No pictures again...just ramblings

Another day, another post without pictures. I wanted to post some today but our desktop is where all my photo software is at, and our picture drivey thing is out. (Or so I'm told) so that means no pictures of what my kids did over Christmas break. I may try again to post these pictures when we get it fixed this weekend. Hopefully I won't forget. But don't hold your breath.

So instead of pictures you get ramblings from my mind. I went to Sams today. We needed to stock up on everything it seems. While I was there, freezing cold. I was thinking of La Madeline's tomato soup. I love that stuff. I happened to check the soup aisle and guess what, they had it! So I bought it, intending to have some for my lunch. Then I went on down to drop a small fortune in the meat department.

I'm getting hungry by now, never a good thing while shopping. So I happened to noitice the 100 calories snacks they have boxed up there. So then I start to wonder, if a person ate the entire box of 12 snack packs in one day and nothing else, does it still count as a 1200 calorie diet. I mean there is absolutely nothing worth anything in those things nutruionally speaking of course. But still I wondered. And no, I didn't buy them.

Instead I happened by the free sample lady who was standing next to the clam chowder. It's there I lost all will power and put that clam chowder in my basket. I love clam chowder but never make it. So instead of my tomato soup for lunch, I went for the bad stuff. But I'm not going to worry about it, since it will probably be another year before I get some again.

So there you have it, no pictures! All you get from me today is pointless ramblings about what goes through my mind. Hope you can handle it...

Cereal-iously

Ok, I know that's not really a word, ceral-iously, but it could be. It's morning, and I'm faced with the day to day dilemma of what to feed myself and my kids for breakfast. The boys are easy and choose to have egg burritos at school, the girls aren't to bad either. They pick cereal, Berry Crunch to be exact.

So that leaves me. I decide to join the cereal bandwagon and join in the crunching going on. So I wander off to the pantry to see what kinds of mom cereal there is in there. I see three boxes sitting there to choose from. I have my Crunchy Go Lean, I have my Fiber One and I have bran flakes. Ooohh, what to choose. I finally decide on Fiber One and go to put it in my bowl. Only to discover that there is hardly any left, not enough to even count as half a bowl. So I decide to move onto my Crunchy go Lean (this is really not one I like that much but I decide to eat it just to get rid of it) and discover that this to is hardly worth putting in the bowl. About this time, I'm wondering what is going on here, I am the only one who eats mom cereal how did this happen. Then I remember, we had company this past week and mom has to watch her sugar levels so she probably had some at some time or another.

So I am faced with the decision of do I just go for a bowl of Bran flakes on there own or do I mix all the cereals together to make a hodgepodge breakfast mix. Or I could just have two small separate bowls of cereal but that doesn't sound so good. But now that I know these essentially empty big cereal boxes are taking up some high dollar pantry shelf space I want them out of there. But do I want to be wasteful and toss them, it seems such a shame to be like that. I am trying to cut down on the grocery budget and this just doesn't seem to fit into it at all. I decide to just get over it and mix the cereals together. I was really a bit disappointed, I mean if I like them by themselves, then surely mixed together they would be equally as good, but they weren't. I guess I like my cereal in it's purest form and mixing them just doesn't do it for me.

But on the bright side, I now have more shelf space in my pantry and was not wasteful. Just doing my part to save money for the family budget. Well unless you count those really great tops I bought at the store the other day, but cereal-iously that's not the same thing at all.

Scheduling

I feel like I'm not ever getting everything I need or want to get done, done. I've gotten very lax in my scheduling which has in turn had a bad effect on me and those around me. If I'm feeling rushed and frazzled then it wears off on the rest of the family. And it just puts me in a bad mood. Now I'm normally a pretty laid back type personality. But I'm anal at the same time. I want things to be a certain way and they have to be that way for me to be in my happy place.

I have gotten very lazy about scheduling things. I realize that and do intend to work on it. It just makes life so much easier in our busy house. So even though it stinks to high heaven, I have to start getting up earlier to get things going smoothly and calmly in the mornings. Because once the mornings are going smooth, then everything else tends to fall into place. I get started on my to do list earlier, and it's finished sooner. Which leaves me with more free time to do what I would like to do.

I've gotten away from letting my husband know that between this and this time each night I will walk. Instead if things are crazy I don't go, which puts me in a bad mood. So you see, a bit more scheduling and he knows and is fine with it, I now have my walking time scheduled and am good with that.

There are so many other areas that I've gotten lax with in scheduling. But simply by starting up on this one little thing it makes things so much easier for me. The thing is, it's hard sometimes. I know that, and just need to remember how much more I enjoy the peace that comes from scheduling rather than the craziness of unscheduled chaos. So I guess for me my anal type A personality just requires it, then I can enjoy my laid back attitude with my friends and family a bit more.

The Last Cupcake

There it was sitting on the kitchen counter. The last cupcake of the bunch from last nights Cowboys game. Sitting there with it's little plastic football ring and very bright blue icing. And I am completely fine with the last cupcake sitting there. It wasn't really calling my name at all. That was until I realized the time. Because in about forty five minutes I am going to have all four of my kids home from school and starving for a snack. And that last lone little Dallas Cowboys cupcake was going to become the object of many affections. I could already here the fighting and arguing about who was going to get the cupcake. So as I seriously did a cupcake count as to who this cupcake really did belong to I made an executive mom decision.

I ate the last cupcake.

There my problem has now been solved. I won't have to listen to any fights over who will eat it. Now I will instead hear who ate the last cupcake. And that is much easier to overcome. Just blame Daddy. By the time he gets home they would have moved on to a new subject to argue over. And I would have thrown all the cupcake reminders in the trash. Now I just need to make sure I don't have any residual blue frosting hanging around my face. Yes, I know I'm such a good mom.

Not in the trophy mom club

I have long since known that I am not a trophy mom.

You know the ones I'm talking about. They look like they are completely dressed and ready to go to a great cocktail party at eight A.M. every morning. They usually have two kids (anymore than that and it tends to make it hard to remain a trophy mom) because one kid isn't enough to get you into the trophy mom club. And if there was a way for them to be gender specific they would try and have a boy and girl each. And well their kids are always dressed in clean name brand clothes. Did I mention that they are always clean? They never let their kids get dirty and usually have them enrolled in one or two activities each (but only if they can drop off their kids). They have perfectly manicured fingers and toes and their roots never show. They usually drive way to big SUV's or else sporty little cars like BMW's. And the trophy mom must always be a stay at home mom. It doesn't matter if her kids are both in school all day long. That is a requirement otherwise you have to forfeit your membership. And they usually have a Starbucks coffee(venti) in their hands.

So now that you know who I'm talking about you will completely understand how I'm not in the trophy mom club.

1. I have to many kids.
2. My kids are almost never in name brand clothes unless they were given to me by a friend as a hand me down.
3. My kids are always dirty, within seconds after a bath or getting dressed you would find something on them that would automatically disqualify me from the trophy mom club.
4. My van is now considered old and there is nothing sporty about it. However it does hold all my kids comfortably so that's a plus.
5. I am very seldom dressed and ready to go to a cocktail party at eight am. That's usually the time of day I'm driving my kids to school in my nightgown (And just for the record school starts here at eight so yes we are always running late in our house).
6. I can't really keep up with my nails so much. My roots however I never have to worry about. That's because I still have my original brown hair with lots of gray making an appearance these days.

No, I am definitely not in the trophy mom club. I am in the unnamed mom's club that has to many things going on to deal with all the requirements of the trophy mom club. I show up to school functions with an oily face that has long since lost track of any makeup. I may or may not be wearing clothes that have boogers on them courtesy of one of my children. I'm in the mom's club where as much as I would like to help out with my children's classrooms it's hard to do because I always have one or two in tow with me. And no, I can't guarantee that they will behave perfectly. So instead I send things to school or do things that don't require my actual presence. I pay dues in the PTA program but have yet to actually make it to a meeting. I don't get to serve as homeroom mom because of this.

I'm in the mom's club that lets her kids eat breakfast at school because it's easier some days. And in all honesty if it weren't for that my poor kids would probably get a cold breakfast most mornings. I love my kids, ALL of them. And yes, I do all know their names and the names of their teachers. I know when their lunch accounts are running low and need money. And although it may look otherwise some days, my kids do start out the day clean.

So please don't judge me by my appearance or by how many kids are getting out of my van in the drop off line in the morning. I already know it takes us longer to get unloaded but just for the record I am car pooling so technically they aren't all my kids you see. Just most of them belong to me.

One day, when my youngest goes off to school I may actually qualify to join the trophy mom club. And I may do it and run for office (because I'm convinced they have secret meetings and elected officials). I'll become the president of the trophy mom club and it will be all downhill from there. I'll show up to meetings in my nightgown and no makeup and take control. Before long the trophy club moms will all look like the rest of us moms out there just doing the best we can and the best we know how.

But just to fit in, I may have to go out and buy me venti Starbucks coffee.

Sixty Five and 10,000

I'm trying to get back into shape. Who isn't really? But I've really made more of an effort here lately. I'm actually trying to watch what I eat and seem to be doing pretty good so far. I'm also back to my walking. I finally added it up, and in the last three and a half weeks I have walked sixty five miles. When I actually see it like that, I'm a bit surprised. I usually do a three mile walk in the evening after the kids go down so I've never added it up before. But suddenly sixty five seems like a pretty big number.

But just so you can see a glimpse of how my mind works, I am now trying to figure out when I will hit the 100 mile mark. The way I figure it, I should hit that hundred mile mark somewhere around the 19th of the month. Because we all know that 100 is bigger and better than 65. I don't know why numbers can make me obsess the way they do but they do. I do the same thing with trying to reach 10,000 steps in a day. In fact that's why I walk the route that I do. I calculated it out and by walking this path I am just about always guaranteed to hit that 10,000 step mark, unless I sit the entire rest of the day.

So now you see how crazy my mind gets when it comes to numbers. Kind of strange isn't it? I know this and probably should seek some kind of help or something. Maybe I can start my own support group...we could talk out our therapy while we are all out walking and trying to reach our 10,000 steps each day.