Now, this week I was on the elliptical four out of the five times I was at the gym.  So, come Saturday I felt like my body needed a bit of a break.  My thigh muscles were just begging for it.  I checked out the class schedule and saw that there was a yoga class.  Hmmm.  Yoga.  Stretching, calming, being one with your body.  So I took the yoga class.

Holy crap, it kicked my ass.

I have sore muscles where I forgot there were muscles.  I think I cramped up about four times during the class.  I’m going back to my beloved elliptical  machine today.  And I’m taking some Advil.

So be careful…yoga isn’t some pansy thing.  Will I try the yoga class again?  Meh, not any time soon.  Maybe after I lose the weight I want to lose I’ll try it again.

Maybe.

Literally.

Lemmie tell ya about it.  It all started the day after Thanksgiving.  After Chloe made three trips to the bathroom within about a half an hour, and then told me that it hurt when she peed, we headed off to the pediatrician.  Right away.  Because it was Friday.  And I learned my lesson about the emergency room a while ago.  Avoid it if you can.

The pediatrician prescribed her an antibiotic.  Then she asked a few questions about why she might have a uti.  Long story short, Chloe’s…um…plumbing has never really flowed freely.  To be blunt, both of my kids poop rabbit turds.  They’ve never complained about it, and they’ve never struggled.  That’s just how it’s been.  The doc suggested that I put Chloe on a mild laxative (mirolax) to get her moving.  I guess a bunch of back up could cause a uti.  (just a little aside here…it’s funny how much you talk about poop once you become a parent.  I mean, mostly when they’re in diapers and potty training.  I don’t talk about poop all that much any more.  But, to me, talking about poop is sort of like talking about any normal subject, like taxes).

So, after three days or so it all sort of kicked in.  Chloe’s a rookie at the whole ‘wiping until you’re clean’ thing, because one swift wipe normally worked with her.  So, I’ve been helping her wipe.  And that’s poop story number one.

Remember our cutie patootie dog, Rex? Well, I’m not sure what he may have gotten into…or if he caught a bug…but here’s how story number two went:  Tuesday night I went to sleep early.  Tuesday is Tony’s early night, so he was up with the dog, but I’m not quite sure what time he came to bed.  Tony set Rex all up in his crate with his girlfriend and a cushion so he would be more comfortable.  When I woke up at 6:30 in the morning, I headed into the bathroom to start getting ready.  I heard Rex crying downstairs.  He had pooped twice in his cage (and that’s not like him at all).   And no, this wasn’t an easy clean up kind of poop.  It was very similar to the mirolax-induced poop.  I tossed the dog outside and started cleaning poop.  Soft things (including a kitchen rug) into the washing machine, cleaning out the tray of his crate.  I realized that he needed cleaned also.  Got him in the sink, soaped him up and sprayed him down.  This was all before my coffee.  I make that coffee and realize that I missed some spots.  Mostly on Rex.  So, he ended up with a bubble bath.  I missed spots in the crate.  Ugh.  I still had to get everybody ready for school and me off to the gym.  I made it, but it really was a shitty morning.

What, you say?!?!?  There can’t possibly be another poop story in the same week!

Oh, but there is.

Story number three didn’t really involve me too much.  Because BOTH of the girls have the same sort of poop going on, I thought it might not be a bad idea to give Becca some of that mirolax, too.  Well, Thursday afternoon I got a call from the school nurse.  Seems Becca had a little accident in math class and had to change her pants and undies.  It wasn’t as terrible as it could have been, it was really just a small bit.  The nurse warned me that I needed to give my attention to a bag of clothes in Becca’s backpack as soon as she got home Becca told me that the kids are not allowed to ask to go to the restroom during math class (which I can understand…I can see ALL the kids who hate math having to use the restroom during math class).  Becca, always a stickler for the rules at school, tried to wait it out.  But just couldn’t.  She didn’t really make too big of a deal out of the incident.  I thought for sure she would be scarred for life.  But it seems she was pretty discrete about the whole thing.

So, I’m happy that this poopy week is just about over.  And just as an update for anybody who cares…I’m doing great with the non-smoking thing (a did have a small breakdown, but rebounded nicely the next morning) and I’ve still been going to the gym every day.

Now I’m just waiting for the weight to start coming off so I can show off my future rock hard abs  (sarcasm…did you hear the sarcasm?)

I’ve also been very good about going to the gym and exercising.  And even though I couldn’t go to the gym yesterday, I still exercised.  I did some disco abs thingie on Comcast OnDemand.  Chloe did it with me.  It was quite comical.

I don’t want to gain any weight because of the whole no smoking thing.  I know that if I stepped on a scale and saw that I GAINED five pounds, I would get my fat ass in the car and drive down to the convenience store for cigarettes.  Plain and simple.  So, I’ve also joined Weight Watchers online (just for three months…then I’m going to cancel.  In fact, ‘cancel Weight Watchers’ is already in my to-do list for February).  I didn’t realize how much CRAP (well, not crap in the literal sense.  But crappy food.) I shove in my mouth.  Especially after getting those two bags of Halloween candy for half off.  The Heath bars?  Long gone.  But I still have the Mounds.  I’m thinking I should just finish off the bag and delay Weight Watchers for a few days. 

Because my timing is always so perfect, it just so happens that Thanksgiving falls this week.  So, I’ll be eating a ton of food that day.  Oh well.  At least I don’t really have to cook anything.  I still have my sister in laws convinced that I can’t cook.  Which is just fine with me.  My assignment for Thanksgiving dinner?  Celery stuffed with cream cheese and peanut butter.  I almost got found out a couple of months ago, and my sister in law Anita found out that I make a mean ham.  I have since sworn her to secrecy.  Since she’s not actual Downey blood, I think I’ll be OK.  I’ll probably get found out right now…but hopefully they think that I’m lying right now and that I really can’t cook.

Kristina – you just roll with me here.  Don’t tell your aunts.  But that’s why you got stuck making pies. Because they know you can.

Happy Thanksgiving!

ANYWAY, that was the last time I smoked.  The next day I went to work…at the restaurant…you know, where there’s ALL THAT FOOD?!?!?!  I couldn’t stop eating.  I just didn’t know what to do with myself.  At 10:30 I had roast beef and mashed potatoes.  A couple of hours later I had some funnel cake fries (they really are super yummy).  An hour later…nachos with cheese and jalapenos.  It was crazy.

Thankfully, the gym that Tony and I decided to join opened the next morning.  So, I headed off to the gym, determined not to gain the weight that normally comes along with quitting smoking.  I’ve done pretty well with at least GOING to the gym.  And here’s the best story about that:

Thursday morning I decided to take a Zumba class.  I’ve always liked the dance-y stuff, and figured it would be fun.  Because it was the first day they were actually having classes at the gym, there were only two other women in the class with me.  I announced to everybody that I had just quit smoking, and that I hadn’t exercised since, maybe, high school. I asked that if I decided to just quit and lay down on the floor, would they politely just ignore me.

I hung in for the class pretty well.  It’s a 45 minute class, and around minute 35 I decided that I needed to be done.  I thanked the instructor (I really did enjoy the class) and told her I’d see her the following week.  Chloe and I headed out to Kohl’s for some shopping.

And then it hit me.

I thought I was going to have a stroke in the middle of Kohl’s.  Chloe and I sat in the shoe section for a while, and I told her that if mommy fell down onto the floor to just go and get somebody who worked here.  I figured that no, I probably wasn’t having a stroke.  But the fact that I had a Fiber One bar for breakfast and then proceeded to dance around like a horny club going 21 year old for a half an hour might have been the problem.  After I felt a little better (and ate a sucker to get through our shopping trip), Chloe and I headed to McDonalds for a Happy Meal and some grilled chicken wraps.

So, I haven’t died of exhaustion, stroke, over eating or nicotine withdrawal.  And I haven’t killed or injured anybody.  I don’t think I’ve even made anybody cry.  I’d dare to say that’s a pretty good first week of not smoking and diving into exercise, don’t ya think?

Anyway, back to the subject at hand.  Tonight (or yesterday, depending on how you look at it) I took the kids down to the Panhandle Trail, which is near my house.  It’s part of the whole rails to trails thing.  Chloe has recently started riding a bike with training wheels, so I packed up their bikes and helmets.  My original plan was to get some exercise in by walking, but that didn’t pan out (HA!  Panhandle train…pan out…I crack myself up).  They enjoyed it, but it didn’t last for all that long.  They DID really enjoy checking out the water, the fish, and the dragon flies.  Now, I know that I’ve recently told you about the zoo in my backyard.  I think I may entice another living thing to join our zoo.

Instead of channel surfing when I’m awake in the middle of the night, I check all my regular websites on my laptop.  Doing this sometimes often leads me off on little surfing tangents.  So, I started reading about hummingbirds.  I had no idea that they start migrating back to the United States in July.  My brother in law has had a feeder in his back yard for a while, and they’re really very amazing to watch.  So, I’m thinking let’s get a glass hummingbird feeder for the kids.  Actually, I’ll just say it’s for the kids, but it’s really for me.  Just like the bunnies are really mine.  You can buy food for the hummingbirds, but you can also just whip it up yourself.  It’s just a cup of sugar mixed with four cups of water.  Now, I’ll have to play around and see which works better.  But, since I cut all that sugar out of my diet, I have all this extra sugar that I’m not putting in my coffee and tea. 

Who knows…my next business adventure may be charging admission into my zoo.

I was about 10 minutes in (did some yoga and strength), and the telephone rang. Needless to say, I got a little distracted and didn’t quite finish. But I don’t feel completely bad. I’ve found that there are some really cheap Nintendo Wii games out there. I bought one with some family games…and I can’t remember the name of it off hand. But it has lawn darts, bocci ball, basketball and some other games. It was only about twenty bucks, and the games are easy enough for the little ones to play around with.

Unsupervised.

Which is fantastic. I think it was the best twenty bucks I’ve spent in a while. I can’t believe that I’m going to say type this, but I’m really glad we bought the system (and the board). I get double alone time. Well, sort of. I’m sort of alone when I’m using the Wii Fit. And when the kids are playing (again, unsupervised), I get some more time. I’ll just have to be nice to my spending cash and pace myself on picking up some new games.

As as for Fitty? I’ll see you tomorrow, ya bastard.

We headed to my sister-in-law’s house yesterday (I have 8 SIL’s!) for a small party for our 16 yr old nephew. It’s nice to have a big family – and the girls really enjoyed seeing their aunts and cousins. Life is definitely getting easier with these two girls. They play together nicely and are very independend. I actually got some nice adult conversation in last night – which is a rare thing for me! Even though I’m feeling the beginnings of a cold (sore throat and a general blech feeling), I still met with Fitty last night. At 11:15 p.m. no less. It was either clean up the tornado of toys or deal with Fitty. It was a pretty easy choice. Wii Fit age yesterday? 31 – I’ll take that. I DO have some sore calves, thighs and upper arms. But sore in a good way. I only wince when I try to walk up the stairs.

Tony and I are taking the girls to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History today. Chloe learned about dinosaurs in preschool last week, and Becca has been asking quite a lot of questions about mummies. And this is the first Sunday in a while without any football (except for that week between playoffs and the Super Bowl – and we went to Ikea and dinner that day). I was surprised how expensive it is, though! $15 for an adult and $11 for a child (although I think they are running a promo right now for half off kids through February 27th). I’ll fill you in on how everything goes. Speaking of the girls, I handed them a huge Oriental Trading catalog yesterday. They have spent at least an hour just looking at everything. Thanks for the catalog!

Well, NOW I must go deal with the toy tornado. And laundry. I’m determined to come home later today to a clean(-ish) house. Have a great day!!!

Seeing that I don’t want to go back to bartending, I guess Fitty is it. I actually love the Wii Fit. But it mocks me. It gets some arbitrary age that is my ‘Wii Fit’ age. It started at 41 (Well, actually it was 51, but that’s because I’m stupid). It has varied from a low of 26 to a high of 40 over the past 2 weeks. Really, that number shouldn’t even bother me at all. What I should be worried about is the weight. But dammit, I want that age to be low. Yesterday I ran (with Fitty). Not just the short fun run, but a longer one. I really need to quit smoking.

So, here I am. It’s Thursday morning. Both the kids are at school, and I have two wonderful hours to myself. And I’m going to hand over an hour to Fitty. Fitty, I see you more than I see my husband.

One last note…I am also trying to convince myself that Splenda tastes just like sugar (it doesn’t) and that Lowfat Half and Half is really good (it’s not). Damn you, metabolism!!!!