I am now higher than where I started … enough said.

I have wasted an ENTIRE DAY trying to have an argument with one of my clients while having an email account that is working sporadically at best!!  Yes, calling this woman would be my best bet, but at this moment I simply cannot call her because if I start screaming at her stupidity and lack of respect … I might not stop and that would really freak out the kids!!

I am tired of people who assume they can do my job better than I can when they have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what it is I do.  “Just hire someone to take care of it” … yeah, I would love to do just that … but the BUDGET doesn’t allow me to do that!  I am a property manager for a very small property that has extremely ridiculous insurance rates because we are so close to the beach, so my owners pay a lot of money annually, but they only get limited services because 3/4 of their payments go toward the insurance payment.  Husbands usually come to our meetings so they “get it” … it is their wives who don’t come to the meetings and think they have all of the answers and don’t understand why I don’t just adopt their solutions because they are so smart and they KNOW all the answers.

AND THEN … they tell me that I obviously don’t have a “passion” for running this property because I actually have the nerve to tell them “NO” to some ridiculous request.  OHHHHHH, I am not a happy camper right now.

OK, vent over…

Pool day, pool day … dear old cold and freezing pool day!

I am completely avoiding the scale this morning, I am scared, I have no good excuses for this past week … after such a great start with my challenge I have completely failed.  I love eating and I love my family that loves eating.  So, I will get on the scale a bit later in the day!

our daughter came to me this afternoon and asked me to look at the “bump” on her head.  YUP, it was a TICK – OMG, OMG, OMG, OMG!!!!!!!!!!!  I don’t like ticks, I don’t do ticks, I have not had to get a tick off of my kids in 11 years … and no, I did not handle it well.

AND, I think I scared the poor child half to death!  I was working on removing it when I felt her getting hotter and hotter, she started to get limp and POOF, she passed out!  Not once, but TWICE … and the second time I had a really hard time getting her to come around!  Now then, after having a baby who had seizures and then went unconscious, I actually handled the passing out fairly well until I couldn’t get her to rouse.  Sure enough, she finally came around … fortunately before I called 911 … but MAN, she was green and white and limp and scared the be-jeezus out of me.

AND, I STILL HAD TO GET THAT DRATTED TICK OUT OF HER HEAD!!  It hadn’t started getting blood yet, but it was really embedded!  I ended up putting a drop of dishsoap on it and it backed right back out …

and I burned it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When Hubbie and I were married, I had a 2 year old niece and an infant niece who belonged to the brother and sister-in-law who have become my absolute favorite people in the whole wide world.  I would even consider moving to NJ just so that we could live closer to them.  We all have just SOOOO much fun together, we laugh, we drink, we eat and we just sit and chat for hours and hours on end. 

That 2 year old niece GRADUATED FROM HIGH SCHOOL last week and we spent the weekend celebrating with her, her friends and some of the family.  We had such a great time – loved catching up with everyone, but mostly just had a great great weekend.  My sister-in-law and I actually had tears in our eyes when we left because it is just that hard to say goodbye!  She really touched my heart when she looked at me and said “you are the sister I never had, thank you for being part of my family”!!  The feeling is absolutely mutual … I just thought I was the only one who felt that way!

CONGRATS to my niece – I am so proud of you and the amazing woman you are becoming.  I envy you the journey you are about to have, remember to always hold fun in one hand and love in the other.

no floating balloons today … so sorry to my team-mates.  After my 3 pound loss last week…  

I am UP ONE today.  Bummer, bummer, bummer.

But, I won’t beat myself up … I won’t moan and complain … I will just keep at my improved habits and GET OUT OF THE HOUSE MORE!!!  I have been home by myself all week and really focusing on house-cleaning.  Scrubbing walls and baseboards and the really intense stuff!  Everytime my mind starts wandering and I start looking for a break, the easiest place to “escape” is to the pantry searching for something to eat.  Am I really hungry, nope, just bored, and eating allows me to stop cleaning for a while, pick up a magazine and stop for a few minutes.  I just realized this yesterday … so I should be ok for the rest of the week.

The other problem … since the kids are away, we are going to our favorite restaurants for our favorite meals … and guess what, I don’t love low-calorie, low fat food just because it is good for me.  Fortunately we are good friends with most of the chefs, so it is easy for me to ask them to downsize my portions … and that has been a huge step in the right direction, BUT the decadant desserts don’t help.

All in all, I guess I should be happy I only gained 1 and not 15 … but I do feel bad about letting down my teammates.  Sorry guys, I will try to post a balloon next week!  How did you do this week – any suggestions for a carb-lovin, food-obsessed Mom???

This might be one of my favorite weeks of the year!  School ended on Friday, the weekend was spent HAVING FUN … no homework, housework, worries about school this week!  We spent ALL DAY (well 10 – 6 all day) at the local water park on Saturday in spite of so-so weather, made fabulous ribs for dinner last night – LOW & SLOW was my hubbie’s motto all afternoon, a few episodes of Food Network’s Food Challange with the kids and everyone tucked in snug as bugs by 9:30.  Comfy, cozy … just perfect.

AND TODAY?????  All three kids just left me here all by myself while they went on vacation with my parents and I won’t see them until FRIDAY!!!  I am the happiest of happy campers right now.  While I will miss them, I have a laundry list of awesome stuff that I am going to do by myself every afternoon.  Why only the afternoons?  Because I am going to house clean every morning.

House clean????  Yup, and I am really looking forward to it … see I haven’t been able to scrub walls, pull furniture to the center of the rooms, vacuum EVERYTHING, and toss clutter since before last June and it is just killing me!!  I am not a clean-freak by any stretch of the imagination, but we have way way way too much clutter that has accumulated over the last year and there is simply no room for anything else.  So, with no kids here to try and hoard stuff, I am cleaning, making everything smell fresh as daisies and turning my radios up really really loud.

Now, if you want to come and join me, help yourselves … there will be some dancing going on!!

This was the first day of school …

TODAY IS THE LAST!!!!! 

Congratulations to my three little scholars … can’t wait for a fabulous summer!!

Yesterday was a weird one … emotionally, spiritually, physically.  I had no idea what to expect, I didn’t know how it was going to go – would it be a happy day, a sad day?!?

First of all, we named June 10th “Stroke of Luck Day” … the kids didn’t like the name S-day, so we spent breakfast putting our brains together and figuring out a name for the day.  So, as the 6 year old says “we can tell OUR kids that we are celebrating because Mommy was LUCKY on June 10th 2008 to have a stroke”. 

I had all kinds of plans to celebrate yesterday, but hubbie ended up having to go to a conference and left the house at 5:30, the kids had a full day of school and swim practice and I ended up going to a funeral of a lovely mother of 2 who died of complications from Cystic Fibrosis.  I really struggled with the idea of going to the funeral, I just didn’t know that emotionally I could handle it, but in the end, I couldn’t NOT go … and I am so glad that I did.

Sitting at her service, with more than 500 people in the church, I received such a vivid reminder that God could have taken me last year and my family would have spent the day remembering that June 10th was the day that Mom had a stroke and now she is gone.  I really needed that reminder, especially right now.  I have stopped being grateful lately, and have been harboring a lot of resentment about the little things that I have not yet overcome.  More importantly I have not overcome them not because of illness, but because I am still using having a stroke as an excuse.  I have become a bit of a hermit, I won’t take on any projects because I am scared of becoming overwhelmed and stressed.  I am not working out anymore, I am finally getting back to walking on a daily basis … but I really want to do more, be more, be a better example for the kids.

I am not positive how to make the changes that I want to make, but the first place to start is to get outside of my own head.  As my husband says to the kids … IT IS NOT ALL ABOUT ME!!!  I kind of stopped focusing on others and helping others in the last year while I healed, but I finally know focusing on myself is not helping my outlook nor is it making me the person I want to be.

SO, all that said, Happy Lucky Stroke Day to me … and it looks like the First Anniversary might just be the luckiest day of all. 

Kelly, we will all miss you and we will all be there for the kids … you can count on us!!!