Oh No!

I am trying to figure out what I have just agreed to do....... To go tent camping with Wheezer's troop. In March no less! What the hell was I thinking? The weather can either be very pleasant, like an early spring day(can't you almost smell the flowers?) Or it can be a vicious later winter weekend, with wind, rain, snow(?). The kind of March weather that "In like a lion" brings to mind". Hopefully it'll be the lamb. I mentioned to Sheila that I'll bring my air mattress. Ooops- I was informed there is no electricity!!! If there is no electricity, is there running water? A bathroom, that is indoors and not in the middle of a field somewhere? Bugs, what about bugs? Are bugs still dormant in late March? Well, what do you eat? Oh that's right, over an open pit fire! I have the cool cast iron dutch oven that they want me to bring along. What a minute!! I am catching on now.. they don't want ME, they want MY cool cast iron dutch oven! I wonder what the rules are about sneaking in little discreet flasks filled with a little something -wink wink, nudge nudge. I'll bet it was a girl scout leader who invented the little discreet flask after a camping trip just like the one I am about to undertake. The one where she had no electricity, running water, a toilet somewhere in a field with leaves for toilet paper, and a camp full of @#&*#@* 13 year old girls!! Worse case scenerio-a snow storm, I freeze to death, become a mom-popscicle, never have to work again because the frost bite has destroyed my toes,(wait, that'll be a good thing not ever working again!) or my body will never function the same after a weekend sleeping on the cold, hard ground without an air mattress. Yes, I am looking foreward to the fun and bonding the weekend will bring.
PS- my ladybug inched foreward 5 lbs.!!!!!

WHAAAAAAAAAAH

My Health and Safety teacher at CPCC is killing me!! She assigns weekly a 5-8 page report. She calls them various things like "self-study papers", "research reports", or my all time favorite "a summary paper". Excuse me, a summary means, what, maybe 2 pages at most? I am so cumpulsive that having to spit out quality papers of this lenghth week after week is draining my brain juices!!! I could submit any old thing just to be done with it, but not this old gal... I figure, I am paying for this with MY own money, I will do well! (not to mention I may be a bit competitive with Wheezer, the perfect straight A student). Unlike the days when Mom and Dad paid for me to go to the bars, um.. I mean college, in the 80's, I could care less about school, grades, a degree, or anything not directly related to bars. and boys. But now I care deeply about what I do and the impact it can have on my future, my girl's future, and their appriciation of getting a higher education. But come on...... this lady is killing me! I have other classes, a job, a life, whaaaaaaaah!

How I've spent every Saturday in February

This is how I have spent every Saturday in February. I am either the cookie mom for Wheezer's Senior troop, or I am a volunteer for Angel Baby's Brownie troop. Here I am with Angel Baby on one of the most beautiful Saturdays in a long time. I may complain about the blasted cookies(Hey, it's not their fault I can't eat only 1 or 2 a day) but I am a fierce supporter of all things Girl Scout. If I wasn't, would I spend my Friday's at a fashion show? Or my weekends at booths, in the dead of winter? Or sewing badges on vests til my finger's bleed? As I recall, I didn't do very well on the sewing badge as a girl scout. Still can't sew, but for my girls, I'll sew those badges onto their vests. (I have tried the badge glue, but without any real success.) I even went camping a few years ago in October and it was so very, very cold, it took me a week to warm up!!!! But for my girls and my support of scouting, I'd even gain a few pounds during cookie season. I'll take one for the team!!

IT IS LOST NIGHT!!!!

See the sidebar at the right for some hot Lost action! I love this show! Wheezer and I have been faithful since day 1: three years ago. I am not happy that they put it on Thursday because I am also a geeky "Survivor" fan. It crams too much TV excitement on one night. Seems like I don't have a life..hmmm... I guess I don't :( No phone calls please between the hours of 8-10 PM on Thursday, unless you are the folks from Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes!

Girl Scout Cookies are Everywhere

I have a secret to share........ it is girl scout cookie time! If you have gone anywhere near a grocery store the last 2 weekends you would be thinking "DUH!" Now, I have a special place in my heart for cookies, and it's not just because I am SUPER COOKIE MOM. No, I seriously support and believe in everything that Girl Scouting represents. It builds strong, confident young women who can conquer the world. I also support everyone else getting fat so I am not alone! Here's the deal with girl scout cookies that I have yet to figure out: The first day of "door-to-door" sales or what I call, "pleeeeaaassseeee buy cookies from my daughter....." begins on January 1st- the day normally known as "First day of my diet!" What the.....? Makes no sense on so many levels. Everyone is basically broke from that little holiday that just occurred a week before (can we all say Christmas?). Then most people come up with this brilliant idea to start a diet on New Year's Day because they just ate their way thru Christmas because of the stress of buying way too much crap the kids can not possibly appreciate. Now, let's send out the cute little girl with visions of selling a billion cookies so she'll qualify for the cool incentive that the girl scouts offer. This year it was glow-in-the-dark bangle bracelets, wow! But lets not forget the sales pitch, "get them now or wait til next year". So you buy; you buy from me, you buy from your friend's granddaughter, the office mate's niece, the next door neighbor's grand niece living in Timbuktu.
So now you have a trillion boxes of yummy, delicious girl scout cookies that come around only once a year. They must be pretty special, so you eat one, just one you say to yourself... Hell.... what happened to that box of Samoas? Did you see where it went? Off you go to the grocery store during the month of February and lo and behold, there's a Brownie here, a girl scout there and over there a senior scout, all hawking their delicious cookies you can only get once a year. Now, since you "lost" that box of Samoas somewhere, you must replace it because those cookies only come around once a year. While you are at it, you buy a box of thin mints because they do freeze really great! Finally, March comes around, you balance the check book and realize you bought $42.00 worth of cookies and you can't find them ANYWHERE! You happen to jump on the scale one morning and AHA! You found them, they are attached to your thighs and adding about 7 lbs. to that scale. Evil little things, because you can not eat just one or freeze them or hide them until July. Next year I am sticking to that diet no matter how many cute little girl scouts convince me I have to buy them now or wait til next year....
Thank you for supporting the Girl Scouts of America. You have just helped my daughter achieve her dreams and goals in life. Not to mention she is the proud owner of some really cool glow-in-the=dark bangle bracelets! And I have company in my quest to lose weight.

Praise!

Again, it has been awhile since I have had time for this. Between cookie booths, school, work, and family, WOW... who has time? Wheezer, my beautiful soon to be 13 year old freaked me out this week!! I sensed something was not right with a friend, so I did something I told myself I would NEVER do- I read her diary. It opened exactly to the page I was interested in, the day her friend came over to the house. It revealed what I suspected, the friendship was not "good". I read just one page and it was all I needed to see, Wheezer was playing an extremely dangerous game called the "Choking Game". In this game, participants hyperventilate and at the last moment, they choke off their air supply to get a rush or high. Need I say it is so very dangerous and could cause brain damage, if they are lucky, because it also leads to death! Did I say freaked? No, I was stunned, freaked, terrified and very, very, very lost at what to do next. I could tell Wheezer I read her diary and piss her off for the rest of her life and maybe beyond, I could lie and say something that would probably come out lame or I could roll over and play dead. I know that I had some time to figure this all out because I was going to subtly keep her very close to me. I put it all in the Lord's hands after Kay prayed for me-thanks friend, you helped to put the focus of the Lord onto the issue and gave me room to hear what I needed to hear. I removed all belts and scarves from her room and prayed! It was revealed to me to call her school councilor, which I did the next day. To make a long story short, the Lord is so awesome and powerful in his timing. The very day I called her school, there was an article in the paper on the "choking game", a story on one of the morning shows and an entire hour dedicated to the topic on the radio station I listen to. Coincidence? I don't think so!! Needless to say, with pray, God's interventions, her councilor, and enough love to fill up outerspace, Wheezer is going to be safe, I can feel it in my heart. It opened my eyes to the fact that you can never let your guard down when dealing with a teenager! I also know I can't blame this other child because Wheezer is just as much at fault as her friend. A little trust was lost that day but a huge helping of faith replaced it!
Praise to the almighty and His wonderous plans!

the joys of the stomach flu

Ahhhh.... I am feeling much better after my little bout of the stomach flu. As Kay says, what better way to jump start the diet, oops.. life style change? Speaking of, I lost 1.2 pounds this week :), and that includes "sampling" at the superdipbowl on Sunday. The grand total...(Drum roll please..) 6.4 pounds, about the size of a nice roasting chicken!! Now, why did I compare my lost to food? 6.4 pounds is a small-ish size newborn baby!! Back to the stomach bug. What is worse, the puking or pooping? Oh the joys of even being able to compare the two. But the real winner is puking while driving!! I know this is gross, but for Moms and daycare teachers, the word puke is a natural part of our vocabulary, along with poop, boogies, snot, and fart. (a word I am trying to get my little ladies to replace with "passing gas" but to no avail!) Anyway, driving and puking- I ran an errand, that Big Guy did offer to do for me but I HAD to play the martyr, and while on the road I had to let lose, so to speak. So gross and what was worse, I was in a really nice neighborhood, driving my really loud, obnoxious car when I had to pull over. Nothing like being inconspicuous while doing the deed!! The saving grace was the houses had huge front lawns with lots of trees, so maybe I was hidden. Now that I think about, who flippin cares!!!!
When you gotta puke, you gotta puke! It would have been worse to let lose IN the car- the very car that has no working windows to roll down. Ewwww... now that would have sucked!! I ate nothing but jello, a little rice, a bite of chicken, and some cauliflower. The "PUKING/POOPING DIET". What a life!

Post Super(dip)Bowl

The Super Bowl has come and gone and my panties are still in a wad because of the Giants win. Not that I was cheering on the Pats, but the Giants....? As far as sports go, I am over it. Not a big football fan (LOVE NASCAR-more on that later)). I do like the parties that go with football, oh.. and the commercials. The whole family went to Kay and Mike's, our family away from family. Being from Jersey, we have adopted their family as our Carolina family. At this little gathering of only 3 other families was no less than 6 kinds of dips. I have a dip addiction that no amount of will power or any 12 step program will help me to overcome. Being on a life style change and 6 flavors of dip do not mix. It'd be safe to say that I "sampled" the dips. My version of sampling and someone's else's may be like comparing bananas to tube socks. My hell to pay is a carb hangover. I have this wicked headache that I haven't been able to shake and it is more than my typical "I hate my job" headache. Remember, carbs in excess are evil. Tomorrow is weigh in day. I'll see then how much I'll regret the dip overload. But it sure was gooooood! ;)

It's been a long strange... oh.. whatever

I had great intentions of blogging on a daily basis. Lord knows I play enough Spider games that I could write instead of playing. But..... I had other things that needed my attention. Without going into details of all the insanity of my life since August, I am going to give this a try, again. It has been a long, strange trip since August. Would have made for some compelling reading- HA :)

I am on a new weight lose kick. It was my New Year's resolution for 2008. My 2007 resolution was to quit smoking, which for the most part was very successful. I had little hic-up on the road to nicotine freedom, but I am free of cigarettes, and it has been easy. I let God take that ball and chain from me but I exchanged it for about 30 pounds. The reason for the weight lose. OK, not supposed to call it a diet, no... what diet means is that I am on a short term fix to lose whatever weight I can manage to lose before I go off my diet. It is a life style change, a life time of healthy eating.. blah blah blah.... I don't care what it is supposed to be... IT IS A DIET and it is killing me!!!! I want a huge roast beef hoagie with mayo and provolone cheese and I want barbecue chips and I do not want to count the "points"! But, I am determined to lose what I gained when I quit smoking and maybe another 20 pounds for good measure. The big guy, my husband, also went on a life style change New Year's. He has lost close to 20 pounds, in a month! Bastard! I refused to weigh myself the first 2 weeks, scared shitless what the scale would say. So I really don't know what I started out weighing, but I did finally get on the scale and nearly had a heart attack. You know us overweight gals can't take that kind of shock. But I have lost 5 pounds in the last 2 1/2 weeks. It's good, but compared to the big guy, it's a piss in the potty. None the less, can I be happy for him? NO....... I am all bummed and discouraged because I have only lost 5 lbs. Boo-hoo. :( I have a game plan in place for the Superbowl and let's see if I can carry thru with it or fall face first into the bowl of dip. Like I've said, my little world is never uncomplicated, I have to make it all a big deal and ALL ABOUT ME!