scales suck...

I just finished exercising.  It isn't much, 40 minutes on my stationary bike and 500 lost calories, but it's something.  I also just did my tally for the month.  I did 40 minutes, 500 calories for 54% of the days in February.

I'm not making huge strides, and am excitedly waiting for it be warm enough for my walking buddy and I to go out at night sans kids and walk around the lake.  I'm trying to eat less and not be a pig all the time.

Oh, I love food.

Seriously.  Love it!

Last Friday I got on my scale.  Like I said, I've been trying to not be a pig and lose a few lb's, so I don't have to shop at L.B. (Lane Bryant).  That day on my scale, after I'd exercised I weighed exactly 4 lbs less than I had the last time I got on my scale, which had been about a week before.

This morning, after I exercised I got on my scale.  I weighed in at exactly 5 pounds more than I did on Friday.

Something is fishy here, or maybe stinks in Denmark.

And I really dislike scales.

One month, moving forward?

Story:
My grandma passed away one month ago today. This afternoon, ironically, around 3:00 pm the time of her passing, the boys and I made a pilgrimage to the cemetery with a couple of roses. My Grandma's favorite flowers were roses.

Tangent 1:
I'm working on an epic, gargantuan, becoming bigger than my brain, family history project. The idea came to me right after Christmas and of course having no idea what would happen in the first few weeks of the new year, has become even more important to me now. The book I'm making was going to be a gift to my Grandparents on their 60th wedding anniversary in March.   It's still going to be a gift to them. A lasting tribute to their overwhelming awesomeness.

Tangent 2:
Yesterday my Mom, the boys and I headed out to my Grandparents house. My Grandpa told me it would be okay if I came out and went through some photo albums while he was at work. I unlocked the door and started to cry. I am such a boob! I took a deep breath, sucked it up and went to work. I found so many great old photos as I sat on the floor in their bedroom.  My Grandpa was so handsome.  My Grandma was beautiful and she loved us all so much.

The albums were so dusty. When I was finished and had put them all back exactly where I'd found them I got off the floor and went to wash my hands.  Grandpa still has Grandma's toothbrush in the bathroom. Such a silly thing to even notice but it just tore me up - happy because it's one more manifestation of the love he has for her and sad, because my mom told me that my Grandpa told her the other night that he just realized she isn't coming back.

Story continued:
I left the boys in the car, trudged through the slushy, mushy snow and stood in front of her grave marker. I set my flowers down, said, "Grandma I love you!" and got back in the car.  It was only a few moments but guess what, I know she heard me.  On the drive home, I had a conversation with myself about being a baby - why this is all so hard for me, and what I need to do to suck it up.

To my family who is reading this - is it still super hard for you?  Are you just so sad?

Maybe because I'm consumed with my Grandma right now, because of my project, it's ridiculously tough for me. I'm spending a good portion of nearly every day looking at pictures, reading words of tribute, and listening to her voice. I have an intense desire to BE her! I want a cause and a purpose like her. I want to love my family as much as she loved me. I want to volunteer. I want to make everyone feel important and loved and special.

In reality though - one month later, I just want her to hold my hand.

In a Nutshell...

Weekends come and go so quickly.  Sometimes, we're busy.  Sometimes, we're not.

Internet, I'm sure you're thinking right now, "Annie, could I please see what your weekend looked like in pictures?"

Oh, you bet Internet.  Here you go.

Our last Friday night marathon basketball. Yeah. It's over. The Wolverines ended with a sweep. When you beat the other bad team in your region I'm not sure you can even call it a moral victory but it was a victory none-the-less. Now the boys and I have 10 free hours a week...whatever will we do?

Soccer! It's the name of the game if you want to have some fun. Right? RIGHT? I witnessed Elliott's third soccer game this past weekend. My little boy loves to run. And he is so good at running that he often loses track of the ball. But he's got a game face to be envious of, is a good team player, and just all around loves SOCCER! Especially having his dad as the coach. That's pretty cool, too.

That's pretty much our weekend right there. Throw in a long nap for me and the Chick, some debilitating arthritis, a couple dinners out to Hires and Neils, some sour cupcake baking and Sunday dinner with the family, and you've pretty much got the weekend covered.

Doldrums

Disclaimer - My life is good.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm a lucky, luck girl.  I am however, in a rut.  A little depressed.  I have really sore legs.  My grandma always said that if you aren't happy to fake it and after a while you will be.  I'm working on that.

In other news.....

The weather was so warm the first few days of the week but so windy. I cannot take my allergy asthma boys out in the wind or bad things happen. We've been watching Cars. I'm so sick of Cars.

My life these days is that of a short order cook. You name it, I seem to be fixing it. I've entered the land I've always chided my mother for...the land of separate meals. Why my oldest will no longer eat what his dad and I do I cannot say. Why my baby eats nothing but air I'm not quite sure. I do know however that I'm getting tired of three different things for breakfast lunch and dinner. That's the life, right?

Every evening there are about 12 cars parked on my street. Some are parked in garages, but most are on the street. In front of my house. It looks like I'm always having a party. I'm not.

I quit my job in December. I have yet to figure out where those extra 20 hours a week were supposed to fit in so I could "do stuff".

Every basketball team I cheer for sucks. My babies steal my phone to play games and watch shows. I spend most my computer time watching sesame street songs and Disneyland rides on you tube.

My husband is literally never around. Since after Thanksgiving he's AWOL except for late night appearances to eat cold dinners and help put the kids to bed. It sucks. I'm done with it. I need a voodoo doll for his girlfriend to start poking pins in. He needs a day off like I need a new pink cardigan.

I've totally become a Mary Kay make-up girl. Can you believe it? Ridiculous, I know. And whats worse, the drive to my Mary Kay lady, on a good day, is 90 minutes round trip.

I'm working on a big family history project. It's turning into something bigger than I thought. It will be great when I get it finished, but right now it's overwhelming and as I sit on my computer every night listening to Cd's of my grandma tell stories I just cry. And cry.

My boys are funny.  They make me laugh every day.  Wyatt yells "GABBA" when he wants to watch his favorite show and yesterday Elliott got to be the special helper at school.  When his teacher told him it was his turn he jumped in the air, did several fist pumps, and yelled, "Yes!"

We need to have more dance parties around these parts.

I don't seem to ever drive fast enough.

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Spring, where the freak are you?

Happy VD

Oh Valentine's Day.

You are dumb.

But, I am fixing a fancy french dinner tonight in your honor.

C'est la vie!

The Squirt:: 21 months

Oh.  My.  Gosh.

You are almost two.

Crazy.

Seriously.  The craziest thing ever.

What do I love about you in the last month little Chickie?

Everything.  Well, not you being sick (again) and not you maybe having a staff infection that wasn't an infection but a giant zit sore thing.  But other than that, we've had a grand time the last few weeks.

You are really starting to come into your own little personality, especially because you've started talking. The day after Grandma Huber's funeral you became a jabber box.  It's probably just a coincidence, but I firmly believe that you wanted to talk, but that your little mind and spirit still remember too much before you were born and that if you talked, you would have spilled the beans about grandma.  You would have said something to warn us, or to comfort her that should have been kept to the angels so you were tight lipped.  But, once you got the all clear, probably from Grandma herself, up in heaven, you have become a motor mouth.

You sing, you laugh, you tease.  You are forming sentences.

"Coke, mama.  Please!"
"Burr.  Cold church."
"Elliott, stop!!!"

I'm not sure that there is a word, in the last two weeks that we've said to you that you haven't tried to repeat at least one.  Yesterday, Elliott said that writing his name on 13 valentines for school was, "So fusterating."  You looked at him, laughed and then said, "Fustoerou".  Okay I have no idea what you said but you tried and trying is great in my book.

You love to run and play and crash.  You love to throw stuff, mostly balls.  Yesterday a ball rolled between your legs and you thought it was the funniest thing ever.  "Ball, yegs mama" you said.  And last night in gym you would chase a basketball down, get on the free throw line, throw the ball and yell, "Shoot!"

Even better than that, you're finally starting to use peoples names which is pretty exciting.  You've learned Willie, and perfected Elliott.  You say, Haley and even have tried your hand at Molly and Parker.  You will not say Grandma, but you do say Grandpa and I'll tell you what, you are wrapping those Grandpa's even more tightly around your fingers.

When you find something exciting you clap and cheer.  When the opposite happens you yell and slam your fist into the closest object.  Yesterday it was the wall.  Last week it was my leg.  Whatever works, right?

You are the bestest #2 boy in the whole world.  I love you.

Dressing for the job

As a high school teacher, I was a top notch dresser.  Suits, slacks, skirts every single day.  The occasional Friday down day with khakis or jeans, but really, for 6 years I did my best to dress for the job.  I was a professional and wanted to look the part.  And, I was young and figured that the only way for me to really have any authority was to dress older, more mature, like a sassy school librarian.

A member of my department once asked me why so many kids wanted to be in my class.  I told him it was because I wore tight sweaters.  There were a few times that I'd get to school and feel like a dork.  On those days, at lunch or my consultation period I'd run home and change my clothes and feel better about life.

Once as a teacher, the kids in my 5th period were making fun of me.  They thought I had too many pairs of shoes.  I had no idea that they were keeping track but it was springtime and we all had cabin fever.  The kids and I made a bet that for the rest of the school year, about 5 weeks at the time, I would wear a different pair of shoes every day until school got out.  It took a lot of outfit planning and a chart to keep things straight but I did it.  I had like, 80 pair of shoes at the time and I think on the last two days of school I had to wear flip flops but I did it.

When I moved to a new job - more of an office job - I still dressed the part.  I looked good every day.  I wore skirts and slacks, but the guys I worked with all dressed like total bums most of the time (jeans and wrinkled shirts) so it rubbed off on me a bit.  And, most of the teachers in my classes were equally "relaxed".  I start to think it was okay to wear jeans to work, at least on days that I wasn't teaching.

Flash forward to right now.  My job at the moment is exclusively mom.  Homemaker.  Crazy lady who hangs out with a 4 year old and 21 month old every single day.  All day long.  I read an article last week about "dressing for the job", particularly if you're a mom.  And it's got me thinking about my wardrobe - or lack there of.

What does the wardrobe for my "job" look like though?  Pretty much like the wardrobe of Nacho Libre. Stretchy pants and t-shirts that are hopefully clean and not too small.  Honestly, I change my clothes about 3-5 times a day.  From sweats to jeans to sweats and back again.  At home, I really do dress like a bum.  My hair is done and my make-up applied, but I could really use some help from Clinton and Stacey.

I see those moms - the ones dressed to the nines every day.  They may never leave their house but they still have prom hair, go-go boots, skinny jeans and are perfectly accessorised.  I'm not one of those people.  I'd rather have well behaved kids who know I love them and will play with them on the floor that a manicure and expensive pants.

I mean, I never wear my sweat pants in public.  I take them off before I do carpool drop off and put them back on when I get home.

What's the point?  Oh, I don't know.  The point is I don't know how to dress.

Ah man.  The story of my life.

Remembering

When I was just a few days old, my grandma started to take care of me.  My mom was a teacher and she had to go back to work for the last days of school or lose her job.  It was 1978 and that's just how things worked back then.  So, at like three or five days old or something crazy like that my mom went back to work and I was with my grandma.

I grew up just living down and around the street from my grandma.  Easy for walking or bike riding at any time of day.  When my sister and I were in elementary school we spent most of our mornings at my grandmas house and would walk to school from her home instead of ours.  She would fix us cinnamon rolls from a can for breakfast and we'd gag watching my grandpa eat his grapefruit.

On Friday short days, we'd walk to her house and hang out after school, eating everything in her pantry and on her candy counter.  She used to buy mini reses peanut butter cups in bulk and I'd sit at the kitchen table, unwrap about 20 at a time, and then eat them watching tv or talking to grandma about her day and mine.  She never once told me I was eating to many, or that I was being a pig, or that all that chocolate would give me zits.  She just let me do it.

My grandma picked me up from school nearly every single day from 7th grade until the last day I actually went to high school.  Nearly every day, we stopped at the 7-11.  I got a slurpee and got her a hot dog.  She'd always give me the exact amount of money and I was always nervous that it wouldn't be enough.  Even though I knew it would.

We went on big family trips to Disneyland my entire life.  Ross got to go on two of the trips.  No matter where everyone was at in the park, my grandma was on Main Street drinking a diet coke or a frozen lemonade and eating a churro.

When I was older - the fours summers I was a college student may have been the best with my grandma. There was sort of a gap in kids, and many summer days no one showed up to swim.  Those were the days the two of us spent together in the backyard.  We'd sit in the sun, look at people magazines, drink cokes and every once in a while, my grandma would dip her feet in the water - or at least have me splash them because she was getting too hot.  Or, I'd sunbathe by myself in the pool and she'd sit on her chair, on the deck and "watch" me - really having a nap.  We talked about everything in life there was to talk about.  Sometimes, we didn't talk at all.

The day of my grandma's funeral, when I was in the shower and getting dressed, I started to have a crazy panic attack.  I was panicked because 1) I felt like I couldn't remember anything.  Like my 32 years had disappeared in a week and my memory was shot and 2) I felt like I had nothing, no physical item to remember her by.  Like I was in this black hole of sadness and couldn't find a talisman of sorts - nothing to "hold on to".

With my Grandma P. I have beautiful things that she made for me and my boys.  Afghans, and blankets and burp cloths that I'll save for my grand children so that I can tell them what a wonderful woman my grandma was.

I realized however, that nearly everything in my house has been touched by my grandmothers, but mostly my Grandma Huber.  Towels in my linen closet and sweaters in my drawer are from her. My alarm clock that plays the sound of waves crashing on a beach is from her.  She was the best example to me on how to effectively yell at a basketball official and she taught me how to do stats at my uncles basketball games.  She started taking us to In-and-Out on trips to California when I was a little girl and so even that is sentimental.

In the last week, through all my grief and sadness about missing my grandma physically, I realized that she's still alive in me every minute of the day.  I miss her presence terribly.  Through the last week, I've seen her shaking her fist at me, and heard her voice in my head.  I've been remembering all these silly little experiences that I thought I was forgetting.

It's funny to think about my relationship with my grandma.  She shaped me into what I am today just as much as my mom.  There aren't many people in the world who have been as close to a grandparent as my sister and I have been.  I don't know many people who were lucky enough to have such an amazing person (people, I had two great grandma's) in their lives.

Every night when I go to bed I'm sad.  Every day when I look at my grandma's picture in my living room I'm sad.  Grief is such a funny, stupid thing.  You move on from it.  Eventually it starts to lose its grasp on your everyday thoughts and actions and you become one more step removed.  Moving forward in a life that continues to progress.

Night time reading

Admittedly, my four year old is a little goofy. We had parent teacher conferences tonight for Mr. Elliott. What did his teacher have to say?

He's a natural born leader.

He has amazing verbal skills. Maybe better than any 3/4 year old she's ever taught.

He's really starting to reign in his personality (translation - he's not quite as bossy as he used to be).

He is excelling in and LOVES school. They learned about groundhogs today. While he was in the shower tonight, he was teaching his toy monsters about invertebrates.

And, what did he want me to read him before drifting off into a night of sleep riddled with asthma induced coughing?

Why, his favorite book of course.
What Shat That? A pocket guide to poop identity by Matt Pagett

His favorite page? The goldfish.

Go figure.

(Note - thank you Auntie Haley for bestowing this book upon us years ago. It now resides on the boys bedside table)

Also, because you asked....

The Chick is sick.  Again.  This time: croup, asthma inflammation, sore throat (not strep).  Thank heavens though, NO EAR INFECTIONS.  He's now been sick for a little over three weeks of the new year.  Fantastic.  We've added another medication, Singular to the mix and he's back on the inhaler every 4 hours.  The poor guy is now on albuterol, flomax, and singular, regularly and maybe forever.

Pray for him.  Love him when you get the chance to see him.  He's sort of sad.

So am I.