Things that disappoint me and/or otherwise piss me off

3 Musketeers Truffle Crisp – I’m not a huge chocolate fan (don’t get me wrong, I dabble, but when it comes down to it give me pure sugar over chocolate any day) but I can never get enough of 3 Musketeers. So today while I was shopping for a sugar fix I came across the new 3 Musketeers Truffle Crisp. I brought it back to my desk and lovingly unwrapped it. As suggested by the title of this post…very disappointing. The crisp part was more like stale nougat. Sigh. (Yet I still ate both bars. I am a sad individual.)

My scale – I have been working out 5 days a week and I’m very proud of myself (stay with me here, the disappointment is coming up). I’ve stayed focused and have started to see results. However, the damn scale won’t move. I had a really good week where I ate almost nothing (besides the usual 3 meals a day – I wouldn’t starve myself people!) and I lost 3 pounds. Yay me! Then my period hit and I ate my body weight in candy and gained two of the pounds back. So I have 4 months of daily exercise and I’ve essentially lost one pound. While I’m seeing the results in inches and muscle tone, my mental state could really use a pound or two less when I step on the scale. Now, I completely understand that my eating habits are terrible and if I had the willpower of an adult rather than a 2 year old I would be losing weight along with my other results, but come on, it’s sooo much easier to blame my scale!

Squirrels and bunnies – Step off bitches! Leave my tulips alone. Leave my free Rose of Sharon bushes courtesy of the Arbor Day Foundation alone. Leave my newly planted seeds alone, and if you touch my tomato plants I will give my husband permission to get his .22 and teach you a lesson.

Captcha “words” – must you have TWO unreadable words now? Don’t you realize that posting a comment of “AWWW!” shouldn’t require a retina scan and blood sample?

Other people – I could go on and on about this one but I listed this specifically for people who don’t find as much enjoyment as me when they have the same name as my kids. I mean really. They should feel blessed that I found their name worthy of my children. MY CHILDREN! We agonized over names both times and did pretty darn well if you ask me. The least you could do is fake being happy along with me.

Happy Monday!

Lily

She-Baby Shenanigans

A Virtual Baby Shower for our friend Oak

Dear She-Baby,

You are one lucky little girl. Not only do you have a family that already loves you unconditionally but you have our corner of the blogosphere wrapped around your little finger, and you aren’t even on the outside yet! You have a lot of things going for you but you are really lucky because your mama is a fighter. It’s not been easy for her to get to this point but she has handled everything life has thrown at her with grace and beer humor. She wants you like a fat kid wants a cookie, and she won’t let anything get in her way! Rogue breast tissue? Whatever! Being exposed to scary daycare diseases? Pft! She might be getting crap slung at her from every direction but you know what? She’s fighting through it, finding the humor (and the ridiculousness) in all of it. I like to think that some of that toughness is rubbing off on you and you’ll be able to handle the eventual crap in your life with grace and beer humor too.

So cheers to you She-Baby! May you kick ass like your mama and may you grow up to write about it on the internet! We can’t wait to meet you!!

Here's a picture of the stylin' onesie you can expect soon...

Love, 

Lily


P.S. Oak - Happy Virtual Baby Shower! Here's to you and hopefully a smooth month until She-Baby is snuggled in your arms! We can't wait to meet her! 

Thought Vomit Thursday

So you might not know this about me but I think about some really random crap. (I know! Hard to believe, right!) Most of the time I spare you guys the details but I have come across the perfect platform to spew my mind vomit all across the Internet. 

Thought Vomit Thursdays was brought to my attention by Josey over at “My Cheap Version of therapy”

 (Go ahead and click the link. She’s fun. The first link will bring you to her home page, the second will bring you to her first TVT post.)

Here goes…

***********************************

I need a vacation. Me, a book (or twelve), and a chair on the beach. If someone wants to pay for this to happen I will shamelessly accept your generosity.

Bud is changing. He’s getting…big! His features are changing, he’s looking more and more like my husband every day. I don’t know that he’s actually growing (I don’t have much hope that he will be much taller than me – poor kid.) but he’s certainly not a baby anymore and I feel compelled to agree with him when he claims he is a “big kid.” He’s always been smart but he’s getting scary smart. He’s making connections that are so advanced and he’s starting to think about things that I never would have thought a boy of almost 6 would think. It makes me say “Whoa!”

As much trouble as Babe gives me at night, she is an absolute pleasure in the morning. She always wakes up with a smile on her face and literally bounces out of her bed. (She literally bounces most of the day for that matter.) I can’t even explain what joy it gives me when I go in her room to get her up and before even opening her eyes she is smiling. That smiles saves her life at night. I swear!

To the father’s of the student’s I’ve been wasting my time dealing with these last few days – your douchbaggery has not gone unnoticed and karma is a bitch. Fair warning.

I woke up early and put a pork roast in the crock pot. I just realized I never started it. Awesome.

I also forgot my clothes for playing volleyball at lunch. Fabulous!

I’m really great at remembering stuff.

So I was thinking. I’m fairly certain that my celiac disease was triggered by stress (my Papa died, then my sister died a month later, I graduated high school 2 months after that, we moved to a new state 2 months after that, and then I went away to college 2 weeks after moving and I developed it soon after) so I’m wondering if maybe experiencing another stressful period in my life will trigger it to go into remission. I don’t think that’s possible or ever happened before but how awesome would that be! It’s a nice dream to hold in my heart.

While reading Goodnight iPad to Bud last night we came to my favorite part (“Goodnight power light, guiding us to pee in the darkness of night”) and he had to stop me to point out that he would never say “that word” (meaning “pee”) at school. He just says he has to go to the bathroom so people think he’s polite. I had to give him a hug and kiss for that!

Happy Thursday!

Lily

My new favorite book

We need to discuss the awesomeness that is this book. I recently purchased said book for Bud. It couldn’t be more perfect! If you haven’t seen it before and you have a 5 year old addicted to all things electronic I can’t recommend it any more highly! Hell, even if you don’t have kids but you yourself are electronically addicted I can’t recommend it enough.

I think my most favorite part of the book is this page…

Yeah, do I even need to say more?? You're welcome.

Lily

Instagram and...yeah, that's it, just Instagram

I have so many good stories from this weekend and the last few days. But meh, maybe I’ll tell you later. I don’t have the story telling juices right now. I’ve started 100 different blog posts in my head over the last several days but none of them seem to pan out. My mind goes in 1,000 directions all at once and it just seems like too much trouble.

I was hoping by just writing things would come to me but yeah, not so much.

Oh, I just remembered! I’m on Instagram now so if you have it you can search for me. I’m momnextdoorblog. Hit me up because it’s boring being there all by myself. I see the potential but kind of like a blog…and life, it’s more fun when you have friends.

Lily

 

Cracked maybe...but still half full

I’m a glass half full type of gal. I prefer to see rainbows and unicorns and prancing fairies rather than the pickpocket stealing from the leprechaun or the malnourished kittens. But sometimes that damn unicorn trips over the rainbow, squashes the all the pretty fairies and comes face to face with the dying kittens. I’m left feeling dazed and jaded.

My husband and I are going through a rough patch right now and I find myself once again in a fight for my sanity. We’ve never been the perfect couple (despite what we show the world) and there have been several times I wasn’t sure if we’d make it out the other side.

This time is rough. I find myself randomly singing in my head “Should I stay or should I go” over and over again. The thing is, I want to stay. I want the life we sometimes have to pretend we have. I want to see where we go and how we get there. I want my children to have both parents in the same house. I want to be a happy family.

But I also don’t want my children to see a broken marriage. I don’t want them to think a relationship in turmoil is par for the course and have them fall into the same thing because it’s all they've ever known. I don’t want to be in a perpetual state of anxiety and stress.

We are both to blame. We put on a good show but we are terrible at communicating and gloss things over long enough until they explode. Our last rough patch ended up being very good for us. We started communicating better and things were going well. This latest rough patch just sort of sprang up and made us realize that we were slipping back into our old routines.

Old habits die hard. I’m hoping this time we can keep being honest with each other and stop the glossing over thing that has ruled our lives. It’s not easy. I prefer to gloss things over. But I also see how destructive it is. We both need to man up and face our issues like adults. (Crap, when did we become the adults?)

I wasn’t going to share our struggles here but it’s pretty all consuming and, as you may have noticed in my couple of weeks of silence, I couldn't come up with anything else to write about. I’m hoping getting this off my chest will help the other words flow better. I started this blog to have an outlet. It seems silly that I would go silent just when I need the outlet the most. So there it is. We are broken right now but trying like hell to fix it. 

Lily

Hey Now, He's An All-Star

Bud’s school has a program with the student-athletes from the local college (which incidentally is the same college where I work) that links up a team of student-athletes with a elementary classroom. The athletes will come and do special projects with the kids (mostly reading based projects) and just interact and have a good time with the kids. (They gave the kids t-shirts so you can imagine the excitement level for this program. Free t-shirts = kid crack)

He came home last night with a certificate from the program. He has been chosen by the student-athletes as the “All-Star” in his class! He’s also invited to the Collegiate All-Sports Banquet held for the athletes in May. I wasn’t sure if this was one of those “everyone gets a trophy” type thing or if it was actually something special so I got my relations involved (I love having in-laws that work at the school) and apparently this is a special thing! YAY BUD! I mean he’s always an all-star to me (I mean he IS a future NHL-er after all) but I’m so proud of him for being recognized by the athletes. 

(By the way, the team matched to his classroom? Totally the hockey team! AWW YEAH!)

Lily

Conversations with Babe

Setting: She is sitting on my kitchen counter with her flannel pajama top unbuttoned.

Me: What’s with your shirt being unbuttoned? What’s your name, Guido?

Babe: No.

Me: Is it Vinny?

Babe: No.

Me: Is it Joey?

Babe: No, it’s Chico. 

Where does a 2 ½ year old even come up with that? Priceless! 

Lily

Best Friends

My mother-in-law sent me this picture yesterday. Bud was brushing Babe's hair as they watched cartoons.

I hope they stay friends even when they are all grown up.

Lily

I'm not dead...I even survived Central Park!

Oh hello! Remember me? Long time no see. How are the kids? How ‘bout that weather? I think another frost is coming. Did you catch the Yankee game?

Ok, enough of the small talk! Let’s get on to the important things, like colon cancer! You can’t get more serious than color cancer. Unless of course you’re talking about running around Central Park to help in the fight against colon cancer. Then it’s just fun! I mean, old men speed walking during the 4 mile run, falling face first in a Central Park gutter, giant inflatable colons! The fun never stops!

Inflatable colon. Seriously!

(Bud is attacking the cancerous cells with his light saber!)

We got there early so I picked up all of our tags and numbers, including those for my cousins and Aunt. I was able to get two of my cousins and my aunt but my other cousin wasn’t registered! PANIC! I pleaded with the registration lady to let her be able to sign up when she got there but the race was sold out (who knew a charity run could sell out?) and she was being all Soup Nazi on me.  So when my cousins came I had to break the news to her that she wouldn’t be able to participate. Until we all realized I’m an idiot (so hard to imagine, but it’s true) and determined that I was asking for KM when I should have been asking for K “D” since D is her married name…has been for about 10 years! Uh, DUH! So it all worked out because she was properly register under her actual name, not the name I still call her. (Those registration people are so picky! Why didn’t she know her last name was D now? Sigh.)

We had some waiting around to do but Bud kept busy with his Light Saber while Babe chilled in the stroller.

Princess Butterfly indeed!

So being as this was my first ever race I wasn’t exactly sure how they marked our time but since I have experienced runners as friends I knew there would be some sort of chip or whatever. What I didn’t realize was just how awesome it would be!

Taking this picture really made me want to say things like “Colon cancer runners of the world…UNITE!” 

(Yes, I had to proofread to make sure I didn’t spell untie instead. We’re good.)

The walkers didn't get fancy shoe loops but that doesn't mean they don't get a cool foot picture! Colon cancer is an equal opportunity disease...it wouldn't be right for me to discriminate!

So my biggest fear for this run was falling face first into a NYC gutter not being able to finish the whole thing. Yes, I had practiced hard and was motivated but I have a tendency to fall short of my goals so I was a little skeptical of my chances.

I’m pleased to report that my goal was achieved! I did not fall face first into a NYC gutter (YAY ME!) and I did achieve my goal of running the whole thing. I was pretty pissed at myself for not keeping pace with my cousins (they finished over 30 seconds ahead of me) but I did achieve my goal of running it in 40 minutes. (Ok, so 40 minutes and 29 seconds, but whatever!). 

But more importantly my husband smoked us all! He ran it in 31 minutes the jerk and finished 436 overall!! There were more than 2,800 participants and he finished 436! I bow to him and his freakishly long legs. (I will not reveal the place I finished in. I like to keep what little pride I have thank you very much.)

My Aunt and cousin participated in the 1.7 mile remembrance walk and finished 4^th. They hadn’t realized they could have won the thing so I guarantee next year they’ll be elbowing people out of the way to make it into first! Good job ladies!!

We all did really good and I’m proud of all of us!

And really, my husband and I couldn’t have done it without the generous babysitting of my mother! She watched Bud and Babe while we all participated. Thanks Mazda! (Yes, I call my mother Mazda sometimes. What of it?) And thanks to my dad too for helping us carbo load the night before with an awesome (as usual) macaroni dinner!

A few more pictures from race day...

Pre-race, trying to keep warm

(Can anyone spot the non-Italian?)

Snuggling close for warmth

I'm not sure if they are hugging or chocking each other.

Bud loves his NYC Subway map shirt!

The superstar!  

KD and JM finishing strong!

(And laughing! Jerks!)

LOOK! I'm not dead! YAY!

(I'm in the white shirt smiling because I'm still alive) 

Tired and ready to EAT!

We concluded Race Day 2012 with an awesome Brunch at EJ's Diner. I had a western omelet and an egg cream! I don't know a better way to celebrate not dying in Central Park!

Thank you to everyone who donated to this very worthy cause! The money we were able to raise will be put to good use to prevent more people from succumbing to the disease.

Lily