?

One year my parents were out tending to the yard at our old house. They were picking squash and I was hiding it as fast as I could because I didn't like squash. I think I even went door to door and sold some to the neighbors. Ok. I KNOW I did.

During the gardening my pesky little brother and his frenemy from next door decided they were going to build a frog trap.

Apparently they came across the idea while watching Robinson Caruso or something. Luckily they didn't have access to a goat, or they might have lain a trap for Chupacabra. They started off by digging a large hole in the front flower bed right next to the cedar tree I was allergic too. They then covered with huge hole with two or three cedar leaves. (Leaves? Branches?) When my dad asked how this was a frog trap Uncle Bachelor who could not have been older than four explained that a frog would be hopping around until it hopped onto the leaves and then it would fall into the hole which was too deep from which to escape.
My dad chuckled and my brother and I waited till he left to start in with the serious harassment. We told him how dumb he was to think his frog trap would work. (I am pretty sure Guns did most of the insulting. I would never do something like that.)

The next morning we got up and lo and behold the biggest toad I have ever seen was in the hole. It was ginormous. It could have walked out of the hole and driven to the corner store for a pack of smokes, but it sat there like the dutiful doomed amphibian it was. Uncle Bachelor was beside himself. I remember thinking even then, "Doesn't that just figure?" Later I overheard my mom ask my dad if he had captured a frog and put it in the hole. He denied it. Apparently the frenemy's parents had nothing to do with it either. From all accounts is seems like his frog trap actually worked.

Of course. Pesky Brother.

Jack Spratt and His Wife

2011-04-21T04:37:00.000-07:00

My parents are fairly youngish and healthy. They will be 64 this summer. My mom's birthday is one day before Dad's. He walks around the whole day calling her a "crotchety old broad."

Saturday is my parents 46th wedding anniversary. Wow. That is a long time. They got married when they were 17. I can't even imagine. (Do those figures add up to 64? or somewhere close.)

Even though my parents fought from time to time and had struggles just like everyone else I mostly remember my dad coming home from work every night and giving my mom a kiss in the kitchen.

My parents still do a lot of cute things. My dad can't figure out why my mom doesn't laugh at the same jokes he has been telling for 47 years!!
A few years ago my dad learned to use the on-line banking service his bank provides. Mainly he uses it to find my mom. If I were to call him and ask him if he knew her plans for the day he would access his account and look up the last place she used the ATM card.
They went to a Halloween party last year. My dad insisted he go as a bottle of Crown Royal. My mom as 7-Up. (My mom made the costume.)
My mom perfects her garden one square foot a day (sometimes to my dad's chagrin.)

Here is the most "entertaining" aspect of their relationship.
My dad has lost most of his hearing during years of driving a truck and hunting. He wears hearing aids. I don't know how well they work when my family is NOT around, but when my family is around they amplify background noise almost as much as anything else making it very difficult for him to hear. The same is true for restaurants and other crowded places or places where there is background music.

My mom has lupus and congestive heart failure. Her immune system seems to have attacked her lungs. She always has problems breathing. Sometimes those problems are slight and sometimes breathing is a major effort.

Jack Spratt could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean.

They remind me of that poem. My dad can't hear and my mom can't talk loudly. So sometimes at the house my mom will say something like, "Would you please take out the trash?" and my dad will go get a roll of paper towels. Neither one of them ever seems to realize how ironic this combination is.

The modern gift for the 46th year of marriage is poetry. I think instead I am going to get them some sign language lessons!! (My dad looks up the anniversary gift every year. His favorite I think was year 44 - groceries!)

In all seriousness though my parents may not realize it , but they gave me a great gift. They gave me the security of knowing they would always be there. Except for the usual childhood phase of divorce paranoia I didn't worry too much about them not being together. They have loved each other for 46 years. It wasn't luck, it wasn't magic, and it wasn't fate. It was hard work.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

Doubts

2011-04-20T04:02:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I read all the PYHO posts and I think that I wish young mothers wouldn't feel so much guilt. Guilt about what they are feeding their babies, guilt about having or choosing to work. I want to tell them it will all be all right and have them believe me. I hate to know they are feeling bad and worried when I know everything will turn out all right.

I am a hypocrite.

I would like to pretend I am laid back and I don't feel guilt. No guilt that I work full time. No guilt that I train nine hours a week for triathlon. No guilt that I get home from work many days with not much energy left for my own kids.

I am a hypocrite.

The facade came crumbling down Saturday night when I went on the first date I have been on alone with The Coach in 2011. While we were having adult beverages at the bar he was trying to get caught up on the kids grades. I admitted I hadn't been hounding the kids properly.
He said, "All you have to do is ask Tanner if he has done his homework and if he says no then tell him he can't go out and play."

That sounds so easy when I am freshly showered sitting in a bar full of adults wondering what to do with my arms because they are both empty. It was such a simple solution that doesn't take into account the reality of life. It is the same reality as all moms have.

In the middle of our first date in months tears start streaming down my face and I cannot stop them. The more that fell the worse I felt.

I come in from work with two babies asking me a million questions and refusing to get out from in front of me so I can run to the bathroom as a result I wet my pants. Again. I am carrying a diaper bag, a gym bag, a book satchel, a lunch box, and in all likely hood a grocery sack or two and a child. I could get home earlier and be prepared for the after school rush, but I use the time the babies are napping at the sitter to get in my second workout of the day. I feel bad.

I start yelling out orders for the next activity, or I am trying to count kids and figure out which one isn't home yet. Maybe there are no other activities that day and I am just wanting to sit down and veg for a while. Maybe the kids I haven't seen all day are pestering me and I just want everyone to BE QUIET. I feel bad.

Tanner usually slips out. I don't realize until he is gone that he didn't do his chores properly and I didn't ask about his homework. I call him back in and make him do the chores right. Most of the time I even help him to speed up his departure from the kitchen. Then there is some reason ALL of his homework isn't done and I will let him go because I feel bad for interrupting his fun to complete chores.

The truth is I ALWAYS feel bad when it comes to Tanner. I know so much about Ty's life. More than I want to know sometimes. I know nothing about Tanner's. I couldn't say who he considers his best friend. I don't know his favorite teacher's name. He won't give any hints as to his girlfriend status at school. What if he is sitting around his whole life thinking I love Ty more because we talk? I am a terrible mom.

I don't want Tanner to grow up and move six states away.

I have these feelings about Tanner often, even as I am trying to get some insight into his day. But on that particular date night it crested over into guilt about all the children.
Guilt that I didn't realize on my own that Ty is really smart. I let the camo and the dimples fool me into thinking he was a Bubba. Luckily The Coach recognized lazy latent brains.
Guilt that I should encourage Saige to work out with me instead of cherishing my alone time. Guilt that I should do something brilliant to quell her math intimidation.
Guilt that I just want the babies to STEP AWAY FROM THE MAMA from time to time.

They deserve perfection, yet I will never be perfect. I will be distracted, impatient, and tired. I will do my distracted, impatient, tired best and I will pray that God will take care of the rest.

(You know it has taken me all week to figure out the end of this post. I went through different things I could do better such. Finally as I sat down to finish this I realized I don't have to be perfect because He is. )

Randomness

2011-04-19T06:26:00.000-07:00

1. I think Shaye's recent nose incident may be hereditary. Earlier today I went to get a bunch of sharpened pencils so my students could take a scantron test. (Remember those?) I dropped one and when I bent to pick it up I hit my elbow on the door frame. The upward motion of my arm and the simultaneous downward motion of my head presented the opportunity to shove several freshly sharpened pencils up my nose. Seriously. I had to wipe pencil marks off of my nose for the next ten minutes.

2. Last night I went to watch The Coach's baseball game. He was very cute in his uniform and his team clenched the district title. Every time I walk up into the stands at a game the same parent says the same thing, "We have to stop talking about the coach now." He does NOT smile when he says it. Can anyone suggest a comeback?

3. The babies have renewed their efforts to never be more than two feet from me. As a result of my clumsiness (see #1) I am constantly tripping over them, knocking them down, and stepping on their feet while I try to do laundry, cook dinner, and sweep. This week I decided to put an end to this clingyness and teach them to play without me. I have been sitting on the porch reading a book refusing to play with them. They have all their toys out there and they just stand and stare at me. I am not getting any reading done and they are not getting much playing done.

4. On the training front I noticed the other day that it seems just when I start to add up all the reasons I should quit: Soreness, old age, waking up early, lack of speed, expense, time, laziness, unclipping right on the bike and falling over to the left - I do something that renews my hope like run an easy two mile loop and then when I get home realize I ran that easy 2.2 mile loop in under twenty minutes. Then I can't wait to run again.

5. I officially got laid off of my summer school job. Yeah and Boo. Yeah because I can be vacation mom for the summer and go to the pool and insist everyone take a nap and have a messy house and no way to escape from the children. Boo because as I mentioned yesterday The Coach and I are going on a cruise this summer and The Coach has already told me we don't have enough money in the budget to pay for my wine, so I have to save up my own booze money. Ludicrous.

Yeah. I got nothing. What you got?

It's Not Fair

2011-04-18T10:23:00.000-07:00

Say that title again while whining. That is my tone.

I have been trying to lose weight since the first of the year. I am not overweight and it isn't a medical necessity. I just want to go ahead and say that I understand there are people out there who's reasons for weight lossare more importnat than mine. Mine reason is equal parts vanity and competitivenes.

Vanity - The Coach is taking me on a cruise this summer. (I haven't told you this yet! I am so stinking excited.) I want to buy a bikini and be looking hot even though my fortieth birthday is right around the corner.

Looking like any one of these acresses would do. Ha!

Competitiveness - As you know I am always looking for some way to run faster. (Ok. Fast.) I figured if I were lighter it would be easier. Right?

So as part of these vain, competitive pursuits I have cleaned up my eating act. I haven't starved myself by any means, but I have taken strides to stop "wasting calories" on things I don't truly enjoy. For example, I love McDonald's fries, but usually three or three dips into the bag is enough. In the past I just kept eating them because they were there.

My plan was to lose fifteen pounds by July. I figured six months to lose fifteen pounds was fairly conservative and also it would not cause my mom to screech at me and try to force feed me chicken fried steak. (Kidding Mom, I am ALWAYS willing to eat your chicken fried steak.)

I have lost nine pounds since January. It has involved tracking calories, looking up "lighter" fast food options, gearing WAY down on food on days I don't workout. I haven't been starving, but I have been doing more than just HOPING to lose weight.

Here is the unfair part.

My son, Ty, was told he needed to drop a few pounds before next football season. He is a big guy. He needs to be faster. I didn't disapprove of the message because you should see what the kid eats. He decided to give up cokes. He decided this right before spring break and I was skeptical about how well the plan would work with that timing. I was very impressed the whole time we were on our little vacation and even after we came back he stuck to tea and water.
He lost five pounds in two weeks.

Really? He didn't change his eating habits. He still comes home and eats an entire can of cold ravioli as part of his after school snack. He didn't quit eating Little Debbi brownies either.
He lost five pounds.

The Coach usually goes on a baseball season diet, because he doesn't want to be the fat coach in the white baseball pants. He quit eating the 67 boxes of Girl Scout cookies he ordered. He lost six pounds in one week.

I hate them both.
It is not fair.
(But ha ha on them, neither of them will be getting a bikini!)

What unfairness exists in your life these days?

Snippity B

2011-04-15T05:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I called for a vote on who should write about the tri coach firing/rehiring saga. Those resilient folks who read my entire post claimed they wanted to hear both sides. So. Here it is. My husband wrote this. I interjected as needed.

As you may know, my wife has hired a triathlon coach. I don't ask questions........I just tell her, "Yes." whenever she wants something. I think there may have been three times in the history of our relationship I've told her that she can't do something.

I am sorry. I cannot write for laughing SO HARD. Three times? I am not saying the obsessive over protectiveness is not sweet I am just saying, The Coach has a plethora of rules.

We vacationed to Hawaii when she was eight months pregnant, I told her she couldn't climb to the top of Diamond Head.
So there we were climbing to the top of Diamond Head. We got about halfway up. You would think I would have been concerned that she would go into labor. Nope, all I was thinking, while trailing her and mentally writing my last will and testament was, "Please don't slip and fall", because I don't think I would have survived her landing on me.

Really funny, Girl Scout Cookie Boy.

We ended up turning around and going back down. We definitely got some crazy looks from people on the trail as we were retreating. I just kept telling everyone that the mental hospital called and I had to get her back. We couldn't be late.

The only other time I remember telling her no, when she wanted me to buy a pair of chaps. After I picked my jaw up from the floor and looked in the mirror at my fat a$$. My response was, "I'm not in the Village People. I'm not gay. I like women. Are you wishing I was gay. Do I need to hire a "pinch hitter" to wear some chaps for you? Are you out of your f*$#^%@ mind!!!!!!!!!!!!! ?"

The Pioneer Woman's husband wears chaps. I am just saying. I wasn't imagining my husband gay. I was imagining him a cowboy. Hello?

Back to my point. About 95% of the time my wonderful, loving, awesome, hot ass wife gets what she wants. Seriously, she does a great job taking care of the kids and being the mom and dad during baseball season, so I have no problem with her getting her way most of the time. Maybe I've spoiled her, I really don't know, BUT she now (not all the time, but most of the time) thinks that she must get her way with everyone!

I whole heartedly agree with the first part of this paragraph. I'll have to give the second part some thought.

For example this coach she hired (I hate him.......can't stand him.......would punch him right in the lips if I ever saw him........would pee in his gatorade before a race if I had that chance.) I've never even met the guy. I'm a coach, it's my job, I know how to coach and help my players. This guy isn't a coach, he's some weenie with ears that writes triathlon programs, puts on races, and take people's money while being lazy. He's worthless. Heather would be better off getting reading tips from Stevie Wonder or taking babysitting tips from Michael Jackson.

Why wouldn't he have ears? Don't we all have ears?
He has been helpful. but I didn't feel I was getting my moneys worth. I did not sign up to be on a team. If I were able to do that kind of rigid schedule I would still be wetting my pants at step class.

Heather was all ready to fire him after this last race - you know the one with the 27 trips to the "port-a-shitter".

I went twice.

I was excited. She was going to do it over email. I was actually hoping that he would pop off to her in his reply and give me a reason to drive to his office and pimp slap his scrawny ass.
She emailed him and told him she was letting him go and his services were no longer needed. I wanted to write the email. She wouldn't let me (something about harrassment and jail time.) He replied back, and Heather forwarded that to me. I read it and laughed. I also read her reply to him. Then I walked out of the dugout at my game, called her and told her that she was a real snippity b!%^h in that email.

Her response was classic. WELL.......I WAS TRYING TO BE!!!!!!" I said to myself, "Self, at least you aren't the only one getting the royal treatment." I would never say that to her. She would pee in my Post Toasties in the morning. I did tell her that if that was her goal, she most definitely accomplished it.

(My husband doesn't eat Post Toasties. I would never TRY to be a Snippity B. to him.)

The tri coach had two main issues with the firing.
1. It was a shame I hadn't actually done a race before I quit so I could accurately assess the benefits of his training.
2. If I was unhappy why didn't I say something sooner so he could fix the problem?

I had two responses.
1. I DID do a race the previous weekend. His race. He SAW me. I went on to say that the fact he didn't seem to know who I was despite our repeated meetings was most definitely part of the problem.
2. Fair enough. I let him know that he does not communicate with me. His services promise weekly progress reports. I didn't get ANY. I don't need to pay another person for the privilege of nagging them. Furthermore I have better things to do than to log all my workouts so that I can get no feedback. I told him I didn't hire him to attend scheduled groups workouts exclusively and he felt that was the crux of the program then we just weren't a good fit.
I went on to tell him if he thought he could fix those things I would continue service with him.

Ultimately he did agree that he had not given me the attention I deserved and he outlined his plan to correct the situation.

In the end I got home from my game last night and we talked. She didn't end up firing him. She kept him on for another month. I can't believe it.......actually.......I can. I told her to give him another chance and maybe he'd make some changes. If not, she can fire him next month and I might still get my chance to break him in half.

This post seems to have different points for each of us.
The Coach's point - I am spoiled. I can be a snippity B. He wants to beat up someone.

My point - I should not have assumed the tri coach could read my mind. (Why DO men have such a hard time with that?) People sometimes deserve a second chance. (Hopefully they won't need a third. )

Running Down a Dream

2011-04-14T05:40:00.000-07:00

I haven't written any training posts lately so I thought I would today.

For you non crazy runner types - Read it anyway. I'll be back to posting wonderful parenting tips, and overall genius tomorrow, or at least I'll have another story about injury and exposure.

Here are the training workouts I have done this week.

Sunday - 2 hr bike - Zone 2

Monday 1hr run - Zone 2

Both of these were nice. I saw many flowers and even more road kill. I have strange tan lines.

Tuesday am - 35 minute bike - Zone 2

Tuesday pm - Track torture - 4.5 miles - Zone 2-5 (Puke)

Wednesday am - 45 minute run - zone 2 (Sleep running!)

Wednesday afternoon - 1 hr bike - Zone 2

****I did not do this workout. I had to take a nephew to baseball and a guinea pig to get a pedicure.

Yes. Really.

Then I had to find a child who was MIA and go to P$'s birthday party.

Thursday am - 55 minute bike - power intervals. Ha.

Usually I would not ride on the morning of track, nor would I run six miles the evening before. BUT I fired my coach, and then two days later I re-hired him. (Another story for another day.) During those two days he switched track from Wednesday to Tuesday. (See? He is trying to kill me.)

We ran 12 x 400

I won't write them all here, but my best time was 1:56 and my worst was 2:16.

The fired/rehired coach tried to help me with form. Imagine trying to help a pigeon toed chicken run better.

He also pointed out that I had improved over my February track workouts which is true.

I guess I am impatient and ready to see real improvements that translate to faster actual RACE running. Preferably I would like to do this without breathing hard or hurting. :) My legs are very sore.

I have included these two (completely narcisstic and self indulgent) pictures.

1. Race in September before hiring/firing/rehiring a coach.

2. Race last week after three months of coaching.

Do I look any faster?

I kid.

Are you becoming impatient about any goals?

Or better yet.

What goals WERE you impatient about that finally paid off?

And.....

Rock Star Triathlete has told me a couple of times that improving the bike is the way to improve the run. Can anyone share any other methods of improvement they have had? Especially ones that involve eating pizza!!

One last thing and thank you for reading this far. Apparently I created a monster when I let The Coach post. He now has written a recount of my firing/rehiring my coach. Who would you like to hear the story from?

Me?

Him?

Both?

Bye now!!

Soccer it to Him

2011-04-13T05:27:00.000-07:00

Have I written about Tayte lately? I can't remember. He is three now which is the age soccer starts here. He is so stinking cute if I do say so myself.

His pants are too big. And his shirt. Plus his socks.

He seems to think this is the correct starting position even though no one else on his team does it this way.

He is having fun with other three and four year old boys. It sure is easy to pick out that paper white skin, and red hair in the crowd.

He invites everyone we see to his soccer game. Even if we don't know the person. So far he has invited the drive thru guy at McDonalds, the cashier in Target, and the officer who pulled me over for a ticket. (Oh I am just kidding. I didn't get a ticket!)

He has not scored yet, but he has not cried either which at this age is a GOAL!

What are your kids up to?

Wrestling, Biting, and Innocent Baptists

2011-04-12T05:21:00.000-07:00

It never ceases to amaze me how I can pile embarrassment upon embarrassment on myself until it threatens to topple over into a humiliating heap.

My Sister in Law and her husband both work at a Baptist Church here in town. They are very sweet and live a sweet, non-embarrassing life. They have four boys in elementary school. The Cousins are great fun and a constant source of companionship to Tanner. I went over the other day to clarify a text message from Sweet Aunt. (I have revived the toilet diving phone, but I can only see half the screen.) Sweet Aunt wasn't home, but Kind Uncle was. Tanner was already there (he seems to think they have taken him to raise.) The Cousins and he were taking turns wrestling under the officiating eye of Kind Uncle. His parents, ministers of a small Baptist Church in Kansas, were looking on with the proper amount of slight, tame interest.

I however was getting very excited. It looked like great fun.

I vaguely remembered having been asked (told) by The Coach to refrain from wrestling and rough housing with the boys. He claims they are going to hurt me. (As if...........) I usually remember this request. The last time I roughhoused with Ty he said, "Stop! I am going to accidentally hurt you and then I am going to get in trouble." So I usually remember to avoid wrestling, fighting, and so forth if not out of a sense of self-preservation, or out of respect for The Coach's suggestions (demands) at least in an attempt to keep the boys out of trouble.

I wish this had been the case this time.

I yelled out, " I challenge Tanner!" Because from what I had seen that seemed to be the proper protocol. Everyone laughed and I probably should have stopped right there. Instead I actually went on to wrestle Tanner. At least he does not weigh double what I weight like Ty does. His twelve year old self weighs about fifteen pounds less than me which I thought would work in my favor. I conveniently forgot about the fact the child has wrestling practice four nights a week and spends a considerable amount of weekends at wrestling tournaments. He knows actual wrestling moves.

We took our places. He quickly twisted me up into a pretzel and I saw my triathlon career flash before my eyes. I did what any mature mom would do. I bit him. Apparently this is against the wrestling rules. Everyone laughed while we continued to scuffle.

Then.

A hush fell over my four innocent nephews, my brother in law and his very proper, quiet, sheltered parents. After a sufficient amount of awkward silence I realized this episode had reached its full entertainment potential. So I quit. I waved a good bye to everyone and headed out to the car.

On the way out I commented to Ty I thought I had done pretty well, biting aside.
My oldest child replied, "You were doing a good job right up until your boob fell out of your shirt."
I was mortified. I looked down and sure enough my vest was all bunched up and my bright purple bra was clearly visible.
I asked him why he hadn't SAID something.
He asked, "What did you want me to say? Hey mom, we can all see your boob?"
YES!
That would have been helpful.
I asked him if anyone saw.
He thought for a second and said, "Kind Uncle gasped, 'Oh no!' and then he turned and looked away. So I am thinking he did see."

(Imagine it like this. Except for with partial nudity.) ( I would be the one getting pummeled.)

Grrrrrr.
The worst part of this was that later I had to explain the huge bloody rug burn on my elbow to The Coach. He just stared at me and said, "Didn't I ask you NOT to wrestle with the boys?" Yes.

In my defense though, he never asked that I not expose myself to all the Baptist ministers and young boys in the family in one fell swoop.

I blame Sweet Aunt. Had she been there this would have never happened.

What is your latest/most embarrassing moment?

Terrible Mom Confessions #84

2011-04-11T04:58:00.000-07:00

I don't care about grades.
There I said it. I really don't.
It is easy to say that since my kids do decently at school. It is also easy to say that since The Coach cares monumentally about grades. (That way I don't have to.)

The more scandalous part of this is that I don't help my kids with homework. I am a slacker.

Even though I am trying to put a humorous spin on this. I really do feel bad sometimes. Don't feel sorry for me though, because I haven't started doing anything differently.

I do better with the older kids. I have been a secondary level educator for seventeen years now. I can look at their grades online and generally figure out if they have "got it" or not. I can nag them.

As for Saige. I do not help her. She comes in and sits down and does her own homework. Thank God! Her grades are not stellar. She is struggling in math. I could or could not tell you what they are supposed to be learning on any given day.
I don't want to help with homework and here is why.
I think it is stupid.
I don't want to.
I am not blaming the teachers.
I am blaming, "they".

My daughter gets home at 4:00 pm from school. "They" want her to sit and do another hour of work? "They" have already cut her recess to fifteen minutes a day and "They" have limited PE to every other day in elementary school.
Admittedly my daughter is not the fastest homework doer of the world. She is distracted by things like: screaming siblings, cookies (We ARE related you know.) and air. (Again, we ARE related.)

I just think her time could be better spent ~~learning to fold laundry or watching the babies so I can take a nap~~
riding her bike, playing castle at the park with friends, and texting. (Not really.)

In my mind I know this homework is intended to reinforce lessons learned at school. I also know the teachers only have a limited amount of time to get a wide variety of curriculum requirements taught. I only have a limited time at home to teach her other lessons like the joy of walking in the sunny outdoors, how to make cookies.
No. Everyday at our house is not sunshine and cookies. I would like there to be the potential though and that potential arises when there is no homework!! (Mainly though if "they" didn't require homework I would feel much much less like a slacker mom.)

(I wrote this a while back and yesterday I read an excerpt from Tiger Mom. Now I am thinking I am helping contribute to the Decline of the American Society. I have decided to balance my lackadaisical attitude out by calling her "Garbage" every once in a while and refusing to let her be in a play.)

Is there an area of parenting you would just rather not deal with?

For the Cycle

2011-04-08T10:35:00.000-07:00

In baseball hitting for the cycle means a player hit a single, double, triple and home run in the same games. It is a rare feat to be celebrated.

I don't exactly know what hitting for the cycle would be in motherhood and I don't know that the following experience should be celebrated, but after repeated fails the other day I just kept having the thought that I should give up and go to bed because I had in fact, hit for the cycle.

1. Drench. I came running in from the garage after picking up four kids. (God bless that ONE kid who manages to ride the bus home on Tuesdays.) I had to go to the bathroom SO BAD. I had my phone the waistband of my skirt and I was carrying Shaye. I bent over to put the seat down (three sons) and my phone fell into the toilet. I fished it out while still holding Shaye and still doing the pee pee dance. Then I called Ty to come get the phone from me to take it apart an dry it out. He said, "I am not coming in there while you are pee-ing." Really? It doesn't seem to have been a problem at any other time in his life.
(He did take apart the phone and then he covered the soaking wet thing with about eleven grains of rice. Thanks Ty.)

2. Dig. Shaye's nose has been really stuffy/runny lately. I saw some disgusting matter in there and went after it with a tissue. That didn't work. She couldn't blow it out so I looked for the baby snot snucker. I found the leftovers from when the dog had recently eaten it as a snack. I attacked the offending nose matter with a Q-tip and realized it was too firm to be mucous related. I decided to take one stab at it with the tweezers before I resigned to the ER. I was figuring Shaye Baby must have got some tissue embedded in there. Instead a pulled out a tennis shoe to a Polly Pocket. Apparently she decided at the sitter's her nasal cavity would be a good place to shove a toy she is not allowed to play with.

3. Dump. About that time my nice neighbor/coworker came over to discuss impending layoffs at our school. She was sitting at a bar stool observing my domestic goddess prowess. I picked up the pepper box with my good hand. (Shaye was occupying the other arm.) and dumped half a box of pepper on the chicken breast I was preparing. Luckily that was easily fixed.

(About this time The Coach showed up unexpectedly. He had a game and I thought he would be headed to it. Obviously I didn't get the phone call that he needed to swing by because my damp phone was chilling out in a big bowl with eleven of its ricest friends.)

4. Drop. Finally I was rummaging through the freezer for some food item when I took out a frozen t.v. dinner. Apparently some child had previously opened the dinner, peeled back the plastic then decided he didn't want it. Frozen corn and chicken went everywhere. I called for Ty who was sweeping the dining room to come sweep the kitchen and then I wrestled corn kernels from Shaye before she could insert them into her nose.

I feel like I pretty much covered everything a domestic hero should in one day. I guess I will break into my home run trot now and go sign some autographs!

I haven't hopped for a while so I thought I would. If you are vising from the hops please let me know so I can return the favor. (And don't expect me to ever do better for this, I mean I did hit for the cycle after all!)

Towels Don't Walk, Judges Don't Judge

2011-04-07T05:14:00.000-07:00

Today I have two completely unrelated thoughts. I tried to find some way to mesh them together with no luck. So try to keep up with the ADD girl today. (Look! A butterfly! What was I saying?)

1. I thought this was a great organizational idea. Each kid has an assigned color of towel. When they are clean I set them on the stairs thinking the kids will pick em up and take them to the bathroom.

No.

Instead they will step over them repeatedly on the way to their rooms.

One would think the lack of towel when they get out of the shower would be motivating, but no. They really don't mind streaking to their room and once there trying to struggle into clothes while they are sopping wet.

Which leads me to another questions.

If that is the case.....how do the towels even GET dirty?

I am not sure I want to know.

2. I started this season really enjoying American Idol. It was nice to have less sarcasm and hatefulness. BUT now I am tired of judges who are just really cheerleaders. All of the contestants do not sing beautifully. They are not all wonderful and they are not all going to have concert tours and albums. It would be nice to hear some constructive criticism, Dog.

Can you relate to either of these topics?

I'll vote for the contestant who will come put these towels away?

Surprise Package!

2011-04-06T05:07:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking a lot about babies lately. If we hadn't had that possibility permanently eliminated I would be debating another. Cuz you know I am not quite close enough to a nervous breakdown some days.

All of my children were planned and scheduled.
Except for this one.
(She has learned to say, "Cheeeeeeeese!" every time she sees the camera.)

It was always to the chagrin of my mom that I knew six times I was pregnant before she did. That is her gift. She can spot an unsuspecting newly pregnant woman a mile away - maybe two.
But I always used EPTs!

After Tayte turned one The Coach and I started discussing having another child. We were tentatively thinking about trying after Tayte's second birthday. It would give me an opportunity to complete an entire triathlon season and to save up some "sick" days at work.
I was also secretly tentatively toying with the idea of not having a fifth child ever. I have been blessed with trauma free pregnancies, but I don't LIKE to be pregnant and no one likes to be around me when I am. Plus I was remembering the challenges of raising two young babies during my twenties. My plan was to teach Tayte to be spectacular bratty thus insuring The Coach wouldn't want another. :)

By Christmas that year I had planned out a triathlon season including Olympic distance races. I had lost all my baby weight plus about fifteen pounds and had assembled a new wardrobe while watching reruns of "What Not to Wear". The Coach and I had plans for a two week family vacation to New York. Let's just say I was being VERY CAREFUL to swallow that pill every morning.

I was at my mom's house on Christmas Eve and I was crying. I don't remember why. I think someone asked me to pass the cranberry or something equally offensive. My mother took me aside and said, "Heather, you are pregnant." I was adamant I wasn't. My mother continued on. "You are weepy, and your face is fuzzy and your body is fluffy." Imagine my reaction to that if a simple request for cranberry had sent me sobbing from the room.

I bought the EPT that night, and the next morning Mom's notion was confirmed. The Coach was ecstatic which is odd for him. He is definitely a planner. I dissolved into a sobbing mess yet again. And then I cried some more because I felt so guilty for crying. This poor unborn baby-kins wasn't even getting a friendly welcome. Guilt overwhelmed as me just as much as the surprise of being pregnant for the next week or so.

I finally I got over it and realized I could still run while pregnant. (But I didn't.) I could certainly go to New York (I did.) I realized if I had managed to lose the weight after Tayte I could do it again.

(One of the very few pictures in existence of me about pregnant. I was about 35 weeks along at the start of our two week vacation. We had just arrived in Canada, by car, from Texas. I can't believe I am posting this.)

I stubbornly held on to the dream of pursuing my master's degree until after Shaye was born. At that point I was hit with the reality that those plans were MINE and I hadn't consulted the proper authorities (GOD) to make sure we were on the same page.

Nineteen short months after her birth I can't imagine our house without her busy, *blackeyed, runny nosed, ornery, carnivorous, dog riding self.

Now if I could just get her older brother to quit calling her Accident.

*She managed to get not one, but two black eyes last week alone.

Were you totally surprised by any of your babies?

"The Coach" Speaks!

2011-04-05T05:12:00.000-07:00

I always try to get The Coach to take pictures while I am racing. He never does. This time I told him if he would take some pictures he could guest blog. We had to hash out the details, like how many pictures he was allowed to post of stranger's boobs, but we finally came to an agreement. In a move I may live to regret. Here's The Coach!

So the wife says that I get to be her guest blogger today. Woo hooo! If you have been paying attention to her blog lately, you know it's officially triathlon season. I can hardly contain my excitement. She wanted me to share the race from my point of view. I gladly accepted. So....................here goes.

The alarm went off at 3:25 AM and my dog looked at me and said, *"What the blue hell is that noise? Is the house on fire? Please tell me you aren't going to make me get up and go pee right now at this hour. I promise I won't eat anymore of the cat litter if you just let me go back to sleep!"
We got up, the dog peed, we loaded the truck and were out of the house by 3:45. It's amazing when my wife and I go on a date I have to tell her we are leaving 30 minutes before we actually are, so she will be on time, but for a triathlon she's early. I don't get it.

We stopped by the gas station so I could mainline of this wonderful creation from God. It is the only way I could possibly stay awake.

For those of you who don't see 3:45 AM very often allow me to explain how early it is.
In a city of 4 million people. We passed one car on the road.
It's even too early for the fishing show to be on the radio. It doesn't start until 4AM. So for about 6 minutes of the drive we got to listen to some idiot talk about ghosts and alien life forms and how he was "butt diddled" by ghosts of alien life forms.
FINALLY my favorite fishing show came on. Heather hates it. She thinks that the fishing guy is an idiot and is hard to understand. She definitely thinks the people who call in at 4AM are idiots. She voiced that at about 4:13 AM and I just looked at her and thought, "We are up at this time so you can go torture yourself for 3 hours and you want to complain about some fisherman calling into a radio show." I didn't say that out loud because she would've either hit me or farted. I don't know which one is worse at 4:13 AM. I do enjoy the fishing show, but I really enjoy that she hates it. It's part of my payback for having to get up at the ass crack of dawn.

Finally we arrived and I got to watch Heather's pre-race routine. Some people pray, run a half-mile to warm up, stretch. Not my "Hot Ass Triathlete", she runs to this wonderful contraption at least 23 times before the race. I've finally just started putting my lawn chair right next to it (up-wind, of course). I've thought to myself quite often that I'm going to buy a "port-a-shitter" company just for the sake of my wife's usage at triathlons. I bet I would be rich by now.

We finally made it to the start of the race, well, not actually. Normally the swim starts from land, but this time they get to load this wonderful mode of transportation. It takes them out into the Gulf of Mexico one mile and they swim straight in. Well most people swim straight in. If you tracked my wife's swim path it would looked like a very skilled cross-stitch. She doesn't understand straight. She's trying though.

The funny thing is, we've been on this boat before. Wanna know when? Well I'm going to tell you.
When my wife and I had been dating a while, I don't think we were married yet, she told me she had this wonderfully romantic dinner-date planned for me. I was excited. Figured it out yet? Yep, this boat doubles as a dancing buffet. She paid MONEY for us to go on this thing at one time and dance to a one-man band and eat school cafeteria food. It was the worst date I have ever been on in my life. Y'all may think I'm a jerk right now. Don't....she will tell you the same thing. **At one point in the date we both thought about jumping overboard and swimming a couple miles back to shore.

Let's get back to the race.

While she was sitting on the boat getting ready to go swim her mile, I moseyed into an outdoor bar. It was closed because the only people up at 5:45AM on a Sunday are God, us, and the most intellectual security guard I've ever had a conversation with. I sat down at the bar and started watching Sports Center. This bar is a pathway from the parking lot to the boardwalk. There were at least 100 people walking through this thing.
Well, Mr. Rent-a-Cop came in and asked me what I was doing. I could've been a smartass but I simply said, "catching up on some scores. How are you doing?" He proceeded to tell me that I had set off the security system and I needed to leave. I looked and pointed at all the people walking through the bar and wondered how they didn't set it off. I guess I could've stood and watched TV but as soon as I say my ass down in the chair it set the alarm off. That's one high quality security system. After about a 25 minute conversation with "The Smartest Security Guard Ever", I made my way around the boardwalk to see my wife zig-zag her way into the shore.

I thought to myself,"what am I going to do for 3 hours?" Most people could watch a full baseball game, or any of the Lord of the Rings movies, drive to San Antonio, or SLEEP. I decided to wander aimlessly around Kemah and check out the sights.

The first sight I came across was a twenty-something guy sitting in a chair, watching the contestants swim to the shore. He was on his phone, cussing up a storm and acting like Mr. Pimp Daddy. In the meantime I was in a conversation with a woman who was about 6 months pregnant and I noticed that she was rubbing her back. I guarantee she wished she would have stayed in bed for this 3 hours.
Anyway, I asked Pimp Daddy if he would mind getting up for about 5 minutes so she could rest her back. I got one of the most prolific responses I've ever heard in my life. "I'm comfortable." Wow! I asked again even more politely and his response was, "Yo dog. I'm comfortable." I've never thought about getting into a fight at a triathlon, mainly because I'm checking out all the fake boobs. It was all I could do to keep from throwing that scrawny kid halfway into the ocean and letting that lady sit down. I simply walked away.....hoping he choked on his drink.

***I decided to go see Miss Cleo and have my crystal ball read. Here's what she said to me. "What's your name sweetie." She's the psychic, why was she asking me my name? She did tell me that I was going to have unlimited "kitchen passes" for a year because of my wonderfulness and awesomeness and athletic supportness. She told me what an amazing and great a husband I was. I already knew these things. I was excited about the "kitchen passes".

I thought about going right next door to the "Love Specialist". I soon realized that I didn't need any help in this department. I was going to get all the "lovin" I wanted after this little jaunt.

The race was finally winding down and my "Hot Ass Triathlete" was doing better than the last time she ran this distance. Overall, I got to see her swim in, get on her bike, come back on her bike, start the run, stop and use the "port-a-shitter" mid-race. I saw her about 2 miles into the run and she had just barely passed a contestant with a walker. I was so excited I yelled that she actually passed someone. The guy was not happy. I laughed.

In all seriousness. I am glad to go support my wife at her triathlons..........who are we kidding............I go for the fake boobs. She knows it, I know it, why lie about it? This race's "talent" was not very impressive. There was, however, one lady who finished the race without a spec of makeup out of place. Funny thing is, she was probably prettier without the makeup.

I'm glad for the experience. My wife did awesome. She was proud of herself. I did learn something at this race.......next time I'm bringing my cooler and my fishing pole.

What does your husband do while you are busy with your hobbies?

So there you have it. A race recap from The Coach.
*Our dog doesn't actually talk. She does eat cat litter.
**I didn't consider jumping into the Gulf to escape. It was February. I do not like cold.
***These two paragraphs are completely fabricated.

Leave him some comment love if you want, but not too much. I'll never hear the end of it if he gets more comments than I do. :)

A Day at the Beach

2011-04-04T05:32:00.000-07:00

The Coach and I got up at the butt crack of dawn Sunday so I could participate in the Kemah Triathlon - International Distance.

The race started with a few trips to the port can.

Of course the race really started with a swim, but instead of leaving from the shore we were loaded onto this boat. The boat then drove us a mile out in to the Gulf and we jumped off and swam in. Different.

Check out this absolutely straight swim course.

Then tell me how I managed to add probably 200 meters to my swim by swimming in a triangle. I swam too left until I literally ran into a lifeguard kayak and then I had to course correct and swim back to the right. I tell you I am going to kick some butt when I learn to swim straighly. (Yeah. That's a word.)
*I think I was 9th in the swim for my age group.

Next was the bike and I felt like I was doing fairly well until the wind came in. So I was headed out at max speeds of 14.5 mph. My bike sounded horrible. I felt like it was going to fall apart. I kept envisioning myself sitting on my bum in the middle of the highway holding on to my areo-bars while the rest of my bike fell down around me. I finally realized that it has probably sounded like this for a while, but I haven't noticed since I usually listen to my ipod.
I was keeping up a steady stream of mental trash talk when I would pass people. "Ha ha you 28 year stud. I just passed you. I am a 39 year old mom of five. Take that." Then I realized the guy was probably recovering from leukemia or something, and I felt terrible. Conversely if someone obviously faster than me passed by I would think, "You're not so hot! I beat you in the swim!" Thank God for the turnaround! After that I was booking it and I passed several people. (Only to see them again on the dreaded run.)
*I have no idea of my rank in the bike.

Running improvement is slow and painful. At least for me. I can say during this race I at least didn't feel like I was going to die. I did cut my time in the run marginally. I think I would have cut it more had we not had to go up and over the causeway....TWICE. (My photographer didn't get a picture, I got this one of the internet.)
*Pace - 11:30/mile

All in all it wasn't bad. I improved on my last time by over ten minutes. I'll take improvement no matter how minimal over a DNF!!
*Final Time 3:19:??

After that we went home. My mom and dad were nice enough to watch the kids at their house so we could catch a post-race nap. After that I experienced the post-race "I can't get out of bed." Then we enjoyed a nice Italian dinner courtesy of the folks.

What races do you have coming up?

*Official race results were not posted yet when I gave up and went to bed.
Tune in tomorrow for a humorous guest post by The Coach.

Party On!!

2011-04-01T07:45:00.001-07:00

Party on.
I am linking up with the Ultimate Blog Party.

(Which reminded me I have been blogging for a whole year. Who would have thought it was possible to write for a while year about ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. You just don't find that kind of talent anywhere.)

Here's my favorite party. I am a high school history teacher after all.

A little cake is always good.

And hey, it is never a party without a little Charlie Sheen.

Here is a sampling of the absolutely nothing I manage to write about pretty much on a daily basis.

A Mid - Summer Panic

Wedded Bliss

Tanner Makes Lunch

If that wasn't scary enough to run you away. Here's a little about my triathlon training and why I even bother to tri!

Why Tri?

Thanks for stopping by and please leave a comment so I can visit you too. I am always on the look out for an entertaining read. You know, now that I have stopped reading actual books and only read blogs.

You Might Ask

2011-04-01T05:06:00.000-07:00

Why?
Why were we eating Thanksgiving dinner on a random night at the end of March?

Well. What had happened was...

We were frying this fish up for The Coach's family when this baby decided to scream incessantly.

Since I couldn't get her to quit I figured I would put her in her bed so she could miserable without making the rest of us miserable.

I returned to the garage with the monitor and asked The Coach if I could unplug this cord..

He said I could because it was just his drill charger.

Ten minutes later I mentioned aloud that the garage fridge light had just burned out.

The next afternoon Ty came in the house and told us someone must have left the garage fridge door open because the drinks in there were warm.

I went out into the garage to investigate.

I plugged the drill charger in. The fridge starting humming.
Hmmmmmmm.

Turns out I had unplugged the fridge. Everything in the freezer was still frozen solid except for a fourteen pound turkey. So, The Coach cut it up and put it in the crock pot. I made, sweet potatoes, green bean cassarole, mac and cheese, and stuffing.

And that my friend is why we were eating Thanksgiving dinner in March. Isn't that what you would have done?

The good news is we got not only the catfish out of the freezer, but the turkey too. Now I no longer have to open the door ready to jump to avoid a turkey on the toe.

Now if we could just rid ourselves of this duck. Anyone like duck?

I think I may make this a tradition and just move it to April Fool's Day.

What stupid things have you done lately?

Crisis Averted

2011-03-31T05:00:00.000-07:00

I got up the other morning at 5:30. I am tapering so I got to sleep late.
I showered and dressed and walked into the living room at 5:50. I thought I would finally get to school early enough to get some work done.
Ty was sitting in the living room dressed which is odd since he is usually the last one to roll unwillingly out of bed on a weekday. He couldn't sleep. He requested I take him to school so he could lift. I knew it would add ten minutes to my drive, but I agreed.

I went to wake up Tayte and realized he had wet the bed. No biggie. He is only three. But discussing a shower and cleaning him up took another ten minutes.
Then I had to cart his whiny self (he gets upset when he wets the bed) back upstairs to wake up Tanner, Saige, and Shaye. I got Shaye dressed.

By that time I was running behind. I had a quiz over Allied v. Japanese strategy in the Pacific to write.

The Coach was still in bed peacefully snoozing away. I could feel my eyes narrow and I cold hear my breathe getting huffy. I wanted to snatch the pillow out from under his head and smack him with it. Repeatedly.
Then I realized he didn't know what was going on. He was peacefully unaware of the blips in that morning's schedule.
He woke up and leisurely walked to the closet to get dressed.

I caught myself thinking, "Must be nice to only have to get YOURSELF dressed." I put the kids in the car and walked back in to say goodbye. Snarky comments were flashing in my brain.

My more practical self finally won the internal struggle.

I walked up to him and said, "Could you please start waking up five to ten minutes earlier so I could have some help with the children."

His reply, "Sure baby. I'll do whatever you need. You know all you have to do is ask."

Crisis Averted.

I sometimes forget he can't read my mind. I sometimes forget that he is HORRIBLE at processing hints and/or body language. I sometimes forget that he will do whatever I ask him to do.
This has caused fights in the past as I feel taken for granted while I am silently struggling to do something on my own.

This morning however a fight was avoided.

What keys have you learned to insure a harmonious relationship?

Score!

2011-03-30T05:00:00.000-07:00

This is Ty.

Do you notice a constant in these pictures?

You probably don't realize it, but that hoodie is not only an article of clothing. It is also deodorant.

That's right.

With logic only a 15 year old boy can achieve my son (who asked me the other day what margarine was.) thinks if he wears this magical hoodie over his clean shirt every day it will block the BO that builds over the course of day. No, the fact that he only washes it once a week doesn't seem to factor in.

Anyway. He is a UT fan.

We decorated his room when we first moved in. I painted this wrought iron bed frame black. It used to be mine and it was white. Before that it belonged to my granny.
Then my mom and I worked on his walls. Pretty much she did the detailed stuff and I did the large spaces. We work best that way.
The bedding came from Bed, Bath and Beyond.

He was pretty pleased with the whole bargain set up except for the fact he had no dresser.

This gnome didn't make up for the lack of dresser.

Today when I picked the babies up from Tia, the sitter, I passed a lady sitting in her front yard with five or six items in her yard for sale. I made a quick u-turn and hopped out to check out a black dresser. It was sturdy and solid wood. She wanted 25.00 for it, but I only had a 20 on me. I talked her down. We wrestled with it for a while before we managed to get it in the Armada.

Ty was excited when I told him I was late picking him up because I was buying him something. Even though he has been asking about a dresser I think it was a let down. He probably thought I bought him that 250.00 pair of Oakleys he has been ~~whining about~~ lobbying for. He didn't seem to catch the excitement of paying twenty bucks for a solid wood dresser.

This is Ty trying to act unimpressed. Ok. He isn't acting.

It has some dings on it I will eventually fix. Plus my plan is to get these long horn drawer pulls too. He may not be impressed, but I am not going to let that diminish my excitement.

(Yes. I do have a low entertainment threshold.)

Since no room is complete without weaponry this is also on Ty's wall!

Have your kids tried to rob you of excitement lately? Or talk you into a 250.00 purchase?