Why My Mom Was Awesome.

Reason #1

We always got a real Christmas to decorate when I was younger, even
though with 2 cats and a dog, it was kind of dangerous. My cat, Chewy,
who was appropriately named by accident (Chewy was short for Chouette,
which meant cute in French) would constantly chew on the wires of the
lights. My brother's cat Tiger would bat at the ornaments until they
fell and usually broke. And the dog would invariably chase one of the
cats right into the tree at least a few times per season. It's a
miracle they all made it through each holiday season!

So it was no suprise when my mother decided against buying a Christmas
tree shortly after my brother and I had left for college. But since we
still came home for Christmas, mom didn't want to lose the feeling of
Christmas. An avid gardner, she had many plants strewn about her
house. Sheu found the next best thing to a dangerous traditional tree,
and thus began her holiday tradition of decorating the tropical banana
tree with ornaments and lights and putting the presents under it, just
beside its pot.

Merry christmas!

Test

Test...just activated mobile phone blogging. Testing to see if it works.

My new yoga socks. Hot? Yes. Do these socks make my ankles look big?

In Denial

So I guess I've been in denial for a while, but it's finally time for me to admit it. I'm getting old.

A few months ago I turned 31. By most people's standards, that's not too incredibly old. But it seems like in the past few months, my body's age has increased by at least a decade. I wake up every morning in pain with a stiff back. I've been nursing all kinds of minor injuries, like low back pain, muscle cramps, and now I have knee pain.

Knee pain? I'm not active enough yet to have knee pain. I only really started working out seriously about a month ago. I'm still running 3 miles at a pop, at best, a few days per week, and the exercise classes I teach/take aren't brutal enough to justify knee pain. I think I might have twisted something on Tuesday night in ballet...since I'm so hard core in class. But I can't think of what I could have done. Turnout occurs at the hip, and my hips are fine.

My feet even hurt, like I've been running on the treadmill at top speed barefoot. I've never had achy feet before. And I even got new shoes last month!!

I used to make fun of my coworker because he would hobble in every morning, complaining of back pain and sore legs, pop a few Pain Aids, and get on with his day, but this morning I found myself at the medicine cabinet at work, looking for the Pain Aid just to get through the morning!!

I took a quiz on Facebook a while back that was supposed to estimate your "real" age. Since Facebook quizzes are widely known for their accuracy, I was surprised to see that my "real" age was 0. Might explain me, mentally, but physically? Add a one and another zero in front.

I've really got it in my head that I'm a runner. Or I should be. So I'm having a hard time accepting that it might not be the best thing for my pathetic crumbling body. I'm trying a different path these days. This weekend I'm attending a workshop to become certified as a Yogafit instructor. Then in February I will attend a similar workshop to become certified to teach Pilates. Since I have zero time at home to practice these things, I thought teaching would not only make me more marketable, but allow me to get in some good workouts on the clock.

On a completely unrelated note, I brought Pearl in for her 4-month checkup this week. Apparently this beast of a child is 16 lbs 5 oz already, which puts her in the 90th percentile for both height and weight. I'm not sure where the Amazon woman gene comes from, but the doctor couldn't have been happier.

Dance Star

I've had some really lousy luck the past few months, and my method of dealing with these heavy situations and emotions is to take full advantage of the effects of retail therapy. Since the idea of trying on clothes depresses me, I got a kickass cool phone with a data plan, GPS and unlimited texting, a new car with bluetooth and satellite radio (didn't have much of a choice with the car since I totaled my last one, but the addons were optional), and splurged on a couple of workout DVDs and some other stuff.

One of my splurges was to enroll my ungraceful self in ballet lessons.

Are you finished laughing yet? No? It's ok, I'll wait.

Now? Good. I took ballet for many years as a youth. We moved around a lot, but I pretty much took lessons on and off between moves from the time I was 3 until I was 16. At that point, I begged my mother to let me continue jazz and tap but drop ballet. I likened myself to the dancing hippos from Fantasia's Dance of the Hours.

But I chose to enroll in this class for several reasons:

• As a working mother of 2 young-uns, I need some alone time


• I could use some flexibility


• I could use some gracw and poise


• I'm in love with SB's dance teacher and she teaches the adult ballet class on the one evening that I could actually take it!


• Dancers are hot.

Nuff said.

So I've gone twice so far. I'm doing pretty well in the class, but holy moly, let me tell you that those mirrors are HELLACIOUS. Now, I'm no hot mama quite yet, but I thought I was doing pretty well in the get back to a normal human female non-whale shape department. That confidence was completely shattered when I glanced in the mirrors in class. The person I saw staring back at me was a short, squat, butternut squash with a ponytail and legs. Short, stubby legs. That jiggled a lot.

The good thing is that I didn't have to look in the mirror long, because my barre was at the opposite end of the room and we do a lot of stuff facing the barre so my back was to the mirror. But then one of the last things we do are sautes (jumps) right in front of the mirror.

I almost cried. The butternut squash was made of Jell-o!! OMG. I have never seen anything so disgusting in my entire life. Well, maybe this. Actually, that's kind of what I looked like, only less scantily clad. Well actually, not really since I was in dance class. OK that's really video from my dance class.

Anyway.

So yeah. Now I'm really motivated to buckle down and lose the rest of my Pearl whale weight. I started the plan by consuming only half a panini at lunch today instead of a whole one! Not that it was by choice...but it's a start!

Here's hoping that by the time I go to the Grammies, I'm back to the normal flounder of a person I was before.

Hint, hint.

You know who you are.

Call me.

Peace out.

Awkward...

On Sunday night, my husband got a really bad flare up of gout on his foot. It helps to soak the foot in epsom salt, and we were out, so he sent me to the Rite Aid around the corner to pick some up. Now it's impossible for me to go to Rite Aid and only get one thing, especially when those first few rows are filled with Christmas goodies. So of course on my way back to the first aid area I picked up a Cinderella toothbrush holder, a Barbie and the Three Musketeers book (for SB), a couple of Reese Christmas Trees (for TB- they're his favorite), and some Reese/Oreo-type cookies (we were out of treats for SB's lunch the next day). I grabbed a huge bag of the salt and headed to the checkout.

There was this guy standing there, kind of back from the line, but kind of in line at the same time. Rather than stand behind someone who was just waiting for a bus or cut in front of someone waiting in line, I asked if he was in line- he was not. As I was asking him, a woman came up and took her place in line in front of us. Since there were 2 cashiers working, I didn't care, I just took my place in the other line. No big deal.

My cashier finished first, and without even glancing in my direction, motioned for the lady in the line next to me to approach her. The other lady refused, saying she was in her own line and we had gotten there at the same time so I should go up. (How polite!!) During this entire exchange, I was just observing. No expression on my face whatsoever, except mild interest in what was going on. I hadn't made any movement towards the counter, I wasn't getting angry or even confused, though I should have been.

After hearing the other lady, my cashier looked at me and put her hands up in the air and said "I'm not trying to start anything, I just wanted whoever was next...it doesn't make any difference at all to me...don't get upset at me."

Like I was about to tell her off. Honestly? Technically that lady was there before me. Sure, she was in another line and it was a little weird for the cashier to try to get her to go first- I mean in my opinion, you choose the wrong line and you're just screwed. It's one of those things you just accept. I ALWAYS choose the wrong line. But I wouldn't have made a peep if the lady had in fact gone ahead of me in my own line.

So why the heck was this cashier acting like I had just read her the riot act? To make matters worse- and I don't know if she did this because she was trying to butter me up, or because she's just socially inept, but she made a point of commenting on every. single. item I was purchasing. "Oh, these look good...and these are sooooooo delicious" (about the cookies and Reese trees), "Someone was in here earlier and got the same thing but in Spiderman" (about the toothbrush holder), "Someone has a daughter who likes Barbie" (about the book- and how does she know it's my daughter? I could totally be a Barbie fan...who reads picture books that come with paper dolls), "Wow, this is a heavy bag! What do you need all this salt for? I'm not putting anything else in the bag with this"...and on and on.

Keep in mind this was RITE AID. Thank goodness I wasn't buying condoms or tampons or hemorrhoid cream! What would she have said then?!?!