Kids

Kids. My kids. They crack me up! I love how they play together! And believe it or not, they were actually sharing this little wagon/bucket on wheels. They are both getting to the age where they either love each other or hate each other. Luckily for me, they love to hug. When I look at these pictures, I cant help but burst out laughing. In the first picture, Darren looks like he is ready to dump Jaycee right out of the wagon. But my favorite has to be the second picture. I love both of their facial expressions! They both keep me going. They both make me laugh. I couldn't imagine having one and not the other. They definitely belong as brother and sister. All in all, I just love the heck out of these two! I couldn't ask for better kids.

Just for laughs

Just some funny signs and sayings that caught my eye! Thought they were worth sharing a laugh!

Michelin Man

I really think that we should purchase stock in Michelin tires. Why you ask? Well, Michael fractures his wrist in softball last Sunday and his hand swelled nearly double its size. He is out of work for a while and we are waiting until we get results back from a specialist that is reviewing his x-rays. Michael was in a lot of pain but is feeling much better. His hand still swells but the brace he has to wear has been really helpful in stabilizing his hand and relieving him of some of the pain. I am sure that the Vicodin is doing its part in that too! I think his hand shows a striking resemblance to the big Michelin Mans, don't you?

Good Ol Days

Every year my dad makes caramel corn for my sisters and brother and I to take home with us around the holidays. Every year I try to eat it all before Michael or anyone else can delve into it. Every year I have been succesful. So the other day I was craving this caramel corn and decided that I couldn't wait until Thanksgiving or Christmas for it. You know the holidays are near when I am getting a hankering for it and willing to make it myself! hahaha. So I asked my dad for the recipe. Today, I am proud to say that I can officially make the same dessert that my dad has made for so many years. I was so happy about that! Or so I thought. I tried it, and yes, it was good. Yes, it took a while to make. Yes, I could easily make it again no problemo. So whats the deal? The deal is that even if it does taste the same, my dad didn't make it. He didn't put everything together, plan on sending us kids home with it knowing that we would all cram it down our gullets before our spouses and kids could their mitts on it. No, it just isn't the same. Not the same at all. I have realized a couple things here recently. The best food never tastes the same as when someone else makes it in comparison to you. That's a given. But the hard part is knowing that I am getting older. Pretty soon, I will be the one making it for my kids and having them wake up on Christmas morning asking if they can have that before breakfast. What I am trying to say is that I miss my dad, his baking, the little things like that he used to do for us that would bring me back to my days as a kid. I know I am older and nothing will change about that. I decided that although I followed his recipe, I think I will leave the baking to him. It was more fun, more significant to me to have to fight for the damn caramel corn with my sisters and brother over who gets the bigger bag, with or without nuts. Me and Marisa always without. Danny and Ash with. I am making a quick pit stop on my way home from work tomorrow. I am going to leave some for my deserving sister in her house. Hopefully she can get to it before the kids get home from school. aww the good ol days.

Latest and Greatest

At the end of August, my car lease was up. I have been dreading this moment for 3 years now, on the day that I signed the papers to it. I used to work at Ford Credit as a recovery specialist as well as lease end customer service. In other words, I knew what I was getting myself into, and I knew about what happens at the end. Well, really it didn't turn out all that bad. I had been driving the truck for 4 months prior to turning the car in trying to spare the mileage on my car. It took me until the day before I turned it in to realize what I had actually been spending on gas the past 4 months. I was filling the dodge 3 times a week at $85 a pop! Do the simple math on that and you get $1020 a month on gas! Holy hell! What was I thinking? It would have been cheaper to go over the miles than to fill the tank as much as I did! Bottom line, I needed a gas efficient car, end of story! We traded the truck in, turned my Altima in and bam! Out we walk with a fuel efficient Nissan Sentra. 33 road, 37 highway miles. Best thing yet? I am paying less on this car than I did on the lease! Wahoo! I was sad to see the truck go. We brought both of the kids home from the hospital in that truck, many camping trips later, scouting for deer hunts, high centering, stuck in the mud, shooting and teaching Darren to drive, all done in that truck. Shoot, both kids were made in that truck! haha just kidding. But you get my drift! We had tons of memories in that truck and we both were sad to give it up. Michael had a hard time until I promised him that in a couple months when we recover from the over 4k I had spent in gas, we will go down and get him the 4x4 of his dreams. That was all it took. I am one to keep my promises and cant wait to make new memories. Here are some pics of the new rice burner! haha

Motivation

I am at the start of my 6th week of working! wahoo! 2 more weeks and I have made my goal of 2 months. It seemed like a long stretch but I am so close I can taste it. I started working out mostly because I have 0, zip, nada energy and cant seem to keep myself awake past 8pm lately. I thought working out and eating better would help that but so far, not so much! If anything, I have been more tired! That being said, I had lost motivation. It didn't stop me from pushing through, but I almost started to dread it coming home to work out.

My goal was to get myself to a place where I could chase after the kids and not be winded, or running for the ringing phone for that matter! I couldn't keep up and I just felt lazy. I sit behind a computer all day and there wasn't much I could really do outside with the 110+ degree weather. So a couple of friends and I started running the 5 flights of stairs at work on our breaks. They are just the emergency stairs so we have them all to ourselves. We have been doing that twice a day and they help to keep me motivated. After I get home, the kids take a short nap and I take advantage of that time with all my recorded videos from the Fit channel. Man do they kill me!

Everything that I had been working so hard for finally started to show through last night. I was teaching the kids how to play Simon Says in Jaycee's room. I played Simon for a good 15 minutes and the kids gladly did as Simon said. Darren decided that it was his turn to play Simon. His first direction was "Simon says jump as high as you can and keep going!" So I did. Then he said "Simon says jump and pat you head!" So I did. Now pre-working out, this really would have been difficult for me! I used to get winded so easily and most likely would have told Darren at that point that I had to get dinner started and to play with Sis. But I played for another half an hour with him, of which all commands were to jump as high as I could hahaha.

That little game made me realize that the kids will only get more active. They will play sports, have friends and run wild and I don't want to be left in their dust. I want to be right there with them, to enjoy the things they enjoy, to do the things that they like to do, to be active with them and experience life as they do. I don't want to sit behind and miss all the wonders that they will. I want to be healthy and live a long life for my kids. I want to see all the things that they become and do with their lives. The road I was on was not a good one. Eating bad and being lazy? Definitely not what I want for myself and my family. So, all in all, I got my motivation back. I don't want to be a muscular freak by all means, just healthy and toned.

To Vent, or not to Vent.

Okay, so I had to make my own blog to let off a little steam. I have a lot of questions right now and no answers. I am in a situation that can shift 1 of 3 ways and unfortunately, I cant say too much. I feel irritated, aggravated, used, strung along and pretty crappy to say the least.



I have begun to question the worth of certain things and just how much I am willing to put myself through for things. I don't want to put too much detail in this to avoid hurting peoples feelings and questions, but all I know is that things are changing at a rapid pace. Each day has something new for me, which isn't always necessarily a good thing. Right now, the best that I can do is to roll with the punches.



Not the best way to start off a blog huh? Well, the kids blog is so much fun and a great way to let their family watch them grow, but this is more of a rattling off on a tangent rant and rave kind of blog for myself.



For posts to follow, well, hopefully I will have better news. In the meantime, I need to get my act together!