Exercise.......

 

I am the last person on earth who would have thought that she would like exercise.....but since I was given an elliptical machine for Christmas, I have been using it daily and I have to say, I am having a ton of fun. I am unemployed, so every morning I walk the kids to the bus stop, and then come home and spend 45 minutes sweating my brains out. Don't get me wrong, the first 15 minutes suck, but after that it's fun. I have sweat dripping off my nose, and there's nobody to see. I love it! I am much too self concious to truly enjoy getting all hot and sweaty at a gym, so home exercise is perfect for me.

I have noticed a difference in how I feel, but can you imagine my horror that I am developing a chicken neck?! Loose skin is taking the inevitable trip down....got to love gravity. At least it's loose skin not the horrid double chin.

SUCKS!

Well it finally happened. I lost my job. Freakin' sucks! I guess I should say that at least I got to work until January, or there are more people out there that are worse off than I am, but ya know what, it just plain sucks! I am now one of the millions of people who are unemployed. What makes this worse it that there isn't anyone hiring. I filed for unemployment, and part of the process is that I HAVE to register with CalJobs, okay no problem, let me see what jobs does the county/state have available....oh, I see there's a total of five jobs available, and all of them are for police officers. WTF! Let me tell ya, unemployment payments are about half of what I was normally making, so not only am I unemployed, but joyousness,we might lose our house too because my income just took dive in to the sh*ter. Woohoo life is great (sarcasm).

SNOW!

So, there are many things I don't like about living in the mountains, most of those things would have to be the critters that live up there with us. I could live happily ever after if I never had to see or kill another scorpion, or rattlesnake. But, one of the great things about living up in the mountains is you actually get snow in the winter. This is huge to me. We have a crazy steep driveway so if we get enough snow we are stuck and can't get out, ah so sad, too bad we can't go to work/school. We got snow on Christmas this year. Normally it's sunny and warm on Christmas, but this year we got snow. So the day after Christmas we bundle up the kids and drive about 15 miles up the road and get out and play. We live about 25 miles from the park entrance to Yosemite, so getting up into the mountains and playing isn't that big of a deal for us. We bundled up the kids and off we went. I think Matt and I had much more fun than the kids did. They don't understand that curling up into the fetal position isn't the best defence against snowballs. They haven't learned how to fight back and throw balls back yet. I give them one more year and then Matt and I might be in trouble.

New Year

Okay, so 2008 is almost over, thank goodness. It has been a wild and crazy year. Some good and some bad.

First off the good, my sister-in-law got married to a great guy and had a beautiful wedding where Madeline got to live out one of her dreams of being a flower girl, and Connor bless his heart got up and gave a speech about how their wedding day is one of the best days of his life because his family just got bigger. In August of 2007 I started losing weight, Matt got me Nutri-system for our anniversary and it works. I got down to my goal weight before the wedding, and I was super happy, so happy I started eating not so good things for me and I went up one size. So, for this Christmas Matt got me an elliptical machine. I love the fact that Matt gets me things that I want, he doesn't judge me and tell me that I need to lose weight, I honestly don't think he cares in the least, he just wants me to be happy, so I am going to start off 2009 by being consistent with my health. Watch what I eat and exercise so that 2009 can be my most healthy year.

Okay, now for the bad parts of 2008. A good friend here at work quit, she had enough of the hypocrisy and quit. On the good side of that she started law school so the world will get a good lawyer out of the deal, but work hasn't been the same and a month after she quit the company "re-structured" my department and fired 5 people all in the same day. October 15th will live in infamy in my brain for quite some time, it wasn't a pretty day, lots of tears and drama. On the good side of that I still have a job. My department went from 17 people when I first started back in January of 2007 to 7 people total. The economy sucks and in November what happened in my department happened in the rest of the company, they let go a total of 13 people in one day. Yikes! The company is still here and going, but everything is very slow and it's not a happy fun place to come to work. I continually think that I am next to be "re-structured".

So, here's to 2009, may it be a better year for the economy, and may I get back into my size 8's and keep my job!

Happy Birthday!

Today is my best Jen's birthday. We have been friends for a little over 15 years. In the past 15 years we have both gone through some major life changes for the better and for the worse, and through it all she's stayed my best Jen. I couldn't ever wish for a better friend. On today her birthday I wish to remember one of the most memorable birthdays in my history.

It begins 15 years ago. We are both young (not that we are old now) and we are looking forward to drinking a little beer and then going to see a movie. I am following her back to her apartment so we could ride together to my house and then to the movies. It's about 5 o'clock in the afternoon and there is traffic, or what counts as traffic in a small farming community. I am behind her, and her car starts to smoke badly. She pulls off to the side of the road, and she hops out of her car. The car is continuing to smoke so I tell her to "turn off your car Jen!" she's hopping around out side her car, she yells back at me "it is OFF!" The car continues to smoke, and smoke, and smoke. It smoke is so thick that it blocks out the sun. Okay, maybe not that bad, but bad enough that cars are slowing down because they couldn't see through the smoke. We were stopping traffic on a busy street all because of her little gray slug of a car.

Needless to say that was the end of the gray slug. Sigh, it was a cool car, and it had the best bumper stickers on it, but it was the end of an era. We never did make it to the movie that night, but we did have some good beer and laughs over the whole smoking car incident. I think it was that night we coined the phrase "Jen Factor". Good Times! Happy Birthday to Jen Factor #1!!!

Smart little Monkeys

We had our Parent Teacher conferences for our kids yesterday. I wasn't terribly worried. I know that the kids do their homework, and I hadn't gotten a call about Connor being sent to the principals office so far this year (not like last year as a Kindergartner he was sent 3 times!). Madeline couldn't wait, she could not wait to get her report card, the little freak. HA!

We had Connor's conference first. We were told that he was a joy to have in the classroom, and "he always has very interesting things to say." Okay, makes me wonder what he's talking about to his teachers. And that "he has a wide range of interests", translation, he's interested in EVERYTHING. Then the teacher told us that when he's feeling crowded he comes up to the teacher and tells her, "Teacher I need my space." Bwahahahahahaha, that is totally ME.

We were off to Madeline's conference, pleased to have the good report on Connor, we walk into Madeline's classroom. Her teacher is very high energy, and was busting at the seams to talk to us about how Madeline is "such a doll, she's absolutely wonderful to have in class and she's just so sweeeeet." This is a direct quote, it's actually written on her report card.

This is the first year that Madeline's gotten "A's", "B's" or "C's". Apparently Coarsegold Elementary doesn't start the letter grading system until 4th grade. Well, she's on the Honor Roll, my smart little monkey. She got a B- in Physical Education which was horrifying to her, but when we asked about it the teacher told us "when we are playing dodge ball and Madeline gets hit out she's happy to stand off to the side, and watch the other kids play, she doesn't try to get back in the game." bwahahahaha again this is just like me. Poor kid, she would rather stand off to the side and watch the game or read a book than get in the game.

I am a very proud Mommy. I have wonderful kids.

Inappropriate Words

So, I am not a huge sports fan, but I do enjoy the occasional football game, more particularly Fresno State football games. Well this past Saturday was a Fresno State game and it started at 7:00pm, the kids bedtimes are 7:30pm. As I am getting Connor ready for bed he starts begging to be allowed to stay up to watch the game with us, and in his persuasive arguments he tells me that if I let him stay up he "won't pay attention to the inappropriate words". I ask him what he means and he tells me that the last time Fresno State played he was in bed but he could still hear my "inappropriate words". So, in a nutshell my 6 year old busted me for cussing at the TV while Fresno State plays. In my defense the last game was painful to watch and the bad words were only spoken when I thought my kids were asleep.