The Summer of Self Knowledge

Happy Saturday, friends!! I hope this blog finds you all doing well and for those of you who had kids start back to school this past week: Hallelujah!!! I started back to work and my kids start back this coming week. I am so glad to be back to work and off the couch. 

I spent a lot of time on that couch this summer and over the course of the 10 or so weeks I was off, I learned a few things about myself. Thought I would share.

1.Though I tell myself at the start of every summer that THIS is the summer I am going to work out and get the last couple pounds off, it's not going to happen. I have learned and accepted that being on my feet for 6-8 hours a day for 9 1/2 months warrants me laying on the couch for a couple weeks. And any weight I may gain (this summer it was 3 lbs) I will burn off the first week of work. And I did.

2. I have become a master at the art of what I like to call "conversation redirection". Having a child who is ADHD and Autistic has really honed this skill and he put me to task all summer. Question to parents out there: is it normal for 9 year old's to want a new toy EVERY SINGLE DAY??? Or is this an obsessive thing he has going on? And when he does get new things, it is never good enough, he always wants something else. Here is where I have become the master of redirection. He wants everything NOW and I have learned that if I tell him no local stores carry the item and it will take 7-10 days to ship, he drops wanting it. So if he asks you why local stores don't carry any toys......go along with it....please.

3.If I am going to ask someone for advice, I best be prepared to hear things I may not want to. This is a hard one to swallow but I am working on it.

4.Punching a punching bag is really good therapy. You can picture anyone on there and pound away.

5. I have some really wonderful friends. I mean, I knew this anyway, but was reminded quite often over the summer. My bestie, Beenie Weenie, gave me the best advice ever about relationships: In a marriage, though you are going thru the same things, you will both react differently. This really has made me look at how my hubby and I react to things, and there really is no wrong way to go thru a difficult time. And a shout out to Mighty Mouth for being there for me for the past 14 years. You are a keeper. And to my neighbors, nothing but love and summer nights on the porch. 

6. Sometimes, medication is the best way to go. After three years of trying to deal with youngest's ADHD thru diet and herbal medications, we have decided to try medication. So far it is going well and if it helps him be successful in school and friendships, then it is the right thing to do for us.

And lastly....

7. I have my hands full with my three kids, work and starting my new business. Most of the time I feel like none of these gets enough of my attention, but at the end of the day, I feel like I did my best. And I am thankful to have a husband that loves and supports me to a ridiculous degree. Again, I knew this but was reminded over the summer.

As far as the FitCat part of my life, I am running again on the weekends. I don't wear my watch, I don't time it and I go as far (or not) as I feel up to. Week days I am doing a program that my hubby put together that goes like this:
3-5 minutes on the elliptical, full speed
a few minutes on the punching bag
a few minutes high knees on the mini tramp with arms over my head
back to the punching bag
back to the elliptical and do another round.
Takes about 13-15 minutes and kicks my butt!!!

I manage to get over 10k steps in every day between work and after work activities, so all is good in that dept.

Are there things about yourself that you are surprised to learn? I think the best thing about life is learning new things. I am always asking people, sometimes strangers, questions. You would be surprised by what people know.

Have a great weekend. I hope to post more since I feel more in a groove with being back to work. 

Cat

No more laying down

Hi Friends!

Last time I posted, we were back from our vacation and I am happy to say we are back from a mini vacation!! We were fortunate for our whole family to be invited on a friend's trip to Kalahari Water park for an over night and then a day at Cedar Point on Sat. Kalahari was a lot of fun but no joke, I think it was SNOWING at Cedar Point. The wind was blowing so hard and the rain was freezing, the kids waited in the down pour to ride one ride and then we went back to Kalahari for the afternoon. Despite that, we had a great time and are grateful for the chance to go.

There have been some heavy things going on in my life but instead of laying down and dwelling on them, I am choosing to lift myself up and enjoy the good, silly, fun things. Here are a few:

My new business, Great Gatherings, LLC is up and running. For those of you who don't know, I provide assistance when you are having a cookout, graduation party, baby shower, etc. I can help you plan your event and I help set up, maintain food and beverage service, and clean up. It is a great way for you to enjoy the event you are hosting. I am doing Holiday's too. We could all use a stress free Holiday in our lives.

Enough tooting my own horn.

I entered a contest on Diet Bet a month ago. You put in $25 and have 4 weeks to lose 5 or 10% (this is how much I am in the contest, I don't even know the rules!) of your weight and whoever does this and exceeds their goal, wins the pot. I thought this would be good motivation for the miser in me (I hate throwing away $25!) but alas, I do not think I will be the Biggest Loser or the Diet Bet Winner tomorrow come weigh in time. The good news is, despite wearing nothing but elastic shorts all summer, my weight has remained the same. Roughly. Meh.

My only daughter turns 16 on Weds. I hope when I grow up I am like her at 16. She is the best person I know and I love her too much to put into words. If you know her, consider yourself fortunate. She is a true beauty.

I still fill in at the Assisted Living Facility. I truly enjoy my time there as they remind me of what is important. I start back to work in THREE weeks. Looking forward to it but need to get my butt in gear and find a week for child care for the boys. Hoping Daughter can do some of the days but she is so busy (again, BIG LOVE to her). It will all work out, it always does.

Here is my latest challenge that I will be posting on FB: In an effort to clean out my freezers and pantry, I am not going big food shopping for as long as I can. I am challenging myself to come up with all meals from what we have on hand. I want to get it all cleared out before I go  back to work so I can stock up, cook what I need and get things ready for another school year. Each day, I will post a pic on FB of what creative thing I made for a meal (or two) with what I have on hand. I may have to make a milk run but that would be it, until I can't make anything else.

I feel like I need something to focus on that takes my focus away from the not so pleasant stuff. I feel like this summer has been a big waste and a lot of that has been my attitude about everything. There were days when I wouldn't get out of bed till after 10am bcz I just didn't want to deal with life. Depressed much? Yep.

Something in me snapped this past weekend and I am not going to take life laying down anymore. I have a renewed, albeit exhausted spirit and I am going to give my best to all I do.

I will post this and then post a pic of our dinner. Have a great week!!

Cat

Vacation

The Webster definition of Vacation is:

A scheduled period during which activity is suspended

Webster has never been on vacation with my family.

Despite a rocky first day, our 5 days at Lake Norris, TN were really nice. We had the added joy of Daughter's bestie (who is moving soon. can't think about it or I will cry. again) with us and the boys loved to torture them endlessly.

I learned a few things on this trip that I want to share, to help you have a successful "vacation" this summer.

1. Less really is more when it comes to all things vacation. Pack your bag and then take half out. Pack your lake toys and then toss them all bcz the best time the kids had was the afternoon, into evening, when they did jumping off the dock contests. No floaties needed.

2. Go with people you can stand in close quarters. I was lucky to go with my folks and my brother and his wife and son. I don't think too much about this combination, but over drinks one night, my dad pointed out how lucky we are that our family gets along. Too many people we know are estranged from their family. I can't imagine not liking my family, they have gotten me thru so much.

3. Meal planning is key. Talk with the people you are traveling with and make sure the main meals are covered. Oh, and bring a griddle. Made lots of grilled cheese on it for lunch!!

4. Take lots of pictures and be sure to have them printed. I plan on doing an album for Daughter and her friend for her when she moves. Though her brother's bugged them endlessly, they will never forget how fun it was to push them off the dock.

This summer is going too fast, as usual, but I am happy we had a good vacation. Sets the tone for the summer. Hoping the rain lets up soon so we can go to the pool more. Ok, I don't really wish this, but if I can get to the library and get a good book, I may look forward to it more.

Lots of new things coming my way and I am excited to share them with you. I am back to eating a lot less processed food and actually scheduling my workouts on my calendar. Have lost 5 lbs in 5 days since I have been home from TN. 

Tomorrow is Middle child's championship baseball game. Please note, they were in 11th place out of 13 teams, so this is a BIG DEAL!! I am really excited for him. Rec league has been good for him. I work Sunday morning at the Assisted Living Facility and I am really looking forward to it. I miss them and can't wait to see them again. I am fortunate to be able to work when they need me.

I hope Summer is treating you all well. This can be a tough time of year with boredom  and the kids driving us nuts. I find myself in time out a lot. Seems to work.

One last shot of vacation, love everyone in this pic. Dad took it but I love him, too!!

Texting/Facetime and your kids

I was trying to think of a witty way to bring this up, but honestly, there isn't really anything funny about it and I am just going to put it out there:

If you have kids that text or use Facetime, please let them know you will be checking their texts and restricting Facetime.

We have always checked Daughters texts and made sure we know all her contacts. So far so good, have not had a problem yet.

My concern stems from texts that my Middle child is getting from girls and stories from friends about texts and/or Facetime incidents.

It's not even the content so much that concerns me, it is 1)the time he receives these texts and 2) how if he doesn't respond immediately, these girls get pissed.

It had gotten so bad that I sent an "all recipients" text to his address book clearly spelling out his rules with the cell phone. 

Want to know them? Here they are: 

His phone is turned off and handed to me at 10pm.

We check each and every text he sends and receives.

He cannot access links to anything, so don't even bother.

If I find anything inappropriate, the senders parents WILL be notified .

I don't think this is excessive and of course some of his lady friend recipients had some choice names for me but you know what? I don't give a crap. There is NO reason 11 year old girls need to be texting my son after midnight, then demanding to know why he isn't responding.

I wish these girls would realize that their daily happiness is not dependent on some boy, their worth is not based on how quickly a boy texts them back, and that they don't have to be so damn demanding to get a boy's attention.

Girls, that turns the boys off. 

I never would have thought having boys would be harder than having a girl, but man oh man, this is way harder than I would have thought.

The morale of my rant is this: Parents, please set clear rules on the phones/itouches and make sure you follow thru. They may be annoyed but we are the rule makers here, not them.

Cat

Garage Sales and a Successful Sunday

Hi friends! I hope you are all doing well and are finally enjoying some nice weather. Boy it seemed like winter was 6 months long. Glad to see the sun and have some warm temps.

Husband left early Sat morning (when I say early I mean like almost in the middle of the night!) for a business trip which leaves me with my angels for 6 whole days. Just me and the kids. The kids and me.

This causes me great stress. If you can't tell.

It's not being with the kids that stresses me out, it is trying to be in three different places with the kids that is causing some anxiety.

But I am happy to report that we had a great weekend with some very successful events.

After I dropped Middle child at his baseball game Sat morning at 8am (too early and too rainy for me!!), I hit a 

of a friend I have not seen in almost a year. We had a great time catching up and as I was getting in my car, I spied one of these for sale

It literally almost looks exactly like this. It is a circa 1980 digital keyboard with all kinds (I mean hundreds) of pre-programmed music and sounds and it reminded me of the organ my folks had growing up. I asked her how much it was and loaded it into my van.

Best. Purchase. Ever.

Daughter labeled all the keys and spent the afternoon teaching herself how to play some song (you can do this via internet if you didn't all ready know this). Middle and Youngest spent the afternoon today playing on it and that is the most time they  have spent in the same room without getting in trouble! I took it off the stand so they can plug it in anywhere and play. Love it and hope to teach myself how to play something.

Hey dad, do you still have those organ song books?? I would take them if you still do.

Since Husband is out of town, I feel like I have free reign on what I do and what the kids do. He is not a tyrant in any sense of the word but we have very different views of what we like to do on the weekends. And he would DIE if he knew the A/C is NOT ON and it is over 80 in here. But no one is complaining and I love it. I will turn it on tomorrow since it will be close to 90, but man it is nice having the windows open all the time.

Daughter had her best friend over last night and we made sushi rolls and spring rolls. So much fun and they were pretty good. If you do this at home, you do NOT need to get a bamboo mat to roll them, we used wax paper and they were fine.

And today I took the kids downtown to

This may not have been a great idea but I wanted to get them out of the house, made them turn off all electronics and just take in the city. The parking lot for the market is really small and Daughter was quick to point out that the parking lot was not made for mini vans bcz you are not supposed to take your kids there!! It is a bustling market with fish, cheese, meat, flowers, tea, pizza vendors. I loved it (been over two decades since I have been) and we managed to eat our way thru the market. Soft pretzels, mine was jalapeno and cheddar, yum! Kids had regular pretzels, ice cream, and youngest had a slice of pizza that was HUGE and he proclaimed as the best pizza ever. I tried to explain to them that this is how people used to and still do in other cultures buy their food. Busy markets with elbows flying and crying babies. Great fun.

The best part came as we were leaving and they all thanked me for taking them and that it was fun.

Who are these kids??

I went for a walk Sat that turned into a tun. Felt good till this morning, my feet were in pain! But with not working Sat's anymore, I want to get back into walking and running. Especially over the summer.

Hope you are winding down the school year the best you can and are gearing up for some summer fun. Thanks for reading and have a great day!!
Cat

Update Follow up

Hey friends!

How is everyone? Anyone else FINALLY enjoying a nice spring day like we are here in Central OH???

The sunshine has greatly improved my otherwise crappy mood.

So here is an update on what's been going on since last update in March:

Daughter went thru a couple weeks of Physical Therapy, did not fix the back pain. Did a MRI, did not reveal any fractures. She is now on a prescribed anti-inflammatory to help with the pain. If this works, we will go the rheumatoid route to see what is causing the inflammation. To say this is frustrating, scary and overwhelming for all of us, is a gross understatement. It is scary when the Doc (who totally reminds me of the doc Chris Parnell plays on SNL and 30 Rock.) tells you that at least the MRI didn't reveal a tumor or cancer.

No word on Youngest's Autism diagnosis. Seems his Psychologist works at her own pace.

Middle child's behavior is still frustrating the heck out of me. I know I have to accept who he is but who he is  is frustrating!!! I love him and I worry about him and though I really want to tell him to MAN UP most of the time, I just try to keep my mouth shut. We have standardize testing here this coming week and he is so anxious about it, so I am trying to reign in my angry mommy vibe. We have been loosing the grip on where he can ride his bike with his friends and we let them ride over to Dollar General today (for those who know where we are, it was a big deal for us to let him go past Tinapple park!!). He did fine and came home in one piece.

On the food front:

Out of desperation for new recipes, I paid $6 to join www.allrecipes.com menu planning option for 6 months. You can get all kinds of great recipes on this site, but becoming a high level member, you get the menu planning. You put recipes you like in your recipe box and then you can drag them to the day you want to make them and it also puts them in a printable shopping list. You can browse recipes but hundreds of categories (slow cooker, diabetic, low fat) (you can do this with the regular site as well) and then add them to your menu. So far I have made:
*7 layer meatless tortilla pie: in the oven now, will let you know the consensus

*Slow cooker pepper steak: really good

*Zesty Tilapia with mushrooms: really good

*Christmas brunch casserole: outstanding!!

*Easy Olive Martini chicken: good but a little salty

The best part of all of this is that the kids have eaten it ALL. Totally worth the money if I am only making one meal.

I also checked out a FANTASTIC cookbook from David Rocco called "Made in Italy". The next weeks meals will be all out of this book. It is Italian cooking and it's simplest and most delicious. I thank my friend for turning me onto it. I plan on buying several copies and giving it to friends. It is beautiful and wonderful, all in book form!!

After quite a bit of soul searching, discussions with the family, and sleep-less nights, I have decided to take a hiatus from my Sat morning job. I love the job, love the money but a couple things have helped me reach this decision:

When I signed Middle up for baseball, games were supposed to be on Sunday's, but they are on Sat mornings. Though I do not plan on staying thru all the games, I want the option to do so.

But here was the big kicker:

Locally, a mom was at the end stage of her cancer and she wanted to see her son graduate High School before she passed. The community rallied around them, had a graduation for her son early and even had his baseball Senior night early so she could go. The opposing team all brought her flowers (if you aren't crying yet, you are a robot). She passed away the week after he graduated.

Time with our young kids is short. I will not miss a ball game or anything else to make a couple bucks. I am taking some time off with the option to work some hours over the summer if I want. I am blessed to have a Boss who understand me. My last day is May 11. It was heartbreaking to have Youngest ask me every Sunday morning if I was going to work.

Husband is traveling more with work and though he says he doesn't like it, I think he likes getting away for a bit. I know I would!!

I think that is everything. My High School job is going well. Spent 20 hours this week in Food Safety training and learned all kinds of gross stuff I didn't know. Hoping I passed the test, should know in a couple days.

Think Spring, friends!!

Cat

My life: an update

Hi Friends!

Sorry it has been soo long since I blogged last. I know you are all sitting, waiting anxiously to hear the blather I have to spew.

Wait no longer! I am ready to spew.

Ewwww.....

The last 7 days have been brutal. Just down right mean and brutal. But despite how crappy things have been, I have been wearing this face all week 

I am reluctant to let the people I work with know what it is going on in my personal life. It is a weird thing I have that comes with working with mostly women. I have two people who I really trust and confide in at work, the rest just think I must be on drugs because I am so happy all the time.

And I still won't friend my Boss on Facebook.

I feel like I am in a good place at the Assisted Living Facility. I am hitting my stride and getting a better grasp on the timing. And no one yelled at me last week. Bonus.

I have really felt like this all week

What is ironic about this picture is she is leaning against her microwave. Our handle ripped right off the microwave last week, thus starting the landslide of crap. Do you know how often I use that radiation machine?? A lot more than I realized. Hence why the handle is now duct taped to the door.

Add that to the list of things to buy.

When we hit the lottery.

Kids update

Youngest went for Autism testing last Friday and Monday, two hours each time. To say he hasn't been the same since, is a gross understatement. His Psychologist had him do really difficult things but couldn't offer help as that was part of the testing. Nothing like hearing your child sob and moan your name thru three sets of doors knowing this was for his own good.

Really. Nothing like it.

I believe Middle child may be close to puberty. He will be 11 Monday (Had a small meltdown at Giant Eagle the other night when he was with me. A dad was pushing his 18 month old in the cart and they were so cute and all I could think about was how I used to take Middle to Meijer at 5am and push him around just for something to do. Eleven. I don't know how we got here.) and has been an emotional mess (this isn't new, just a little more severe). I have been in contact with my friend/his teacher and she assures me all is ok at school.

Daughter is getting Physical Therapy for her back pain and is out of Track season. And I am still waiting for her to get her driving permit. It is time for her to drive!!

I am losing my mind.

Husband is tired of me losing my mind.

But he continues to love me. Thank heavens.

Health and Wellness

You know I like a good diet study. Well, a gal I work with is doing a study where she gets an appetite suppressant or placebo and has to track her food and exercise and turn it into the study every week. She has lost 19lbs in two months and has cut her medical meds in half. This has inspired me to get back to logging my food but I am doing it in a journal first and then will add it to sparkpeople. I like the actual act of writing what I ate, makes me think twice about eating it if I have to write it down (side note, last week, I ate whatever the heck I wanted and didn't gain any weight. Felt pretty icky though from all the bread). I am going to do this for awhile and see how it shakes out.

Final note  

To put in the "Life is Short" file: A woman I work with is 32 school days from retiring from the district I work in. She started as a two hour lunch help and over the decades moved to the Secretary to the Superintendent. She is currently in the ICU for beginning stage Kidney Failure, has contracted E Coli while in the hospital and is not expected to be OK anytime soon.

32 days until freedom and not working.

ICU.

Enjoy every darn day, even the crappier than usual ones. 

Be well, Friends!!

Cat