100 Day Challenge - Day 3

No video blog today. I'll just write.

Yesterday was hard. Really hard. So hard I was going to quit. I felt like I was dying, I wanted to eat something... anything... it was HORRIBLE.

At around 11:00 AM yesterday I hit a wall and it was downhill from there. I was almost instantly freezing cold and lethargic. I crawled under the blankets and shivered myself to sleep, waking up in time to get the kids from the bus stops. I was horribly irritable, tired, and hungry... it was not a good thing at all. It wasn't at all conducive to the positive thinking that is necessary for my 100 day challenge!

Today I feel much better. I'm starting to have a little energy and things are more positive. I'm going to get things done today if it kills me!

I lost another 2 1/2 pounds yesterday. Rock on.

Today I'll be working on getting some of the mess in my life cleared out. Saturday morning is trash day and I hope to have a whole curb full out there.

100 Day Challenge - Day 2

If this stuff bores you to death, I won't be offended if you just scroll by. ;)

If you have no idea what the heck I'm doing here, see this post!

Warning! Blasphemy ahead!

This weekend it was our niece and nephew's First Communion. Saturday morning we got up way earlier than we would have liked and made our way to mass.

I was born into a Catholic family. However, at some point before I was old enough to remember, my dad decided we were going to be less Catholic. So other than special occasions, perhaps a midnight mass, and weekends when I spent the night at Grandma's house I never really went to mass.

It had been several years since I had been to mass so when the congregation began singing "Taste and See" I was sort of taken back.

I don't remember "Taste and See" from mass before... maybe "Taste and See" is only for First Communion celebrations? All I know is that it was quite a chore to keep from giggling as I pictured a church choir singing the new jingle for Tasty Jesus Snacks.

Funnier still was when one of the little boys who probably needed a few more classes didn't put the wafer in his mouth. The priest had a sort of panicked look in his eye as one of the attendants ran off after the little guy. If there's one rule I definitely remember from Catholicism, it's that you can't leave the church with Jesus.

All kidding aside, it was really a beautiful service and I did get a little teary eyed when my little niece and nephew received their first Eucharist.

OMG - a VIDEO blog? I must have lost my mind!

Let me tell you this... my heart is all a flutter as I upload this video. I'm officially starting the 100 Day Challenge and I'm sort of freaking the heck out that I'm announcing it to the world. And practically everyone I know.

But here I go... I can't take it back now.

(It's okay, Mom... you can push the play video... it's not a virus.)

Change that has nothing to do with politics

I think I might be starting a cleanse today. I think. I haven't been to bed yet so today hasn't started yet and I'm not sure how I feel when I wake up.

But I think I might be starting one.

I really feel like things need to change. Hopefully this will be a good start to a lot of good change.

That is, of course, unless all this optimistic motivation is completely gone when I wake up.

If not, then I'll be off to Whole Foods in the morning for some Grade B Maple Syrup.

Rock on.

EDIT:

I'm not going to start today... I'll start tomorrow. But today I'll still be off to Whole Foods for some Grade B Maple Syrup.

This morning I woke up too late to get the kids to school on time. So I let them stay home and I went back to bed.

Parenting FAIL.

I wish I had all the answers...

I didn't experience bullies until I was in sixth grade. My little elementary school was pretty tight knit and though there were more and less popular kids, no one was really bullied. Middle school, however, was a whole different story.

I remember the first time I had to deal with another kid being really mean to me. It was on the bus. We were crammed into that bus like sardines, 3 kids to a seat. Worse than that, the bus driver assigned our seats in some lame attempt to keep the noise level down on the bus. I was sandwiched between two girls who were in the 8th grade. In front of us sat the most popular boy in the entirety of Jefferson Davis Middle School. His name was Brian.

Brian had a reputation with the girls of the school. He was cute, he was a class clown, he wore all the right clothes, and always had a popular girlfriend. In my head, though, he was evil incarnate.

I was a chubby little sixth grader and I had no clue how to dress myself or style my hair like all the other girls did. Sitting there, in the middle of those two 8th grade girls, I remember feeling small. Even as porky as I was, I was still a lot smaller than they were. Brian turned around and hung over the back of the seat to taunt me.

He told me how ugly I was. He told me how fat I was. He told me I didn't deserve to be in the presence of those beautiful 8th grade girls.

And all I did was sit and stare back at him and try not to cry until I got off the bus.

I was lucky, though. I simply refused to ride the bus (if my mom wouldn't pick me up and I couldn't get a ride I'd just walk the 4 miles home) and tried not to make any waves for the rest of my 6th grade year. By 7th grade I slimmed down, learned how to do that nifty flip thing with my bangs, and bought some Guess Jeans. All was just fine at that point.

What scares me is that a lot of kids aren't quite so lucky. For me it was a matter of looking the part to fit in, but unfortunately that's not going to cut it for every kid. I can be sure my three are dressed in the latest styles and have the cool haircuts but I can't protect them from the bullies.

Just yesterday Munchkin told me how another little girl called her a "Crybaby" and a "Thumbsucker" and pushed her out of the seat on the bus. Bug came home a few weeks ago and told me how a little boy picked on him during bathroom time and how he doesn't know what to do about it.

So what do I tell my kids? Do I tell them to tattle? Do I contact the teacher or the bus driver? The parents? What if it gets worse? What do I do if I think my child might be thinking life isn't worth living because he or she has to deal with this?

Articles like that one strike a fear inside of me I can't even explain. My heart is crying for this poor child's mother. Selfishly, though, I can't help but see an article like this and look at it as a warning sign. I can't imagine what I might have done if I had been forced to endure those fat jokes all throughout middle school. I suppose it might have damaged my self-worth so much and made my life so miserable that I might not have seen any other way out.

I was lucky... and I hope my own kids are, too. Unfortunately, I think I need a lot more than hope to help them make it through unscarred.

Earth Day at The Spaz house

If you were buried under a rock somewhere and don't know, yesterday was Earth Day. I've never been too much of an Earth Day participant, really, but this year it occurred to me that it's pretty important to teach my kids to love their planet.

So yesterday we made some baby steps in the right direction.

First of all, I ordered new recycling bins from the Solid Waste Authority since we currently don't have any. A couple of years ago I watched a Penn & Teller show on recycling and it thoroughly convinced me that recycling was bunk. (Warning, that link is NSFW due to language!) However, my more wise and open-minded self has decided that, though some of the points in that video are probably valid, it's important to look at it as entertainment propaganda. Therefore I'm deciding that this family is going to recycle due to overwhelming evidence that it is helping our environment. Just as soon as those bins get here.

Later, I picked Goober up from school and we had a talk about his lunchbox. I've attempted to make lunchboxes eco-friendly before but I always break down a couple of weeks in and start packing Capri-Suns and sandwiches in ziploc bags. So I thought maybe if I could get Goober excited about the prospect of having cute little containers in his lunchbox rather than disposable packaging, it might keep me doing the right thing. So we purchased some cute little containers for sandwiches, juice, and snacks and Goober is super excited to get his lunchbox.

I swear I'm not being paid for this post.

Another issue we have as a family that is just terrible for the environment is water. We live in the boonies and are on a well and the water tastes terrible. So we buy jugs of water. Tons of them every month. So, in honor of Earth Day, today I purchased a Brita Water Pitcher and two 1 gallon pitchers to hold lemonade and iced tea (staples in our house).

Then, at checkout I noticed these great reusable grocery bags. They fold up and snap into a little square so I can throw them all in my glove compartment and bring them with me every time I shop. Not only that, but they hold about three times as much as a normal plastic grocery bag and they're way easier to load and unload in the car. So I bought six of them at $1.50 a piece, which is way cheaper than the Baggu bags I've been considering for almost 6 months.

They're not at all girly, Dad!

It's not like we've eliminated our carbon footprint or anything, but I'm proud of the steps our family took today.

On The Road With The Spaz

So I'm driving the other day to pick Goober up from school and it's pouring. In fact, if I could have waited any longer to pick him up I would have because no sensible person should have been voluntarily driving in these particular conditions. But I'm dangerously close to the last minute on picking him up so I venture out. I am soaked, I get the little monster in the car, he's soaked, and we're on our way home when I look in my rear view mirror and see this:

(Okay, it was just very similar to this... I wasn't going to pull out my camera in the monsoon or anything...)

This kind of thing makes me insane. I'm driving in a downpour on a 2 lane road in my minivan and a semi truck is riding my ass? This is why I want The Man to install a scrolling marquee in my rear windshield so I can broadcast "Back Off, Moron! I've got little kids in here!"

People are stopping in front of me all over the place to make left turns and I'm freaked out about stopping because I just know Mr. Tractor Trailer can't stop for crap in the rain so my only defense is to be so far back behind the guy in front of me that I can barely tell what color his car is.

You'd think commercial drivers, being that they're on the road all the time and are well aware of the dangers, would be much more cautious.

And that's my rant for the day.

I've noticed that a lot of my entries lately have been me bitching about something or another. I'm going to try to stop that. Right after I post this entry. :)

Happy Birthday to The Man!

Today is The Man's birthday, so I'm posting this especially for him:

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Happy Birthday Mr. Wonderful. I'm so glad you've chosen to share this time in your life with me. :)

And they wonder why I don't like touching people...

So, I have a little pet peeve. Okay, it's sort of a big pet peeve. It has to do with the bathroom. No, it's not which way the toilet paper is put on the roll (it should be over, by the way... but I won't freak out if it's not) or whether the toilet paper is actually on the dispenser or whether the seat is up or down. Those are all irritating if done incorrectly... but they aren't my issue.

My issue is with soap.

I'm sure it's happened to you, too. You're at a friend's house, or maybe your Great Aunt Margaret's house, and you go to the bathroom. You start to wash your hands and then you realize there's no soap. None. Not a lotion soap, not a bar, nothing. So you open a medicine cabinet, maybe look under the sink, and if all else fails (and you're not in a dreaded half-bath) you look in the shower and actually use a bit of that soap. Because it's better than no soap.... isn't it? I know... I'm not sure, either.

If there isn't any soap in there you've really got a problem.

And I have to wonder... what the heck? Don't these people wash their hands after they go to the bathroom? No? And then I think... what else have they touched after they went to the bathroom and didn't wash their hands? O...M...G... Great Aunt Margaret just made me dinner!!!

And then I am convinced I've ingested a multitude of harmful bacteria. I can feel myself getting sicker by the minute. My hands feel as though they are coated in nuck and every surface I touch only makes this worse.

Neurosis? Perhaps. But at least my hands are clean.