This morning after Mike got up and took over Little Girl duties, I escaped the house for a couple of hours to Wal-Hole and Mervyn’s. The Wal-Hole trip was a total waste of time because they didn’t have the thing I went to find anyway. It’s bad enough when I have to actually step foot in that store, but when they don’t have what I wanted? It’s that much worse. But at least I got a few cute tops at Mervyn’s. I was also looking for a cute frilly little outfit for my new niece since they don’t have a lot of clothes because they didn’t know what they were having, but I didn’t find one. Darn. More shopping for girl clothes. ;)

On the way home, I called Mike to see how they were doing and he said they had been on the back porch playing in the water (with LG only in her diaper - redneck baby style…lol!) and were now reading a book. I love my husband because I can go off for a couple of hours and he and LG do just fine without me and have a great time together. He’s such a good dad.

After she finally went down for her nap, my wonderful husband spent two hours(!) helping me lay out and design the blocks for the next quilt top that I’m working on. He really enjoys that part of the process and whereas I’m sure my design would be okay, he really helps me make it that much more beautiful, because he will keep changing things around until it pops, and I do not have that much patience…lol! He also came up with the idea to use the digital camera and take pictures of the layouts to help us get a good perspective on what they look like.

I spent the next few hours sewing all the quilt blocks, then sewing them together, and I have a finished quilt top already! Now I just need to go get the fabric for the borders and then finish that part up and move on to the next one. I’ve decided I’m going to leave all the quilting and the hand stitching until the end.

Tomorrow Mike has to do all three morning masses, then we have Generations, then come home for an hour or so and then back to church for evening mass, so it’s going to be a busy day around here.

I hope you all are having a marvelous weekend!

• Little Girl will not be wearing t-shirts out in public anymore since she has now figured out how to take them off. She took her shirt off a few times today and I told her she was not going to be running around like a little redneck baby without a top on! (Okay, I know not all babies who run around without a top on are redneck babies, but still!) Onesies, overalls, and dresses until further notice.

• My goals this week were to:

1) Exercise five days (MWF at Curves and TTh walking with Marlene) Check

2) Not eat any fast food Check

3) Eat a healthier breakfast (i.e. no pop tarts) Check

So I met all my goals. Did I lose any weight or inches yet? Probably not, but I’m feeling good about myself, and feeling better. Still tired, but then again, I have a toddler. The energy will come!

• I finished the first of 5 (yes I’m crazy) quilts I’m making for my nieces and nephews and daughter for Christmas. Well, mostly finished. I still have to actually quilt it and then do the hand stitching to finish it. I’m sort of stressing about the whole quilting thing, so if any of you out there have quilted and want to give me a pep talk? I’ll gladly take it…lol! (By the way, the quilts are very simple nine block quilts and they actually go together pretty quickly, so I’m not totally crazy…hehehe!)

“Get your feet out of your hat, please.”

Little Girl has a new baby cousin! Mike’s oldest younger sister (did you get that? lol!) had a baby girl last night. Yay! Someone to pass the girl clothes to…lol!

Here are some fun facts about this baby (because I’m a sucker for patterns and numbers):

• Up until this baby was born, Mike and his siblings all had opposite sex babies. Meaning - his younger brother had a girl, his youngest sister had two boys and he himself had a girl. Now that pattern has been ended.

• But the other pattern of the grandchildren: girl, boy, girl, boy, girl - is intact.

• The oldest girl in the family would have been 22 months minus 6 days older than Little Girl had LG made it to her due date. LG is 22 months minus 4 days older than this new baby girl.

I got up this morning, went and did my Curves workout and then went to the grocery store, so all my errands were done by 9 a.m. I mean, how cool is that? And, I didn’t have to take Little Girl to the store with me. Okay, I don’t really mind taking her that much, but it’s faster and quieter to go by myself.

Of course, I’m kind of tired and sleepy now and I’d like a nap, but that’s because of the fact that I was awoken at 6:30 by a yapping or crying animal. Not sure which, but I was slammed out of my sleepy stupor by the sound because, of course, my brain was telling me that Melody might be in trouble. She wasn’t. But if that stupid animal ever yaps continually at 6:30 a.m. again, IT might be in trouble. Grr.

I need something to entertain me so I don’t write a nasty email to someone or go slap them upside the head, one or the other*, so…

I saw this on Miss Zoot and it seemed kind of entertaining…

You to go Google and type in your name along with the phrase “last I heard she/he was” and see what you get.

So for instance, I entered: Karin “last I heard she was”

Here are some of my results:

Last I heard she was in Puerto Vallarta
Nope, never been there. Where is Puerto Vallarta anyway? Mexico?

Last I heard she was taking massage therapy classes at night
Nope, never took those, but I would really like a massage right now.

Last I heard, she was living in Iowa
I have never been to Iowa, but it’s on my list of states that I’ve never been to and need to go to in order to visit all of them in my lifetime.

Last I heard she was no longer teaching
Well that one could have been about me! But it wasn’t. :-(

Last I heard, she was still hangin’ on, but barely
It depends on what you think I’m still hangin’ on to. My sanity? Yes. At times, barely hangin’ on to that.

Last I heard she was designing dresses up the wazoo
Wow! I didn’t know other people actually used the phrase “up the wazoo”. Cool!

Last I heard she was only a chapter away from completing her very own Travel book!
Wow! Go me! Or her! Or whatever.

Last I heard she was going to be taking a test-run trip to Grenoble
To do what? I wanna go to Grenoble! Man, some Karins are really lucky.

Last I heard she was pregnant again
No. Nope. Not yet anyway. ;-)

*Nothing to worry your pretty little internet heads about - just more idiotic stuff to do with the music at church. And stupidity. But nothing to worry about.

Many moons ago, before I had even met my hubby, I had a friend who we will call Jack (not his real name, but chosen because he loved Jack Daniels…lol!), and we hung out together a lot. No hanky panky, no dating, not even kissing or any of that - just hanging out. He made it his goal in life to see how quickly and how often he could get me to punch him in the arm whenever we were together. Why he did this I will never know, but for some reason he got a kick out of it. So I got in the habit of punching guys in the arm when they irritated me.

Then I met my (future) hubby and we dated and we got married and so on and so forth. And I would punch him in the arm when he irritated me. Except he didn’t find it all that amusing. So, after we had been married awhile, he asked me to stop doing that. But it was a hard habit to break. So instead, he would hold up his hands, palms facing me and I was allowed to punch the palms of his hands to get my aggression out. (Yes, I know we’re weird. Shut it.)

Over the years I grew out of that reaction to things. Until last night. Because of all the stress and crap going on yesterday, I was really feeling like I wanted to give him a good punch in the arm to get my frustrations out. But I know he hates that, so being the nice wife that I am, I chose not to. Instead, I said, “In my mind, I am punching you right now.” And what did my goofy husband do? He reacted just like I punched him. Which made me laugh. And laugh. And not surprisingly, all the stress melted away and I was happy with him again. If nothing else, my hubby has a good sense of humor. And that, my friends, is the key to a good marriage…lol!

Yesterday, for the first time since I started this particular blog, I didn’t put up a post. I even managed to post every day of our vacation, but yesterday I didn’t. Oh well, all things must come to an end sooner or later and now I don’t have to feel the pressure to keep the streak going. If I miss a day, I miss a day. No more writing something just to write something. But seriously, I had nothing to say other than whining because I was in a really bad mood so you probably wouldn’t have wanted to read what I wrote anyway.

Here’s the deal. Mike already has three jobs. So he works at one or more of them 7 days a week. Which means unlike most husbands/fathers he has no full days off at all during the course of a week, unless he purposely schedules one. (The joys of being self-employed.) He absolutely does pitch in and try to take some of the load off of me when he is home - especially with toddler wrangling, but still there are some days when I really feel like a single parent, and I don’t particularly care for that feeling. And I know that I have some advantages in that he doesn’t have to leave the house at a certain time every morning so we don’t have to rush through our morning routine, and he does try his best not to plan non-family things on the weekends beyond what he has to do to fulfill obligations, but still…

The added responsibilities of filling in for the choir director who quit are starting to wear on us already and it’s only been two weeks. For one thing, he has to take Thursdays pretty much off from his other job to deal with church stuff, which is putting him behind on his projects and forcing him to spend longer hours on the days he does work. On Saturdays, he’s putting together music for Sunday night choir, so that takes care of anything getting done on Saturday and on Sunday he’s gone all morning and then comes home and falls asleep until time to go back to church for evening mass, because he has to get up at 8 after being out until 3 at a band gig. And he is exhausted. Forget burning the candle at both ends, he’s burning it at both ends and in the middle, too. So when he IS home, he’s not really “here” if you know what I mean.

I’m stressed out because I’m not getting the breaks I normally get. He’s exhausted and I’m really worried that he’s going to work himself into being sick or collapsing. But he’s a workaholic and he will push himself until he drops.

So yesterday it all hit me and I blew up at him and was not in a good mood. I did apologize later, because I know it’s not HIS fault, but that doesn’t really help my stress levels. I told him he needs to get on top of them and tell them they need to hire someone SOON because he can’t do this indefinitely. And he did talk to Father at mass last night, so hopefully they will stay on top of it. But you know how it can be. They’ll take advantage of what they have and use it until it’s used up. And yes, he’s getting $200 extra a week right now, but that’s not going to do us any good if he winds up sick or in the hospital and can’t work. The downside of self-employment is that whole “no work no pay” thing.

So done whining about that for now. Oh, except for one thing. I’m telling you, the old choir director better not cross my path, because I will either slap her silly, scratch her eyes out or wring her grumpy little neck. Ugh.

Other than that? I got up this morning, went and did my Curves workout, and I think it helped my attitude. I feel better in more ways than one. My goal was to keep my heart rate up at 120 for the whole workout and I pretty much did that, although toward the end, it dropped to 108 because I was getting tired and couldn’t keep up the pace. But I will get better! And stronger! And lose some of this infernal weight! Woot!

The good news:
It’s Halloween season so chocolate candy is on sale!!!!

The bad news:
It’s Halloween season so chocolate candy is on sale. :(

The good news:
The stuff that’s on sale is the mini bars!

The bad news:
Which means I have to eat more of it to feel like I ate anything. :(

NOW HEAR THIS: I hereby declare that chocolate calories do not count! Anymore! Ever again! Do you hear that waistline? I’m telling you, they DO NOT COUNT! Ignore them. Pretend you never saw them. That they don’t exist. And if you don’t? I will ab crunch you into oblivion. You got that? Good. Now gimme some more chocolate.

I am off to the salon to get my hair done and be pampered. Mike is on toddler duty for the next few hours.

Hope your weekend is awesome! Are you doing anything fun?

I have stopped writing about television here for the most part because I have another blog that I’m writing about television in. But last night’s ER season premiere hit me in much deeper places than most tv shows do. There will be some spoilers here, so if you are planning to watch it and haven’t yet, you might want to skip reading this post until you do… (Read on …)

My dog is so smart, that when she drags in a scorpion from the back yard, it’s already dead.

Ew.

Found: One dead baby scorpion about three feet away from where LG was standing. Mike thinks it was probably a victim of the pesticide he used out in the back yard after the tick was found in LG’s ear the night after I’d been gone on and off for most of the day. Did I ever mention that one? Anyway, he thinks Melody probably found the carcass and carried it in at some point. At least it was dead. But I was NOT a happy camper.

I did indeed drag myself out of bed at 6:30 this morning so I could get to the gym at 7 and get trained on the machines. I’ve never actually done circuit training before, but it was actually pretty fun. You go around twice and I think it’s something like a minute on a machine, a minute cardio, a minute on another machine, etc. The first heart rate check my heart rate was only 102 and it needed to be a bit higher than that. The second check, it was 120, which was just about target for my age, so I did okay. Since Curves machines are based on hydraulics, there are no weights to mess with and it tones instead of bulking up. I really felt good after the workout and it was nice to feel some endorphins cruising through the old bod.

I felt so good that I came home, grabbed some cash and went straight to the grocery store. (No one was awake yet.) And when I came home from the grocery store, Mike had gotten Little Girl up and dressed, changed her, fed her and they were happily playing…yeah right everyone was STILL asleep. Figures.

Now I need a nap.

Little Girl is going to be a cowgirl for Halloween. Why? Because her grandmother found a cute little cowgirl outfit at the church rummage sale and got it for her. And also because I am pretty certain this will be the last year I am able to choose what she will dress up as. If I didn’t know that already, I would have figured it out the past week because the word “uh uh” has entered her vocabulary. As in: Do you want your cup? Uh uh. Do you want some milk? Uh uh. Do you want your phone? Uh uh. Can I have a kiss? Uh uh. *sigh* She skipped no and went to “uh uh”. Oh and “mine” is another staple.

Anyway, yesterday we got her a cute little cowgirl hat at the Halloween store. Do any of you have those Spirit stores that open up a couple of months before Halloween and then disappear after it’s over? Well we have one about two or three miles away and since I couldn’t find a good hat at Target, we went there. I found the place slightly creepy, but it didn’t phase her a bit. I was ready to make for the door as fast as I could if she showed any signs of being scared or upset, but other than holding onto my hand without a fight, she was fine. Then we went all over creation looking for cowgirl boots to match her outfit. Well, guess what? All the western boots out there right now are pink or brown. Her outfit is red, white, and black. Grr.

So I asked Mike if we could dye them and he said we could spray paint them…lol! So, I got a pair of cute pink boots at Target and we are going to spray paint them black. Or should I say, MIKE is going to spray paint them black? lol! I just had her measured recently, so I knew her shoe size and didn’t bother to try them on her. Which is good, because when I got them home and tried to put them on…well, let’s just say that even with a side zipper on them, putting boots on a toddler is a time-consuming effort. But it was all worthwhile when I watched her walking in them for the first time. That may be the funniest thing I’ve seen all month…lol! She figured it out though.

I also went and signed up for a membership at Curves. It’s only a couple of miles away, so really convenient for me and I really have GOT to get my butt in gear and do something about my physical shape. So I plunked down $100 for the sign-up fee and the first month and I will go in tomorrow at 7 am (ugh) and learn how to do the circuit.

Before I got pregnant, I was in amazing shape (which is probably why I was able to get pregnant - and perhaps getting myself in shape again will help me with the last-ditch non-tries at having one more baby), but then I had to go on little to no activity and bed rest and I lost it all. Now, I’m not saying she wasn’t totally worth it because she totally is, but it still makes me sad, because I was doing so very very well. By the same token, I owe it to her to be healthy and strong and be here with her as long as I possibly can. And it’s pretty much impossible to work out while I’m at home, so I figure three times a week I will get up at 7 or 7:30 before she wakes up, drive down to the gym, do my 30 minute circuit and be home before she wakes up or as she is waking up and Mike will still be here because he never wakes up that early. And then I can come home and start the day knowing that I’ve already worked out and feel really good about myself!

Another explosion. At least this time I had a pretty good idea what it was when it happened and when I went to look out the back door, I saw the same cloud of dust, so that at least set my mind at ease. But when LG wakes up, I’m going to go find the sign that Mike says should be there with a phone number on it for complaints. Or I’ll make him go look at it when he gets home. And then I’m going to call them and tell them that it would be nice to be on their notification list when they do that sort of thing.

Idiots.