Age.....It's A Beautiful Thing

So......I feel 24. I try not to look in the mirror because I don't see 24. But that's what I feel.

My body's been fighting with me about this lately. My body insists that we are no longer 24, but 34. Unfortunately for me my metabolism agrees with my body. Hence those after baby pounds and pooches have ceased to leave me as they have done in the past. I have determined that this was NOT going to happen to me. I've always had a high metabolism and I intended to keep it! Did you know your metabolism tremendously drops in your 30s? 30s!!!! And here I thought the 30s was the new 20s.

It seems your self control changes once you hit your 30s also. The problem with this is it doesn't seem to decrease... I used to eat one small brownie and be completely satisfied. Now I eat one small pan of brownies and then I'm satisfied. (This might be contributing to the bulge, but I doubt it.)

Well, I've decided it's time to do something about the unwanted bulge around my middle. (Especially after my TWENTY year old sister said, "Yes, I noticed you had that....."  She'll be 34 one of these days.) I began exercising. I did this for TWO WEEKS and nothing happened!!! Nothing. Two weeks. Nothing. Still have a bulge..... I've decided to do something different.

I purchased my first "shapewear item." The word "shapewear" is code for "squish it all in." Shapewear sounds much nicer. I recieved my "shapewear" in the mail today. I took it out and looked at it. It appeared to be nice little tank top. Little did I know about how deceiving looks can be, being inexperienced with these kinds of garments.  I've learned two things about shapewear in the short time I've owned it.
     
     1. If you have claustrophobia, don't bother with shapewear. As I squeezed into this thing I could feel myself start to have anxieties. Then the hyperventilation began. Those little tanks are tight! Breathing is optional once you get it on.

     2. Don't EVER, and I repeat, EVER try to get shapewear on or off without having someone around who can help you. These are NOT  "do it yourself" garments! I managed to get the thing on after much duress. (and hyperventilating.) But, I could not get it off. It rolled up in a tight roll right under my armpits and that's where it stayed. It was stuck. I was stuck...in my shapewear! It would neither go up....or down. The claustrophobia really kicked in then. I couldn't figure out what to do. My kids were the only other people home, and I thought the sight of me flailing around while hyperventilating might scare them. Especially with a rolled up tank stuck under my armpits. I thought maybe I should call and ask for a refund, and while they were on the phone ask if perhaps they send out technical support to help people get these things off.

In the end I did calm myself down enough to eventually get my shapewear off.....by myself.  I burned enough calories that I don't think I'll have to do my workout today. In fact just to recover from the stress, I may have to bake a small pan of brownies.....

   

The Happys

Things that make me happy:

warm sunshine
new spring leaves
summer evenings
picnics
rivers
flowers
ice cream cones eaten outside while they melt
strawberry limeades during happy hour at Sonic
the smell of camping food
riding my bike - every time I go I forget how much I love it.
riding in a convertible
playing in my own backyard
sisters
and my brother
days when there is nothing that HAS to be done
warm breezes
music
wading in a creek
learning
eating chocolate
my husband
the first day of school
the last day of school
baby deer
laughing
being with friends
my entire family sitting on one couch
Sunday lunch at my parents'
drinking hot tea with Dan
Christmas
board games
making smores
life

What give you the happys?

My Aviary

We were outside swinging and making up funny songs this afternoon. It's a beautiful day. You know, the kind of day that it is surely a sin to be indoors. Elijah loves to swing in the baby swing. I think he would stay out there for hours if someone would stay there and push him. The other kids were respectively on their swings and we were singing this song:

It's fun to swing,
While we sing,
In the spring.

We jump up high,
In the sky,
It's like we fly!!!

Our rhyming really went downhill after that, so I'll just write the good verses here.

As you can see, we're quite the song writers. If we could find someone to sing them, I'm sure we would be famous.....

 Rylie, who really loves to write things down, ran inside to grab her notebook so we could remember our song. I had just spun Zack on his swing and he was screaming bloody murder as he was holding on to the bottom of the swing spinning furiously. All of the sudden Rylie began screaming also. "Mom!!!!! There's a bird in our house!!!!!" she squealed. Now I had two children screaming. We live in a retirement neighborhood and our neighbors just LOVE us..... I was just beginning to think that maybe Zack needed rescued when I ditched him to check out the aviary that used to be my house.

I reached the house in time to see a cute little bird flying around my family room. My first thought was, "birds can't control their colons, it's going to poop all over my house!!" My second thought was, "How are we going to chase it out without touching it?" (I'm deathly afraid of mites and diseases.) As the rest of the kids trailed in, the bird flew off into the other part of the house. Out of fear I'm sure.

I then began to squeal. Loudly and frequently. My fear of diseases and mites was escalating with every squeal. And NOW this bird was SOMEWHERE in my house spreading disease. (And most likely pooping.)

I hollered at the kids to go down the hall, find the bird, chase it towards the front of the house, and close all the bedroom doors! While they were doing that I went to prop the front door open so it could fly out. As I was opening the door, Rylie came in and informed me that I almost stepped on the poor little bird. At that message I started jumping around and squealing all over again at the mere thought of squishing a little bird between my toes.

It was lying there looking quite dead. I assumed there were two possible reasons for this. 1. We scared it to death with all our squealing (OK, my squealing.) and running around like madmen. 2. It hit the window trying desperately to escape the madmen and stunned itself. We're going with option 2.

Now we had a couple of problems. We have a cat who is an avid hunter. She's quite fat right now though and prefers slow animals. A stunned bird is very slow. I was sure she would eat her. The other problem was how to get it outside without spreading diseases and mites by touching it.

I fixed the first problem by locking the fat hunter in the garage. Zack fixed the second problem by using Dan's shoe to scoot the bird out the door.

Now my last problem is how to keep Dan from reading this post as he is constantly telling us to CLOSE the back door.........smile.....

Race me Mom?

Kade loves to run. Not run like a normal kid, more like a marathon runner. He can go forever. The older two kids will wear out long before he does.

"Race me, Mom," he said to me the other day. "OK," I agreed all the while thinking that running is not quite what it used to be. "Where do you want to race to?" I asked him. He pointed in the distance The far distance. "That tree over there." he replied. "Kade, I said, I can barely SEE that tree!" "It's OK, Mom", he said reassuringly. "Let's race to THAT tree," I suggest. "Mom, I can TOUCH that tree from here. I know. "But, I might have a chance," I say.

"I can beat you if you race to my tree," he says.

Of course you will. I'll die half way there. Or, I will have to stop and catch my breath......three times......while you're winning. I don't like to lose. Especially to a five year old.

We raced. I won. Barely. I'm only going to admit that here. Next year I probably won't be winning. I may have to fake an injury. With the length of Kade's races it might not be fake.

I love it though. I love the fact that my kids want to race me. They like playing games with me. They want to be WITH me. I like that. It makes my heart sing. It makes me want to race, even though I'm sure I look silly, and I'm probably going to lose.

I'm pretty sure that's how God feels when we WANT to be with Him. I think it makes His heart sing. We were created to WANT to be WITH Him. When my life is crazy, I try to remember that.