Strawberries

I was eating a strawberry last night before I went to bed and I got a flash of a memory from when I was little!  Now I can not tell you the number of times I have eaten strawberries since I have been an adult or even older teenager and not thought of when I was little girl.  Maybe since it was Mother's Day and I had enjoyed a nice afternoon with my mom and step-dad I was in the right frame of mind to remember. 

When I was a little girl my mom had attempted to grow strawberries.  Now when I say attempted I don't mean that she was a failure at it. She did very well in getting them to grow and she even had berries on the plants!!  For a while she couldn't figure out why there were hardly even any ripe berries, though.   I think it was because two blonde haired little girls would sneak out in the back yard and find all the little berries, green or red, and eat them before mom could pick them!!   As I stood there last night eating that strawberry I was smiling to myself and remembering going out in our yard and searching for those little berries.  The green ones were very tart but they were still good.  I am surprised that we didn't get tummy aches from those!  I like when I remember little things like that, it makes me feel like I am home again!

Memories

This is a penguin.  I have had this little guy for a very long time!  He is kinda cute but really the wrong colors for a penguin.  I found him out in my garage when I was going through things to throw them out last weekend.  I remember when I got him, well sort of.  I don't remember how old I was but I wasn't really little.  So lets say when I was younger my dad won this little guy in one of  those claw machines.  You know the ones that you hardly ever win things out of?  Daddy wasn't one to play those things really and I don't even remember why he did this time....but out came this little guy.  He has been around for, gosh, around 20 years maybe?  I tuck him away somewhere and he reappears when I need to smile, sometimes when things are going bad he is just "found".  I think it is neat the way he appears when I sort of need him.  I was going through stuff in the garage and while I know he had been tucked away  in a container here he was just kind of sitting there with a bunch of other stuff!!  I had a bad weekend because of my medication mix up and I wasn't feeling too good.   Things have been really chaotic lately for no reason it seems.  That is normally when the penguin appears.  He makes me slow down somehow.  I see him and I smile and think, "What are you doing here?"  I give him a hug and make sure I put him somewhere safe.  I have some of Daddy's things, a flannel shirt, an old wallet, a few pictures that were in his wallet, and a quilt his mother made I think, but this little penguin evokes a different kind of feeling when I see him.  Those other things are nice and all, but they aren't stuffed, and cute, and "won" just for me by my daddy!  Now my little penguin is up on my dresser so I can look at him every day.  Who knows when he will get tucked away again to be found again just when I need him....

Vanity

You ever wonder why women feel they have to do so many things just to make themselves look good?  I mean we color our hair, perm or straighten our hair, remove hair from our legs and other areas, groom our eyebrows, use all kinds of lotions and potions on our skin, paint our faces with makeup, and our fingers and toes with polish, wear "support garments" so our bodies look perfect when they aren't, wear heels so we are taller, tan ourselves or use fake tanners so our skin looks golden and on and on!  Where does it stop?  And you know what?  Our husbands and most men don't care if we wear makeup or color our hair or most of the time even fix our hair.  They don't care if we come to bed in our flannel pajamas or our pretty nighties.  All they see is a beautiful woman that loves them and wants to be in the bed with them in the first place!  I mean is it the women that feel that we have to do all these things because other women do them?  Or is it because we look in magazines and see all the "perfect" women there?  I tell my girls that real women don't look like that, that those pictures are airbrushed and altered so much that she could have had a full beard and we would never know!!  I think that we as women hold ourselves at too high of a standard all the time and we should just relax and be happy knowing that our husbands love us as we are!!  Now where did I put that hair color??

I can not believe the weekend is over already!  It probably went by so fast because I had to sit all day Saturday and basically do nothing because of my medication stupidity.  Oh and I forgot a pill reminder when I went grocery shopping!  But I think I made up for sitting a little bit with what I got done on Sunday.  Since I moved in with my husband seven years ago our garage has been a landing spot for my previous life.  When all my stuff got delivered from North Carolina it all went into the garage.  We have gotten rid of some of it but a lot still lingers out there.  Sunday I went out to get something, I don't even remember what, and all the stuff just seemed to jump out at me.  I got Beau and we went through a lot of things on one side of the room.  I believe there were five or six boxes that were emptied and eight or nine garbage bags full out to the trash or to goodwill.  Now I can actually walk out into the garage and see part of the floor!!  All of that was accomplished in less than 45 minutes!  Now since I totally ignored the house over the weekend I have to make up for that and clean, clean, clean.  If I had normal routines in place for keeping things clean it would be easier.  Oh well, maybe one day!!  For now if Connor wants to play or isn't feeling well I will spend time with him.  He will only be this little for a small time and I want to relish is his babyness for as long as I can!  Being Monday today is my running day.  I will see how my body holds up after this weekend.  With all the progress I have made with my running program I do not want to lose ground by not running.  Onward to another wonderful, crazy day in my life!

Double Dose!

Yesterday was a crazy day for no reason at all!  From the time I woke up until the time I lay down last night it seemed to be a whirlwind of things that had to get done.  I take medication every morning for my thyroid disease.  Normally I will take it first thing in the morning and go on with my day. Yesterday being what it was I could not for the life of me remember if I had taken my medicine!  So at around 11 a.m. I took another one.  Oops!!! Around 12:30 I knew that I had taken a double dose. Now with most medications this would not be too bad, even with mine it wasn't awful, or so I thought. I took some benadryl and started to feel better so didn't think anything more about it.  Fast forward to Saturday morning.  I got out of bed and I felt like I had been hit by a truck!  Every muscle from the top of my head to the bottom of my toes hurt.  I felt drained of all energy.  I remember feeling this way before my thyroid disease was diagnosed and when they thought I had fibromyalgia.  I have not missed this feeling not one bit!  So today I am relaxing. The kids are taking care of the cleaning and will be cooking dinner tonight as well, although they don't know it yet!  I will be going to the store tomorrow and getting a 30 day pill reminder so that this does not happen again.  On the bright side of things.....at least I get a day off!!

My little sleeping angel

This morning Connor decided he was going to sleep in!  I got up and came out to get my coffee like I normally do.  When I went back to my room he had rolled over onto Papa's pillow.  I ran to get the camera because he looked so very cute laying there!  I took the first picture, he looked like a sleeping little angel.  Right before I hit the button to take the second picture this smile happened.  He really is asleep, he slept for another hour after I snapped it!  There is something about a sleeping baby that is so very precious.  It just makes your heart melt to sit and stare at them, to hear them breathing, to smell the sweet baby smell they still have.  I know it won't be long before he doesn't have that baby smell any more but I can still stand and watch him sleep and maybe, just maybe I will catch another smile as he slumbers! He must be having sweet little baby dreams.  : )

Stress!

I stumble out of bed this morning and find my 8 year old again staring into her clothes basket for something to wear!  Despite my protests, pleading and sometimes almost begging I still cannot get her to pick her clothes out the night before!  She wanders around the house most mornings like she is a lost puppy dog until like ten minutes before it is time to go to school.  Then she is running around like her pants are on fire trying to get everything done.  We somehow manage to make it to school most mornings on time.  Of course on the way she is eating breakfast, brushing her hair and sometimes even doing homework!!  Talk about stressful mornings!!  In order to have some stress relief I have started using my treadmill several times a week!  A couple weeks ago I decided to start a more detailed running program.  I found an article that teaches you how to run.  It is called from couch potato to 5K.  It is essentially a walk/run program slowly building up to running three times a week.  I am on week three right now and I am already feeling stronger.  I am so glad that my body is cooperating!  You see about a year before I got pregnant with Connor I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia.  If you have never heard of it, it can be quite debilitating. The way the doctors try and describe it is "It is a widespread pain over your entire body."  For me it was mostly in my neck and shoulders and sometimes my legs.  I am ultra sensitive to any painful stimuli, like innocent poking in the ribs is excruciating to me.  The good news is since I got pregnant I have not had many problems except sometimes even now I will lay in bed after a long day and feel my muscles twitching.  It is a very odd feeling.  I am pushing through the uncomfortable part of getting used to exercising again because I know the benefits of being fit are so much more important!  And I am getting the stress relief I need if nothing else!

The Grocery Store

I was at the grocery store the other day and I was waiting in the checkout line.  Connor was tired and getting fussy and the lady in front of us was taking a really long time.  I began to get irritated because there was somewhere I needed to be, so I started paying more attention to what was going on.  The lady was paying with one dollar bills, but that was not what was taking so long.  She had counted up all her money and she didn't have enough to pay for everything.  So here she was looking through her bags to put back some things.  She took out a gallon jug of Sunny D, probably for her kids, a gallon of water, a small jar of applesauce and a two pack of sponges.  I turn and look at what I am getting...I have four bags of candy because they were on sale, a magazine, some gauze and tape for my daughter's broken toe, two packages of Binky's, some Binky cleaning wipes, and six bath towels because we wanted ones that weren't so ragged looking, oh and a bottle of soda. Were any of those things necessities? Seriously, here this lady couldn't even afford some juice and simple little things and I am spending money on candy that is on sale and towels because ours aren't as soft as they used to be?  I think I was humbled a little.  We should be great full that we are able to spend on such frivolous things.  I am sure the hard working lady in front of me would have loved to have been able to buy even one of the things I had gotten for my children! 

Wednesday

Today started out as usual, Connor, my 19 month old, waking up in our bed at 6 a.m.  This morning he decided he was going to show me where my eyes were and then proceed to open my eye lids with his little fingers.  Time to roll out of bed and start the day.  Kyrsten, my 8 year old, was up and staring in her clothes basket like the perfect outfit was just going to jump out at her!  Coffee, yes need coffee!  Thank goodness I remembered to set it up last night.  Connor is still waking up several times a night so I am very groggy most mornings and live for the coffee pot to stop brewing.   Oh for a pot that has the brew stop feature so I can get a cup before it is totally done....oh well next time I get a coffee pot that will be number one on my feature list. Now to the shower.  I don't know why I shower and then come home to do my running but that is the way I do it. I come out to make my travel mug of coffee and find that Kyrsten is yet again not getting ready for school and we are going to be late again!  I don't know what it is about 8 year old girls but focus is not one of the words in their vocabulary, at least for my 8 year old! Fast forward to time to leave.....I look for my keys on the magnetic hook that is on the fridge, Hmmm no keys.  Oh, yeah, my 15 year old drove home from school yesterday.  I call him and these words came from his mouth, "I gave the keys to Connor and told him to take them to Mommy, I assumed you heard him jingling the keys and got them."  Okay so we are already 5 minutes late getting out the door and now I have to start a methodical, yet harried search for the keys.  I have found things in the pantry and even the refrigerator, so where do I start looking!! Alright, I am standing in the kitchen so lets start there! Aha, behind the pantry door next to the race car!  Now run out the door and hope there is no traffic!  Running program, week 3, done for today, yay me!  The rest of the day ahead of me.  Okay, wait for the phone call from the doctor about my step daughter's toe that is possibly broken, clean up this morning's mess from the kids getting ready, call the school for some records I need for next year, sign up for my new picture website so I can start making money, oh and I had this crazy notion I would start potty training Connor today.  I will let you know how that worked out for me.....