Ramblings of a Wayward Goddess

Winter has officially hit the south. What’s up with that? I’ve been trying my best to hibernate but it’s not workingout so well for me. For starters, I adopted a shelter dog. She’s an absolute doll and we love you to bits. But, she likes walks. It’s cold outside. Walking outside makes me cold. I’m not loving this arrangment.

But, she is such a good girl. I’ve been uses the techniques from The Dog Whsiperer, and I now have her walking on a loose leash, at my side after less than a week of working with her. Her name is Daisy and she is a boxer mix. I’m not sure what she is mixed with , but I suspect either pitt bull or American bulldog (please don’t go all crazy-you-have-a-pitt-bull-near-your-babies on me). When she was brought to the shelter her heart worm test came back postive, so she has been fighting that for the past 6 mths or so. Her last test came back negative, so she’s all healthy now, but we still have to keep on top of her medical care.

I didn’t even go to the shelter looking for a dog. I was there to volunteer and there she was and I fell in love. I’m so glad I brought her home. She has been just what I needed.

I’m not a winter weather kinda girl. I have grand delusions of going snow skiing one day, to which my husband laughs. He tells me that I woudl love to go to eth lodge and get all decked out in the outfit, maybe even get skis on my feet, but the minute I stepped outside, I’d be done. And he’s right. I’m much more of a sit by teh fire drinking hot coco kinda girl. I’m just not cut out for the cold.

To start off with I have Reynauld’s. My hands ache with cold. I have a pair of fingerless gloves that I keep in my desk becaise my hands just get so icy cold. Then it just snowballs (lol), once my hands start to hurt with cold, by whole body gets cold and starts to just fold in on itself. Before long I’m one achy shivering mess. I’ve been known to sit outside in the summer just to get warm becasue the inside AC was too cold for me.

The other strike against me is S.A.D. I just don’t want to get out of bed in winter. I usually hav eto force mysle fto do the things I enjoy, like karate. I usually enjoy it once I get there, it’s the getting there that’s the challenge.

That being said, this winter has spoiled me. It’s been so mild, it hasn’t even felt like winter at all. Monday it was 74 degress (F). In January!

By Tuesday we had a cold front come through. The tempurature Tuesday morning was 60, by afternoon it was 40 and dropping. Yesterday we had snow. Ok, it wasn’t really snow. Now even enough to call it snow (but enough to cancel school), (Not really, but they did). Today is only slightly warmer. I hate it. I just want to crawl in bed (and in fact did stay in bed most of yesterday) and stay under my electric blanket and not come out until Spring.

It seems silly to complain about it being cold when it IS January. I mean, it’s winter, it’s supposed to be cold. We all know that. But when you’ve had such warm weather, you get a little spoiled by it.

They are saying that wonter is here to stay and we can expect these temps through Feb. I hope they are wrong, but I’m prepareing myself to just hunker down and deal with it. After all, it’s almost Feb, and Feb is practically March and Mrach is practically Spring in NC.

My oldest son turned 12 on Thursday. We had his party yesterday. We went to a local batting cage and just ran around hitting balls for 3 hours. They had a blast. Then we brought three of the boys back to the house to spend the night. So, my small house had 6 kids, 5 of them boys, 4 of those boys in the 11/12 age group. We had some funk, lol.

Funny thing about boys vs girls. Three extra boys went smoother than 1 extra girl. When my daughter has one friend over, everything is SOOOO dramatic. The world is ending because MoOOOooom called then to dinner. They are just too cool to be under the same roof as a parent. These boys  were great. One comes into the living room and says to me “I hear you’re pretty good at Guitar Hero, wanna play me?” I ended up playing each of them for over an hour.  They loved that I would go in and play video games with them. Or that I made hot dogs, and for breakfast a big stack of waffles. It was like night and day.

Something else about boys that is different from girls is the smell. I know from having a 12 yr old boy that they get that funk, and it really doesn’t matter how much they shower (well it does I guess). My son takes 2 showers a day usually and still has a funk to him, it’s just the age. Now, multiply that by 4. It’s good that the weather has been so nice lately. I’ve already started opening windows to air out the house.

I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions. They are just a set up for failure. However, this year my husband and I were talking about weight. He has a lot to lose and it’s been a bone of contention between us. Not that I’m superficial and wont love him with the extra weight. It’s because of his health. He has sleep apnea and high cholesterol as well as back, knee and feet problems. He is a very physical guy, but he also has a company expense account and eats out every day.  So, in talking about it, I asked him how much he would like to loose and he said 40pounds. I would like to loose 20, at least (I wont even tell you what the scale said when I stepped on it). So, the two of us made a deal. It’s not a competition, it’s not a new year’s resolution, it’s just the 2 of us supporting and encouraging each other. We both want to loose 20 pounds by our anniversary at the end of Feb. That’s 20 pounds in 2 mths. It seems like a lot, but I’ve done it before. It will just take a lot of work. Since the weather is getting worse and I can’t get out on my bike like I want, I joined a gym for 3 mths. I am on week 2 of going and I go every day Mon-Fri. Mon/Weds/Fri is strength training on eth machines. Tues/Thurs is a step class for cardio, plus my karate class in the evenings.  I’m also getting a couple of Spinervals DVDs to work on my bike attached to a trainer so I can build my base for Spring training. The getting started is the hardest part, but once I get into a routine it will be just like getting out of bed in the morning.

I had a house full of kids waiting to open presents, an impending holiday disaster party to go to, and was on “baby watch”.

Well…..Christmas was pretty good. Everyone was happy. They didn’t get everything they wanted, but they loved everything they got. I was even spoiled a bit. I said over and over NO PRESENTS. My bike was enough Christmas present. Of course, my husband never listens to me. That’s why I normally don’t get anything, even when I ask, lol. This year I ended up with a really nice, big crock pot. Just the right size. I had one that was too small, and one that was way too big (but it wasn’t exactly a crock pot), this one is just perfect. He also got me a Foreman grill which I kinda laughed about, but have used almost non stop. I got some really nice, comfy PJs that I end up not wanting to get out of. My traditional calendar this year was Chinese artwork. It’s beautiful. The best though, was 2 awesome lenses for my camera.

We all ended up going to the Aunt’s party. My MIL was there, and she proceeded to ignore all of us, including the kids. Unfortunately, they are used to her so it didn’t phase them one bit. The 2 younger ones ended up staying the night at the aunt’s house because she had her grandkids from out of state, and they all wanted to spend time together. The Aunt and the MIL live on the same piece of property within sight distance on each other.

Christmas day we planned to go see a movie. My husband had gotten word that his mother would be spending the day a lone and felt bad for her so wanted her to go with us. I told him that was fine, I would stay at home and clean up a bit and told him to have a good time. He tried to talk me into going with, but I saw no point in making myself miserable. It didn’t matter much anyway because when he called, she claimed she had plans (we found out later, she didn’t leave the house). She told her male friend (they don’t seem to be romantic anymore) that she “got” to speak with the kids and how nice it was. Then she said that she also talked to my husband as well. However, when she relayed the story to my husband’s aunt,  when asked if she spoke with my husband, her response was “Of course not, you know he wont speak to me”. Some people thing she is mentally ill, but, this is a pattern of behavior that has gone on for some time. She always eventually gets her desired result. She will play the passive-aggressive role until she has the whole family in a tizzy over her. Oh, she’s also really mad that the kids spent the night with the AUnt. She told my husband aunt that she had better not ever watch the kids again because “They belong with thier grandmother, not you”

“Baby Watch 2006″ officially ended on Weds, Dec 27th.  Miss Riley Caelen was born. She is absolutly gorgeous! She has a head full of black hair to make Suri Cruise envious. She looks just like her daddy and is an absolute doll. I am so happy for them.

Life is starting to get back to normal. All the kids will be back in school on Monday.  We are going to start working with the Bo staff in a couple of weeks, and we might even have a new martial artist in the family as my youngest has decided to try  classes again.

2006 was a pretty crappy year….here’s to 2007