I kinda knew, but they yet again confirmed...

My kids are awesome people. They are smart, funny, and beyond sweet to their 3-year old cousin. The way they treat him makes me feel like I did a decent job as a parent, something I question quite often, because I know that Mr. P and I butchered a LOT of things.

Eli (Penny's son) wanted to be Blue for Halloween (from Blue's Clues), so we jumped on board and will have Blue, Magenta, Steve, Mr. Salt, Mrs. Pepper, Paprika and Mailbox. We MADE all the costumes. MADE them. Just wait until you see the pictures...we are going to be awesome.

Anyway, College Kid, Penny and my mom came over for a bit this afternoon and we finished up the "shakers", and then I logged into Facebook for some quick farming, and I came across this video:



This is my 18 year old, college freshman, making his Mailbox costume so that he could participate in family trick or treating this evening. In public. Downtown. College Kid will be there too in all her Paprika splendor.

I wouldn't have done this for my cousins. I barely would have done it for my kids. But here are my kids freely and happily doing it for their cousin.

Yup, Mr. P and I did something right, even if it were purely genetic and/or accidental!

Happy Halloween!

I would walk 500 miles

actually I take that back...I DID walk 500 miles since December 28! Check out my Nike+ girlie girl!

To commemorate I wanted to post the Proclaimers video, but bastards are all copyrighty and not letting me embed, so instead enjoy Marshall and Ted enjoy the song:

*alert* I figured IT out *alert*

Okay, so, if you are on WeightWatchers and you track your points, and stay within your points and exercise...guess what happens?

You lose weight! For the first time in, I don't know, EVER how long, I tracked and stayed within my points, and ta da...lost 2 lbs this week!

It certainly doesn't hurt that I am earning boocoodles of Activity Points, as my 10K training has me jogging 5+ miles twice per week (which earns me about 10 activity points a shot as I am SUPER SLOW), and then a couple of short runs (HA HA, I now consider 2-3 miles SHORT) that get me from 3-5 points each. I am now less than 2 weeks from 10K day (November 7), and if nothing breaks, strains or sprains I am confident I will be able to jog the entire distance. WHOOP.

Yesterday the entire family headed out to the Pumpkin farm (it was such a fun day I am not going to dwell on the fact that my mom wore Halloween socks under WEDGE HEELS on a day out to the farm) and it was FUN.

We did a corn maze (where we called bullshit on Penny getting a kid to mark her paper instead of finding her own clues though she claims ingeniousness), jumped in a jumpy house, petted baby cows, took a million pictures,played in big boxes of corn (a la sandboxes), took a hayride to pick out a pumpkin, got dragged behind a tractor in barrels on wheels that were decorated like cows, climbed on hay bales, tried to hula hoop and raced rubber ducks.

Note the purple? Those were all things I was willing AND able to do this year, that I wasn't even willing to TRY last year. It was the first time in awhile that I really felt like this healthy, healthy, healthy journey has definite rewards (last time, was the first boating of the year when I could easily climb up the boat ladder from the water)...yes, better clothes are great. compliments are great.

But jumping in that jumpy house yesterday? That feeling was indescribable. I sit here smiling just thinking about it.

Saturdays as they were meant to be...

I am LOVING today.

Mr. P and I got up early and completed a 5K trail run. I have never really done a trail run, let alone a timed trail run. It was fun, but sort of sad because I didn't get to enjoy any of the scenery, I could only look down, look down, look down and try not to trip over tree roots or roll my ankles on rocks. I had to grin because as I came around the final corner I could see Mr. P checking me out for dirt...he admitted it awhile later. My time was a little over 42 minutes, and I was sort of disappointed because I thought I might beat my old time, but then Mr. P told me he was 5 minutes off his normal pace, so that made me feel a bit better.

Then we went to the grocery store to pick up fresh jalapenos for the TRIPLE batch of chili we just made...it took 2 hours just to get it to simmer, but it is SO SO SO worth it in the end. It is NOT point friendly, but considering this is the first Saturday in probably 6 months that I still have weeklies, plus all my activity points, I don't.even.care.

We also went and picked up supplies for our Halloween costumes, Mr. P and I are going to try to replicate these dudes (we have purchased hula hoops, clear shower curtains, duct tape and silver spray paint):

I just popped in some jalapeno-cheese corn bread and have caught up on some farming while we snuggle on the couch and watch football. I think after some chili and corn bread I will be having a nap, then out tonight with friends to watch our game.

THEN, if that wasn't good enough, last night we had dinner with the family, then browsed the mall a bit where I got Mr. P this ornament

and then we went on a movie date to Couples Retreat. Plus, tomorrow, we are going to the same pumpkin farm as last year and then working on pumpkins and costumes tomorrow afternoon. (I think I might spray paint my pumpkin silver.)

Interestingly (to me) when I was looking back for the post about the pumpkin farm from last year, I read the few posts around it, and I made chili the same weekend. We are definitely suckers for tradition!

She better not unpack

Fuck alert. I am pissed.

because I am going to call a moving company and pay them WHATEVER amount of money they want to come put all her shit in a truck, her too, and just drive and drive and drive then shove everything out on the sidewalk in the middle of fucking nowhere.

I call my mother a few minutes ago to see if all her stuff got delivered, she responds, in my opinion, very snottily, "YES, at 8 o'clock this morning." I assume she is pissed that I haven't called or been there since then. Maybe it is just my own guilt thinking maybe I should have gone over there (I just read my sister's post for today and she did). But my mother has SO MUCH SHIT, and her apartment is NOT THAT BIG, and she smokes incessantly so what the fuck am I going to do but try not to get lung cancer and tacky disease? (As an example of how much she smokes, when we were getting in the truck to take her home last night, she lit a cigarette as she waited for me....to get.in.the.front.seat.and.close.the.door, took drags while we sat there, then got in the truck.)

Then she tells me how she broke a piece of her furniture moving it, and it was 39 years old, so it is "going to live out on her patio for awhile, maybe it can be fixed". Again, I am taking it like she is saying, if my horrible kid had been here to move it for me it wouldn't have happened.

All of this I may have been able to wrap up into my own little guilt burrito that I would have for breakfast tomorrow and go over and help her until....

"So, are you still at home?" To which I answer that I was. Then she said, "Did you do your work?"

fuck you. Don't you ever question my work ethic. Not ever. See, my mother does NOT have a work ethic, but her pretend work ethic is what allowed her to put the nail in the coffin of our family 15 years ago (she used work as a cover for an affair) and was an excuse for not having to parent my then 13 year old sister anymore. Also, since then she has lost several jobs for not showing up because she chooses instead to drink wine at 6am.

In case any of you are wondering? Yes, I have been working today, I am grading projects that are huge Access databases that are insanely boring, but I am forcing my way through them because I want to work on my research tomorrow afternoon while Mr. P plays golf .

However, have I also farmed on FaceBook, caught up on blogs, planned dinner, chosen my 1/2 marathon training plan, done laundry and dishes, caught up on FlashForward and Hell's Kitchen?

YES.

I am 40 fucking years old and I can stay at home all fucking day in my lobster pajama pants if I want to. DAMN it, I have worked very, very hard to get to the point that I can. I refuse to let her ruin it. This is my Thursday. This is how I spend most Thursday's. She better get fucking used to it.

Now that I have vented, I am going to put potatoes in for Mr. P. When he gets home I am going to make a big salad. Then we are going to have leftover pot roast served over baked potatoes and watch Survivor. We are NOT going to talk about my mother.

so my MOM moved here

last Friday. This move is not met with the same anticipation and joy like when my sister moved here. More like dread and despair and locusts (which weirdly, I originally typed as crocuses?) and bees and Armageddon.

I don't really care for my mother too much, and I am hoping that by her living here maybe I can start making some good memories that will help eradicate all the really bad memories I have of her. She is not helping me with that quite yet.

Now, I hate having to wait for people. Hate it. If we have a plan, do the plan. Don't start to get ready for the plan when I am starting the plan. Irony is, I was super late to my kid's birthday celebration on Sunday. Nearly TWO hours late. I felt like crap being late, but I was cooking for her, from scratch, and while I accounted for COOKING time, I forgot that it takes time to mix batter from scratch and to peel and mandolin 4lbs of potatoes. And prepare meatloaves. So I was late and I apologized, but I understand if everyone was irritated with me...they have every right, especially my sister and kids who had been waiting and were starving...but they were gracious...but MOM? she called me out, "So what happened to you being here at 3". Yeah, I JUST APOLOGIZED FOR THAT. (I didn't add that if she had come over to my house when she said she would to help me with the stuff she said she would I wouldn't have been late. But whatever.)

Anyways, so tonight we are going out for her birthday dinner. Guess where she picked to go? CiCi's Pizza, which is an inexpensive pizza buffet. Not my fave, but whatever, birthday people get to pick with no complaints from the peanut gallery. So she just called me at work to ask if Mr. P and I would pick her up on our way. Sure, whatever. I tell her we will be there a little after 6. So she says, "Okay, well call me on your way and I will get changed and cleaned up".

NO. I live FIVE minutes from her. Literally, less than 3 miles on a 55 mph road. Just get your freaking clothes changed and be ready by a little after 6...what the fuck is so hard to understand about that?

So while my life is infinitely good, I don't have the work angst at such a level anymore, I got to read this as Mr. P's FaceBook status last night after he cooked ME dinner, [Mr. P] is having a quiet dinner at home with his bride and watching some TV. I'm a lucky guy to have someone who loves me so much! and my kids are being my sweet, smart kids, I now have my mother. All the time my mother.

I lost 3.2...

OUNCES when I weighed in yesterday. Yup, .2lbs. I have an Excel spreadsheet that tracks my weight lost, percentage of starting weight lost (so I can report my Fat Test score, 83.94% by the way), fat%, and BMI. I was perusing it yesterday when I was inputting my new information, and I realized that I broke into my current weight decade on April 20. For all of you not so fast at date math, that was SIX MONTHS AGO.

I took 6 months to lose 10 pounds. What is interesting to me is that I have no desire to quit trying. I am okay if it goes at a snail's pace, because you know what? Snails eventually get where they are going. This is a brand new feeling...the last real concerted effort I made losing weight I ditched when I was stagnant for a month, when I was 20lbs lighter than I am right.now.

The difference? My goals. My motivation. I want to get HEALTHY so that I can do more things. I want to run races. Not RACE races, but RUN in races. 5K this Saturday, a 10K in November. 1/2 marathon in March. Marathon in 2012. I like to run. I love the way running makes me feel confident and athletic and even pretty. I want to start kayaking because that looks super fun and just another excuse to be in and around water. Plus Mr. P wants to kayak, and I don't like to be left behind!

All kinds of other stuff is going on, it is almost too overwhelming to write about all at once, so I need to break it up into manageable posts...but I leave you now to enjoy a super healthy dinner cooked for me by Mr. P and served to Biggest Loser. YUM.

Blog Action Day: Climate Change

Last year I participated in Blog Action day because the topic felt so REAL to me, poverty. Mr. P, the kiddos and I lived under the poverty line for several years and in many, many ways it was horrible. But last night, the College Kid asked me what my favorite years were. Interestingly, they are those same years, and the pain of sitting at the Food Stamp office, having our power turned off, and writing a bad check at Kmart for Christmas toys is starting to give way to the memories of starting our Christmas Dinner tradition, two tiny kids in life jackets in the apartment complex pool for hours on end, dollar movies, and studying at McDonald's so the kids could play and we could have free drink refills.

But that is not what today's topic is. Today's topic is Climate Change, which is interesting because I have been in the midst of my own climate change experiment ever since visiting the Museum of Natural History in NYC in August. I do not have a car. I have been bumming rides and riding the U's transit system. I am walking much more. I am burning less fossil fuels. I am reducing my carbon footprint.

I am miserable. I want a car for myself. I want to go back to playing tennis two mornings a week, without having to get up an hour earlier so I can walk to the tennis courts if I don't feel it. I want to be able to go get pedicures. But yesterday was the deal breaker...sorry climate change, I want a car. Yesterday morning I got up at 5am to run and it was pouring and dark. Couldn't go. BUT, if I had a car, I could have just gone to the gym. WHAT? I want a car so I spend time at the gym????? Yikes. I also want to be able to go to lunch at my favorite place and sneak off to matinees on weekdays. I want to be MOBILE. Yes, I could do all of these things with advanced planning and taking the FREE public transportation, but I want to live on a whim. Not very GREEN of me.

Even though I will be quitting my public transportation experiment after only two months plus whatever time it takes me to find a sufficiently sweet ride, Mr. P and I will continue to recycle. Mr. P will still follow me around and turn off lights and televisions that I am not using. Next summer we will do the same thing as this summer (we kept our A/C up TWO degrees from last year) and we will rarely turn the heat on the winter.

What are you doing to reduce your carbon footprint?

Was Spock right?

It is the middle of the night and you are on your way home and there is no traffic on the road. You get stopped at a redlight. You sit. You wait. The light is NOT changing, there are no other cars on the road. Do you run the red light?

The reason I ask is because Tuesday is my work at home and get caught up on grading, prepping for class, reading papers, laundry, dishes, vacuuming, regaining sanity from the weekend day. And as part of the day I catch up on DVR, and on today's menu is 3 weeks worth of House. If you haven't watched and are going to...SPOILER ALERT!!! Click away from the blog.

A dictator in the midst of horrific genocide is dying. If you are his doctor, do you work your ass off to save him, knowing he will go back to his country and complete his mission? Or do you perform substandardly and let him die? Or do you mislead others and more or less kill him yourself?

There is a theory of moral development that suggests that a person with a lessor developed morality would sit at the red light and work their asses off to save the dictator. Without a more developed moral compass, people act to avoid punishment. Interestingly, this same theory states that the MOST morally developed would run the red light and kill the dictator.

How developed are you?

I wouldn't run the light.

Maybe even more telling, while I might WANT to do it, I wouldn't kill the dictator because I wouldn't want to go to jail.

What would you do in those situations?

Was Spock right, do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one?

Columbus sailed the ocean blue...

in 1492 and while I wanted to celebrate by rocking out discoverer style, it is just a regular work day for us here at the U. (...which while on the subject I am oh so relieved that this U should be my permanent employer...thank you so much for bearing with all my angst and sending all those thoughts my way). ((I say should because there are still 2 more obstacles, but neither should be even close to deal breakers.))

Here is my normal Monday morning routine:

1. Get up at 5ish (can I tell you this is the first time ever that I am excited about the switch back to standard time?!? I need more daylight in the wee hours of the morning for runs. jeez, I am so smug I might vomit a little).
2. Go on run.
3. Weigh-in (I know, I know...but I do it this way EVERY week), and somehow, some way I am down 1.6lbs this week. Stress must weigh about 4 lbs since I ate all.weekend.long.
4. Shower
5. Prep breakfast and get dressed
6. Go to work
7. Get ready for class and eat yogurt breakfast
8. Go get GIANT diet Coke from Chick Fil A.
9. Teach class.

Fun, eh? Anyhoo, today during step #8 I was assured by several people how much the baby Jesus loves me and that he wants me to love him and that there are people oh, so ready to help me with those things and hey, here is your free, tiny, green New Testament.

One of the joys of the deep south. Free bibles for one and all.

ETA: It was not AT Chick Fil A that I got the hard sell...random dudes around campus.

I rocked the vote!!!!!

meet my latest Kryptonite

They are super delicious and I have enjoyed them more often than I should over the last couple of weeks.

Today is the day. Now is the time. They are meeting. All the tenured faculty in my department are sitting in a room discussing the merits of keeping me around or letting me go. The meeting started at 3:30pm. I have a half a bag of these delicious, spicy, salty triangles of pleasure in the cupboard.

You know what I did instead of indulging? I went for a 4.5 mile run, ate my yogurt breakfast and watched an episode of Glee. Then Mr. P brought me a Diet Lo Cal Cherry Limeade and now I am writing to all of you. That is big for me. I am stressed, my biggest trigger to eat, and I have my go to food, and I didn't go there. mmm. Maybe I am changing after all.

What a weekend!

Our weekend was jammed packed...


FRIDAY:

• I signed up to be on our college's Relay for Life team. One of my colleagues lost her ex-husband to pancreatic cancer a few months ago, and another colleague is fighting colon cancer with every breath he has. I need to do more things were my perspective focuses on all the things that is RIGHT with my life.
• Mr. P and I got our pictures taken at CVS and then went to the courthouse to apply for new PASSPORTS! We decided to take the kiddos on a fun trip, but I can't say anymore about that. Mr. P swore me to secrecy.
• We did a little shopping for said trip, and I got two dresses from a DEPARTMENT STORE. Yup, you read that right. It was awesome. I tried the dresses on this morning and they fit right now, but should look great at trip time.
• Mr. P took me to see Whip It. When we were leaving Mr. P said, 'ehh, I liked it but won't have to own it'. Not me. It is a re-watch for me mos def. Due to my angsty angsty self, I fell in love with the song during the final credits. It took me most of Friday evening, but I found it (not on the soundtrack). It is 28 by Lorene. I can't find it anywhere to post for you, but I did find her MySpace page.

SATURDAY:

• Set an alarm for Saturday morning to get in a nice 5 miler in the crisp morning air. Really cool part? I actually got up when the alarm went off and went on a GREAT run. Mr. P did too.
• Mr. P and I picked up Eli and took him to an event at the local forest preserve. Creepy Crawlies. Eli LOVED it and showed no fear, except with the Hissing Roaches. Smart boy.
• Took a lunch break because Mr. P and I were going to keep Eli overnight on Saturday so Penny and Teddy could attend Penny's 15th reunion. Went to a new Italian restaurant and I skipped all the parmigiana, and went for a veggie pasta in a wine sauce. It was delish.
• After Eli's rest, we took him to the playground where he proceeded to get a split lip, and I had a stroke. Took him to Target to play with all the toys, got him a DVD and a football, then took him out for dinner and let him watch his DVD. Took him home, got him bathed and in bed and then watched our football game. 5-0. Awesome.

SUNDAY:

• Fed Eli breakfast and went on another run. I meant to do 2 miles, but ended up going 3.5 miles instead. About halfway through I rolled my ankle, and while I was able to keep going, it has been throbbing ever since. I have iced it and kept it up. I will be devastated if my training gets interrupted.
• Penny and Teddy arrived home, and Mr. P and I took the opportunity to go meet some friends to watch some NFL.
• Came home to a house with NO POWER. Lit a bunch of candles, got settled in, and the lights came on...and which time Mr. P made me a dinner of grilled cheese and vegetable soup. mmmmm.

It was a fantastic weekend filled with all the stuff we love the most! Hope your weekend rocked as well.

OH, I weighed in today, no loss. no gain. But, things are 'shifting' around. Yesterday I was about to go on my run and Mr. P said, "WOW, your legs are getting skinny". AND AND, I just got my teaching evaluations from the summer and they were great. My boss alluded to the outside letters he got for me and where he can't tell me anything, he gave me a big grin. Maybe, just maybe, I will survive all this.

:)

10,000 meters

So I have briefly mentioned in the midst of all my angst regarding my booty, my job, and my lack of coordination when putting on clothing that I am going to be running in a 10K in just over one month. What is super awesome about this 10K is that it combines jogging which I have just recently come to love, with my longtime lover...Christmas lights.

So, I want to create awesomely fun Holiday play list to listen to whilst I run through here so that I can become so obnoxiously into the run and the holidays that I can barely stand myself.

As far as training for the 10, 000 meters...I picked an easy, peasy plan from Running Planet. I am in the midst of week 3. So far, so good. My goal for this run is to fit into the Nike running pants I bought on clearance a few weeks ago (so far, no fit) and jog the entire way.

After that, I will start working towards this run. yikes, a half marathon seems crazy long...but the Rome 2012 Marathon is not going to run itself, and I refuse to be the only person out of our foursome that doesn't finish!

Okay, so back to the purpose of this post....think hard....tell me your all time favorite holiday song...hold on, hold on....favorite holiday song that you could exercise to!