Quote from Caleb

Last night after dinner, Caleb was still sitting at the table and Peter was bouncing off the walls. Like, running crazy laps around the living/dining room and whooping and hollering. I don't know what got into him. Caleb calmly turned to him as he zipped by and said,
"Peter, next time try decaf."

My experience with Bikram Yoga

OK, well, first of all. It wasn't this.

Thank goodness.

But I will tell you it was just this awful. AWFUL.

For those of you at home saying, "What's bie-cram yoguh?"...it's pronounced bih-krum and it is 90 minutes of hell. HELL.

Bikram yoga is also known as hot yoga. Hot because you do it in a heated room. It's not new; it's been around for years and I just suddenly, against my better judgement, decided it might be fun to try it. I like to be hot. I like to sweat. I like yoga. Great, right?! Not so much.

I took, Laura, a friend of mine who is really into difficult, strenuous activities. We are both in good shape, she likes to sweat, too, so I figured this was right up our alley. Before we went into the ROOM, we spoke with the instructor for a bit and told her we were knew to this, that we both had knee issues that we had to modify certain poses, and so forth. My first red flag should have been when she said, "You will at times feel dizzy and lightheaded. Just stop and take a break at anytime; grab a drink of your water. The goal for your first class is to just stay in the room for the full 90 minutes". I figured, sure, no problem. How hard is it to stay in a room? However, what she meant to say was, "Your goal for the first class is to not run screaming from the room. It is disruptful to the other participants".

But she didn't actually say that so we figured, sure, no problem, we can stay in a room. Then Laura made the mistake of asking what the temperature in the room was. 105 degrees with 45% humidity. Wow, I thought. They're not kidding when they call it "hot" yoga. Then the instructor asked us if we brought a yoga mat and a towel. Sure! We had mats and we waved our little sweat hand towels at her. She kinda shook her head and gave us each a large towel, like a beach towel. That is to go over your mat. Because the mat gets slippery when it is wet. And guess what. The beach towel is SOAKING wet after like half an hour. By the end, I seriously could have wrung water out of it. Uh, not water actually. It was sweat that had POURED from my body. Eeeewwwww.

SO. We made it through the entire class without leaving the room but let me tell you. I wanted to run screaming from that room the second class was over. (Before, actually). Unfortunately, I couldn't run because I was reduced to a limp rag. And I felt like crap for the entire rest of the day although I drank like a gallon of water asap. And there were several times during the class that I just had to force myself to not whimper pathetically. I was afraid it might disrupt the other participants. But I really did feel whimpery and on the verge of bursting into tears at any moment.

The worst part, though, was that the instructor was evil. OK, not really evil, but she did not like letting me modify to my own abilities. At one point, I was not doing "tree pose" the way she wanted me to do it. Because of my bad knee(s), I have to do it this way. Except I usually don't have my arms thrown up to catch a giant ball. Nor do I usually have a big belly. Depends on how many M&Ms I had that week.

Anyway, the instructor kept saying to me, "In this class, we do tree pose like this". And then she would show me. I just kept nodding to her and waving to let her know I understood what she was saying. Finally, after like three tries to get through my thick skull, she walked over to me and tried to get me to do it the way they do in Bikram yoga.
I said, "Yeah, I know. But I can't bend my knees that way".
She said, "Stop saying you can't do it. You can."
I said, "No. I had knee surgery. I can only do it like this."
She still tried to get my to shove my foot up into my crotch and when I couldn't do it, she said,
"Well, you just need to work on your balance."
As though my problem was poor balance.

And then as my knee was throbbing afterwards, she had the gall to insinuate that the throbbing is good because it means increased circulation to the joint, and healing, and blah blah blah. I wanted to slap her and inform her that I have a degree in physical therapy and throbbing joints does NOT = healing. But hey, what do I know.

So that was my experience with Bikram yoga. I'm gonna give it a 2 on a scale of 1 to 10. Sorry to offend those of you who might enjoy hot yoga. I know some of you enjoy running marathons, too, which I think is equally torturous and un-fun. I guess we're all different!

Happy Halloween!

OK, so I'm skipping from July to Halloween. Whatever. It's not like any of you PAY me to blog. So here is Peter as a storm trooper (NOT to be confused with a clone trooper). Caleb is a carnivorous plant and Sam is a Jawa (also from Star Wars). Don't be fooled by the simplicity of Sam's costume. It is homemade and that dang mask was a lot of work. I finally deferred to Dave on the electric parts. Caleb's costume involved a lot of paper maiche and if I NEVER have to do paper maiche for as long as I live, it will be TOO soon.

I originally tried to get Peter to settle for being a clone trooper since we already own that costume but it was very important to him to be a storm trooper. And as I was up to my elbows in paper maiche and black masks, I was only too happy to shell out the $30 for his costume. Although, in all fairness, Caleb did do a lot of the labor on his headpiece.

Halloween was kinda rainy so it dampened our day a little...not a good combination with paper maiche. People here started trick or treating early. I think the first one was at like 1pm! (I think to partially beat the rain and to finish in time so as not to miss the Yankee game. Apparently the Yankees are playing in something called the "world series." I'll figure that out after I sort out the clone trooper/storm trooper conundrum ). So many kids followed suit; it was hard for them to just sit around and wait til it got late enough to go out so we finally let ours out around 3pm. They hit some houses and then came back to "take a break" because they were thirsty. After awhile, I figured out that "take a break" means come inside and start eating all the candy. Then they went out and got some more. Nice strategy.

3, maybe 4

OK, so I have been assured by 3 of you (4 if you count my dad who didn't actually contact me but I'm sure he's been following) that you are, indeed, chomping at the bit for more blogging. On the edge of your seats. On pins and needles. Lying awake til all hours of the night, just clicking refresh, refresh, refresh...hoping to see a new blog post pop up. Oh, how the guilt torments me.

So the kids have been out of school for two weeks now. Mostly we just sit around and watch it rain. It rained 23/30 days in June, and so far, half of July. Good news: we haven't needed to turn our A/C on or water our yard. Bad news, not lots of fun and it's been so humid that the parquet wood floor in our house has swelled beyond capacity and we now have buckling mountain ranges all over the living room. I'm hoping that will just kinda go away on it's own...I hate contacting our landlord with bad news!

Below I am posting two videos that the kids have been making to pass the time. One of them is by Peter (the cars) and one by Caleb (carnivorous plants). When I say "video", I mean, picture by picture turned into a video. Peter's took 276 pictures to make his video. I'm not sure about Caleb's.

Also, here is a pic of some card stacking that Sam has been doing. He was building the coliseum. He got up to 11 tiers, I believe, before it finally fell. I was surprised at how NOT upset he was when it fell. I was way more upset that he was. He just shrugged and said he could now build something else. He started building the White House but I haven't seen it take shape, yet. (Try not to notice that he's still in his pajamas and skipped both breakfast and lunch to do this).

Testing...testing...1,2,3...

OK, so I am a leeeetle behind in my blogging. Anyone notice? Before I actually take the time to sit down and write something, I'm just checking first to see if I have anyone out there. I'm pretty sure by now I've lost my huge audience of, like 5 people.



Here's a picture of me, in case you've forgotten what I look like. I'm the one in the middle with the pasty, ghost-like complexion. I like to call it Eu de Albino.
That's Stacie and Angela with me. They are Zumba stalker/turned friends and this was at a surprise party they threw for me on my birthday in April. Now it's June, well, July and I'm hoping I'm not still THAT pasty.

I'm Just Wondering...

WHY is it that on school days I have to drag Peter out of bed at 7:30ish but on holidays/weekends he pops right up out of bed at 6:25a.m.? Why why WHY?!

Caleb's hermit crabs

A do-over

This morning as I started to get dressed for the day I noticed that my underwear (the ones I was taking off) was wrong-side-out. Which means that I wore them all day yesterday wrong-side-out. Now I know that this shouldn't make a difference. I mean, it's just underwear. And technically it works either way. And it's not like anyone saw it or anything...so it shouldn't matter, right?

Then why do I feel so disconcerted over it? I feel like the whole previous day may have been messed up somehow. Yesterday was actually a pretty normal, low-key Sunday for me. Nothing big. Pretty relaxing, actually. But I wonder how it would have turned out if my underwear had been right-side-out. Would it have made a difference? Would my day have been better? Worse? The same? I can't help but feeling I want a do-over. I want to do yesterday over to see what would have happened. I want to put the whole world on "pause" and then quickly rewind to the part where I put my underwear on (this time right-side-out) and then hit play again.

Can anyone guess which way my underwear is turned today???

Lunch

Because my life is deliriously exciting, I thought you might all like to see what I eat for lunch everyday. Seems I get in a routine of eating one certain thing for lunch and I stick to it for a few years. Then I find something else I like and eat that for a few years. Before I had kids but after college, I remember eating peanut buttter and jelly (had to be peach or apricot jam) everyday for lunch. When I was pregnant with Sam, it was McDonald's cheeseburger and fries. Pregnant with Caleb: ramen noodle soup. Right now (NO, I'm not pregnant), it's a turkey sandwich with mustard and cheese. Sometimes it's provolone, sometimes swiss, this week it's muenster cheese. BUT, it has to be toasted. I put it in my little toaster oven and warm it all up and wait for the cheese to get gooey and bubbly. Ahhhhh, it doesn't get much better than that.
The funny thing about my lunch is that I have to have Lay's potato chips with it, too. I can get by on an off-brand, but it has to be plain potato chips, NO ruffles or ridges! I tend to think that the PORTION of my chips could probably be smaller, but in reality this is what it looks like. I pretty much cover any available space on the plate that is not already taken up by the sandwich.

When you work out 2-3 hours a day, I guess you can do that?!

Please don't put me on hold

Oh my goodness. I just got off the phone with my credit card company. Again. The week before Christmas, someone used our credit card for their own amusement all over Manhattan. Even though our card(s) were still in our wallet(s), somehow someone used it at the Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Hallmark Store, Duane Reade (like Rite Aid) and for thousands of dollars in cash advances. Anyway, it's taken months now for the credit card company to finish their "investigation" and remove the charges from our account. In the interim, they told me to just pay what I actually owe and to ignore the charges and mounting interest/finance charges. The last of the fraudulent charges were removed last week (after MANY calls on my part) but they failed to remove the interest/finance charges and the cash advance transaction fees. Ugh. So I called them today. Again. This time, at least, I have a direct number to the fraud investigation department. That saves a lot of time. Anyway, the call went a little something like this:

***5 min. pause while I listen to Muzak and wait for the next available associate***

Credit card company: Thank you for calling the fraud investigation department. Can I have your 16 digit account number please?

Me: Hi, please don't put me on hold. Whatever you do, I'm begging you, please don't put me on hold.

CCC: I just need your 16 digit account number, ma'am and we can get started.

Me: **sounding even more desperate and somewhat hysterical** I don't mean to sound weird, but seriously, if you put me on hold I might actually go postal or something.

CCC: OK, ma'am, let's get through the 16 digit account number and security questions and I'll do my best to not put you on hold.

**Flashback to 15 min. earlier**

I call the credit card company, after listening to 5 min. of Muzak I talk to a real person and tell him my dilemma of not getting the finance charges credited to my account, etc. He asks what the amounts are, we get into this big complicated discussion that involves a LOT of math and then he tells me to hold on for a moment. He puts me on hold while, I assume, he's calculating all the amounts. I wait and then I hear new Muzak with an intermittent voice telling me that my call is important to them and that I am waiting for the next available associate. But wait, there's more. It says the average wait time right now is TEN minutes. AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH! Why am I even waiting for the next available associate? I already had a guy. We were friends. We were working together! Or wait, maybe not. Maybe he didn't like doing all that math so he decided to ditch me!?

SO, I wait on hold for about ten minutes (while listening to Muzak--it feels more like 10 hours) and try making my lunch at the same time. I can multi-task, right?! And then guess what happens. Oh yes. I get disconnected. AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH! So I call back (thank goodness for that direct line) and wait my turn and get a new associate.

**Fast forward to present**

CCC: OK, ma'am, let's get through the 16 digit account number and security questions and I'll do my best to not put you on hold.

I explain what happened during my previous call and why I sound somewhat hysterical. She apologizes on behalf of the other doofus who was "helping" me--the guy who I thought was my friend--and tells me that she can solve my problem withOUT putting me on hold and that I should see my account credited within the next 1-2 billing cycles.

Me: That's it? I don't need to do anything else?

CCC: I'll take care of everything.

Me: We don't have to do any complicated math? You don't need me to tell you what all the finance charges are?

CCC: No, ma'am, I can do all that on my end. I apologize again for the what happened previously and you have a nice day.

Wow, that was it. I'm still a little skeptical that everything will magically be OK on my next statement, but we'll see. Maybe I won't cancel my account afterall. I was getting REAL close!

All Zumba'd out?

You know how you get certain songs stuck in your head and your brain plays them over and over again until you just about go bonkers? I get that way with Zumba songs. I have to listen to them over and over again anyway...before I ever actually use a song in class, I have to listen to many times to memorize it and memorize the choreography that goes along with it. Luckily, after just listening to it a few times, my brain has it memorized and I can "play" and "re-play" it in my head whenever I want. So I can practice Zumba in my head anytime I want: while driving, grocery shopping, sitting in the pickup line at school, etc. It comes in handy at times and I think it helps me be a better instructor, actually, because I am practicing (in my head) ALL the time.

I do it even in my sleep. Many times I have woken up with a Zumba song in my head and I'll realize that I'm like half-way through the song and was also doing the choreography in my head, in my sleep. Whatever. Practice makes perfect, right? Well, let me tell you, it can become exhausting! The other night, I think I was doing Zumba all night long in my sleep. I was so exhausted when I woke up the next morning. I said as much to Dave and he said, "You're so tired because you were teaching Zumba all night. You were talking in your sleep all night and it was all Zumba". Then I remembered that at one point during the night, I actually sat up in bed and barked out instructions...something like, "two steps right, ARMS UP!" At that point, Dave touched my arm and said, "Are you still teaching?" That shook me out of my dream and I realized that yes, I was still teaching. All night long. In my sleep. I gotta stop doing that!

The worst part of the whole affair is that as my brain is playing these songs over and over...well, let's remember they're almost ALL in Spanish. Or sometimes Portugese. Or even Arabic. Which I don't really speak. So my brain kind of just jumbles up the words as best as it can remember. I have no idea what the songs are actually saying or what the words are. And often, my brain will substitute English words when it doesn't know what else to do. That really gets interesting. But that's another story for another day...

Homework time

One of the many daily struggles we have here is getting everyone to do their homework. Believe it or not, Caleb (10) is the only one who's very responsible in this aspect. He hates doing it but knows that the sooner it gets done, the sooner the good times begin! So he generally knocks it out almost as soon as he gets home.
Sam, 12, likes to put his off 'til about 11pm. OK, that's a little bit of an exaggeration but it's not far from the truth. He's had many nights where he's up doing homework long after Dave and I have gone to bed. I really have no idea how late he stays up but we're trying to get that under control.
Peter, ugh, his 1st grade homework is fairly easy but he just HATES having to do it. One day I practically had to nail his back end to the chair to get him to do it. I finally told him he could not leave the chair until it was done. So then this is what I found:

Yeah, this is working out well, don'tcha think? He's being VERY productive now that I've confined him to the dining room chair.

Reminds me a lot of this time.

And notice Caleb consternating over his homework. Good times.

And please do NOT notice the holes in Peter's socks. I would never, ever let my kids wear holey socks. Ever. It couldn't possibly ever happen.

Oops.

In my effort to avoid eating ALL the Girl Scout cookies that were delivered to my home yesterday, I bought these at the store today. I certainly didn't want to hear the accusation, "MOM! You ate ALL the Girl Scout cookies?!?!" So I thought I'd just buy myself my own packet of cookies and not touch the Girl Scout cookies today. I've never purchased the Pepperidge Farm Geneva cookies before but I always gaze at them longingly as I walk past them in the supermarket. I thought to myself, today is the day. I'll buy these for myself and leave all the Girl Scout cookies for the family. It was a good plan and has worked so far. Except that I already ate the ENTIRE pack of Geneva cookies. The whole thing. In one sitting . They are deceptively light and delicious! The good news is that I haven't touched the Girl Scout cookies. But it's still early...and my Geneva cookies are all gone...I'll keep ya posted.

Cupcake Day

OK, it's been over a month since I've posted anything...I've been BUSY. So instead of updating you on all the ins and outs of our exciting lives, I'm gonna tell you about the cupcakes I made the other day. I originally wanted to make them for Valentine's Day but made chocolate covered strawberries instead and Dave brought home a huge box of Belgian chocolates so believe it or not, I was all chocolated-out for a few days! (Just a few days). So on Tuesday (my one night off) I decided it was Cupcake Day. I'd been dying to make these cupcakes from Pioneer Woman...with the warm fudgey frosting. I followed her instructions to a T. But mine, uh, didn't turn out just like hers. Why is that? Why does that happen? It's one of life's mysteries. We'll all be tossing and turning tonight wondering why, why, WHY?!? So I'm posting a picture of my cupcakes and a picture of hers. I'll let you guess whose is whose.




I'm sure you can tell which tray of cupcakes is mine...only by the clue that the second tray is missing a cupcake...

Peter likes Parrots

Peter is really "into" parrots at the moment. He really wants one for a pet. Unfortunately, he needs to save at least $600 for one, so it may be awhile. We are not allowed to have pets in our rented house but I told him that as soon as he's saved up to $600, we'll start looking for our own house to buy.

Anyway, he just brought home a few books about parrots from the town library. He's reading them diligently. He just came to me a few minutes go...very upset. He told me he was not feeling well. I asked why and he said it was because of one of his library books. I asked which one. Then, as his voice broke and his chin quivered he said, "The one called Gone Forever: The Lost Parrots of America". Oh.

He then burst into tears and quiet sobbing as he lamented over the parrots of America that are now extinct. I asked to see the book and read a quick passage on one of the first pages. It has a lovely picture of the Carolina Parakeet. The passage reads:

One parrot that lived in North America was called the Carolina Parakeet. Parakeets are a species of small parrots with slender tails. The Carolina Parakeet, sadly, is now extinct. It is gone forever. [I think here when you read the word "forever", it is supposed to have a weird echoing afterwards: forEVER ...ever....ever].

Oh man, he has such a tender heart. What's gonna happen when some stupid girl in middle school gives him the brush-off?!

Creepy weird

So I was on my friend, Jessica's, blog today and decided to leave a comment, as usual. My comments are always so full of wisdom and usefulness that I just can't keep them to myself. (Jess, hope you don't mind me borrowing your blog for a minute here). So you know how some bloggers use the word verification feature to make sure there are no spam comments left on their site. It's rare but I have seen it happen so I don't blame anyone for utilizing this feature. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, click here, and you will see it on the right side. You leave your comment in the comment box and then to verify that you're a real person and not a spamming computer internet site, you have to correctly type in the skewed letters that you see in the box. People can see those letters, computers can't.

Anyhoo, for the first time EVER, I noticed a little handicap symbol underneath the word verification. Then I realized you can click on it. I sat here wrestling with the idea of clicking the handicap icon. I really wanted to click on it. Why is it there? What does it do? I stewed over this for a good 30 seconds. I was thinking it might be wrong to click on it. Like parking in a handicap spot at the library or using the handicap stall in the public restroom. You just don't do that. (OK, maybe I do that sometimes. I like those handrails to help me up off the seat). But here's the kicker: would there be a fine if I clicked it and someone finds out that I'm NOT handicapped? Like parking in a handicap spot? I do, afterall, have asthma. Does that count?

I know you're all dying to know if I clicked on it or not. You're on the edge of your seats. You're holding your breath...Well, I'll tell ya. I did click on it. And I just DARE you to do it. Let me tell you. It was creepy weird stuff. Make sure your speakers are on. And make sure you have some kind of handicap before you click!

Out with the old!

Stuff, that is, not people! Dave and I have been working our fingers to the bone getting rid of STUFF. We've been pulling boxes out of the attic and going through them. So far, we've removed at least 20 boxes and kept only enough to fill 4 boxes. We still have a ways to go but our attic is looking wonderfully empty! We still also need to go through stuff throughout the house but we can get to that in time. For now, when we have people over, I'm gonna say, "Oh please don't pay attention to my messy house...would you like to go up and see my clean attic?" I'm sure that'll be a big hit. Our garbage men are in for a rude surprise when they come to pick up all this trash next Tuesday! I'll try to remember to take a picture of the huge pile!