Category: Life

I’ve made a powerful enemy. Even now, this enemy is staring hatefully at me from a distance. I can hear it whisper my name – I can hear it’s velvety smooth voice tease and goad me.

I’m not sure what I’ve done to deserve this enemy, but there is no doubt in my mind that it’s sole purpose in life is to taunt and torture me.

Even though I know the goal of this enemy is to hurt me, to make me curl up into a fetal position and cry like a baby, still, I can not resist it’s seductive lure. I can’t resist it’s creamy goodness, it’s luscious taste, or sugary goodness. Or the short, but powerful spurt of euphoria that shoots through my body whenever I consume it.

My new found enemy?

Chocolate.

I’ve always had a sweet tooth. In fact, it’s safe to say I was born sucking on a candy cane. I can’t remember a time I HAVEN’T been consumed with the urge to stuff every single sweet thing into my mouth.

But we were pretty poor, er, financially challenged, back in the dark ages (i.e. late 60’s) and we couldn’t afford regular food, let alone junk food.

However, that didn’t stop me. I soon discovered that baking chocolate? Satisfied my chocolate hunger. Oh sure, it was a bit bitter, but I ignored that part. It was creamy and it had cocoa beans in it – I was good to go.

And then, my mom went on a diet. And she bought these chocolaty square diet aids. In fact, they were called “Ayds” – I’m assuming it was because they were meant to “ayd” you with your diet. (Talk about a poor choice of name, right?)

But I remember sneaking into my mom’s top dresser drawer (as if hiding them was going to discourage me from eating them – HA!) and tossing those puppies back like they were popcorn. My mom would then go to eat a few whenever she felt the urge to eat something only to find (several) empty boxes.

Let’s just say, she wasn’t happy with me.

In fact, I was pretty much a pig any time there was anything even REMOTELY sugary around. I routinely ate more than my fair share and my gluttonous habits got so out of control that my folks actually had to lock the junk food in a canister so I wouldn’t eat all of it.

And no, I’m not exaggerating.

So I grew up always craving junk food. I suppose some of it had to do with the fact that we didn’t have it around very much, but there has always been a hole inside me that MUST be filled with junk food from time to time. I simply CRAVE it. It’s hard to explain.

After I moved out, I bought six-pack of candy bars and ate them, IN ONE SITTING. This went on for WEEKS. I pretty much existed on chocolate. Of course I gained weight and walked around with a semi-permanent stomach ache but oh, I was happy. I was getting my fix.

Finally, I had had enough. And though I didn’t exactly stop eating chocolate, I certainly learned to control myself.

And then, I met my husband. And we fell in love. And we were (are) perfect for each other.

But he doesn’t like sweets. In fact, he still doesn’t understand my overwhelming urge to shove chocolate down my throat.

Get this, he doesn’t even like chocolate that much.

Talk about the epitome of irony.

He would grumble and complain about the amount of sugar I consumed. In fact, he would get pretty upset with me whenever I ate junk food because I tend to gain weight easily and whenever I got into one of my binges, POP, there went the hips and puffy face.

So, to keep the peace, I started hiding my sweets from him. I wasn’t about to stop eating them, in fact, I knew if I tried to stop myself it would only make it worse and I would end up eating more than I wanted simply because I was depriving myself.

It’s a sickness, I’m telling you. (Well, I don’t really believe it’s a sickness, I think it’s more of a self-control issue and back then, I simply didn’t have much self-control).

Life continued. I snuck my sweets, the husband was never the wiser and we were all happy.

Until I turned 40.

And then all hell broke loose.

Actually, my intestines went on strike.

Now, if I so much as NIBBLE on chocolate, my insides blow up like a balloon, my intestines grumble so loudly you can hear it from across the room and I spend the majority of my day in the bathroom … with no results. If you catch my drift (and please, catch it because I can’t describe it – that would be in the too much information category).

In short? It’s terrible. And it hurts. And I’m so uncomfortable I can’t think. And I’m not hungry, even though when I eat it actually helps because it helps push the gunk through faster.

And I’m like an alcoholic chugging liquor – only I’m chugging Pepto-Bismal.

I have no idea what happened? But I think my body has just had enough. It’s rebelling against me. In fact, my body is so pissed off at me, that I can’t eat anything at all to do with legumes or I turn into a walking grenade.

I’ll let you picture that one for a minute. *ahem*

Of course, there are times I forget about the evils of chocolate and eat it anyway. Like now. And then I suffer for a full three days (which seems to be about the time it takes my body to process crap).

And it’s ESPECIALLY hard to refrain from eating the one thing I love most in the world around the holidays. Because I’ve got chocolate lying around just waiting to be stuffed into stockings. And the old craving rears it’s ugly head and before I can stop to listen the rational side of my brain, I’ve consumed SIX of the Hershey’s Chocolate Santas.

I’m like a crack whore, only with chocolate.

It’s so not pretty.

But oh so worth it. Just to taste that creamy smoothness once more.

*sigh*

Christmas song #12 I’ll Be Home for Christmas by Josh Groban

Though this day has been short, it’s been busy and it’s been strange.

The boys got out of school early today – they’re already home with me now. Short days totally knock me off kilter – it’s like my entire day is on fast forward.

And I have to make a note of early days in my Outlook AND write sticky notes all over my desk AND chant to myself over and over again, “early day, early day” so I don’t forget the kids.

I confess, I forgot them one time; they were forced to wait for me in a thunderstorm, without umbrellas (because boys who carry umbrellas are wussies, apparently) so that by the time I got around to picking them up?

They were drenched to the skin. They have NEVER let me live that one down.

Bad Mommy.

In fact, I wrote about that no-good, terrible day on my self-hosted blog – I’ll post that here tomorrow.

MK got up on his own this morning. This is the first time in weeks I haven’t had to wake the boy up. The first thing the boy does when he wakes up is make himself a bowl of cereal – he LOVES cereal – he’d LIVE on cereal if I let him.

I’m working on my computer, as is my habit in the early mornings – I update the school websites for the day – when MK walks into the family room (that’s where my computer is) holding a bloody paper towel.

“Wow, this thing is really bleeding,” is what he tells me – his voice as smooth as glass.

Some moms would have freaked out – not me. I have a tendency to just sort of go in focus mode when something like this happens. I don’t panic, I simply react.

Since MK wasn’t screaming and I couldn’t see any blood on his body, I simply arched my brow and said, “Where did that blood come from?”

He opened his mouth.

Ah, the elusive baby tooth. The same eye tooth that has refused to budge for the past several months even when the permanent tooth got impatient and grew in front of it.

I thought I was going to have to take him back to the dentist because it simply wasn’t loose. And MK refused to work it – which really annoyed me. When I asked him why he wouldn’t work on it? “What’s the point,” he says, “it’s not loose.”

*sigh* He’s so stubborn sometimes.

The only reason he started working on it this morning was because it was squeaking against his bottom teeth whenever he ate and it was annoying him. So, he started working on it and it started bleeding.

Big time.

I don’t know about you? But I COULD NOT and CAN NOT watch when my boys work their baby teeth loose. Watching them twist, turn and tug on their teeth sends shivers down my spine. It’s different when it’s me, or when I’m the one tugging/twisting, but when they do it? I squeal like a little girl.

But this tooth? Would not come out and MK was starting to panic. I think he was afraid it wouldn’t come out before he had to go to school today and it would fall out at lunch, in front of his peers, and they would make fun of him and he would come home traumatized …

It’s happened before.

So, he came to me for help. The bloody tooth was dangling by whatever it is that keeps teeth from coming out.

Swell. I swallowed the bile in the back of my throat, washed my hands, grabbed a paper towel and positioned my fingers around the tiny tooth. I gave it a tug or two, testing to see how MK would react. When his screams of pain died down he didn’t collapse onto the floor writhing in pain he seemed to be okay with what I was doing, I tugged harder while wriggling it firmly back and forth.

*SNAP*

We both heard it. Something snapped and before he could react, I had the tooth in my fingers.

That sucker bled out for quite some time. But the boy was able to suck it up and eat the rest of his (soggy) cereal before school.

See that funky tooth sticking out from the others? (You can click on the picture to enlarge but honestly, I wouldn’t. It’s gross close up, hence the reason I posted the smaller version here). His baby tooth was behind that tooth – that’s why it’s sticking out so far. Our dentist assures me it’ll work its way back to the correct spot – we’ll see.

I finally made it to the post office today to mail the Bass Pro Ornament and the Christmas ornament for my Christmas ornament exchange person today. Ladies, if you’re reading this, you should be receiving your packages very soon.

Today has been really ugly. The day started off at 52 degrees – we’re currently at 34 degrees with snow in the forecast. *sigh*

It’s been raining/misting all day, so it’s pretty wet. Considering GD and J (the boy I take home every day) walk about a block from the school in order for me to pick them up, they are walking through a lot of wet grass and mud.

Usually, I remember to tell the boys to remove their shoes before coming into the house …

Today, I forgot.

I now have to wait until the mud is dry before I can start cleaning it. Considering I’m usually pretty careful about this sort of thing happening and I’ve never had to deal with this before, I Googled how to clean mud from carpets.

It’s about KILLING me to wait for it to dry. If anyone has any suggestions on how to remove mud from light-colored carpets, let me know.

In the meantime, I’m avoiding that room at all costs. At least it didn’t happen on our brand new carpets – we plan on ripping the carpet up from this room soon and putting in hardwood floor. GD feels pretty bad about tracking in mud. I was pretty calm (I know my mom is curious to know my reaction) – which is saying a lot for me because I usually fly off the handle about this sort of thing. But the boy didn’t do it on purpose. I’m pretty proud of keeping my cool, thank you very much.

I’ve come a long way, baby.

OR, GD is just lucky I’m not hormonal right now. 😀

So, it’s already past 3:00, I haven’t gotten nearly the things I need to get done, done, and yet I feel like I’ve already squeezed 48 hours worth of life into these past nine hours and other than muddy carpets and one missing tooth? I don’t have a lot to show for it.

Short days screw me up.

Found this gem over at Pensieve – thanks for the reminder, Robin!

Actually, this is the first Christmas that we’re not going hog wild on each other, I’m happy to say. The hubs and I are only buying a few gifts for each other and the kids are scaling WAY down than in previous years.

We’re also buying gifts for two Salvation Army kids in need, we donated money to purchase a child three outfits and a winter coat, and my youngest son is playing his saxophone next Saturday at the mall as part of a community project through his school to try and persuade people to drop some money in the Salvation Army bucket.

So, how are you spending less and giving more?

Romans 12:13 — “Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.”

Christmas song #9 A Mad Russian’s Christmas by Trans-Siberian Orchestra

I saw this over at Momma Blogs A Lot and I thought I would give it a go. Sleeping is a huge issue at our house – not for me, per se, but for my husband.

In fact, it’s safe to say, the man DOESN’T sleep much at all. There is nary a night that goes by that he doesn’t wake up for some internal reason, but I think the main reason he doesn’t sleep very well is because he doesn’t know how to shut his brain off. He’s always thinking.

ALWAYS.

However, he slept through the night last night and didn’t wake up once – not once. And THAT is a reason to celebrate because it truly is a rarity.

I used to be a night owl. I used to stay up until about 2ish in the morning and then sleep in until 9 / 10 every morning. This worked fine for me, until I married an early bird and he used to get SO irritated with me for sleeping in, so much so, that he was a grouch nearly the entire weekend, so I retrained myself and now I’m up at the crack of dawn – even on weekends.

In some ways, I like this new routine – I’m up, I’m alert and I’m most productive in the mornings. But since I get up around five every morning, I usually start getting drowsy around noon because I’ve been up for seven hours.

I usually get my second wind around two in the afternoon and I’m simply functioning the rest of the day, don’t ask me to be creative, it won’t happen in that time period, all of my brain activity is on autopilot.

Then I usually crash around nine / ten at night and the whole process starts again.

I have occasional cat naps, usually about 20 minutes, during the afternoon and that really helps me to stay up a little later. My sleeping pattern has completely reversed itself, thanks to my husband. 🙂

1. How long do you sleep each night?

I usually get about 7 hours of sleep. I’d like more, but it doesn’t usually happen. Ideally, I think I need about nine hours of sleep to really feel awake.

2. Do you fall asleep easily?

Yes. I can pretty much fall asleep anywhere, anytime. However, I’m a very light sleeper and everything wakes me up. However, I can usually get back to sleep fairly quickly.

3. Do you fall asleep at times not in your bed?

I didn’t use to. But I’ve been finding myself nodding off a lot when I watch TV. I REALLY don’t like doing that though, because then I have to force myself to wake up, do my nightly ritual (brush teeth, remove makeup, etc) and then try and get back to sleep after I’ve been moving around and have woken myself up.

4. Do you listen to music or use “white noise” to sleep?

I have to have white noise. It’s essential for me. Because I’m such a light sleeper, every little freaking noise wakes me up so I need something to mask those noises so I won’t wake up. I currently sleep to the sound of a fan, only pointed away from me because it’s so cold right now I’d wake up encased in an ice cube if I had it blowing on me.

4a. Do you have to have it a certain temperature when you sleep?

I just threw this question in because temperature is a huge factor for me when I sleep. It has to be cold. I can not sleep when it’s too hot. As a result, we crank our air conditioner whenever we go camping and turn our heat down at home during the night so it’s cold enough to snuggle under the covers. Our house usually drops to the mid, to lower 60’s at night – we all prefer to sleep when it’s cold.

5. Do you sleep through the night or get up a couple of times?

Once I’m asleep, and providing no one gets up during the night, I can, and often do, sleep through the night without waking up once. The only times I wake up are:

A. When I’m not physically tired. Yet another reason I work out, to make myself physically tired to sleep.

B. My sinuses thicken and I wake up with a raging headache about four in the morning and I’m forced to get up and take some Aleve and put in some nose spray to clear my passages (like this morning, actually).

6. Do you have trouble sleeping away from your own bed?

Yes, yes, and definitely yes. Any change in my routine and I can’t sleep, period. Whenever we go on vacation, camping, or even if the boys have friends stay the night, I don’t sleep worth a crap. I usually jerk myself awake about once every two hours – no reason really, just instinct, I guess. I wake up to make sure everyone is still okay.

It was ESPECIALLY bad when the boys were babies. But I’m sure I don’t have to tell you parents that – I think we all do that when our children are little.

7. Do you need an alarm clock to get you up?

No. The coffee maker usually wakes me up when it goes off at 5:20 in the morning. A lot of times, I just instinctively wake up before it even goes off.

A lot of times, during the school week, I jerk awake about 4:00 and then doze off and on until it’s time to get up. I think I’m afraid of over sleeping and not getting the kids up in time for school.

I’M their alarm clock. MK will wake up on his own, he’s an early bird, so I don’t worry too much about him. But GD would sleep until noon every day, if given the chance. He’s definitely a night owl.

8. Do you ever take medication to help you sleep?

Never. I’ve never had to. Exercising is my sleep aid and works for me every time. Now the husband has to take Tylenol PM occasionally to help him relax enough to go sleep. Again, his brain never shuts off – he simply doesn’t know, or understand, how to relax enough on his own to go to sleep. It drives me nuts, quite frankly.

9. Do you/have you slept with pets?

We don’t have any pets, nor have I ever had a pet that I slept with. I’m not a big animal person so the thought of sharing my bed with an animal sort of grosses me out. (Sorry animal lovers, but I’m being honest).

I don’t even sleep with my husband. But I’ve talked about that before, so I won’t bore you with that again.

I sleep best when I’m by myself, no distractions, no one smothering me, no one snoring in my ear. My family knows to leave me alone when it’s time for me to get some sleep – I’m extremely cranky when I’m sleep-deprived and EVERYONE is happier when I’m rested. 🙂

Christmas song #7 A Christmas to Remember by Amy Grant