Tall Girl Ramblings

Feb 10th, 2008 I ate my last steak. It tried to kill me. Long story short is they kept trying to serve it to me bloody and I kept politely asking them to cook it longer. On the 4th time (yes 4th), I decided that I would either risk the countless bacterias I may consume by eating bloody meat or risk God knows what they do to my steak if I send it back a FIFTH time. I ate the bloody steak. I involuntarily (and violently) expelled the steak within an hour. That's right, I have never in fact had to poop and throw up at the same time before that day, Feb 10th, 2009. Not that I actually threw up - since everyone knows I don't actually throw up - but that was a close call my friends, a close call.

So throughout the rest of the week I had violent stomach episodes. One which was at Target. A VERY close call. Embarrassing. I was convinced I had ecoli by the time I got home from the restaurant. My Mom tried to assure me that ecoli takes some time to develop. I'm still unconvinced.

So, long story short - right? I stopped eating beef at that moment. My vegan/vegetarian friends at work started throwing sad animal videos at me. They sought opportunity to recruit, it worked. Shortly thereafter I stopped eating pig (they are after all smarter than dogs...) and shortly after THAT, I was shredding chicken and couldn't help put notice it's sternum. The identical body part that I have on my chest. At that point, chicken poultry was out of the question for me as well.

So, my basic dietery [meat] rules are this:

no hamburgers/steak/ground beef whatsoever (i have induldged in hotdogs about 3 times in the last 18 months. it's a weakness when prepared in mac and cheese, yum.)

avoid chicken/turkey but will eat it to be polite or if i'm having a protein craving

I will eat some fish sparingly. I get tired of the fish taste REAL quickly so I go in spurts of no fish either.

To be clear - although I feel bad for this, it's not what made me stop eating meat.





Not even this...although it is saddd.




It's this...


And a little bit of this...they are smarter than dogs!




So I don't like to label myself as "vegetarian" because I don't like to be scolded if I feel like having orange chicken one day. I would say on average I have a serving of poultry once a month or two. I will eat fish usually at least once a month to get my protein in.

Today I had a terrible episode where I mistakenly ate someone elses to-go chinese which was pork (aka PIGS THAT ARE SMARTER THAN DOGS) instead of my chicken. Needlesstosay, it has been over two years since my last pork digestion and.................it's not going well.

It's difficult for me to place when exactly I became so damn busy. It seems to me at least a year ago, maybe two - I had a TV lineup for every night of the week. I stayed up late talking to friends online. I decorated my myspace on a weekly basis. I took new sass pictures of myself to show the world. Yes, I was one freaking carefree individual.

I'm just not sure what happened, where it happened but I would really like to turn back the hands of time....

My responsibilities, in no particular order:

Mother
Wife
Friend
Daughter
Sister I really should be a better a sister...
Perfect Trainer (That's my job, by the way...yes I talk for a living)
Healthy Woman
Student

Just for kicks, lets go through that list again and determine the approximate hours needed to make each a successful role in my life. We'll talk hours per week. Total hours per week is 168.

Mother: While realizing I am indeed a mother ALL the time, I will assume that during daycare and sleeping hours - my direct active responsibilities are minimal. So...74 hours a week. SAD! God, that's sad. Makes me want to quit work to stay home with my children. Moving on.
Wife: Before work I'm worthless in this category and I will be the first to say without my husband I would never make it out of the door every morning. So after work and weekends totals......77 hours/week...because we can stay up late.
Friend: When life is perfect - I try and spend at least 5 hours a week talking (on the phone even) or being with friends.
Daughter: My Mom is designated at least an hour a day of talking...we're close...7 hours. We usually see eachother on the weekend at some point so average is closer to 13 hours.
Sister I really should be a better a sister...
Perfect Trainer (That's my job, by the way...yes I talk for a living): 45 hours a week
Healthy Woman: My goal is to always work out 4 times a week for a minimum of 5 hours total.
Student: With two classes you should allow for three hours of homework per week, per class PLUS actual class time...so...8 hours.

SO! Based on this, I have 168 hours per week to complete 293 hours of responsibility. You know what that means? You cannot possibly be 100% at everything. It's IMpossible, if you will.

Here is how I make sure that everyone gets at least a little somethin from me.

Mother: I try and pick up my kids from daycare at least twice a week so we have Mommy/Baby time (is what we call it) to play and dance before business starts when Daddy gets home (dinner, bath, bedtime, etc.) I also have them all day Sat to myself where I try and find something fun to do together every weekend. Same with Sunday.

Wife: I suck at this. I need to get better. I realize as I write this that I too quickly assume that I can be a good wife later. But I will say that I try and cuddle with my husband at least once a day. I also try and send funny cute text messages throughout the day so he knows I think about his fineeee ass.

Friend: I get most of my friend time through work out time because I rock the buddy system at the gym. My girl Sarah and I are fitness class junkies and I get to count that as friend time. Besides physical fitness, I try and call a friend to catch up every couple days and on great weeks, I actually go out on the weekends. I know, it's exciting.

Daughter: Like I said, I call my Mom (or she calls me and demands to know what's wrong) and usually twice a month we hang out and do something with the kids. Everyone knows that once you have kids you are definitely playing second string to those little shorties in your parent's eyes. That's okay with me.

Sister: I suck at this. I need to do better at this.

Perfect Trainer: I have designated work hours, like most people. This takes no extra effort for prioritization on my behalf. I just go to work, and kick ass.

Healthy Woman: I try to minimally go 1 hr of zumba, 1 hr of pilates and do 1 hr of running/lifting. The zumba and pilates are scheduled for tues/thurs the running I just try and fit in wherever I can.

Student: Ah, this was tough. Thank God it's summer right now. This involved constant thought and focus so that I could remember tests, study and complete homework totally on my own. Which was hard even the first time I tried college. I wish I could say I was way better, but not yet. Stupid math class that I will never talk about again................

My "normal" day involves waking up at 6:30AM to get ready for work. This is where my fabulous husband comes in...he will usually make me breakfast and lunch for the day while I get ready. I try to spend at least 15 minutes sitting and talking to my kids in the morning and will usually be out the door by 8AM.

I get off work around 5:45PM, pick up the kids and hang out/dance/be silly until around 7:00PM when David gets home. On gym nights, David feeds the kids and puts them to bed. On non-gym nights we fight this battle together.

1/2 the time I am so exhausted I am in bed by 9pm (last night it was 8:30p, sheesh...). The other half of the time I try really hard to stay up and talk to my husband.

Just look at that schedule and try and imagine what I do when school is in session. Outrageous.

Writing all this out actually made me exhausted. I'm off work now and going to go pick up my kids. Tonight is Zumbaaaa so you can imagine my night exactly. Lucky you.

So, that trip was two weekends ago and with my life that is like 17 light years away by now. I will say that it was a great weekend. There was little to no catastrophe which was a pleasant surprise. I kind of thought that catastrophe came with the territory of taking two toddlers on a weekend vacation that included disneyland. I thought little over-whelmed, over-tired, over-sugared children would surely break down but my babies were certainly soldiers.

I did learn that my son suffers from carsickness. And that flan is apparantly not tolerated his by dairy-sensitive body. I also learned that dramamine knocks that boy out cold [thus avoiding a 14th+ incident of vomitting. Yes, you heard me correctly. He vomitted a total of 13 times over the weekend]. This was his assumed position for the 6 hours home from Cali.

Looks like paradise if you consider my assumed position....stuck between a carseat and a 4 year old that was stir-crazy and refused to sleep.

You'll notice that Elyse is wide awake. She started to get a little green on the way up, and refused to nap so we thought a little dose of dramamine might do her some good as well.......

Does she look tired to you? Even a little bit? Yeah, no. She wasn't.

So that was my trip! I'm working on a post to cover recent events...stay tuned.

Where kids discover they want to be pirates...

Where cool hats are sold...[and where Daddy takes you on all the spinny rides]

Where little 4 year old girls meet their heroes...

Where Elyse rode every ride with her Grandma...

Where Andy was stuck to his Mama like glue...

Where kids get their new favorite toys...

Details to come!