The Fruits of Cabin Fever

I'm not sure what has gotten into me. It's partially the fact that my mom is here, so I can get more done. It's partially that Chuck got a job, so I feel like we have a bit of breathing room. It's partially that we've all been cooped up inside because Minnesota Winter has set in.

I have gone crazy at the gym. My friend keeps signing up for races, and the competitive part of me really envies that. My body is worn from playing so many years of basketball and soccer, so I can't really run on pavement anymore for any decent distance. When she signed up for the Twin City Ten Mile back in October, I vowed I was going to do 10 on the elliptical too. Not the same thing as carrying your own weight on the streets of Minneapolis, I know, but it was a goal. I began working out at the gym in late August and was tired after 20 minutes on the elliptical. Five weeks later I got up to an hour and a half and reached my goal.

But back to this weekend - the same friend signed up for a 5k on Thanksgiving too so that day I wanted to push myself. I ran 6 miles. Yesterday I biked another 6 and lifted, and today I ran about 3.5 and played basketball. Extra babysitter = longer workouts = happier Jamie.

I also went ballistic on the house. I thought I just wanted to get a new toilet seat. I did that, installed it, and cleaned the bathroom. Then I washed my hands and got annoyed that the sink wasn't draining properly, so I removed the pipes under the sink and cleaned them out. (Sometimes I think I'm a plumber at heart. I actually fixed the hotel toilet on one of my college visits with my mom.)

My big plan this weekend, though, was to clean the big room in the basement and make a playroom for the boys. Eventually we'll refinish the entire basement and make it look purdy, but for now we just needed to clean it. And remove the weird, huge, Timberlodge-style bar glued to the floor down there. That thing has bugged me since we moved in.

It's gone now, thanks to Chuck. Jack helped me sort through toys - throwing broken ones away, keeping ones he wanted, and donating ones that we don't need anymore. The ratio of kept vs donated is not quite what I was hoping for, but it was a start. Jack was SO pleased to be helping. We have a lot more work to do down there but pretty soon our kids and all the neighborhood kids can be playing ping-pong or pool down there, having dance parties and watching movies. And the adults can be sitting upstairs watching football and drinking beer. My plan is coming together....

The Thankful List

Things I'm Thankful For (the Obvious and the Not-So-Obvious):

1. Family and Friends - this one is too big to summarize so I'll just say "Thank you and I love you" and leave it there.
2. Best Buy - for seeing the smart, hard-working person that is my husband and giving him a chance. And for being closer to home than my work, thus giving me rightful ownership over the Hybrid for awhile longer.
3. The new Sonic Care toothbrush Chuck bought me - it replaces the other one I had, which forced me to press the button every 3 seconds for it to function.
4. All the Einstein bagels and cream cheese in my fridge. Also the Straub's chicken salad my mom brought me from St. Louis.
5. My new hair color - I let Nicki loose on it and I love it!
6. The Lowe's gift card - it will let us buy a new toilet seat. I've wanted this for months now.
7. Coffee - for keeping me from being a raging lunatic every morning.
8. My awesome coworkers - for keeping me laughing through the stress.
9. Netflix - for letting Chuck and me watch every episode of Lost in this last year, and for making sick days with the kids so much more tolerable.
10. The Wiggles - for making Ryker SO happy.
11. Paper and markers and googly eyes - for making Jackson SO happy.
12. Dr. Tom - for helping me accomplish so much on the anxiety-front this year.
13. The gym - for helping keep me mentally and physically healthy.
14. Nova - for all the useless factoids I can now spew forth on unsuspecting friends and family.
15. My iPod and Pandora - for keeping the music alive no matter where I am, and for teaching my kids to appreciate it as well.

Ryker-isms

Good Lord that boy talks a lot now. I'll try to document his new pronunciations as best I can.

• I served him hot cocoa for the first time today. He referred to it for the next several hours as his "coffee."
• His favorite songs are "Cankle" (Twinkle Twinkle Little Star), "Hah-tay-toe" (Hot Potato), and our personal favorite, "Giggle Balls" (Jingle Bells). Favorite artists are "Boobay" (Michael Buble) and "Bee-alls" (the Beatles).
• He "yuvs" (loves) the "Wig-uhls" (Wiggles) and particularly "yikes" (likes) the "cock-uh-puhls" (octopus).
• He'll say most everyone's names now, but the cutest right now might be "Cuh-yen" (Cullen).
• Favorite toys are "cockuh ba-yul" (soccer ball), "tains" (trains), and "sub-all" (shovel).
• Winter accessories include "mitts" (mittens) and a "cack-et" (jacket).
• When movies are starting they are "coming" and then they are either "o-buh" (over) or "bow-ken" (broken).
• He's not potty-trained yet, but he'll tell us when he's "messy" or "stinky" most of the time. Sometimes he lies and says "I fi-yun" when he's clearly not.

Anyway, we're having fun deciphering what he's saying. We have to ask Jack to translate at times, and he always comes through.

The iPhone Will Be the Death of My Parentdom

My two year old knows how to scroll through pictures, close out of Facebook and get into Talking Carl, close out of Talking Carl and get into Doodle Buddy, and shake the phone to make the screen clear.

As if that's not bad enough, I find myself having the following conversations:

Jack: "What are you playing?"

Momma: "It's called Angry Birds."

J: "What are you doing?"
M: "Ummm, well, I'm loading birds into this slingshot."

J: "And then what?"

M: "Well, I launch them at those sculptures over there."
J: "What are you trying to do?"

M: "Ummm...blow up those piggies?"

Lemons Into Lemonade

I've done this before on this blog - turning my frown upside down and whatnot - but it is a nice little exercise when I'm feeling frustrated. I'm very, very lucky, and it never hurts to remind myself of that so I don't ever take it for granted.

Here goes.

Chuck still doesn't have a job. He got turned down for two promising ones this week. But he still has 5 that he's in the running for. Five job possibilities. Hundreds of people have applied for each of those positions, but Chuck was one of the handful of resumes each of those lovely, smart, wonderful hiring managers plucked out of the pile to interview.

Jack got sick again last night. Poor guy. I brought him home with Ryker, missing what we were supposed to be doing. Our foiled Friday night plans? Serving dinner at a homeless shelter. We are operating on one non-profit salary right now, and have been for five months, but we still have enough money to make food for other people to eat - people going through amazingly rough times right now who are so grateful for each and every meal.

Chuck went over to help out while I drove one of our two cars to our beautiful home. We went inside, ate dinner, got into comfy pajamas, read some of the multitude of books we own, gave Jack some medicine that we're lucky enough to have stock-piled, and I tucked them into their warm beds with their stuffed animals and blankets. I took out my brand new MacBook, cracked a beer (which we are also lucky enough to have stock-piled) and got to chat with a few friends.

During the night, Jack got sick all over his bed. We have more than one set of sheets, more than one blanket, more than one pillow, so I was able to get him back asleep - comfy and cozy - in no time.

The snow began to fall through the night. It is beautiful, and we're lucky enough to have an attached garage so we don't even have to step into the snow when we leave the house. Jack still feels awful, and wants to do nothing more than lay around dozing in and out of sleep. We have enough movies to keep him occupied when he IS conscious.

The snowstorm knocked out our power mid-afternoon. It came back fairly quickly, but even if it had stayed off, we have plenty of food in our pantry, plenty of candles in our house, an abundance of flashlights, and an awesome fireplace with wood that's already chopped. We would have been all set.

Chuck went out to clear the driveway with the snowblower that we are lucky enough to own. It was broken. But we have computers that helped Chuck diagnose the problem, which was a cracked something-or-other bolt. I'm lucky enough to have a smart, handy husband who happens to have a large assortment strange tools and other things, and he was lucky enough to have the exact bolt that broke. So he replaced it, and he's off and running down the driveway with the newly restored snowblower.

So really, life's good. Very very good. Jack will get better, Chuck will get a job, the snow will melt (by April), and life will continue to show me that things aren't nearly as bad as my Twitter feed might imply.

Lists About Stress

A List: Signs That You Are Too Stressed At Work

1. Your coworkers make frowny faces at you all day.
2. You burst into tears at work.
3. Other coworkers burst into tears upon seeing you burst into tears.
4. You ponder taking up smoking for the built-in breaks.
5. You are offered immunity boosting supplements because people don't know what else to do with you.
6. Three different people, in separate instances, order you to drink beer.
7. Your laugh has turned maniacal.
8. Your regular response to "did you get that email?" is "maybe."
9. You walk so fast that your shorter coworkers have to jog to keep up with you in your walking meetings.
10. After work you fall asleep in your bath.

A List: Things That Calm Me Down

1. The afore-mentioned bath.
2. The post-bath nap.
3. My Hoodie Footie Snuggle Suit.
4. Sitting in the back of the van in the garage watching the thunderstorm with Jack.
5. Dinner with the family.
6. Watching Ryker bliss out watching the Wiggles.
7. Being presented with 3 new art pieces by Jack (one of which is a giant, fat dog that he labeled "Mom," but I'll take it).
8. Hard cider.
9. Chuck having 800 interviews this week.
10. Blogging it out.

My Musings...Jack's Musings...

Okay, you had to endure a post without a single quote from the kids, so I'll balance it out.

One of my favorite things is to just sit and let Jack ramble. It's hilarious. He will just keep going and going and move from subject to subject with little or no transitions. I have no idea where he gets that from. Have I told you about my Snuggle Suit? I had the funniest conversation today. Not about the Snuggle Suit. What was I talking about?

Anyway, last night I let him go for a spell. He began by talking about the almost-life-size-construction-paper-boy that he made at school.

"Momma, Miss Christy let me bring home that boy so I hung it on my wall. (That was fairly obvious because we were sitting on his couch staring at said-boy taped halfway up his wall.) I'm gonna make a road for him to walk on. And maybe I will cut his legs off. Maybe I'll cut his legs off and then put them back on - OH! - I KNOW! - I will cut his legs off and then use a screw - I found my toy screws bee-smorning. I can use a screw to put his legs back on so they can go back and forth and look like he's walking. And maybe I'll cut his arms off too so they do the same thing. I might do that tomorrow morning. I might. Maybe. I cut that other thing down. See it? I taped it up on the wall over there. And I found that other piece of paper in my cwoset. See it? I taped it up too when I found it bee-smorning in my cwoset. It is the weekend tomorrow?"

The Sound of...

You're missing my musings about the gym, aren't you? I can tell.

I was there today. I've been sick for awhile, so my attendance has been spotty the last two weeks. But tonight I ran and it felt good. I went to sit in the sauna for a bit afterwards. I was sitting in there, and another woman was in there, and it struck me that we both hadn't moved a muscle and were just staring off into space. And I thought that was really fascinating, because there aren't many places where you just sit motionless and silent. You are trapped in a tiny room and there is no entertainment. And you aren't supposed to talk.

I love the silence and the time to reflect. Most days I don't have any quiet time. None. I wake up and am with the kids and Chuck...talk to my mom on the way to work...people in and out of my office all day, meetings, running around the museum...talk to friends or family on the way home from work...at home with the kids and Chuck...bed. I choose to fill my days with people and conversations. I love it. But I do like a bit of quiet time.

So I'm sitting in the sauna loving the quiet time. And in walks another woman. She has on all of her workout clothes still, which has nothing to do with my story, I just don't understand how people can do that. I mean, it's so friggin' hot in there. How can you sit with yoga pants and a shirt and socks and shoes? Ick. I am all for the swimsuit. She also (relevant to the story) has an iPod. As she opens the door, I can hear sound coming from the headphones. She sits down and I'm already annoyed because she is trampling on my sound-free zone. But then I hear the music.

"You can't hear it...

It's electric!"

You've got to be kidding me.

"You gotta know it...

It's electric!

Boogie, woogie woogie!"

Now, I can do the Electric Slide with the best of them. I can bust out two different versions, even, depending on the people I'm dancing with. But I DO NOT want to hear that song in the sauna. I had to stop myself from laughing out loud. She didn't even turn it down.

"And I'll teach you, teach you, teach you

I'll teach you the elec-tric sliiiiii-de."

No you won't. I had to leave.

I'm going to write a book of etiquette at the gym.