To make you giggle...

This clip slays me, so I thought I'd share. Nothing new or fascinating, but something I read on Facebook today (Samuel L. Jackson reading a "children's book") reminded me, and I wanted to share:


Also, if you are feeling it, please support my Relay For Life efforts this Friday night at Cooper High School, either by donating, or, if you're in the area, coming by to see us!
http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RFLFY11MS?px=2674772&pg=personal&fr_id=29065

Hope you're having a fantastic week.

Holy crap! Has it been a month?

I was informed the other day that I haven't blogged in over a month, which is mostly due to a heck of a lot of baseball. Enormous amounts of baseball. Both kids are playing this year, and the earliest games have been rescheduled, so we are playing several games a week. I also have to admit to a bit of shame - I posted that whole "I'm making changes, and this is what I've done so far" post, and then, very quickly, fell off the wagon. Started ditching the exercize, eating crap, and gained back several pounds. Not exactly the updates I was looking to post, so I didn't bother posting at all.

Ok, so I was being a whiny little girl.

And now I'm done whining. I like feeling strong, darn it, so I went to Zumba Monday night, and I've exercized each day since. I've also set up a standing walking date for Sunday mornings - I'm terrible about exercizing on weekends, which is dumb, since that's when I have the most time. I don't like to disappoint, so my friend Dee and I are going to walk Sunday mornings. I put my little notebook back in my purse - time to start writing down the food again. I pinky-swear, I will post an update here at least once a week. I certainly don't want to disappoint you lovely people, either.

Now, on another note, it's summer! And it has been a hot one already. My wonderful boss has allowed me to go part-time for the summer, so I can spend more time with the kiddles. The list-lover in me can't resist writing a list of things I want to do this summer:

1. Ride our bikes to a place we'd generally drive, at least once a week.

2. Go swimming - a lot.

3. See all the good superhero movies - so far we've seen Thor and X-Men: First Class. They were both pretty freaking good. You know the best part about superhero movies? The superheroes are always played by hotties.

4. Go camping.

5. Plant stuff - make them grow.

6. Go hiking

7. Visit the observatory for one of their family nights

8. Read a lot - signed up for the library program today.

9. Clean out the storage room

10. Another yard sale? Maybe?

11. Take a lot of pictures

12. Visit my family in Chicago

13. Make my own ice cream

14. Try to find fun, free things to do.

15. Spend time with friends

16. Make something cool

17. Paint my Girl's and my toes cool colors

18. Play golf with my Boy (I really don't like golf, but he really wants me to play.)

19. Do more yoga

20. Play with my kids

How about you? Any good summery plans?

A big day.

This is my guy. He turned 14 today.

I won't even say how old that makes me.

Happy birthday to my Boy!

Happy Mayday, blah blah

Ahh, Kentucky in the springtime. There is no more beautiful place, when it's not raining. And it's been raining a lot. Baseball season started almost a month ago and we finally managed to play our first game yesterday. We're going to be making up rained out games in July at the rate we're going. The Girl pitched for the first time. She walked a lot of kids, but she got the ball across the plate. So, way to go, Girl! And she hit awesomely! The Boy's game started 2 hours late, ugh. He pitched pretty well in the first 2 innings, but walked a lot of players in the third. He also was not hitting well, which surprised me. I have a lovely, painful sunburn to show for the day - my nose is really red. It has been so wet I haven't been able to mow in over 2 weeks and my yard seriously looked like a prairie. So my brother and I tag-teamed the front yard last night as it was getting very dark, and then I went out to do the back yard this morning, which was wet and clumping badly. Why am I telling you all this? No real reason, just reiterating how very rainy it has been. Seriously, people, a prairie. Speaking of the word "reiterating", I had to sit through a (very long, boring) training the other day and the woman running the training kept saying "reINerating". It was irritating.

I have a bunch of pictures to post, and some other updates, but I need to ponder and put my words together first. Enjoy your Mayday.

My focuses...foci?

I mentioned some time ago that I made a choice to focus on good health and fitness for this year. I have not spent much time blogging about it, mainly because I thought to keep my efforts in that area separate from this blog, and only writing about it on my Spark blog, but that leaves me with very little else to write about. Other than the usual family/work stuff, I've been pretty hyper focused on two things - job search and health/fitness. The job search is going pretty well - I was offered a job at a small elevator company, which I turned down, hoping for something with a little more mobility (and a few less drug dealers in the park across the street.) I have interviewed for three other positions in the past two weeks, and had a second interview at one. Not the one I really wanted, which was (mistakenly, of course) offered to someone else, but I am optimistic.

The health/fitness stuff...that is going well.

This is me, in November. I hate sharing, but hey, I'm all about honesty here. I had a great time at my sister's wedding, and I really did love that dress, but I'm a fat girl. And I'm tired of it.

I've made this sort of commitment before, trying to lose weight, get healthy, etc., but it feels different this time. I've been working out consistently for 2 months. I'm making progress weight-wise - slowly, but surely, but more importantly, I am feeling so so so much better. I have energy, and I can carry things further, move faster, and work harder than I have in years. And this is affecting my life so much, I really should share it here. So here are some of the things that are working for me right now:

1. Zumba! I started doing it once a week last year, and it really sparked a renewed interest in exercize for me. I started working out harder the rest of the week so as to have more fun during my classes. Lovin' my Zumba!

2. SparkPeople.com - free trackers, access to advice from personal trainers and nutritionists, and my favorite part - teams and challenges. I am part of two separate team challenges which are totally motivating. And it is all free! I just passed my first weight-loss goal - time to order my incentive - my Sparkpeople t-shirt.

3. Diet Dr. Pepper. Not exactly health food, but I have a real problem with drinking pop, and I'm not a fan of most diet pops. I like the tingly carbonation, ok?

4. Kashi Go Lean Crunch. Really good for you, I eat it for breakfast most days of the week with a banana. Completely fills me up for hours so I'm not noshing all morning.

5. Fit Bottomed Girls and The Great Fitness Experiment: Motivation and fun, the first is a website written by women who are really into fitness, the second is a blog by a woman who likes to try anything - exercize-wise. I'm particularly fond of FBG's DVD reviews - I read them and check them out from our library to try.

6. Speaking of DVD's, my favorites right now are the Element yoga dvd's (FBG Jenn says they have a high "hippity-dippity" factor, very new agey, and I've found I'm very drawn to that sort of thing. Big surprise, right?) and Leslie Sansone's Walk Away the Pounds Mile a day DVD, which I do all 5 miles in one day. But I'm finding the WATP dvd's are starting to only work for my easy days, and I need some tougher ones, which is great. I want to find a good kickboxing workout, but I'm not loving Tae Bo as much anymore - maybe someone knows a good one?

The weather is getting better, which does mean more outside workouts - loving that. I'll share more great things as I find them, and I'll share my progress, if you all don't mind, since it gives me someone else to be accountable to.

And now I'm going outside. It's too freaking nice to be in this basement anymore.

Two Spectacular Reasons to Celebrate!

First:

Some mommy friends of mine asked me to ditch work today and hit the Cock-n-Bull in Covington for green beer. Which sounded fabulous - but I have a buttload of work, and a skeleton office crew with which to complete it. Oh, and a phone interview - wish me luck! Is everyone wearing green?

And the second:

Happy Blogoversary to Me!

Yes, my friends, 4 adventure-filled years ago, I started this blog as a way to share, vent, deal with life, and today...that hasn't changed. A lot has changed in my life - kids in school full time, Mom and sister moved out, brother moved in, I started working full time...and this blog has remained a way for me to document my progress through life, as well as share with anyone who feels like reading. It's helped me keep track of my goals, my successes, and my failures. And I appreciate all of you who have stuck with me, or just joined the journey. Yay for 4 years!

8 Things: Excess

I've read several posts about Lent, and what people are giving up for Lent, if they are. I don't observe Lent, but an interesting post on MagpieGirl got me thinking: For a girl who would like to live a cleaner, more meaningful life, I have a lot of crap, and giving up something would not be a particularly bad idea. She does mention that the first step is to become mindful of the excess, and that is definitely something I need to do. I find myself just going along day to day, understanding that I'm stressed and feel frazzled and full of brain-trash, but not sure as to why. Perhaps taking a look at the "too much" in my life will help me clear out that trash.

1. Shopping. I was thinking the other day that I don't go shopping nearly as often as I used to, and in part that is true. I don't spend hours at Target or Michael's, but I do stop at the grocery way more often than I need to, which makes for excess: excess food in the freezer and pantry, excess spending of money I don't need to spend, excess time spent at the grocery store. This morning I stopped on my way to work to pick up salad for lunch. I got salad, and yogurt, and 400 other things I didn't need. I should have just packed a pb&j.

2. Paper clutter. The desk I got for Christmas, that was to be used for bill paying and homework, is covered in paper clutter that I need to actually go through, file, pay, look at...This was the clutter I got that desk to avoid.

3. Body clutter (a much more pleasant term, as coined by Flylady, than fat). This, of course, is ongoing issue, and I am tackling it.

4. Reusable shopping bags. A very odd thing to have too much of, but I get them and forget about them. Need to just keep them stashed in the car, and write myself a note. On my forehead. In Sharpie.

5. T-shirts. Another odd one, but I have them for every charity event I've participated in, concert I've gone to, schools, activities, blank workout tees, sleeping tees...honestly, I have more than a drawer's worth. I hate throwing away the commemorative ones, and I like using the blank ones to exercize. And I'm a big girl, so the shirts take up a lot of room.

6. Craft supplies. I do have too much, I know it. It's a disease. That said, I haven't bought anything new since...January? That's a start, right?

7. Volunteer stuff. This is also something I'm working on. I've done away with one of my volunteer activities, and another will be over as soon as the school year is done. That will leave me with Girl Scouts...and the myriad little things that pop up from time to time. How do you say no when you can't do stuff at school during the day, and nobody else seems to be helping? Another disease. One too many of us tend to suffer from, I think.

8. Excuses. I'm too tired, I forgot, I'm not smart enough, not enough time, too much to do, they'd never hire me, blah blah blah. Enough.

I guess I'll start with the first two - giving up the excessive shopping and paper clutter for Lent. I'm too tired to deal with the rest for now (grin.)