Sunday Morning Ramblings #1

It's really not that early on a Sunday morning, but I'm so completely wiped, that I feel like it's 5 am. Not to mention I still have the curtains pulled closed, blocking out a majority of the sunlight.

It's not 5am, it's 10:30. I should have the curtains open, the dogs should have already been taken out three times, and I should have made the Starbucks run. At least I've got my coffee made. I'm actually considering having another cup (having my second cup now... and it's 11 am). Everyone else in the house is still asleep, but thanks to my boy Cam...

I'm awake. He's into everything, the girls are sleeping, and the bird is thankfully quiet. Probably because I have the curtains closed. If the bird was awake, Cam would be barking at the cage, and I would be throwing our training chain/bags at him, yelling "bah." It should be "bahhhhh," but today it would be half-a**ed.

Callie doesn't feel she gets nearly enough face-time or mention in my blog, so here is a picture of my girl Callie May

This baby is the hardest to keep groomed... she hates being brushed, and always has brown tears, no matter what we feed her, or clean her with. She's a sweet girl, whose lights are not always on. 

I've been doing a lot of reading lately, political... (there are so many articles, but too little time, so I picked the most popular of the week among my friends)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/23/rick-santorum-abortion-rape_n_1224624.html

My thoughts on abortion: If a woman/child is raped she should have a choice. If a woman's life is at stake, she should have a choice. Abortion as birth control should not be a choice, but then we would really need to put more money into our welfare and pregnancy prevention programs. I'm not talking abstinence... lets be realistic, not mighty and pious.

http://www.hrc.org/blog/entry/santorums-wife-equality-advocates-are-bullying?utm_source=social-media&utm_media=facebook

Really? I've felt bullied since figuring myself out many moons ago. I feel bullied every time I turn on the TV, or read a news article.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/25/conservative-parents-demand-school-teach-ex-gay-therapy_n_1231409.html

This says it all...

http://www.newson6.com/story/16593145/oklahoma-senator-wants-ban-on-human-fetuses-in-food

I don't even know what political party this guy is with, but I would really worry about his sanity and the fact that he is in a position of power. WOW!!!

Can I just tell you, the upcoming elections are not something I look forward to. At this point, I'm just ready for the Republicans to choose a candidate, and be done with it. Oh, did you know I wasn't Republican? I know I hold some conservative views, but I hold some very liberal views as well. I consider myself a great balance between good and evil. You can pick the side you choose to be evil. I don't care either way. All I'm saying is when I hear of the antics from Santorum, Gingrich, and Romney, I want to gag. Overall, I want what's best for the country. We need to pull our sh*t together, and get serious about what's going to make or break us, and I'll point out the obvious... gay issues are not tearing our country down. Lets talk about our budget deficit, corporate corruption, international relationships? Let's look at welfare reform one more time. Let's look at a national lottery, in which the profits go to helping balance the nations budget. I mean, WHY not? People from all walks of life play lotteries, because we all dream of hitting it big. So why not create something like this? Can you imagine the monies earned? Although, the money would have to be used for the designated purpose. The Texas Lottery was supposed to help education, but that's all gone to Hell in a hand basket, even though the revenue from the lottery reaches over 1 billion. Crazy money, huh? 

Anyway, I look at these three men, and personally, I think Romney is the lesser of the evils. If he focuses on the country's problems, and not the "personal" preferences/morals/religious beliefs/desires of the constituents, he could make some positive changes. Why can't these people have the balls to say "Hey Right Wing, I know you don't like gay people! Hey gay people, I know you want to get married. Hey black people, I know you guys aren't the only ones on welfare (Santorum and Gingrich have both singled out black people as the main welfare recipients), Hey Occupy, I know you have a number of demands that I'm working on, hey rich people, I know you pay taxes, though others find that hard to believe, but why not let me focus on the country as a whole." Let's ALL focus on making the country stronger, because if we keep going the way we are... divided on the issues that make us free, we will no longer be as free as we are right now at this moment. I don't know, makes sense to me, but who am I to say. I sit here in my small-town bubble surrounded by people I never see, self medicating against mini panic attacks. 

OH, remember I said no one knows about my panic attacks? Well, when the wife read about this, the very first time I posted it ( I think before Christmas), she went ape-sh*t. She stormed around the house, saying she has to find out all kinds of things from my blogs, and that if I don't blog, she doesn't know anything, and that I should go blog THAT right now.... about her rant, I mean. Although, I don't think she really cares to know most of it, because she's way behind on reading this stuff. Boy, I'll really hear it for typing that. Hey, it keeps life exciting for me! 

My other reading includes:

This one I've finished reading, and I loved it. I love books full of facts. Nerdy, I know.

This one will take while to read because it's huge. So far I've learned how birth control pills came to exist, that cats were not always house pets, and how they were able to reach that status, and where the term "keeping up with the Joneses came from."

This was an article in readers digest that I follow religiously. I'm always looking for different ways to energize.

GREAT book. I mainly use it for the meals I make at home, but I know a lot of people use it for when they eat out. If I'm eating out, I'm going to eat what I crave. 

I love this book, although I realized one of my paradigm shifts was two-fold. I saw a guy buying flowers for a loved one at the store. At first I thought "Awww, how sweet!" Then I thought, he could be buying them because he was a big jerk and is begging forgiveness, or he's having an affair and buying them for a mistress. I know,  leave it to me to turn it around like that!!

I've been working on this, which you could consider a good thing, but in reality, my vocabulary is wonderful. You may not know it from my blogs, but it's true. What I'm avoiding is the math portion. The very thing that keeps me from taking this test. :o/

 Okay... I believe I will wrap this up as it is now 12:20, the wife woke up, opened the curtains, I need to make us some food, do a bit of cleaning, then I get to go see my movie "One for the Money!!" I love the books, and like I said in my FB status, I know the movie won't be intellectually stimulating or anything, but if it makes me laugh, I'm a happy camper! What they need to do is make these books into a TV series rather than a movie!!

Yesterday... today

Yesterday:
I flew around the house, as busy as a worker bee. I cleaned, I did laundry, I worked out, I cooked. I read blogs, I read some of my book, I toted kids from here to there. It was great. I even took some pictures for my blog:

This is the baby I posted a picture of yesterday. I thought it would be nice to post one of her not moving :)

This is the baby that is always attempting to crawl under my elliptical when I'm using it. This was my solution to the problem. I put him on one of our tall game table chairs while I worked out. I know, he looks pitiful, but he's safe there. 

These are my newest running shoes. No, I didn't just buy them because they have lots of pink, though it is what attracted me to them. Don't they look brand new? Well, that's because it's been raining, and these things are very slippery in the rain. It's ridiculous. I won't be able to wear them for any of the runs I want to do, because if I hit a puddle, I'll fall my a**.  It's too bad really, but I'm clumsy enough as it is. 

I found a new scent I absolutely LOVE from Bath and Body. Plus if you turn the jar around, the flame is pretty through the blue tinted glass. 

It was pouring rain here, though you can't really see it. My good camera is no longer working, so all I have is my iPhone. Though the zoom is better than it was on the old iPhone, it's still not as great as the one on my camera. Plus, the details are missing!! Oh well, trust me, it was a cold, rainy day yesterday! Just how I like it at times. 

My cheese drawer... don't judge. I took this just because I was darting around the kitchen making sure I had all ingredients for the meal I was going to be making for dinner, and thought, well, why NOT? The wife says I'm a cheese hoarder. Hey, no one complains when they want cheese, No one ever has to say, "We're out!" Cheese is one of the few food items in my house that isn't labeled "all natural... this and my powder creamer... you know, the kind from the good ole' days... Coffee Mate!

Today: I overslept, rushed up the stairs to wake the kids, walked right by that elliptical, thinking "maybe later," made coffee, dressed, didn't have time to have my coffee before I left :( , took the kids, was stuck in horrible traffic because it was raining again this morning (which I love), headed to Starbucks (I get my green tea from Starbucks and the wife's latte. I don't always drink coffee from here because of my stomach issues), then right back home again. I finally had my hot coffee, and a low-fat very berry bread cake thing, and haven't done anything since. I'm now sitting at my desk, trying to compose a wonderfully entertaining post... but my brain is TIRED. It must be the cold and rain, although yesterday it motivated me to be active. Today, I've got nothing.

The lovely thing about texas weather is this:

This was my view when I sat down to post 

This is my view now... 30 minutes later. NO, it didn't take me thirty minutes to do this post. I have to stop in between to throw a dog toy, find a song, look outside, check emails, etc etc... remember... ADD


It looks like today will be a beautiful day!! If it warms up, I'll take the furry babies for a walk. That can be my cardio today, because the elliptical just isn't calling out to me the way it should. 

The vulnerable family members

From my many posts, you may already know our family not only consists of people, but of pets too. We have three little dogs, Callie, Tallulah, and Camden, and a turtle named Florence (after Florence and the Machine, that is). I love my pets... all of them. Although Florence can be a bit boring. I don't let her crawl around the house or anything because I'm afraid the dogs would eat her. Honestly, I don't think she would come out of her shell as long as they were sniffing around her.

We do a lot of things for our pets, because we're those crazy people who treat them as if they're babies. The vet looks down on this, but hey, these living creatures are our responsibility, and they're tiny and vulnerable.

Taking this responsibility a little too seriously at times, has me in some silly predicaments. Take the other night for instance. I made baked potatoes for us. When I do this, I coat them with olive oil, and sea salt. Well, this time the sea salt spilled on the floor. I didn't know if sea salt would hurt the dogs, so I was crawling all around the floor, trying to beat the dogs to the tiny granules. Seriously...

Now lets skip to the night of our art party. We left the dogs out, because the boy stayed home. When we got home, I noticed a hole... not all the way through, but a hole just the same, in our breakfast room wall. Cam likes to chew. He chews wood, he chews plastic, he loves to eat the straw off of the wall in the breakfast room, and this time he ate the freakin' wall!! I don't even know why I was so stressed about sea salt!

The dog's work

The girl and I at the Art Party... the wife was there too, but she hates her picture being taken!

Our doggie behavioral therapist (yes, we hired one), said to spray Bitter Apple on the things he tends to chew. My question then, is this... How am I supposed to stop the dog from eating walls? Do they have Bitter Apple paint?

With our dogs and turtle, you would think I had enough pets, but nope, I want another one. I would love a cat, but the kids and I are so severely allergic. I don't know why our Tom Tom didn't bother us, but I do know our asthma prevents us from loving a kitty the way we should. I'd take another dog any day, even with our little wall eater, but honestly, I don't think we need another dog in the bed with us. Nope, I don't sleep as it is. I want a bird. I've always had birds, and last night we saw the most beautiful little Yellow Sided Green Cheeked Conure. He.. or she, was so sweet, leaning her little head against the cage bars so we could rub it. We also saw a Sun Conure, and the best scenario would be to have them both, so they could achieve optimum companionship. These babies need a lot of attention, which would be achieved since we're home a majority of the time. Who knows... that one baby was sweet though. Reminded me of the parakeet we had when the girl was 3, and the one I had as a teen. Parakeets are a crap shoot. You may get one that's trainable, but you may also get one that bites the heck out of you, and never learns.

 Here is the Sun Conure, picture courtesy of Google Images

Here is the Yellow Sided Green Cheeked Conure, picture courtesy of Google Images 

Okay, enough bird babble... I hope you all have a wonderful day. Today is early release for the kids, then basketball for the boy, and then off they go to their dad's!!! I need the break... they've been nuts lately!! 

Petty Things-Yay!

I've decided a blog about petty things should be on today's agenda. I'm not sure why except that I'm quite worked up about so many things right now, and I don't feel like "talking" about it.

SO:

Panty Lines: Do we care or not? The wife says we all wear panties, so why are we worried about having lines and people knowing we have them on? Personally, I would prefer not to think about people in their panties or thongs, or whatever they may be wearing... is it better than going commando? Now there's a thought for you the next time the handy man comes around. I mean, we never do see his underwear... just the crack of his butt. I bet they go commando. Ours of course didn't. We always saw his underwear. They were too big on him and he was always having to pull them up over his pant waist.

Being Ugly: The wife asked me last night if I would rather be fat or ugly. She's struggling with weight and I guess she knows that regardless of this, she is nowhere near ugly. I hate that she's struggling, and have done everything I can to help as far as meals, pills, nagging about exercise. She want's Lap Band but I refuse to support that because I know how hard that is on a body and she has MS... something drastic like that would totally exacerbate her condition. Ugh, speaking of pills... I've been taking what I bought her. I'm not struggling with weight, but I suppose I was trying to take the easy way out as far as getting my own waist as small and tone as it can healthily be. I feel bleh... is it the pills? Who knows. They're all natural, so that's good! Let's see, I take 4 carb busters, 3 Fuco Thins, and 1 CLA (this is a supplement to the others). Because you must drink a lot of water when you take them, my water intake has greatly increased. Yay, right? I think I have a disorder... seriously. I just want to eat what I want and be happy, but NO... I know way too much about calorie counts in almost EVERY food there is, fat content, what burns fat, what doesn't. I totally freaked out the other night, because I had a piece of pumpkin pie from La Madeline, came home to look up the nutrition information, and could not believe one slice had over 430 calories! I Went right up to get on the elliptical. That's because I'm nuts... yep, I think it's true. Oh by the way, I totally think "ugly" is a personal opinion and some of the ugliest people don't appear to be so because they have the absolute best personalities, and some of the most beautiful people are ugly because they don't bleed... in other words, they're totally cold... mean.

Bikini Wearing: The wife feels people over a certain age shouldn't wear bikinis. REALLY?!?! I am not sitting here trying to get my waist looking nice so I can cover it up when we go on our cruise. Yes, we leave in two weeks for a cruise and I really want to put on a bikini and feel good. I saw at least a 65-70 year old woman at the water park this summer with a bikini on... I was impressed with the fact she was brave enough to wear one, and I want to do it too da**it!

My dogs: I love them. They make me happy. I feel guilty for leaving them for 7 full days. This will be the longest we've ever left them and my little Tallulah takes it hard. We'll be taking a night light to the boarding facility for them. This is not because I'm nuts this time... it's because the wife is :) I'm not the only one who is nuts in our household!

Fear: Okay, fear can be petty at times. I don't want to go on this cruise. Do you know how many earthquakes there have been these past few days? In TEXAS.... seriously?!?! This is part of the reason I'm in a "mood." The earthquakes I mean. They have just added value to my current mode of thought, which I don't want to "talk" about. So, I told the wife that I didn't want to go on the cruise... what if there's an earthquake, what if, what if, what if... you know, I fear the things I cannot control, which is EVERYTHING! Hmphhh...

Okay... enough of this petty BS. I'm off to do my sit-ups because I ate a whole package of saltines (well, I shared some with the dogs) trying to make my stomach feel not so sick. The wife broke my elliptical... I think she did it on purpose, because she hated having it in that window. Then she started saying she broke it because she was fat... ugh! Woman!! They are made for people to get on so they can lose weight. There are muscular men who weight more than her who use these things.... there are way larger people who use them. I'm just lucky she was on it because she was going slow, taking it easy since it was her first time on there. Had I been on it and it had broken like that, I would have gotten hurt, because I go pretty fast. There is a reason for everything. NOW, I need a new one.... now. Otherwise I will be heading out at midnight to work off whatever it is I've eaten that, in my head, I should NOT have consumed.