My Week.

Wearing jeans, long-sleeved grey or black t-shirts and a scarf to work EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Driving down the road, realize I forgot my go cup, cautiously peek around the car looking for the tell-tale brown streaks that indicate yet another smashed cup will be in my drive way when I get home.

Failure to put the car in the garage EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Frozen water bottles everywhere.

Mushy carved pumpkin on the table... open it up.... is that Don King's head in there??

Tangled cables, dead cell phones, lost credit card, missing mail.

Property tax, car license, pickup license and insurances due.

So I read somewhere that if you aren't sure what to do with a room and you've become visually immune to the clutter..... take a picture.

The following is a series of photos of the bathroom this morning and my thoughts on what is stored where and changes that need to be made.

Does everyone have this odd kind of "stash" spot? Jammies, robes, shirts that need ironing.....

The dresser:  Top big drawer is Bugsy's clothes.  Bottom is Hot's.  Two little drawers contain Bugsy socks and shoes and the other one has a curling iron, a hair straightener, baby lotion and some baby-related items like aveeno soak and moisture stick.  That horse-shoe shaped wooden hook could probably go, couldn't it?  Fairly ugly, right?  The tub toy bin is hanging on it.

The white wood thing with hearts... what can I do with that?  It has some sentimental value but certainly isn't my taste in decor.  Hmmmm.  Also please laugh about the toilet paper situation in our household.  It's in that copper thing with the black lid.  Why?  Because the cats shred it on the roll.  Also... that tp holder needs replacing... U-G-L-Y.

The kid towels (except Sweet's.... for some reason it is over there on the horse-shoe hook)... this doesn't work... too far from the tub and too high for them to get themselves.... these pesky hooded towels hang really long.... I don't want the touching the baseboard heaters.  And, oh, hey... there are the swimmie googles.... I was missing those.

Paint the floor heaters white? Can you do that?  I need ideas for a new shower curtain.  The windowsill holds hand sanitizer, the adult toothbrush bucket and a 3-drawer container for hair pretties and randomness that the cats might steal.  I think I will move that white-curly-q shelf up and put hooks under it for kid towels.... but have to clear the baseboards.  Hmmmm.

Need to move this towel hook over.  And that big wooden expanse is begging for.... something.  And please don't get me started on the sexiness of hollywood lights over the sink.  I need an electrician.

I'm almost pleased with the storage shelves.  Almost.  Need a clever way to store the vitamins and to hide Hot's pit stick and shaving cream.  He culled his hair cut kit and now it all fits in a tub in the back along with his razors and blades.  Notice the classy spare cat pan stacked up on top... it is sealing and protecting the tp stash.... those kitties are shredders.  Also... that's a cat bed up there... than tan thing... and another on top of the laundry basket.  3 wicker bins... jammies for each.  A stack of baby blankets, a potty seat for those "stuck" poopies, and the mop bucket and toilet plunger is stashed in the back of the bottom shelf.  Also... diapers and wipes are stashed in the back of these super-deep shelves.  And, the final count:  7 adult towels (two on hooks, five for guests), 3 hoodie kid towels, 3 hand towels, 5 wash rags.  Finished.

Ugly light fixtures.  Cream ceiling fan.  Ew.

Gross-out.  The trim by the tub came out and, since we were planning to tear down this part of the house, I didn't fix it.  NOW LOOK.  BLACK MOLD.

Drawer shot for Kae.  This will totally gross her out.  Toothbrushes run amok.  Everywhere.  This is the kid tooth drawer.  Ew.  But please note the bottom drawer is EMPTY.  What should I put in there?  Hot had his razors, pit stick and shaving cream in there but he got tired of Bugsy taking them out and wandering around so now his stuff is on the storage shelves.

Under the sink... why do you care?  Because it looks so much better than days of old.

The bottom drawer of no return.  This has a container of bath packets and a contain of salt packets for my nose.... a container of mama hair pretties & mama's fancy makeup.  This needs further culling but, considering how it started, it looks pretty good.

This is mama's drawer.  My makeup in the striped bag.  All the hairbrushes and combs.  (The good brown brush has gone missing again....)  It also appears my pit stick is on walk-about....  I actually found it later in the laundry room... I love you Bug.

Here's a point of chaos in our household... how do YOU organize hair pretties?

I have this box on the shelf.

And clips are all here.... and there are 3 drawers in that jewelry box looking thing on the window sill that house overflow.

But that's a lot of hair stuff to wrangle.

And then there is this cute thing that came in from the swing set (at 6:30am) to give me a grin.  (Note the boo-boo where he ran into the hammock frame with his face.)

Crikey.

Sweet bejeebus in the morning. 

What a week.

And it is, like, the 4th Monday of the week.

Pour me some wine.  Shit.  Give me a smoke.

Things that have happened this week.

Still moping about the non-visit to Colorado.  Trying to be a grown up but failing.

Gymnastics camp for Tuff M-TH 9-12.  Wondering how other mothers do this activity crap.  Seriously.  And, also.... I don't like other mothers.  Sorry.  True.  Not social.  Really.  It's me, not you.  Also... while on the subject... how the hell can you afford that super-fancy SUV, those fancy clothes, that pricy cut-n-color-n-pedi AND be a stay-at-home mom?  Really.  I want to know.  Because I'm running my ass off, wearing threads from Target, sporting grey hair and killing myself... slowly but surely. 

Pink eye.  Or conjunctivitis (sp?).  First Bugsy, then Sweet.  Who will be next?  (On a positive... the walk-in clinic behind the old Big R.... GREAT.)

Tuff's birthday lunch cancelled.  See above pink eye.

Tuff's birthday party.  Sunday.  Still finding gifts I hid that I forgot to give her... guess that means my Christmas shopping is about done. 

Rash.  I have a rash.  On the back of my neck, across my stomach and now all over my legs.  It comes and goes.  I think it is stress.

Worms.  Turns out the cats DIDN'T have round worms... because they are still yakking up worms after medication.  I KNEW they were tape worms.  Also... top this for nasty.... the little linguini try to flee from the puke piles and end up stretched out and dried up several inches away. 

Hot's job.  He has been getting to work at 6 and coming home after 10 most of this week.  Fantastic.

Ok.  I'm done.  I'll be back when I'm a little happier.

Buyer's Remorse

So to address the recent rash of retail therapy in the blogosphere....

Yes, I have buyer's remorse and, yes, I have a small pile of returns to make because of it. 

I'm returning the wine glass rack that won't fit in my cupboard.  I may return the over-the-door rack that I didn't need... but it was on clearance so I might use it somewhere else instead.  I bought 2 extra rugs at Ross but paid about $5 each so I'll hoard those and use them to replace other rugs as the cats yak on them and whatnot.  I'm also returning the 6 cube cubie storage thing I bought at Lowe's.... I don't think it will work and, at $40, it was pricey.

I'm keeping the over-the-door organizer I put in the front closet.  I'm keeping the cheap shelf unit I bought for the laundry room... although it may go to organize the shed because it isn't working well in the laundry room.  I'm keeping the clothes pin bag because I've needed one for about 12 months and it was on clearance.

I'm totally keeping the 2" paint trim brush and the new organizing tubs... love them both.

And the paint and flooring samples were free.

I'm still shopping for the perfect organizing shelf system for the laundry room and now I'm shopping for a good way to turn our bathroom into a dressing room.... Damn... why isn't there an ikea in Montana?

Is it Wednesday?

I'm so restless right now.

I'm supposed to be in Colorado.

All week.

And I'm not.

And I'm resentful.

So I've been starting things and not finishing them.... an old bad habit that I fight on a regular basis... I've had it more in control the last few years but when things go bad it comes right back like an eating disorder or hoarding or something.

Is starting and not finishing a certifiable disorder? 

Add to this... my sister-in-law has been here the last few days.  So there is that added bit of stress... it isn't a huge stress or anything because generally she's easy to tolerate and I know she always means well. 

It's just another of my many inadequacies....    I'm a score keeper.  Her kids are involved in all the activities and excel at everything.  Her ten-year-old has a nicer ipod than I do.  Her seven-year-old has nicer clothes than I do.  Forget feeling bad for my kids... I feel bad for me!  It really does strike me how ridiculous I sound when I put it like that...

So to recap:
1.  I start things and don't finish them.
2.  I keep score and secretly deem myself inadequate because I never rank.

Obviously I lack self-discipline.

So I must regiment myself.

1.  Last night I made up kid beds and tidied their room, I set up my flowerbed sprinklers and I cleaned off the front porch.  Can I tell you there were a pair of male socks balled up on the porch (and they weren't from the child....)?  Also an empty cat litter pan and a pile of rocks.  I also stopped on my way home from work and bought treats for "movie" day today at daycare.  I grilled burgers and dogs and played on the hammock with the kids.
2.  This morning I finished cleaning the bathroom, did some laundry, picked up the living room, reconfigured the laundry room, cleaned the fridge and tidied the kitchen.
3.  Tonight I will re-reconfigure the laundry room because i don't like it and banish the new flimsy shelves I bought to the shed where they will help me organize.  Then I will rethink the dreaded laundry room corner.  Pictures soon.  I must also fold the laundry I did this morning and someday I HAVE to vacuum the living room.
4.  Things I have purchased that must be returned:  The shelf hanger thing for wine glasses (doesn't fit my cabinet), the cubbie cubes I bought at Lowe's (too expensive and not the right thing).
5.  Things I must buy:  shaving cream for Hot, kid claratin for Tuff (she's all runny nosed and itchy-eyed for some reason... so I will try claratin), 3 big boxes for the laundry room to store kid memory stuff in.
6.  Things I should clean but haven't:  the computer corner.... A solid 30 minutes of filing and cleaning would probably take care of it but I just haven't done it. 

Ugh.  This is like the third Monday this week.

Mournful

So I posted my resolution update.

In it... I basically moan about my weight.  Now let me clarify for those of you new to the place.

I started out life as an itty bitty thing.  My mom threw a party when I was more-pounds-than-inches.  I come from lean and tall people.  (My mother, after 4 kids, stands almost 5'10" and weighs maybe 145 in boots.)  I was 5'8" and 120 pounds when I graduated high school.  I grew another inch in college and had a dunk-tank measured body mass of less than 14%.  I was competitive (I use that term loosely.... I competed... I wasn't terribly quick so I wasn't terribly good....) in martial arts in the 116 and under category in college and after.

By the time I moved back north I was carrying about 150 pounds which, for my height and built, is exactly right.  I don't look too heavy but I'm not waif thin either.  I like 150..... or the range between 145-155 depending on how much weight training I'm doing.

Then I had some kids.  I had thin but average pregnancies with weight gains around 25 pounds for the first two and about 15 pounds for the third.  But pretty normal stuff and, with the first two, an easy time dropping the weight after.  The third one I went into heavy so I didn't gain as much.  After the third I worked my way down to 165 without a lot of sacrifice.... eating a small bowl of ice cream instead of a rice bowl of ice cream and striding around with a baby strapped to my body.

Now, for some reason, I'm up to a whooping 175.  WTF?  Then I read something like this.  Let me give you an excerpt: 

Okay folks....I hate to break this to you BUT I get tired of hearing "I just can't loose weight." You may be excluded if you have some kind of health condition/thyroid issue. I'm guilty as charged, time and time again I have been known to say "I don't know why I can't loose weight".
It's a simple science....if you want to loose weight, burn more then you consume. If you want to stay the same....eat what you burn in a day. And if you want to gain weight....eat more then you burn in a day.
You will be shocked to see how what a small amount of calories our bodies need to run in a day. I did a little research and this is what I found.....
 
First of all.... the word is lose, not loose.  It ain't The Biggest Looser.  (I know.... I eat a bowl of ice cream while watching it every Tuesday night....)
 
For the record, my BMR is 1520 and I carefully cut and monitored calories (scales and measures and everything) and didn't drop a pound.  I also cut out all sugar (for 6 weeks) and didn't shed pound one.
 
It's actually not simple science.  It's simple physics... the idea of calories in vs calories expended but for the love of guacamole.... do some better research than cut-n-paste from the first google article you find.  And don't tell me you are "practically an expert" on the subject of diet and nutrition when you make absolutely no mention of all the other factors that are known to influence weight.... factors beyond thyroid.  Weight loss is a complex subject.  That's why there are people out there making millions on it.
 
Hmmm..... let's see if we can name five factors in the next 5 seconds.  Cortisol, sleep, medications, depression, stress, digestive disorders... and I haven't googled once.   I should cut her some slack because she does talk about "medical conditions" and she admits to being guilty as charged but this fires me up. 
 
This is everything "competimommy" that makes me crazed and hurts my feelings.  I can "loose" weight so everyone should be able to do it and you aren't a good mom if you can't.  Humph.  This is why I refuse to have friends.  I bet she spends a ton of money on decorating and is secretly so insecure she considers cutting herself.  
 
But wait... enough about this condescending blog post.. maybe she didn't mean it the way it sounded... we're all guilty of that...... let's talk about me some more.  So back to the weight creep... want to know what my doc said?  It's probably a "threshhold" thing.  A combination of any or all of the following:
 
Cortisol and lack of sleep.  New research shows.... go ahead... google it.
Depo birth control shots.
Not moving enough.
Misjudging portion sizes (so typically American, right?) OR WORSE... starving yourself and slowing your metabolism. 
Breastfeeding. 
Thyroid.
Some other things he said that I can't remember now.
 
The thing that worries me is I seem to have reverse-body-dysmorphic-disorder.  I'll be striding along, pushing the stroller, head high, breathe deep and get rid of those rounded computer-user shoulders, cruising from Macy's to Target and somewhere around the Hallmark store I'll glance over and see my reflection in the glass and think, "Dude... she's hefty."  So sad.  So disappointing.  Also.... so mourning the loss of my cheekbones... where did they go??
 
Anyone else with me on the sensitive subject of weight???

The Sickness

I wish I had documented this plague that has attacked our house.

Let's see.... I got sick..... a general kind of throat thing.... in September. But it held on for SIX WEEKS in various forms. I rallied (everything except my voice) for the wedding in October and then relapsed.

And both kids got a feverish flu thing around then..... Sweet hallucinating.... in the middle of the night... mad at me because I won't let him go outside and play transformers. And Tuff puked.

Then this other stomach thing started in, um, early December? I don't know. I know Sweet had it. I know Tuff had it. I know I had it for 5 days. Hot got a mild version of it. Bugsy held strong. Then last week Sweet got sick again... the throw up in the night version. The one that almost makes you think food poisoning. Then Sunday night Tuff got it. She was retching every 30 minutes or so and couldn't hold down a sip of water... but she really wanted a drink.

My basic puking theory is.... nothing for 20 or so minutes after you yak. Then a sip of water or some ice chips. If you can go an hour and your tummy feels settled you can have water and maybe a cracker. But I believe (is there any scientific evidence?) putting things in an upset tummy can make it react violently and create a bad cycle.

So this morning I wake up alone.... which isn't totally unusual.... Hot tends towards insomnia. I wander to the bathroom and see the garbage can upside down, rinsed, in the sink. And I wander to the kitchen and see one of the two big white bowls on the counter.... this means either someone made popcorn or someone is losing their cookies. I don't smell popcorn.

Hot is in a bad way. (Can I also add... unfortunately he went out for a guys night last night and had prime rib and beer..... really awful on replay.... also pricey puke.)

You know what this means, right? Who is going to get it in two days? Me.

I give up.

I've given up..... sugar.

Sigh.

Ok, not in a really serious way.... I still eat ketchup. But I have had very limited (one) dessert-type foods since August 17th.

You would think this would result in great, leaping loss of weight, right?

Not a pound. Not one.

And, to make it worse, my sister delivered my bridesmaid dress last night. I had to bite my cheek to keep from bursting into tears. But that's ok... the day isn't about me... it is about her... and she is going to look like a lily.... a beautiful calm lily.