Country Life Gave Me Insanity and a Fat Ass

When I first moved up north, I weighed 140 pounds. It was the lowest I'd gone since my daughter was born. Before her, I'd weighed in at 115 - 120. Being 5'2", that was a good weight for me.

After I moved up north to Almost Freakin' Canada, the weight gain began. Then of course I got pregnant with my son and watched the scale creep ever higher. Since he was born and I lost the initial burst of baby weight, I have weighed in at a shocking 167 pounds. This puts me on the line of being "obese". Ugh.

So this year now that I am in the city again, I have decided it is time to ditch all things unhealthy. Goodbye bad marriage. Goodbye bad fat. My mission is to lose 30 pounds by the end of 2010.

I started this a couple of weeks ago. Just minor changes. Less ice cream, watch those portion sizes, cut out soda. I dropped my 1% milk for skim. Instead of skipping breakfast I'm eating a cup of Kashi Go Lean Crunch for breakfast.

I also added a weekly trip to the skating rink to my routine. 3 hours of skating. Although this past week I showed up a bit late and left early after a fall. My total skate time was 90 minutes, but I burned a whopping 700+ calories in that time!

For my efforts, I have been rewarded with seeing my scale go down by 5 pounds. :) I'll update at random how I am doing with this adventure.

My Husband's Nuts...

So the night before last, I had to do some shopping. I packed my kids up in my minivan and off we went.

First stop, Super One Foods. The mission? Mixed nuts.

Why is my husband so nuts about his nuts? He likes unsalted mixed nuts. However, most mixed nut blends on the market contain peanuts- which he doesn't like. The ones that have no peanuts come in small containers. He wants a BIG container. He also isn't a real fan of almonds and almost all nut blends have almonds. **SIGH**

So I finally came up with a solution that was practical. I bought two large containers of cashews, two bags of walnuts, two bags of hazelnuts, two bags of pecans and two bags of brazil nuts and mixed them all up in a giant bowl.

I also learned that if you tell a grocery store employee that your husband is "weird about his nuts" you then get to watch that employee turn purple trying not to bust out laughing.

Next up, Menard's. Our quest was a new door knob for my bedroom, a key for D to get in the house and a part for our handheld shower head. I also scored some info for my landlord, who will be super thrilled to know he can get the faucet in the kitchen fixed FREE! (It drips.) As an extra added bonus, I scooped up two gifts for a dear friend. I think she'll be thrilled. Amazing what you can buy at a hardware store!

As we were checking out, I was gathering up our purchases and getting my little son bundled up to go back out in the cold. As we were about to walk out the door, an elderly man ran up to me and handed me my purse. I'd left it at the checkout. D said, "Wow, Mom! That man was really nice! Some people would have stolen it."

For some reason it made me sad that she said that. I remember when she was little and she thought everyone in the world was her friend. Now she's older and has learned that there are bad people out there. I am watching my daughter slowly lose her innocence and naivety and it actually breaks my heart. Kids don't stay little forever, I'm afraid.

But the great thing about age 9 is that she was right back to being a sweet kid again, trying to con me into buying her candy. Gotta love her.

Oh, and Billy loves his mixed nuts. Apparently, the ability to purchase bags of nuts and blend them into a giant bowl is enough to qualify me for "Best Wife EVER!". Who knew?

The Hairy Scary Talk

My daughter, D, is 9 years old. She's pretty darned intelligent and mature for her age, which I think is pretty darned awesome. Nothing escapes her, except my repeated requests to put her laundry away.

So while I was making dinner, my daughter threw this question at me from out of nowhere - "Mom, how old were you when you got your period?" There was a moment of shock as she just randomly jumped from learning the great delights of classic Sawyer Brown tunes to female biology like a train jumping a track.

So I answered her. I thought, "Okay, this is cool. She's finally curious about the whole puberty thing." And then the questions kept coming. Before I knew it, we had covered female menstrual cycles, puberty, sex, what males go through in puberty, erections, birth control and a little bit about STD's.

Really, I don't get why parents make such a big hairy deal about "The Talk". Is it really hard to tell your kids about normal human biology? Is it that hard to say the word "vagina"? GMAFB. Do you teach your kids to cross the street by calling cars "beep beeps"?

Is pubic hair really that hard to talk about? Really? It's just hair. Relax.

So yeah, I had the talk with my daughter and I feel good about it. I only hope that as she grows older that she still comes to me with her questions.

Her dad, my ex-husband, sounded like he was going to have a heart attack when I told him about our conversation. I jokingly said, "Just so she doesn't catch you off guard by asking you if you get erections... we had the good old sex talk." I could almost hear the blood drain from his face. He stuttered out, "I... I would be... really uncomfortable if she asked me that." Why? I responded, "It's a simple question. The answer is also simple. You just tell the truth. Yeah, you do, because you're a man and men get erections. And just leave it at that. You don't have to make a big issue of it. Just answer her honestly."

Hasty. Change. Of. Subject.

I could go into an in depth analysis here of how is mother is a major prude (seriously- have you ever had the torturous experience of hearing a 50+ woman refer to her genitalia as her FOOFER?) and how that has impacted him. I could go on and on about it. But really, it all ends the same way. Parents need to get over this big dumb fear of educating their kids about their bodies.

So yeah, just another day in the life of me.

My son, R, is also going through some shocking growth. He's just shy of 10 months old and for the first time actually held AND DRANK FROM a sippy cup. Normally he just likes to throw them and see how much distance he can get. Tonight *trumpets and dramatic music please* he actually HELD ONTO IT! AND DRANK!

Sometimes it's amazing to think of how fast life changes...

So great, now I'm a blogger...

What a funny word! BLOG. Blawwwwg. Blahhhhg. Doesn't it almost sound like a noise one would make while barfing?

Yeah, if you're reading this, I guess you could consider it my brain barf.

Anyway, I'm a city girl, who became a country girl and then dragged her country husband back to the city. I'm 29, I have 2 cute kids and a redneck husband.

If you think you might want to read more of my mental vomit, just come on back. I'm sure there will be plenty.