I wanna live forever....

My latest post at Bodies:

http://www.bodiesinmotivation.com/2009/03/project-healthy-mom/

I called already and set up the appointment for next Tuesday.

Brown

As it turns out, I'm a racist.  An egg racist.  I bought some brown eggs at the store the other day (paying twice the price I normally do for white eggs) because I'd heard they're healthier, they taste better, etc... Only to leave them in my fridge for a couple of days afraid to eat them.  AFRAID TO EAT THEM BECAUSE OF THEIR COLOR!

Blatant racism at work right there folks.

Today, I'd run out of my other breakfast options and was left with the brown eggs. 

I need to note here that Alex, he seems to have a case of egg jungle fever, because at the grocery store, he INSISTED he be allowed to "kiss the brown eggs".  Every day they've been sitting in my fridge, he'd beg for me to get them out so he could kiss one of them.  He doesn't kiss white eggs, so I' not sure what that's all about, but three year olds, they are strange creatures.

I hesitantly cracked one open into a bowl, expecting, I don't know, a frog?  Fireworks? Guess what? They look just like normal eggs!  I started mixing two eggs with some skim milk for scrambled eggs and I noticed a smell.  Like vomit.  YUCK! Apparently brown eggs smell like vomit!  I went to dump the nasty smelling eggs into the sink when I turned around and discovered Max had horked all over his high chair tray.  I put my nose close to the eggs in the bowl.  Nope, they smelled like eggs. 

So I cooked them up, and guess what?

They taste EXACTLY like white eggs.

I looked online for information on the difference between brown eggs and white eggs, only to find that there doesn't appear to be any nutritional difference either.  Apparently brown eggs are brown because they come from brown hens. Huh.

Well, I think I learned a lesson here.  Never judge an egg by it's shell, or something...

  

In which I unwittingly stir up controversy

Wow, people had some strong opinions about my new diet strategy.  What do you think:
http://www.bodiesinmotivation.com/2009/03/stuck/

Mom interview

I HAD to do this one, and I thought it would be fun to add John's answers about me too:

1. What is something mom always says to you?
ALEX: Say what you are doing

JOHN: I love you

2. What makes mom happy?
ALEX: Going downstairs

JOHN:  Clean floors

3. What makes mom sad?
ALEX: Going to your room

JOHN:  Thinking about your dad

4. How does your mom make you laugh?
ALEX: Doing a scary sound

JOHN:  By doing unintentionally cute things

5. What was your mom like as a child?
ALEX: You were a car 

JOHN:  I didn't know you as a child so I don't know what you were like

6. How old is your mom?
ALEX: Fifteen

JOHN:  You are....(thinking) 31 and five months and three days

7. How tall is your mom?
ALEX: Like this much (holds hand up to his ear, he's sitting on the countertop at the time and I'm sitting at a barstool and I do acutally come up to his ear sitting here)

JOHN:  What are you? Like 5"7'?

8. What is her favorite thing to do?
ALEX: Go outside

JOHN:  Be outside with your family

9. What does your mom do when you're not around?
ALEX: Go downstairs

JOHN:  Wrangle children

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
ALEX: ME!

JOHN:  Writing

11. What is your mom really good at?
ALEX: Petting the dog

JOHN:  Being a mom and housewife

12. What is your mom not very good at?
ALEX: Give trouble to Dad

JOHN:  Being patient

13. What does your mom do for her job?
ALEX: Do something

JOHN:  Wrangle children

14. What is your mom's favorite food?
ALEX: Salad

JOHN:  I don't recall you saying you have a favorite food

15. What makes you proud of your mom?
ALEX: Doing your jobs

JOHN:  The fact that you are able to stay sane while being alone with the children all day long

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?
ALEX: An angel

JOHN:  Jessica Rabbit

17. What do you and your mom do together?
ALEX: Go outside and play in the sandbox

JOHN: Watch DVD's and BluRays

18. How are you and your mom the same?
ALEX: A WORLD OF POSSIBILITIES!

JOHN:  We both don't care for religion

19. How are you and your mom different?
ALEX:  I just said a world of possibilities

JOHN:  We have different genitalia

20. How do you know your mom loves you?
ALEX: Because you bring me juice

JOHN:  You always try to make me happy by doing my laundry and dishes and because you always tell me

21. Where is your mom's favorite place to go?
ALEX: To the park

JOHN:  The beach

Meet my secret lover: GIRL SCOUT COOKIES

I awoke from my Thin Mint induced coma long enough to write a sad and sorry post for Bodies:

http://www.bodiesinmotivation.com/2009/03/tagalongs-samoas-and-thin-mintsoh-my/

Romance

I've decided to try my hand a romance writing. I thought it would be easy.  I mean, how simple can you get? Boy meets girl, they struggle with a conflict, have sex then live happily ever after.  Turns out, it's not as easy for me as I thought.  It's that happy ending I'm struggling with.  I can't even get through the outline without everything going to hell for my hero and heroine.  My most recent and sadly, most promising outline involves death of a husband and an unexpected pregnancy with a child with (so far unspecific) mental and physical disabilities.  Seriously, can't I just make it happy?

I have a book in me.  Though, I'm not sure it's a romance. It's chick lit for sure, but not a romance.  Maybe I should write that instead?  Maybe that's why I'm struggling so much trying to frame the romance novel, because bits of the book I REALLY want to write keep seeping out.

Another problem is my hero and heroine keep turning into me and John.  And while we're attracted to each other, we're not exactly the ripply biceps and bouncing bosoms that you would want to read about.

I think I should change my story completely.  Maybe instead of aiming for Harlequin Superromance, I should go for a paranormal romance or historical romance.  Maybe that will help me see my story and characters separate from myself.

Finding the runner in me

My new post at Bodies is up:

http://www.bodiesinmotivation.com/2009/03/a-new-goal/

And while you're there, check out AndreAnna's Thirty Initiative.  I think this is brilliant and awesome and I'm totally doing it and I think you should too!

http://www.bodiesinmotivation.com/2009/03/the-thirty-initiative/

All things in moderation

I spend WAY too much time online.  Since I've joined Facebook, I fear I'm beginning to neglect my children.  This needs to end. NOW.  I don't know why, but the catalyst was John joining Facebook.  He spends 99% of his time in front of either a computer or a TV screen, nowhe'll be on Facebook WHILE watching TV.  The other 1% he's in the bathroom (even then, with a little screen in his face playing Sodoku on his phone).  This annoys me like you wouldn't believe, and I'm constantly bitching at him to stop playing on the computer and LOOK AT ME!  The other day we were headed to bed, not to sleep, and he actually stopped at the computer to play Mafia Wars!  Obsession level: ADDICTION!

John's the type, however, if you tell him to stop doing something, he'll do it more.  Tell him to hurry up, he'll slow down.  It does no good to bug him to put the computer down because it'll just draw him to it even more.  So, I'm going to do it myself.  Starting today I am going to allow myself to use the computer for personal reasons twice per day.  Once in the morning, once before bed and I am limiting my time to 1 hour each.  That includes checking email, writing blogs, reading blogs, uploading to Flickr, tweets or updating Facebook.  The rest of the day, I'm going dark.  The only exceptions would be to check directions to playgroup or play with Alex on the Starfall site or Skype John on important matters (no more sending him naughty Skype messages just for fun). 

I'm going to turn off the sound so I don't hear the little chime letting me know I have a new email.  Maybe I'll just shut down the computer all together.  I think the internet is awesome.  I could never cut myself off completely.  But lately, I feel like it's gotten out of hand. I'm spending more and more time online and less and less time face to face with my kids, and that's just wrong.  It ends.  Now.

The history of chickens

Alex and I were watching a show on the history of chickens, which was pretty entertaining, weaving funny bits about eccentric pet chicken owners to the horrors of chicken farms.  At one point they showed chicks hatching from eggs and going to the chicken farm and Alex, in a worried tone asks me "What's going to happen to those chicks Mama?"  I did what I always do when I don't want to go into a particular subject on the fly and asked him what he thought was going to happen.

"They're going to be chicken nuggets?" he asked me. 
"How do you feel about that?" I asked him. 
"Hungry" he says matter of factly. 

I guess he won't be joining PETA any time soon.

Race for the Cure

I just signed up for the Race for the Cure on May 9th.  I plan to RUN it. ME! RUN! I KNOW!  (Of course, my version of running is about 3.5 mph)

Anyhow, if you can spare it, click here and support me in the race. I promise I will run my heart out!  Do it for me, do it for the tax deduction, do it for the boobies.

No more

We've been watching Six Feet Under the last few weeks.  We've recently signed up for Netflix and we're using it to watch all the TV series' we've been interested in.  We got Dexter first and were in love with it from the first episode. We watched two full seasons in two weeks (we're just waiting for season 3 to come out on DVD) and when deciding which show to start next we went with Six Feet Under because we loved Micheal C. Hall so much.

It took a good six episodes for me to get interested in Six Feet Under. I hated all the characters, I couldn't connect to a single one.  I have a whole host of issues with death and funerals, and given that the entire series is based around a family running a funeral home, it makes it very hard for me to focus on the show when I'm squirming around in my chair because I think embalming and viewings and burial are unnatural and gross (strangely, I'm perfectly ok with cremation, something that most people find horrible. I'm weird about death, I'll give you that).

Eventually I was able to mostly get over my squeamishness about the funeral business and the characters started fleshing out and I began to enjoy the series. Then they killed off a six year old kid.  And then they killed of a baby. A THREE WEEK OLD BABY!  Both of those episodes had me panicking.  I got so agitated, I hopped out of my seat and yelled at John to turn it off, TURN IT OFF! KIDS CAN'T DIE! NO NONONONONONONO NO!  My reaction to those stories was so visceral, my heart raced, my stomach cramped up, my vision got a little blurry and I was feeling sick and dizzy.

I think I've still got a little PTS from what happened to Max, and the sudden loss of my mother in law has made me all jumpy.  People in my life usually die after long painful battles with cancer.  I've always thought of death as something you can emotionally prepare yourself for, but the last year taught me that I was all wrong. Horrible, awful, unthinkable things can happen at any time.  They can sneak up behind you and fuck up your entire life.  It occurred to me that all of my happiness is perched precariously on the fragile lives of my husband and sons.  I'm suddenly aware of a million little things in my body that could be signs of horrible illness and near death. 

Nearly everyone in the first scenes of Six Feet Under die unexpected and tragic deaths. It's exacerbating my already growing phobia.  We went to bed last night and John was complaining of pain in his ribs and I very nearly hauled him off to the ER because I was SURE he was having a heart attack.  I already check Alex three to four times a night to make sure he's breathing and I've allowed the baby to sleep in our bed again after we'd made so much progress getting him to sleep in his own crib.

We've decided it's not healthy for me to watch the show anymore.  We're returning the unwatched disks and we're going to get How I Met Your Mother instead.

Six

Me: "Six years Honey! Can you believe it?"

Him: "Yep"

Me: "If you had it to do over again, would you still marry me?"

Him: "Hell yea!"

Me:  "Me too"

How did I get so lucky?? 

To run or not to run

http://www.bodiesinmotivation.com/2009/03/would-it-be-fun-to-run/