Every year at the beginning of summer I take stock of what new items need to be purchased. The occasional bottle of sunblock, a new beach ball, sunglasses and such... This year it was mostly our outdoor toys and towels. It was a pretty sad sight to see, and every toy I came across seemed to be in worse shape then the first.

Both dismembered shovels are courtesy of the dogs teeth. Look how sad the little yellow one is! It barely has enough breath to lean against the fence.

This boat will no longer float in the moat.
The pool... our sadly squashed, bug infested, dirt trap has seen much better days. The great thing about these pools is you just kick them over, stamp your foot throughout the inner rim, spray water on the spiders, and voila! Back to normal!
When my son held up this towel, and sticking his entire head through it said, "What is this, Mom?" I knew it had soaked up it's last pool-water for good. It had taken it's last trip to the beach. I threw it on the ground for the dogs to enjoy and Charlie (my one-year-old Lab that eats cat poop and chews the carpet) sniffed it hesitantly, jerked his head up, and quickly backed away. I heard Hubby from behind me say, "When the dogs won't touch it, it's time for it to go in the trash."
So this week my mission is to find some new pool toys, new sand toys, new beach towels--preferably smell free and hole free-- and maybe a cute new pair of thongs for me.

Things I never thought I’d say before I had kids:


“I don’t care what the dog is doing; little boys do not poop on the lawn.”

In the bathtub… “Please stop kissing your brother’s bottom.”

“We do NOT touch our poop and smear it on the floor!”

“Who pee’d in the bathtub?” …when it wasn’t bath time.

“We do not ride the dog!”

“Don’t eat your boogers!”

“Milkbones are not crackers.”

“Please take my bra out of the toilet.”

“Food is for our mouths, not our ears!”

“We draw on paper, not on couches!”

“Stop flicking boogers at your brother!”

“No thank you, I do not want to try on your penis.”

“I understand you are a superhero, but you may NOT wear my underwear over your pants to school.”

“Don’t wipe your nose on my pillow!”

I've had highlights in my hair for the past few months now, re-highlighting them once somewhere in the middle, and slowly the color has changed from light brown/honey to crayola yellow. I think it had something to do with the sun. This morning in front of the mirror I decided the zebra look wasn't for me and trooped off to Target for a box of color. At the suggestion of my sister-in-law (who's own natural hair color is miles beneath her color-treated surface) I bought L'Oreal's Excellence Creme in Dark Chocolate Brown. On the box it looked a lot like my natural color. On the box...

After taking my kids for a picnic in the park, I got to work on my hair. First thing, I laid out all the contents and took stock. Conditioner: check. Color treatment: check. Gloves: check. Towel: check. Hubby's raised eyebrows: check. Vomit in the back of the throat from nerves: check. The application bottle looked so small that I freaked out about the possibility of not having enough liquid, and then as I began applying it I realized I had more then enough for my entire head. I would squirt a little here, a dab there, a glob there...

The problem wasn't the tiny applicator bottle, or the drops on my bathroom rug, or the fact that I had ruined one of Hubby's t-shirts... no the problem was the smell! The stench of the chemicals was so bad I had mascara running down my burnt eyes onto my cheeks (I double checked to make sure it mascara and not dye), I had the bathroom window open and the bedroom window open and I would occasionally run to the bedroom window and literally press my face up against the screen gasping for fresh air. I'd gasp in some big breaths and troop back to the bathroom to finish another layer. Back and forth, to and from the window I went for the entire fifteen minutes it took me to apply the glop.

Then I was supposed to "loosely pile" my hair on top of my head for 30 minutes. Yeah, right. My hair doesn't "loosely pile". It's got short layers throughout, it's heavy and thick and was stuck in clumps because of the dye-goo. So I ended up turning on Day's of Our Lives and rotating my arms to the top of my head, helping to "loosely pile" my hair. For 30 long minutes I had my arms up.

The time came to rinse out my hair, which was fine because Sami and John were having the same conversation over and over as characters do on a Soap... and then the real drama started. I turned on my shower to a warm temperature (per the box instructions) and assessed my surroundings. Hubby came in to check things out. "Do you want to take the shirt off?" He asked. I declined, explaining to him my brilliant plan of leaning very far over into the stream of water and that I'd remove my clothing after and take a shower to finish up.

So I leaned forward letting the water cascade over the top of my hair, and soon the bottom of the shower pan filled slowly with brown liquid water. I was leaning very far forward so as not to get my bathroom rug wet. All was going well, but then I had a not-so-brilliant idea of turning the spout more directly on me. The water started going over my ears and around my collar, and over the top of my forehead. I blindly grabbed a washcloth to cover my eyes, but it was soaked through in a matter of seconds. Then the outside water line from the sprinklers on the lawns turned off and all of the sudden my shower increased in pressure and turned very HOT! I desperately clawed the tiles on the walls reaching for the cold spout, found it, and gave it a good yank. With my arm still extended on the cold spout this gave the water a new incentive, and before I knew it I had water running down my arm, into my shirt, soaking my bra and receding to parts south from there.

Apparently I was hooting and hollering because suddenly Hubby appeared and asked if I needed help. I was blind from the stinging brown liquid, I had a drenched washcloth covering my face, my clothes were soaked through, and the bathroom was trashed. I raised my face in his direction and very calmly said, "Could you hand me a towel, please?" I wiped my face as best as I could, and with Hubby's assistance removed the excess water and dye from my hair. When we were done, and I was standing there like a drenched dog, Hubby asked, "Why didn't you just strip and take a shower? Wouldn't that have been easier then... this??" He gestured toward my body. So I showered.

Looking in the mirror afterward I found several stained spots of dark dye on my clothes, forehead, arms, toes (don't ask) and rug. I also found I had a mesh imprint on the side of my cheek from me pressing my face against the window screen for air. Then I looked at the color. Great, instead of a zebra I was now Snow White: pasty white skin on my no-makeup face and dark, dark brown hair. After I let my hair dry I went back to the mirror and re-assessed. Something was missing... makeup! Bad move! Snow White meet gothic chick. I give up.

The funniest thing happened in the car today on the way to Costco! --Yes, I know, all of my stories have something to do with Costco. What can I say, we live next door to it!

Anyway, Ben saw a big truck out of his window and said (over and over) "big tuck, big tuck!" and I acknowledged that yes, it was a big truck. If I don't respond or repeat him he goes on and on like a broken record! So then Jake looked around and said, "Where's the big truck?" Ben pointed his little chubby hand over his head and says, "Back dare, Daytub (Jacob), back dare." And of course Jake has totally missed the truck but he's still looking for it and still asking, and Ben is still sitting there saying "Back dare, Daytub, back dare..." over and over. So finally I said, "Just let it go, Jacob, let it go." And before Jake could respond Ben said, "Let it doe, Daytub, let it doe."

Jake and I were laughing so hard, it was absolutely hilarious!! Maybe you had to be there, but come on, anyone who pronounces "Jacob" as "Daytub" has to be cute!!

I've had enough! Enough of the videos, enough of the diets that don't work, enough of my plastic scale... so I broke down and went back to Curves. I have been contemplating doing this ever since I found out Hubby has a high school reunion in exactly... 4 months! Yeesh! No time to waste.

So this morning I talked about joining Curves to my Hubby and he said (his exact words): "I'm fine with paying the $39 a month for you to go, as long as you're actually going to do it. I don't want to pay for something that just sits around and that you don't take advantage of." So I very calmly, but sternly, pointed out that he has a dirt bike and a go kart in his garage that "sit around" and don't get taken "advantage of" most of the year. He just kind of looked at me and said I was right (then bells and whistles went off because Hubby NEVER admits to being right). Then I sucked in my gut and headed for Curves...

When I got there I had a big knot in my stomach... I wasn't sure if it was anxiety over joining or if it was from pepperoni pizza I had just scarfed down. Either way, I was uneasy. After talking to a nice woman named Debra I was really beginning to warm up to the place, and after sharing a laugh about how it's been awhile since I've been there (I joined in early 2005 and quit promptly in 2006), she pulled out my file. It's good to know all my old body weights and measurements and old goals were still accounted for on my old "fat" chart. Heaven forbid there be a fire in the two years I've been gone that would have cleared all that out for me.

And then Debra walks me over to this large, looming, doctor-type of scale. You know the kind that have the little bar you scoot across the top, the kind that always seems to need to "add" more weight... it's the type of scale that basically laughs at you when you approach it. Oh, and a hearty chuckle it got about me! Not only did it creak when I stepped on it (seriously, how embarrassing), but when my "suggestive" weight of 142 wasn't nearly enough to even out the scale marker, she had to move the bar way over nearer to the 150 mark! Talk about adding insult to injury! It was mocking me for sure!

Then Debra took out her little tape measure and measured everything! Arms, waist, chest, hips (good Lord, the hips), calves, toenails... the woman did it all. And I'm trying to be honest, so I would tell her things like "oh wait, I'm sucking in a little" and, "I want it to all hang out..." and so I'd relax and there the fat would go, dropping over my jean's waistline like the top of a cupcake. The misery, the dread, the cold hard slap in the face of what I'd let my body become... the Pillsbury dough boy has nothing on me.

Then as we're doing the paperwork and discussing fat goals and the such, I'm just going on and on about how I'm at the heaviest I've EVER been in my entire life and how I can't believe I've let myself get this big and how I need to lose a good 10-15 pounds in order to feel better about my body... and Debra very nicely says, "Well I would kill to be your weight! Your current weight is my goal weight! I've already lost 20 pounds and I would love it if I were your size." Good grief, I was mortified.

Then Debra starts talking about how she hasn't been there for the past couple of weeks due to some gall stones and rocks in her stomach that are going to require major surgery, and so she won't be able to work out for awhile. Put me in the oven and shut the door. I shut my mouth and had a mental argument with God for letting me go on and on in front of this poor woman. Talk about your lessons in humility! Here she is, already having lost 20 pounds (which I profusely congratulated her on) and is bummed because she can't work out due to a medical illness. Here I am blabbing on like an idiot for being lazy and not taking advantage of my God-given, perfectly healthy, albeit robust, body.

Anyway, so I start Monday and I'm actually pretty excited! Plus, I'll get to buy clothes! And shoes! Let's not forget the Simple brand shoes I attempted to "run" in the other day. That simply won't work for Curves. And I might need a new blush... something that says "sweaty while watching tv"...

The weather was absolutely gorgeous outside today and when my boys asked for a snack a fruit pop sounded like the smart solution! And they thoroughly enjoyed them!


I had been snapping a few pics of the boys as they casually enjoyed their treats, and then low-and-behold, a sign of affection! And where was my camera during this rare moment? Turned off and on the other side of the patio on the table. So I hurried over, walking quickly for fear if I ran that it would ruin the brotherly love. I grabbed my camera, turned it on and whipped around right as they began to separate. This is the only shot I got of them together... and Jake's head is cut off. But it's better than nothing!
Here we are, scraping every last morsel of popsicle goodness off the stick. Ben was never one to waste a treat!

Thank you Karen for this fun website! http://www.blogthings.com/whatkindofcerealareyouquiz/

What kind of cereal are you? I am Cheerios!


Like other Cheerios eaters, you want to be a responsible adult, but you can't help but still be a kid at heart! You try to make good decisions. You're a clean cut, conscientious person. You're the type of person who would never skip breakfast. Part of you thinks that breakfast is too important to miss... But a bigger part of you knows it's too fun to miss!