living free

It has been a while since I posted, and I had some posts I wanted to write. Posts about BlogHer, about the Ford Ride 'N Drive event, about my new blog, about other things. This post is not about any of those topics.

Some things have been going on in the lives of people around me lately, and subsequently in my own life, that have me thinking an awful lot about change. These events, coupled with an extreme lack of ability to FOCUS (which I don't believe is related but who knows), have really pressed home that I need a drastic change in my life. Maybe more than one. Because for whatever reason, I'm unhappy. And it's affecting all of the areas in my life right now.

Longtime blog readers will know that I have three areas in my life that provide me with no end of frustration: my cluttered home, my weight, and my finances. All of them, I believe, being somewhat intertwined. If I can only suss out the reasons for my failures in this area and solve those problems, move past them, I feel I can go on to achieve all the dreams I have.

One common thread that runs through my dreams is that I want to live a life rich in EXPERIENCES. Very few of these dreams revolve around STUFF. Arguably, the only one that does is my dream of owning and operating my Not House On The Rock house one day - and even that could be considered an experience.

The stuff I collect around me is just that: STUFF. It's not really a collection, per se. There's no structure to it, no organization. It's just things I've acquired over 30 years of living with which I cannot, for some reason, bear to part.

Except more and more lately, I CAN bear to part with them. I have been. I continue to do so. Sometimes I have a radical dream of selling everything I own on ebay and going on to live a stuff-free life. Mostly this dream scares the hell out of me, for reasons I cannot entirely define. (If I COULD, I probably wouldn't have all the stuff to begin with.) But more and more lately, the dream thrills me. Titillates me like a secret lover, whispering seductively to me from the darkness. 'Go on,' it says. 'Sell your things. Get rid of them. Effect change in your life. Move on. Let go. Achieve your dreams.'

The doubtful, clingy part of me resists moving on to what might be a new joyous phase in my life. What if I need those things one day? What if I miss them? What about the memories attached to them?

The voice whispers to me that this could just be the defining factor in my life. That I might just be able to accomplish some of my biggest dreams right now if I did this one thing. I might be able to pay off a bunch of debt if I did this. I might feel freer, more creative, less confined. I might be able to WRITE. I might be able to breathe in my own home. I might be happier. I might be able to move to a bigger house in a better neighborhood. I might accomplish all of these things and more if I just give up on the things that are holding me back.

Is selling off the pieces of my life the right thing to do? Will it help me move on to bigger and better things? Will I feel freer? Will I BE freer? Will I be able to accomplish my dreams?

I don't know the answers to these questions. But the idea that the answer might be YES fills me with hope for the first time in a while.

A life that is, for a while, empty of (most) possessions, but full of experience. A life worth living.

Baby You Can Drive My Car

As some of you may be aware, this week Chicago will be flooded with bloggers from all over as they flock to attend BlogHer 2009. I will be one of those flocking to the conference, though I am fortunate enough to be a Chicago(land) native.

A couple months back, attendees received an email about a special event taking place on Thursday before the conference begins. Ford is hosting a "What Women Want Vehicle Tech and Quality Event" and invited a number of bloggers to join in. I responded with interest and was selected to participate! From what the welcome kit indicates, we will be touring the Ford Chicago Assembly Plant, learning about manufacturing quality (specifically focusing on the 2010 Taurus), getting behind the wheel of the 2010 Ford Fusion and learning about fuel efficiency, learning more about the latest technologies, discussing vehicle quality, and participating in a roundtable about 'What Women Want' with a variety of Ford experts.

It all sounds like a blast. I'm particularly intrigued by the technology part of the program. Here are some of the things the welcome kit mentions:

*Look, no hands! Test our new Active Park Assist system that helps drivers parallel park simply by touching a button and letting go of the steering wheel.

*Stay connected with SYNC, Ford's fully integrated in-car communications and entertainment system that allows customers to operate mobile phones music players by voice commands, which is safer than manual operation of these devices.

*Parents love it, teens not so much… MyKey is a new Ford safety technology – launching this summer as standard equipment on the 2010 Focus, Taurus and other popular models – that allows owners to program a key that can limit the vehicle’s top speed and audio volume to encourage teens to drive safer.

That all sounds pretty awesome, but the Active Park Assist? That's like some space-age shit right there! I'm ridiculously excited about it and I hope it's as cool as it sounds.

I'm also excited about the roundtable. A little nervous too, because I have never given much thought to what I want in a vehicle. I love to drive and I have definite opinions about what I DO and DO NOT like in a car, but it's usually only something we deal with when we're car shopping. I'm not sure what I want is anything groundbreaking or earthshattering...but I suppose we'll find out in the round table, eh? :) I like a car that drives smooth, and fast, and handles well. I like a variety of safety features, especially for my children. I like having entertainment options at hand for car trips...and I LOVE to take road trips. In-car DVD is one of the best things to ever happen for road trips. I'd love more built in features for iPods/media players so we could hook right in. I like a lot of storage space. I like comfort. I love voice activated commands. I know that bluetooth-enabled radios and stuff are a big deal these days but I honestly don't love that feature because everyone in the damn car has to listen to your conversation. And you know what? My husband loves to talk on the phone in the car. I like to listen to music. I don't like to talk on the phone pretty much ever. I don't particularly enjoy listening to his conversations through the radio, especially when they interrupt a good song; I'd much rather he had a headset and did his own thing. I appreciate fuel efficiency and I'd love to do more for the environment.

I'm not sure I could even FATHOM cars that can do things like parallel park themselves. That is still blowing my mind!

One of the things Ford has asked us to do is discuss what women want before the event and bring opinions with us to the roundtable. So I'm opening this up to everyone who likes to share their opinion! What do YOU want in a vehicle? And if it's not readily apparent in your name, please let me know if you're male or female so I can bring that info with me to the roundtable. :)

Thanks everyone! I'm really excited about this event and am looking forward to blogging about it!

south beach

in lieu of actual content...



This is the only picture I took as we were driving through South Beach in Miami. As a matter of fact, we were driving through and I made my husband turn the car around and go BACK so I could get this picture. Not because I'm a 12 year old boy or anything.

Yes, I AM also that person who inserts (heh heh heh) the following comments into as many conversations as possible:
"liquor in the front, poker in the rear!"
"rectum? It damn near killed 'em!"

I'm pretty sure the folks at the Pleasure Emporium share my sense of humor, as we drove down the side alley and I don't recall seeing ACTUAL parking in the rear. hmmm.

It probably goes without saying that the In The Butt blog is one of my favorite 'guilty pleasures'. Because everything IS funnier in the butt. My husband won't let me order the stickers yet though, so I haven't been able to deface public property. Yet.

(As a side, yet somewhat related, note - I have been chortling for days because Google Analytics has assured me that someone googled the phrase "dirty old mom" and found this blog. That's me all right!)

Garbage In, Garbage Out

I have been stuck in a bit of a rut these past couple weeks, since returning from vacation. Everything in the house around me is a mess and I can't seem to get up the motivation to tackle it. On the days I work, I get home and take care of the kids and I am exhausted. I barely feel like making dinner, let alone tackling chores. On my off days, obviously we've done some social things but I've had time to clean and tackle projects too, I'll be honest. I just haven't, for the most part.

The much-anticipated garage sale is this weekend and, while I know it's going to be something of a hassle and I still have much to do in order to prepare for it, I am really looking forward to just getting a bunch of that stuff OUT of my house.

Sometimes I get stuck in these ruts, you see, and I've spent many hours thinking about WHY and also thinking about how to get out of them, or stop them from happening. Here's my theories so far:

1) I become overwhelmed by the mess and clutter around me and I find it really hard to function. (Seriously, sometimes I just sit there and stare at the room I'm in and think that I have to get up and tackle it, but I know there's a bunch of other stuff I need to get done too, and I can't even mentally get to the point where I can make a to-do list because I can't get over the fact that I need to organize my space first, and my brain sort of explodes from trying to deal with it all, and I end up doing nothing but sitting and staring at the mess.)

2) Lack of energy and/or a general feeling of slight illness / sluggishness. Sometimes this is my blood sugar, sometimes not. (I'm diabetic.) And I contribute THIS to: lack of exercise, not eating right, not getting enough sleep.

Those are the things I believe are at the roots of these occasional slumps; it seems when all of those factors are on the 'bad' side, nothing gets done. If I'm doing better in even one of those areas, I generally feel better and can get more done. And of course, the better I'm doing in all of those areas, the more functional and efficient I am.

None of this should really be surprising information to anyone. Especially item two; that's kind of basic biology. I'm writing about it because sometimes I feel like I struggle with staying on the 'up' side of these factors more than most people do. Or when I catch myself on the 'down' side, doing negative things to myself and falling into a slump again, it is sometimes really hard for me to start reversing those trends and get back on the 'up' side. I am also writing this because I start individual therapy tonight to work on why some of these things are so difficult for me, and I am working out what I'll be discussing I suppose. Blogging has always been a form of therapy for me, though lately I haven't been all that introspective. I started this blog to share my journey in accomplishing my dreams. As I've mentioned before, I believe I have a number of roadblocks to overcome in order to accomplish all the things I've set out to do. I hold myself back. Figuring out why, and overcoming it all, is the first step in accomplishing those dreams. So I'm trying to be open and honest and share the good, bad and the ugly. Even when it's a less-than-flattering picture of myself.

When I start to feel overwhelmed by something I try to accomplish, often I will set my sights on a particular event: 'once X happens, I'll be able to accomplish Y'. Then my life becomes a waiting game, waiting for X, while I get very little else accomplished. In this case, X=the garage sale and Y=organzing the house again. What's frustrating to me is that I have thought of a number of ways I could work around the garage sale stuff and keep up with areas of the house, but I just haven't, because I'm waiting for X. That's another thing I've got to work on - staying in the present. I still want to plan for the future, but I don't like that I let opportunities pass me by while I wait for the future to be NOW.

My three main roadblocks, as I've mentioned before, are clutter, weight and finances. About the only one I've been any good at ltely is finances. Good in the sense that we've been trying to be much more conscientious about our spending, and I'm still using mint.com and tracking everything and trying to be more mindful of our budget. Unfortunately, we're in a very tight period right now and somehow we still catch ourselves overspending and making things worse from time to time. I'm struggling with this a bit because it's really frustrating and we've just never seemed to find a really good method that works to keep our heads above water for very long, and I don't see us accomplishing our financial goals if we don't stop living paycheck to paycheck. Then I add in extra stress to my mind by trying to come up with ways to make more money, and suddenly I've added about 50 extra projects to my plate, and I'm totally overwhelmed again.

A few months ago when I started this blog I told myself I was going to stop overwhelming myself with projects and just focus on one thing at a time, until I finished it. I did that successfully for a month, maybe a little longer; made a lot of progress on my house. But that was taking too long so I agreed to add in one more project: eating healthy. A few weeks after that, I started letting other things creep back in and before you know it, my project list is huge again.

Perhaps this is partially why I'm in a slump again. I'm trying to do too many things at once, once again. Getting back to the basics really was working for me before. You've seen the videos, and a few folks were even at my house and can testify that it was looking pretty good. I just started to panic because I could see all these others goals of mine flying past me and I get really impatient; I want everything to happen for me NOW. This is why I try to tackle everything at once, because I want it all NOW. But then I try to do it all right away and look what happens - nothing. I accomplish nothing at all.

So perhaps, tonight, we will talk about my impatience and the feeling of panic I get when I see time flying past me and I think about how long it's going to take to get all of these things done, and how I can work on changing that aspect of myself so I really CAN just tackle one thing at a time.

I'm afraid that if I stick to just one thing at a time, I'll get stuck on that one thing and never move past it. Cleaning, for example, is a never-ending thing. Even when I've got it all decluttered, the upkeep is a daily thing. Will I ever have time to keep up with it AND add new projects? Logically I know the answer is yes, at least one day, once it's decluttered and it's become routine. But emotionally, I feel like I'll never be able to juggle more than one thing at a time and I get a little panicked at the idea that even if I accomplish a goal and move on, I'll never be able to keep up with goal one when I'm working on goal two. I know not all goals will require upkeep once they're accomplished, but the main three: clutter, weight, finances - they will all require constant maintenance, for the rest of my life. I worry I won't be able to do it all. I think that's holding me back too.

So there's my introspection for the week. I keep tripping myself up. Here's hoping I can find ways to work past all this.

"And prehistoric creatures may come flying out of my butt!" OR, how I spent my weekend.

"Do you think if you stuck one of these up your butt it would work?"

"Well, probably. I mean, your butt isn't necessarily WET, but it's warm, and I bet the coating would melt given enough time."

"I will totally buy you a drink if you stick one of those up your butt."

"..."

"AND, if at the end of the night you produce a prehistoric creature, I will buy you ANOTHER drink."

"...
...
I'm not sure if I should admit that I'm actually considering it."





No prehistoric creatures were injured, killed or even produced last weekend. But my offer still stands.

An Impossible Task

Did you know it's impossible to eat six Saltines in one minute? You didn't?



Well, now you do.

Being Held Liable For Being Neighborly

The neighbor kids keep coming over and driving us crazy and I'm not sure what to do about it.

The three kids are, I'm guessing, about 12, 8 and 6. Eldest is a boy, the others are girls. When we moved into the house four years ago, as we were unloading things, they (along with a few other neighborhood kids) came over with cookies and welcomed us. The KIDS did. NOT the parents. As a matter of fact, I've never actually MET my adult neighbors. At this point, that's just as much of a failing on my part as it is on theirs, but when we first moved in - your kids come over, but you don't? Bizarre.

Then, a month or so after we moved in, we were having a party. BBQ in the yard, possibly for Drake's first birthday, I'm not sure. That or a housewarming. At any rate, the neighbor kids came over (then they would have been about 2, 4 and 8, mind you) BY THEMSELVES to see if they could play at the party. We told them to ask their parents and to tell their parents they were welcome to come over for a burger or something, figured it would be a good time to meet them. The kids ran home, then came back - still parentless - and said they could come to the party but their cousins were over, could the cousins come too? I said sure, thinking one or two more kids wouldn't be a big deal, right? They come back with like FOURTEEN KIDS or something ridiculous. Ages ranging from 2 years to about 14 years old. STILL NO ADULTS. And the neighbor kids were polite but their cousins? Rude as HELL. I was, frankly, shocked. And had no idea how to handle it. Who sends a swarm of kids to the new neighbor's house when they've never even come over to meet them or welcome them to the neighborhood? (And who lets their 2 and 4 year olds play outside alone unsupervised all the time??)

Then for a while I was convinced they were living in a drug house because there were tons of people coming in and out at all hours of the night and day, and cars leaving for short periods of time and then coming back off and on all day. But that died down after a year or two.

The kids have always been nice and polite. Aside from the party incident, they've come over a time or two for random things (school sales and such) over the years. When we see the parents out front they will wave and say hi, but that's it.

Now, for some reason this summer, the kids are coming over all the time.

It started in the late spring when the two girls started coming over and asking if they could play in our yard. We have a small yard with a small swingset and a couple toddler slides. We also have two dogs and we're not always diligent about cleaning up the poop, and we tend to leave yard toys out (like our toddler wagon and the plastic outdoor cars and the sandbox with no sand and so on) because we're lazy.

When they first asked, I was torn because I don't want to be the mean neighbor who gets her house egged and TP'd...but I also don't want to be the one who is held liable or sued if one of the kids gets hurt. (And then I am saddened that we live in a world where you can't just be NICE, you have to worry about being sued for being nice, but that's a whole other rant I think.) I wasn't sure I wanted to set a precedent for it, but at the same time I wasn't sure exactly how to say no or if I wanted to be the type of person who says no to letting kids have fun. Their yard is even smaller than ours (it's full of a deck and an oversized garage, and what little 'yard' is left seems to be just a dirt pit). So I let them. And they would come over every week or so, ask to play, play for a little bit, and then go home.

Then, naturally, my kids started wanting to go outside and play with the neighbors. And regardless of whether or not the neighbors let THEIR kids play unsupervised outside at 2 and 4...I DON'T let my kids play outside unsupervised. So then I'd have to drop whatever I was doing to go out and play with my kids too, or have to deal with two tantrummy kids if I made them stay inside.

Then the older neighbor kid started asking to cut our grass. And I know this is something that kids DO for money and I don't begrudge the kid, but he'll ask us like three times a week. And we have had him cut the grass sometimes, don't get me wrong. We give him $20 every now and then to do it. But we don't always have the $20 to give him and it's sometimes a big pain. Also, the grass doesn't need to be cut three times a week, hello.

Then they started asking to borrow stuff, like the wagon. Which, even if I leave it out in the rain, cost us over $100 and it is NOT a toy for them. Besides, they're too big for the damn thing. It's for my TODDLERS. And they beg and plead when I tell them no, just like they're my own damn kids.

We had a garage sale last year and the girls came over and bought some old car seats for their dolls. I had like four at the sale, and two of them were cheapy ones WE had bought at garage sales, that we used in my parents' cars just a few times when the kids were babies. So I didn't mind selling the cheapy ones to the girls for a couple bucks. But then we had some nice newer infant car seats that we were selling for considerably more and the girls, of course, wanted the nice ones. But they only had $5. And I was NOT letting them go for $5, so I told them no, I'd sell them the two cheap ones for $5 for their dolls but the other ones were much more expensive.

A couple weeks ago, they were building a rabbit cage in their backyard. They asked OJ to come over and help them. He came back and said it was a disaster of epic proportions and asked me if I minded if he offered them our old dog crate (which we no longer use) in exchange for three grass cuttings. I said sure (and then worried about the fate of this poor rabbit). I don't know what exactly happened with the rabbit, but last week the eldest kid was back over to tell us that he had to give the rabbit to his aunt or something, and had to go back on our deal. Then he came over a couple days later to see if he could bring the cage back. I told him sure, we'd be home all day. Then he came back TWO DAYS LATER with the cage. I emphasize this not because I missed the cage, but because I want you to realize that he came over THREE TIMES over the course of a week just to return a damn cage.

Is people coming to my house a big deal? It sort of is to me. I value my alone time. I don't really feel the need to strike up conversations with the neighborhood kids. I don't like being interrupted fifty times when I'm in the middle of something. And the worst part is, I can't hide. Not only do the kids see our cars so they know if we're home...we also have a big glass front door, so they can see inside. And even if I don't answer the door, my kids go running pell-mell for the door as soon as they hear a knock. If I'm in the bathroom, they answer the damn door. (Even though I've told them a hundred times NOT to...it's really hard for a 2 and 4 year old to not answer the door, especially when it's the neighbor kids knocking.) And I'm sure you can imagine how much fun it is for me to hear my kids telling the neighbors "Mommy can't come to the door right now, she's pooping". All the dignities of motherhood.

Then the girls started leaving the gate open when they played in our yard. So now I have to check both gates before letting my dogs out, so the dogs don't run away. I also started lecturing the kids on latching the gate and was on the verge of banning them from the yard, but they seem to have fixed this problem. (They're very defensive about it too, always blaming each other for being the one to leave the gate open.)

And another thing along that line that I have to worry about: what if my dogs are out with the kids and one of them gets bitten?? So now I don't let my dogs out when the kids are in the yard just to make sure this doesn't happen. They're good dogs, but they're still young (a year) and they're from the same litter and they're shelties, herding dogs...sometimes they nip.

It just makes me crazy that the kids come over ALL THE TIME when we're home now. On Sunday, Oksana was sick and napping; Drake and I were in the basement. The eldest comes over and knocks. And knocks some more. And knocks louder. Constant knocking while I'm walking up the stairs. Waking up my daughter, who is napping. Interrupting me and Drake, who were playing together. He tells me OJ said he could cut the grass today. Of course OJ isn't home, and I tell him I don't know anything about that and I'll have to talk to OJ later in the afternoon when he comes home. Over the course of the next hour I talk to OJ on the phone, who tells me that he said nothing of the sort; however, we agree that we will let him cut the grass if he wants to and that OJ will pay him when he gets home. About an hour later, the kid comes knocking AGAIN. Same scenario, wakes up my daughter, interrupts the game Drake and I are playing. He wants to know if OJ is home yet. No, but fine, cut the grass; he won't be home until late to pay you though. So he starts cutting the grass and I've just gone downstairs when I hear knocking AGAIN. It's his sisters this time, wanting to play in the damn yard. I tell them fine. I look out the window a few minutes later and THEY HAVE A BABY IN MY YARD. So now we have a 6 year old and an 8 year old watching a BABY in my yard. Putting him in the dirty old baby swing that we don't use and I really should take down. Now I'm seeing accidents and liability dance in my head for sure. How do I revoke this permission to play in my yard??
Then, the lawn mower stops and...ANOTHER knock on my door. The eldest, telling me he's done (I don't care, I told you I don't have your money kid!), that our grass was really long, and how come my kids aren't playing outside? None of YOUR business kid. I remind him (as I told him earlier) that my daughter is SICK ('and you keep waking her up with your damn knocking' is implied there as well). Then the girls knock again, a little later, asking to borrow my wagon (again) to take the baby around the block (HELL NO).
OJ comes home around dinnertime and he's barely walked through the door when the eldest is back over, knocking, for his money.

Every damn day of my life is turning into that scenario. Yesterday evening, in the space of 5:30 pm to 7:30pm, they were over a bunch of times again.
1)The girls, to ask if they could play in the yard.
2)The boy, to tell me that the babysitter left the gate open earlier that day and our dogs got out and he had to chase them down and put them back in our yard.
3)I noticed that the older (8ish) girl was SITTING IN THE BABY SWING HERSELF when I was making dinner, and had to stop and go out and tell her not to go in there. (Picturing the whole damn swingset coming down on these kids, and that giant liability issue again.)
4)The boy, asking (and here I'm on the phone too, which he can clearly see, yet he keeps talking to me anyway) if have any kind of baby walker he can buy. I mention we're selling a bunch of baby stuff at the garage sale in two weeks, but no, he wants something tonight. Can he just borrow it? I tell him all the stuff is in the garage somewhere and I have to finish my phone call.
5)The girls, half an hour later, to see if we've found the baby stuff yet. (The baby is still over, I guess; I think they said it's their nephew.) This time I'm making dinner and told them we wouldn't have time to look for anything.

If you've made it this far in my rant without falling asleep, you've probably noticed a very conspicuous lack of something in all of these stories: PARENTS. Where the fuck are their parents??

And I guess this is what I'm really bothered by. The kids, after all, are just being kids. As I mentioned, they're nice, they're polite. Kids don't think about the fact that they're interrupting whatever you're doing when they knock on your door five times in a row. In their mind, grown-ups live to serve kids, after all. If anything, this has given me surprising insight into MY childhood; I picture so many things we did that probably annoyed the shit out of people in our neighborhood, and this is probably payback for that. Kids just don't think about that stuff.

But where are the PARENTS? And we extended invites to them (via their kids, since we never see the parents) to our first couple BBQ's when we lived here. They never came over, never said thanks but no thanks, nothing. But they'll let their kids come over and bother us constantly? Play in our yard? Let us help them build a freaking RABBIT CAGE in THEIR yard? Borrow stuff (or ASK to borrow stuff) from us all the time? I know they have to be aware of it too, because they're often out on their deck grilling, and they can see into our yard. And I've heard them call the kids home from our yard, and I've seen them peeking their heads out and looking over when their kids are at our door.

As a parent and a neighbor, first of all, if I caught my kids knocking at the neighbor's, my kids would get a big lecture about not bothering people. Second, I myself would march my butt over to the neighbors and talk to them about my kids coming over, see if they were bothered by any of it, and make an effort to BE NEIGHBORLY. I'd feel a lot better about it if they came over and talked to me about their kids playing in my yard. It would be a lot easier to explain to the adults that I can't be watching their kids in my yard and I'm worried someone is going to get hurt. Kids care nothing for the POSSIBILITY of injury, for insurance and liability.

I'm concerned that if I go over there and tell them (nicely) that their kids are driving us crazy by knocking all the time and that we're worried about them playing in the yard, I'm afraid that it will come off as confrontational, no matter how nice I am.

I'm trying to come up with something I can tell the kids that will ban them from our yard without being labelled the MEAN neighbors, and end up with a TP'd and egged house.

There's probably nothing I can do to stop them from knocking on my door fifty times a day, but I wish that would stop too.

So, to my neighbors: just because it was once said that it takes a village to raise a child, doesn't mean I want to raise yours. Please absorb this blog post psychically and keep your kids in check. Thank you.

Florida, Day One

In retrospect, it is probably not a wise idea to go to work the day you're set to fly out on vacation with your family of four for a week. However, given that we were going to be gone for a solid week, OJ and I felt it financially prudent to get in as much work time as possible, so we both DID go to work Wednesday morning. I did most of the packing beforehand, but you know there's always those last minute items...toiletries, sleeping buddies for the kids, food, and so on. There's always last minute home details to take care of, too. So I spent most of my day at work worrying about all the details; never mind the fact that I had made lists to cover all the eventualities. My mind just won't shut off and I kept going over the lists, trying to make sure I didn't forget something; all with one eye on the clock, worrying about whether I'd have enough time to get everything done. In the end, I left work half an hour earlier than planned. And in the end, I would have had enough time even if I hadn't done that. But then I'd have felt even more rushed, so I'm glad I did.

OJ was meeting us at the airport direct from work, so my dad very graciously drove me and the kids to Midway. I lugged two toddlers, three backpacks, and two carseats into the airport, where a very nice Delta agent helped me print out our boarding passes as she simultaneously entertained my children. My husband joined me a few minutes into the process, providing much relief and a most welcome set of extra arms.

I'm not a huge fan of flying, truthfully; it just feels unnatural to me. And plummeting to my death is pretty high on my list of ways I DON'T want to die. Having my entire family on the plane with me ups my anxiety exponentially. Once we're in the air I can manage to relax, but going up and coming down leave me pretty tense.

Thankfully, the two flights to Fort Lauderdale were easy and uneventful. We had forty minutes between the flights, but really, by the time we de-planed the first flight, it was time to walk to the next one (the two gates were, luckily, right next to each other; we connected in Atlanta and I did not get to appreciate how very HUGE the Atlanta airport is. The flight home, however, definitely gave me that chance. But that's a whole week away still!) and immediately get on the plane. So it really didn't seem like much of a delay.

Also, laptops and iPods have COMPLETELY changed the face of traveling with children. COMPLETELY. When we take road trips, we spend a good amount of time watching movies (rather, the kids do), but I still try to resurrect some of the good old road trip games in between flicks. In the air, the travel games don't work so well at this age, but the movies sure do! Both kids were enthralled by Pixar films and old episodes (new to them) of Tiny Toons and Pee Wee's Playhouse. (Mom and Dad don't mind watching along, either.)

(I do have this great airport card game called Flying Rubberneckers that helped us kill some time in the terminals. It's basically a card version of I Spy...my kids are still too young to hold their own hand of cards and play for points, but we had a grand time going through the cards as a family and spotting the different items and people.)

We landed in Fort Lauderdale around 11pm (their time; they are an hour ahead of us), and my father in law was waiting eagerly to pick us up and take us to the boat, which was to be our home for the week. We were starving and he was happy to oblige, so we had a very late dinner at a tasty diner on the way to the marina. It was a decent walk down the marina to the boat, but everyone was fueled by excitement. Good thing too, because we were carrying all our luggage and couldn't have managed to carry the kids too! The inky black midnight water was beautiful, but it has that an eerie quality as well; my son was most sensitive to it and immediately began imagining monsters in the deep. On the walk, he was pretty much dead set that no way, no how was he getting on a boat, were we CRAZY? But once we got there and lifted him on, and he was able to see that it's like a little house, all fear was gone and excitement kicked in full force.

By the time we got to the boat, got the lessons on operating everything, figured out where the light switches were, and got the beds made up, it was close to 1:30AM. We put the kids to sleep on the table-that-turns-into-a-bed, and conked out!


The table-that-turns-into-a-bed.


OJ and the kids in the living room area, near the TV. You can see the table-bed down the stairs there.


The kitchen. On the right is a fridge, freezer, and lift-off stovetop. There is also a microwave hidden in one of the cabinets. On the left is a sink, toaster, coffee percolator, and a bar top to eat upon.


The kitchen view from atop the bar (my back is to the sliding glass entry doorway; I'm standing in the living room).


The bedroom, aka "the cave". It's pretty much just a huge bed with a surprising amount of storage hidden all around (and under!) it. There's also another TV in here.


The bathroom. Small, but functional! I even showered there once, and it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd been thinking it might be. (I did shower more than once that week; we just did the majority of our bathing at my in-laws house.)


Barnacles on the pier at low tide. When we arrived the night before, I asked my father in law if we'd be in any danger if we were clumsy and fell off the pier when trying to get on or off the boat (I was thinking more of myself than the kids; we fully planned on keeping a death grip on all children when passing them to or from the boat!). He told me there were loads of barnacles all over the pier and you could get cut up pretty badly. He wasn't kidding! (Side note: I can't think of barnacles anymore without picturing Isabella Rossellini in her Green Porno series. Thanks to her, I know that barnacles have the longest penis to body ratio of any animal.)

What a great note on which to end a post.

Christmas In July

This month, Heritage Makers is running a Christmas In July special. Most of our products are 'buy 3, get the 4th free'. This is the perfect time to get a jump start on holiday gifts AND holiday cards for those folks on your Christmas list!

Here are some ideas for holiday gifts:

1) Create custom storybooks for all those folks on your list - or create one fantastic family storybook and give a copy to everyone in the family!

2) Make a Favorite Family Holiday Recipes cookbook and give it to everyone for the holiday season.

3) Make personalized day planners or calendars for 2010 and give them as gifts.

4) Use Heritage Makers for all your holiday cards this year! Did you know that Heritage Makers will not only allow you to design your own personalized cards; they will also MAIL those cards directly to the recipients for you? You can send your beautiful, heartfelt cards directly from the comfort of your computer! Just import everyone's information into your Heritage Makers address book and send. No more addressing 100's of envelopes...no more stamps...no more long lines at the post office.

This month, Heritage Makers makes it easy and affordable to do all of these things, and more. Don't miss this great special! Talk to me for additional details.

Ad flier is here: http://www.heritagemakers.com/go/christmasJuly2009/
My website is: http://www.scrapyourbooks.com for more information on Heritage Makers.

lead me not into temptation...I can find it just fine by myself.

I'm really ill at ease today. For no good reason (other than that it's sort of a constant feeling that seems to ebb and flow within me), I'm immensely dissatisfied with our finances and our house right now. Both the size of the house AND the clutterfied contents. I'm feeling really jealous of other people today. No one specific, just anyone that has (and can afford) a bigger, cleaner house than I. I'm not even dreaming about McMansions here, right now...what I'd really love is a three bedroom house with just a little more space, a few more rooms. I'd like the bedrooms to be on a separate floor from the living space. I'd like the kids to have their own bedrooms. I'd like to have a dining room that could accommodate a decent sized table so I could tackle a family holiday gathering. I'd like a kitchen with an island, so I had more cooking space. And I'd like a mudroom, or some sort of landing at the door, so we could clean off the dogs when they come in and so we would have some place to store shoes, coats, outdoor gear, etc.

That's my dream right now. And if you've got something like that, I'm feeling a little jealous today. Sorry.

Mostly, right now, I think that I'm really angry at myself for choices I've made in the past.

I have a really hard time with anything I perceive as DEPRIVING myself. A really hard time. And maybe this is what I need therapy for, more than anything, because it is the crux of so many issues in my life. I want ice cream? If I don't get it I'm DEPRIVING myself. I'm going out? If I get water for free instead of that glass of sangria for $8, I'm DEPRIVING myself. One ice cream cone won't hurt. One drink won't hurt. But it's not just one, occasionally. It's one, all the time. One, one, one. All those one's add up. And over time, they've added up to overweight, overcluttered, and over-debted. I do feel like I've made huge strides in fighting this, but I still slip up way too often, and in the meantime it's really frustrating to look at my life and the things I really want and to know that, if I had only learned to control this tendency of mine better, I could HAVE those things now.

Life is all about choices. And I'm not very happy with most of my past ones right now. Past minor / daily choices, that is. Most of my big life choices, like kids and getting married, I'm just fine with. But my daily choices are generally a huge struggle for me, and I keep making ones that are just not helping me get to where I need to be. I break vows I make to myself all the time. I recently vowed that I wouldn't buy any more books for the time being...for an undetermined amount of time, until we're on better financial footing. I have plenty of books. I have plenty of UNREAD books to plow through still. And if I get a hankering for a new book by one of my favorite authors, I should go to the library. I haven't been to the library in ages, and one of the things I wanted to do when I stopped working was to start taking my kids to the library on a regular basis. I haven't done it yet.

Last week my mom asked me to go to the mall with her, just for the hell of it. And of course she wants to go to the bookstore. And I know there are some books I want to read but I tell myself I don't need to buy them, I have plenty I'm reading now, and anyway I can just go to the library when I'm ready to read them. I don't need to buy a book. I'm happy with this decision.
Yet somehow I come out of the bookstore with a book. I see a book by an author I like, and it reminds me he has a book out that I've wanted for a while. So I talk myself into buying it. I do it in stages. I tell myself that if it's a paperback, it'll be OK, because they're cheaper than hardcovers. But then it's only in hardcover and I STILL allow myself to buy it anyway. It's "just ONE book", after all.

I don't know what the hell is wrong with me. Why I work against myself so frequently. How I can set such defined goals, goals I can envision so strongly I can practically taste them, and still go off the path towards achieving them so many times.

I'm not looking for tears or sympathy. I realize that I have quite a fortunate life and that while I may not have many of the things I want, we do live quite comfortably and do have many things we want, we often have more than we need, and I certainly am NOT deprived. Even if I feel like it sometimes. I KNOW, consciously, that I'm not. I only have to look at the massive amount of things that surround me to understand that I've been quite fortunate over the course of my life. But as I have gotten older, I have come to deeply believe that this STUFF isn't what is important, and that indeed so much of it and the behaviors that have led me to acquire it have been unhealthy and have held me back from the things I REALLY want.

Sometimes it's hard to see when I'm standing in the middle of it, but I look back on a lot of the decluttering I've done and the pictures and videos I've taken and I believe that I do have a problem with hoarding. I may not be as bad as some people (as in the past, when I've congratulated myself on not having boxes and stacks piled to the ceiling like SOME PEOPLE do)...but that doesn't mean I don't have a problem.

I think, even without ever getting any kind of therapy for this, that I have come a long way on my own with this problem. I have gotten rid of so much stuff. And if you could see the sheer amount of stuff I'm planning on unloading at the garage sale, you'd have to agree that I've made huge strides. Sometimes I even have daydreams about opening up my entire house to a garage sale of sorts and just letting people wander through and make offers on whatever they are interested in. LET IT ALL GO. I now believe that I CAN let it all go.

But the practicality of doing that is still a struggle. I have a hard time letting it go for free, because so much of my money is tied into this STUFF. I am so disgusted at where I let myself get financially that I can't seem to just purge and donate. I have to at least TRY to sell it first. Then there's the sheer overwhelming factor of trying to deal with so much STUFF (and in a small space to boot). And there are objects I'm still tied to emotionally. Though honestly, I've found it much easier to pack away objects for selling. I have a MUCH harder time with paper clutter. Getting rid of paper is a giant struggle for me. So many tasks and so many dreams are, in my mind, tied to all those pieces of paper in my house. I should go home, dump them all, and just start the fuck over. But I can't. Not yet. I've dumped a lot, to my credit. But then I'll find another box of papers from four years ago (or more), and it just keeps growing and growing.

Another factor I struggle with is that the behaviors I've had for so long are so difficult to change. Even if I believe that I don't need to hoard anymore, even if I truly feel that hoarding is bad, I still find myself acquiring things from time to time. Like the book in the aforementioned incident. I did not NEED that book. But at the time I was standing in the bookstore, I 'needed' it.

It's tied to food too. I don't NEED to sit and eat a bunch of popsicles, or a bag of chips, or whatever, while I'm reading. But when I get the urge, sometimes, I 'need' it.

I don't NEED to have a drink when I go out. I don't need anything but water, which is free (most places, anyway). But once I'm out, I feel like I'm depriving myself if I don't just have one, so I do it. And then I kick myself later over the calories AND the money spent.

It seems like the only way to fight this, sometimes, is to not go out at all. If I don't go to the mall, or go on vacation, or go out with my husband, or go out with friends, we'll spend so much less money. I can't order it or buy it if I'm not in the store or restaurant, right?
But then I really AM depriving myself. Depriving myself of the experiences and the company of people I love.

So why can't I manage to have the experience without feeling the need to spend money too?

I'm really having a hard time fighting those impulses. I've managed to tone them down; I don't buy or spend nearly as excessively as I used to. And I suppose I should congratulate myself on baby steps. But I still buy and spend (and eat) more than I WANT to. (In the long term, anyway. Obviously in the short term I have the desire to be doing those things.) How do I reconcile my short-term desires and my long-term desires? How do I fight this battle without feeling so downtrodden and experiencing a form of buyer's / eater's remorse every time I do ANYTHING?

Sometimes those long term desires seem so far away that it's easy to give in to the short term. And then the next day it's like a cloud lifts from my mind, and I see so clearly that what I did the night before just put more distance between me and the long term goal. And it just depresses me.

I'm just trying to work it all out right now. I'm really frustrated by the amount of money we blew in June. I get a little panicky when I look at all the other things we've planned for the summer, and when we talk with friends about making more plans, and all I see are dollar signs. Dollar signs flying out of my pocket, faster than the speed of light.

Clutter, fat, and money. My three biggest roadblocks. All problems caused by the way I've behaved in the past, and ways I continue to behave now. All tied into the same, or a very similar, source somewhere inside me. I keep trying to understand why I behave this. Is understanding why necessary to make a permanent, lasting change? I don't know.

But I think, if I DO decide to pursue therapy for my problem(s), this entry is probably a great thing to print out and just hand to my therapist and session one. Maybe I do need a guide. It's really, really hard trying to change this all by myself.

FREE Heritage Makers beginner's workshop

If you aren't familiar with Heritage Makers yet, you should be! We are a digital storybooking (think scrapbooking online) company that will help you turn your treasured memories into beautiful books, cards, posters, etc to last a lifetime.

This coming Wednesday, July 1st at 6:30PM, I will be holding a FREE beginner's workshop at my mother's house in Lansing, IL. I will do a basic demonstration of the online Studio and answer any questions you may have about using it.

If you've got some Heritage Makers credits sitting on your account and you aren't sure how to get started, this is the perfect event for you!

Likewise, if you are thinking about getting into storybooking but are feeling a little overwhelmed, this is perfect for you!

And if you've been doing it for a while but want to come to share some tips and ideas with the other attendees, this is perfect for you!

Feel free to bring a laptop if you'd like to work on your projects.

Please send me an email if you are interested in attending and I will supply you with the address.

Learn more about storybooking at my website: www.scrapyourbooks.com!

confession

Before I go on to the Florida trip photos...I have a confession to make.

My house is filthy again.

The clutter just seems to creep back out from every corner. If I don't stay on top of it EVERY. DAY. it gets incredibly out of hand. Spending half of the month of June on vacation threw all the baby routines I put in place straight out the window. I'm working on getting back into the swing of it all.

Three weeks until garage sale day. A lot of it will go out of the house then. That will help reduce some of these problems.

I have to start managing the paper problem too. Putting aside the laundry room and the garage, I've managed to declutter a lot of the 'stuff' in the house. The paper is a huge issue. Even reduced by roughly half, it causes giant messes. This is another daily battle.

I'm frustrated that I spend so much of my life cleaning, decluttering, straightening up. And no, even once the clutter is out, I can't afford a maid. Does everyone have to spend time cleaning every day? How do you stay on top of it and keep your house company-ready?? It seems like such an impossible task for me sometimes. Even on days when we're not IN the house, it feels like the mess multiplies. :/

Sandusky Vacation Days Three and Four

I'm combining days three and four of the vacation because it was mostly waterpark time and then the drive home.

Saturday we all slept in and then spent a leisurely morning talking each other's ears off, eating breakfast, watching the kids play together. The suite we had at the Kalahari was awesome, with a full kitchen and two separate bedrooms, two bathrooms, two balconies, a fireplace, three TV's...we easily could have stayed there longer, if only we could have afforded it!


Amber and Drake 'fighting' in the living room area. Those light-up swords were the souvenirs the kids picked at Cedar Point.


Ringo says: 'If I saw a Jedi, wearing nothing but dinosaurs, hoisting a double bladed saber while grabbing his crotch, I would be awed by his presence'

We spent most of Saturday afternoon at the waterpark, which is HUGE. We didn't even go to the outdoor part. The indoor part had three or four different kids' areas, a giant wave pool, surfing pools, a bunch of slides, a lazy river, several bars...my only complaint was that several of the areas, and slides, were closed. All weekend. Some of them on a rotating basis; they'd open but then others would close for a while. I'm guessing they were short-staffed? It didn't seem to make much sense. But even with that, there was MORE than enough to do. And all the kids could have easily spent the entire weekend in the wave pool. My arms were sore for a week from trying to hold them up and save them from being drowned!

In the evening, we went back to the hotel room to order pizza, and we finally managed to meet up in person with Adam. He gave us a con schedule and we wandered around for a while, hitting up the candy shop before heading to the parking lot to see if we could find the live-action Left 4 Dead event. Even at 2 and 4, my kids are zombie fans. Though I don't think they really know what zombies are, since I haven't exactly gotten graphic with them. But come on, kids love monsters, right? Well, my kids do, anyway. Or at least, the little one does. I think the elder one is often more apprehensive than he'd like to let on.


Tina and the kids on a luggage cart outside our room. We got locked out because OJ took my room key to go get the pizza; Ringo was supposed to come with us but at the last second he veered off and went with OJ, and none of us realized he had the only other room key until we got to the door! I'm never giving up my room key again! lol!


visiting the hotel candy shop


which one's the chimp? har har! (sorry Ringo!)


Oksana and an okapi. I'm honestly not sure if the okapi was part of the hotel staff (the Kalahari has an African theme) or if it was a furry from the convention!


Ayla, Tina and someone dressed as a character from a video game they enjoy


Oksana already knows that a light saber would be an awesome zombie-killing tool

We got everyone back to the hotel room in a vain attempt to get the kids to bed before midnight. OJ and Ringo left Tina and I with the younger kids, and went wandering the con with Ayla, the 11 year old; looking at hot chicks in costume and attending anime raves.


Drake informed us that he was Batman dressed as Spiderman so that the baddies wouldn't know he was Batman.


Oksana and Ayla snuggling in one of the beds

Sunday morning after breakfast and check-out, Tina, Ringo and the girls got on the road because they heard there were bad storms in our home area. We spent a few more hours at the waterpark before hitting the road for home.


the kids by a rhino


one of MANY splashalicious zones


safety first in the wave pool!


this one LOVES the water. She's absolutely fearless. Over, under, upside down, she doesn't care. We're going to need to do some swimming lessons STAT.


post-slide bliss




no fear whatsoever! The blue lifejacket running directly into the waves is my 2 year old daughter, who can't swim. The orange-suited man chasing her down is my husband.


The Kalahari also had a really big dry play area that we let the kids run around in for a while before hitting the road.



All in all it was an awesome weekend, and we are really looking forward to repeating it next year!

Sandusky Vacation, Day Two

The entire day was spent at Cedar Point, enjoying the truly gorgeous weather and riding all the rides we could until we were all incredibly exhausted!


OJ and Oksana, having a blast on the Super Himalaya.


The kids fell in love with the Frog Hopper, and rode it over...and over...and over...and over...


The other thing they loved? Bumper boats. I guess driving your own inflatable boat around for as long as you want (because there was no line) IS pretty cool...


The kids and I in Camp Snoopy.

It was in Camp Snoopy that my kids went on their first two roller coasters ever. The Jr. Gemini (technically outside of Camp Snoopy, and also the scene of my fat-humiliation as mentioned in the previous post) is a small coaster that just goes up a little hill, down and around. They sent us around twice and the kids had a blast. So we tackled the slightly larger Woodstock Express. It was...unexpectedly zippy! Pretty fast, a decent drop for a kids' coaster, and lots of twists and turns. It reminded me of that old favorite, The Whizzer, at Six Flags Great America. (Which will only make sense to my other Chicago-area friends!) And it was a success! The kids liked it too. Drake even asked to go on some of the bigger coasters, but sadly, he wasn't tall enough. Two inches to short for the medium-level coasters! :( Hopefully next year.


Making wishes.



They each flew their own plane on Snoopy's Red Baron ride (yet another of those where the kid gets to control how high they fly).


The kids 'driving' around in a helicopter. Honestly, I lost track of how many versions of this 'cars on a track' ride they had at Cedar Point, but trust me, there were a LOT. Regular cars, muscle cars, old-fashioned cars, space vehicles, planes, motorcycles, cop cars....you name it, they had it. And it never. got. old.


Now this is the one ride that Mommy and Daddy went on! Cedar Point has this awesome (free) Parent-Child swap program. If you get a pass at Guest Services, then one person can wait in line for a 'big kid' ride while the rest of the party does their own thing. When that person rides, they give their pass to the ride attendant. And once they are off the ride, the other 'big kid' in the party can go up the exit queue, claim the pass, and ride without waiting for an hour in line. It's pretty sweet. This was the only time we took advantage of it, to ride Maverick, the newest coaster there. It...lived up to its name. Incredibly wild, exhilerating coaster. If it doesn't age well, it's going to be painful in a few years. But for now, it was highly enjoyable. (Millenium Force is still my favorite ride there though, hands down!)


Hot rods! (My son has a talent for making bizarre faces in photos; it's very difficult to get him to smile normally, actually.)


Aaand...there's me, heading to my last indulgence of the night. Cedar Downs, the racing carousel. It goes pretty fast; neither kid was tall enough to ride it, but it's an old favorite of mine, so I had to hop on. I'm not sure why my husband didn't take a picture of me ON the ride like I asked, so this will have to do!

We didn't stay for the late night light show or anything because the kids were exhausted (and we weren't far behind, honestly). We only had one stroller and we had reached the point of near-tears where no one wanted to take turns anymore, they both wanted the stroller, and we were almost beyond the point where we could comfortably carry the non-stroller child. So we picked up our souvenir lightsabers (thanks to the ten bucks Grandma sent with each kid, so they could buy a souvenir of their choice) and headed back to the hotel...to greet our friends, who were just arriving! And everyone got their second wind and stayed up until midnight! (Which was just fine because no one had anywhere to be bright and early, thank god!)

sleeping with my ex

I feel like I'm surrounded by babies (or babies-to-be), at least with my internet friends, and it kind of makes me want one again. Except I think what I really want to do is temporarily abscond with everyone else's babies, snuzzle them mercilessly, then give them back. There's a whole host of reasons why I should not be having a baby right now (and possibly ever again). My husband is happy with two. I don't like being pregnant (I just like the babies!). Our house is too small. Our house is too messy and cramming another person PLUS their stuff won't help that. It would totally mess up our financial plan. I vowed I would never have another baby unless I could leave work not just after the baby is born, but also for the pregnancy. I worked like a dog during the first two and if I do it again I want an entirely different experience this time. My health, which is also linked to my weight.

Speaking of my weight, I found out at TOPS last night that not only have I NOT lost weight as I'd suspected...I actually gained. Four pounds. In the last month. I'm very close to my highest weight ever again. This was...disheartening, to say the least.

When we went to Cedar Point last week, one of my biggest fears was that I would be a 'guest of exceptional size' and not be able to ride any of the rides I wanted to get on. They don't have strict guidelines as to what constitutes a 'guest of exceptional size', since everyone's body types are different, but they suggest that women over size 18 may have trouble on some of the rides. That's me, folks. At least in my gut. The rest of my body is probably around a size 18 but my gut is HUGE (and embarrassing).
I was able to get on everything I wanted, even the children's rides that required adult chaperones, but it was uncomfortable. And humiliating. Especially on the Jr. Gemini when the attendant had to help me buckle the seatbelt because I was too fat to do it. Bless her soul, she tried to blame my fanny pack (to which I replied "thank you, but I think it's my FANNY"), and I was about to give up but she was very insistent that we could DO it, and I heaved my fat out of the way as best I could and she pulled with all her might until that little belt clicked into place. It certainly was not one of my prouder moments in life.

There is no great mystery involved in weight loss, at least not for the majority of folks. Eat less, move more. It's a pretty simple formula. Yet for so many people, myself included, it's a huge struggle. The formula may be easy but when you try to apply it to individuals with emotions and patterns and preferences and desires and opinions, individuals fighting hormonal responses and addicitons and emotional triggers and years of conditioned response, individuals with varying levels of intention and willpower...well, it becomes a very different, very personal story for each of us. I've been trying to pay attention over the past year or so, and I don't seem to have a huge emotional trigger to food. I don't necessarily want to eat when I'm stressed, or upset, or angry. I do, however, often eat out of boredom. And habit. I eat for entertainment...and who doesn't like to be entertained? Over the course of my life, I seem to have linked food to all of the pleasureable activities in my life. I eat while I read. I eat while I watch TV. I eat while I play video games. I eat while I socialize with friends. I ENJOY eating while I do these things. And it has become very hard to NOT eat while doing these things. Eating has become linked to my enjoyment of these activities; separately, I enjoy each of them very much, but with food I now achieve MAXIMUM enjoyment.

I read a lot on a regular basis, but I have been reading a TON lately. Every night, often for a couple hours. (This could also be why the house is falling into disrepair again.) So I've been eating a lot more at night lately as a result.

The trouble here is that I'm not eating with any sort of intention. I'm just grazing, and when one food stops tasting so great, I just move on to the next one. I'm not really ENJOYING the food, I'm just eating to eat. I'm not writing down any of these foods and I'm not limiting myself in any way either. I'm not saying "OK, I want some potato chips, so I'll just have one serving." I'm sitting down with the whole bag.

So what happens? A weight gain of four pounds, that's what happens. Frustration. Misery. And oh yeah, I don't feel so good most days either.

What am I going to do about this? I don't know. I'm frustrated. It's a pattern that has asserted itself time and again in my life. I have trouble setting limits on myself, I have trouble controlling certain behaviors. I have been trying to track my calories and food intake for a year and I keep resisting. I know it's an important tool for weight loss, but for some reason I just refuse to make it a habit. I want to do it...but somewhere in me I must not REALLY want to do it, or I'd be doing it already, right?

It's times like these when I am closest to admitting that I might need professional help with this problem. But for some reason, even though I don't have a problem with therapy and have gone for other troubles I've had...I am hugely resistant to going for this. HUGELY. I'm not sure why. Even writing about it now, I can feel the stress building in my body, my arms and legs tightening in refusal, as if someone is going to come along and try to physically MAKE me go to therapy and I'm gearing up to resist and fight them. It's freaking bizarre and I have no idea why, exactly, I am so dead set against going to therapy for this, but I am.

I'm hesitant to put this out there in public because it is such a personal issue, and when I fail again and again, it's embarrassing. Sometimes it's embarrassing just to live my life and still be fat, because I've struggled with this for so long and it's not like it's a problem I can hide. When I go out, everyone can see that I'm still fat, or fatter. My repeated failures sit on my body in giant lumps. Sometimes I don't want to go places, or see certain people, just because of the way I look. So putting this all out here in public is sort of like opening a wound. But I vowed to myself that this blog would be a record of my goals and the paths to them; this is a huge issue in my life that I've wanted to get past for years, and I do believe it is holding me back from accomplishing so many other things in my life. It's the elephant in the room; I can't just ignore it. And maybe my struggles (and future triumphs, I hope) will help someone else.

And maybe there's someone out there who will help me too.

on the road again...

I know that we just went on vacation, and that I haven't even posted all the photos and stories from that one, but guess what? We're going on another vacation! We leave this Wednesday! I think I might be crazy!

Actually, I'm pretty sure I'm crazy. I constantly overbook myself to the point of insanity, take a break, then do it all again.

We fly to Miami Wednesday afternoon to visit my husband's family. We'll be staying on a BOAT (owned by his aunt and uncle), and I'm pretty excited about that.

I haven't recovered from my last vacation though, and I'm a little worried about that. We have a ton of laundry to do, and the house...well, let's just say the house is no longer company-ready. I made some headway on that over the weekend, but then I also got really drunk (which you may have noticed, if you follow me on Twitter) on Sunday (still in that vacation mindset I guess), and...not a whole lot got done at home. I sort of got drunk right around noon too, so I didn't even get much done BEFORE I got drunk. (Actually, I made homemade salsa for the party, so I MADE THINGS MESSIER. It's a skill that I always have possessed.)

I'm incredibly nervous about putting my entire family on a plane. I've never been a huge fan of flying anyway, and the idea of all of us being on a plane and dying together...the thought of my children going through that...scares me more than I'd like to admit. I am really not looking forward to that portion of our vacation. I need to get those bestsellers written so we can take the time to drive everywhere. I'm much more comfortable on the ground. And if we HAD to fly somewhere, maybe we could take two different flights so we wouldn't at least all die together.
My husband probably won't go for either of those ideas. But dear god do I dislike the idea of falling to my death.

Assuming that doesn't happen though, the vacation should be pretty awesome. And maybe I'll actually be able to clean my house again when we get back.

Speaking of which, part of the reason for my backsliding is because I feel like I've hit something of a standstill with all the stuff that needs to go out to the garage sale. Also, my paper problem is still really out-of-control. The only way I seem to ever stay on top of it, and of the house at all, is to do maintenance cleaning and tossing DAILY. I was doing pretty good at that, but this month has been bad, and only 15 days in my house looks...pretty god awful. It's frustrating. I'm not sure what else to do about it.

So I have some frustrations to work through, and not much time to deal with them in the next week.

And it's so incredibly stressful to come home from vacation to a messy house.

Sandusky Vacation, Day One

Last Thursday we packed up the car and hit the road for Sandusky, Ohio...a little town on the edge of Lake Erie that is home to my favorite amusement park (so far), Cedar Point! In the past, I've stayed at the Cedar Point resorts because they have awesome park perks (such as getting in an hour early before the crowds!)...but this year, we were staying at the new Kalahari. My friend Adam runs an anime convention (Colossal Con) every year, and this year it was at the Kalahari - I'd never met Adam in person, having only played WoW with him previously, but he's a good friend of my friends Sarah and Eric AND he's an awesome guild member. (Yes, I realize I just delved quite severely into the world of nerddom. Sorry.) Originally we were hoping some other Chicago-based members of our Guild would be able to join us, but that didn't work out this year. (However, the con is there again next year and we're hoping to make it an annual event!) We'd never stayed at a Kalahari and were quite excited about the waterpark, as it is reputed to be pretty awesome.

So a good five hours later, we found ourselves checking into a very busy Kalahari. I stayed in the car and took pictures while OJ checked in.


Check out this dude's outfit; it's silver-spangley with some kind of funky fur coat over it! I don't know if the green boots go with that shirt or with something else, lol.

We settled into our room, which was one-half of the suite we would eventually have the next night (when our friends Tina and Ringo and their girls would be joining us). I was dismayed to note that it was an hour ahead there; I should have known that but it's been several years since I made it out to Cedar Point, so I'd forgotten. We freshened up and immediately headed out to hit the park on some Starlight tickets (cheaper evening tickets you can purchase after a certain time each day).

The kids were both JUST tall enough to ride all the kiddie rides, as well as quite a few of the mid-level rides. I LOVE spinny rides and carnival rides, but often can't get other adults to go on with me (seems a lot of people start to get sick of spinning by the time they hit my age!), so I'm thrilled that my kids are not only big enough to go on these rides, but that they are incredibly excited about doing so. We may not get to hit many roller coasters yet, but by golly I can spin to my heart's content!


Drake and I on the main carousel (it's one of three in the park!).


Drake thinks the carousel is awesome!


OJ and Oksana on the carousel.



The sky ride, which takes you up on a cable and deposits you in the middle of the park. It also gives you a lovely view of the park and of surrounding Lake Erie.


The sky ride is NOT OJ's favorite ride, and he did his best to avoid having us ride it a second time for the rest of our vacation. ;) (That's the Demon Drop in the background.)


Drake and I are having a great time on the Matterhorn; Oksana was too short to ride this one, even with an adult.


Pretty much every ride we went on, the kids wanted to go again! (and again! and again!). So Drake took a turn with OJ next.


heh heh. heh heh. Mermaid boobies. (This was on the Ocean Motion, a big ship that swings back and forth; Drake and I took a ride on it.)


The kids in Planet Snoopy, one of FOUR themed kids' areas in the park. This was my first visit there with kids, and I have to say they do a great job being incredibly child-friendly and accommodating!


Drake taking a spin on one of the rides in Planet Snoopy.


Totally oblivious to the rest of us, lol.


The kids on one of those rides where they can control how high they fly with a lever in the plane (or spaceship, as the case may be). Cedar Point had several different incarnations of this ride, all of them a hit.


Oksana on the kiddie train.


See, here's another incarnation of the flying ride, this time in the Kiddy Kingdom.


The kids on the kiddie-style bumper cars. I sound like a HUGE dork, but I thought it was particularly funny that Drake stopped in the middle of the ride and tried to get Oksana to share her necklace with him.


One of the new features at the park this year is this water fountain; it was a little chilly that night so we didn't let the kids run through (though, as you can see, it's practically irresistible). It's pretty neat though, and I imagine it'll be PACKED on hot summer days. In the background, you can see the Raptor (the green coaster), which is their inverted coaster (and it's a pretty sweet ride, though we didn't manage to hit it on this trip), and in the VERY back, you can see the hill of the Blue Streak, a wooden coaster - the oldest operating coaster in the park.

We had to cut our evening short because the park closed at 8pm, instead of 9 like I'd thought. We were going to eat dinner IN the park but it was a no-go, sadly. We lost TWO HOURS because of the time change and because I remembered the closing time wrong. :( But we had fun anyway!