Baseball Season

Here we go!  One boy in travel baseball... the other in recreational baseball.  We will be doing a lot of dividing and conquering.  It's all worth it though.  The boys love the game and we love to watch them play.  It will be no fun missing games as I know I will HAVE to miss some (to be at the others) but such is life as a mom of two boys, right? 

Mikey's season just started.  Matthew's team has been practicing hard all winter long.  It payed off today.  We played the team that didn't want Matthew (and thank the Good Lord above they didn't want him).  We WON!  Matthew had an outstanding game today and we are very proud of him.  Our coaches are awesome and I was also so proud of them.  The coach for the opposing team (the team Matthew could have wound up on) was AWFUL!  Screaming and yelling at his players, arguing with the umpires ... sheesh!  And this was "just a scrimmage".  Can you imagine what a "real" game would be like?  Yikes.  We still have some good friends on that team and I was disappointed to see how they were treated.  There were also some people I thought were our friends and have learned they are not.  That's OK ... good to know where you stand with people, right?  I'm sure we'll see our fair share of losses this season but it was wonderful to get a "W" today!

Mikey has had a few practices in his new league.  Some things are different there ... some the same as any other baseball league.  Mikey is happy though and that's all that matters!

I'm SO HAPPY it's BASEBALL season!  Bring on the sunshine and warm weather :)  I'm ready.

22 gone!

22 lbs. gone forever!  I love it!  Still have a good long way to go (42 lbs more) but it feels so good to have gotten this far!  I'm doing a happy dance in my incredibly baggy pants!  LOL!

Still a loser...

Down to 8 lbs and one whole size GONE!  Yay!  The only down side is I have some really cute things I can no longer wear.  Well, I could but they are SUPER baggy (yuck).  I need to get my old clothes bin down from the attic and see if there's anything in there that DOES fit now :)

This week I plan to incorporate a little exercise into the diet.  Just walking but since I've been basically sitting on my ass for 10 years I think that's about right for a start. 

It's still FREEZING cold here in Georgia (WTH??) so I'll be taking to the treadmill.  I'll need to dust it off first.

Here I Am Again

Been away from the blog for a while. Life changes ... ya get busy. Life changes again ... focus changes. I turned 40. Eeep!

So right now we are recovering from Snowpacalypse 2011 here in Georgia. Seriously ... LOTS of snow AND ice on the ground for a WEEK! My office building was closed for 4 days. School was closed for 5. Yes, I nearly lost my mind. I love my boys dearly but seriously? FIVE days in the house? We couldn't go anywhere and even if we wanted to nothing was open. Scott was home Monday and Tuesday so on Tuesday we ventured out to the grocery store. I was glad he drove. The store was very crowded. 2 carts left. BUT - they DID have bread! Have you ever heard of "Bimbo Bread"? It exists... I saw it with my own two eyes. 2 varieties; white and wheat. Hmmm. I passed on it.

I wanted veggies and fruit. I'm on a doctor supervised diet. I've lost over 6 lbs. in one week. Yes. 6 lbs... one week. And I've lost INCHES! It's AMAZING! I feel really good and don't miss my old habits too much. I'd love a glass or two of wine I'm sure. But I love seeing the numbers go down on the scale even more. I "shopped" in my closet today! Got some "new" stuff. And did the happy dance all around the bedroom. Granted these are not "small" clothes but who cares? They are clothes I haven't been able to squeeze my fat ass into for at least 2-3 years. It's a size smaller than what I was in ONE WEEK AGO! Waaahoooo!!! I'll share my diet secret soon ... once I've gone through all the different phases and can honestly say it works. It is NOT easy but seeing results so quickly makes it to where it's not that hard either. I FEEL good. And that's huge!

Oh - also today (it's a SUNDAY) my mailman brought me a package! We haven't had mail delivered all week so I thought it extra sweet he did that! It's my military style had with a HUGE blinged out cross on the top/side of it. I got it from Mom's Bling Company on Facebook. Susan Johnson is the owner and she is a dear friend of MY dear friend B Lavender. I love my new hat and can't wait to rock it atop a MUCH slimmer me soon!


Here's the hat I got today:

Isn't it great? It's very "blingy" and I love that about it. The boys think it's cool too (bonus). I'm excited to wear it!

I also want a "Faith" T-shirt she has for sale. I think I'd prefer long sleeves but we'll see.

As for the boys ... basketball these days. Mikey is a little dynamo! Matthew is a force to be reckoned with for sure but Mikey - geez. Fast and aggressive. Just like in Football. I guess that's good stuff! Matthew is playing Travel Baseball. He loves his team. We are pleased with all of it so far. It won't be a "Crazy" travel team like some are. I like to call it Travel Ball Lite! ha!

I'll try to keep up with the blog better than before. Not than anybody reads it ... but it's probably good for me to. I expect a lot of changes this year ...

Allergies from Hell

Mikey and Scott. Apparently both VERY allergic to outdoor allergens. And this pollen season is awful. :( Scott is being stubborn (what else is new) and refusing to go to the doctor. Mikey is only 7 so has no choice! He woke up one night barely able to breathe so I took him in for a second visit. Lung obstruction ... allergy induced asthma. Crap. So now he has two different inhalers, nose spray and 3 other medications he takes ... oh, and eye drops since most days he's ready to scratch his eyes out. So effing miserable. Hopefully everything will settle down soon and we'll be past the constant coughing, sneezing, wheezing and sniffling that is going in at our house right now.

Carpet Woes (aka Excel Carpet SUCKS)

So when we decided to put the house on the market last year we knew we had to do some minor touch ups. So we painted and did some landscaping and did some editing of furniture. We also got new carpet. We REALLY needed new carpet. So we spent several thousand dollars and went for it. We went with a company our agent recommended. Excel Carpet. THEY SUCK! We had a frieze carpet put in the family room and the dining room. We immeidatley noticed fraying at the thresholds. They told it that was "normal" and would "settle down" eventually. So we let it go. Fast forward to now ... we have BALD spots at the thresholds because the fraying is so bad. The carpet is literally unraveling. Additionally you can pick up the carpet from anywhere around the room. It pulls away from the wall and pops up when I get the vacuum too close to the perimeter of the carpet. We called Excel. Their solution to the threshold issue? Cover it with nasty metal strips. Um, no. I've avoided calling them back because it stresses me out SO badly dealing with them. I think I may just report them to the BBB and let the BBB mediate it. I know they installed the carpet incorrectly (based on research). I should also point out we had to have them come out 4 times AFTER the install to correct multiple other issues due to incorrect installation. Also, they installed a cheap pad instead of the upgraded pad we paid for. I discovered that on my own and they were forced to replace it. I'm still not convinced we have the right pad installed. My opinion is the only way to make this right is for them to refund my money so I can get new carpet installed somewhere else. But they could really give a crap about their customers so I guesss we'll just suck it up and get our carpet replaced AGAIN when we've saved up enough to do so. So if you are reading this and you live in the Atlanta Metro area and ever need new flooring ... steer WAY clear of Excel Carpet.

That was a long break...

Just noticed my last update was December 24th. Hmmm... I was SUPPOSED to be using this as an outlet? Guess I kinda forgot about it with life and all. LOL!

So since December what's been going on? Well basketball season ended and baseball season started FINALLY! Mikey and Matthew both love basketball (much to my chagrin). I think it's my ADD ... I dunno but basketball drives me CRAZY! There are so many damned noises going on ... I usually leave the games with a screaming headache. But my boys love it so I support them. Thank GOD it's baseball season now. Because I love baseball and I love watching my boys play baseball. THEY love baseball.

Work is work. It's kind of miserable. This new department I'm working in, everybody is SO stressed out all the time. LOTS of negative energy going on. It's very draining. So I try my best to get my work done and at the end of the day leave it all behind. So far, so good. I'm SUPER lucky to have a job that pays well and provides good health insurance for my family so I remind myself of that several times a day. Many people would happily trade their stress of not having any income with my stress. I'd rather not trade.

Glitter

I love glitter.

On my nails, on my face ...definitely on my lips. I like sparkly jewelry and shiny white teeth. I just love glitter and shimmer and shine.

Christmas time is fun because LOTS of things glitter and shine!

At the moment my hair is NOT glittering or shining. Bad cut with short layers and dullish color. Blech! So I'll have to find glitter fun elsewhere.

Mikey went to the ER Sunday He's sporting a cool pirate patch right now. I'll see if I can get some pics. Basically he and Matthew were climbing the big Magnolia Tree in the front yard. Relatively harmless boy stuff. But then Mikey looked up to see where Matthew was and got an eye full of bark! Yuck. So he comes in screaming and crying and we got it out. But he still kept crying... it was REALLY bothering him. So I called the nurse line. Yep - gotta bring him in. The ER? P A C K E D!!!!! But they triage not by first come first serve but by injury or illness. Mikey's injury ranked up there pretty good since it was his eye. Turns out he scratched all of his eye up real good ... but the worst was the big scratch right on his retina. So he gets goo in his eye every 4 hours each day and then wears his patch so he doesn't rub at it. We only have to do that for a couple more days. They eye looks good. By the way ... all "oi" words AND eyeballs FREAK me OUT completely. So I am totally digging deep into my Mom Skills to adminster this stuff!

I'm on vacation until January 4th. I love that. I wasn to be on vacation forever (but still get paid somehow). I think that's called a job you love, right? Yeah, not happening! I LIKE my job but would give it up in a heartbeat ya know.

It's Christmas Eve now. It's lovely and quiet at the moment. I think about all the families who are missing somebody this year. There are too many. I realize how grateful and freakin' lucky I am to have both my boys, my husband, my parents and my other family members and close friends. They are all healthy. I'm very blessed.

Merry Christmas to anybody reading this. And Happy New Year too.

I think this blog will now begin to be just crap that comes out of my head every now and again. Maybe some pictures (need to get a pirate pic of Mikey). Sometimes a girl just needs an outlet and I believe this will be it. Kinda nice ... I doubt a soul is reading this so it's fun to just blah, blah, blah like nobody's reading.

I'm off to be my beauty rest. Why is it called that? I do NOT look beautiful in the morning. I look like shit. So weird. I think I'm missing out on something I'm supposed to be doing, right? Eh, who cares.... G'night.

Baseball & Summertime

It was BLAZING hot today! The boys played a great first game ... crushed the team that was so horrid to us at the last tournament. Sadly, they were hot and worn out and lost the next game. The team they played was playing their first game of the day so they were fresh and full of energy. Our boys were simply drained. It was a tough loss but to be honest I'm REALLY thankful for the night off tomorrow!

This is a picture from the first tournament we played in (SCRA) and we took the Championship! Go Cougars!

Matthew admiring his very first All Star trophy!

The boy...

The shoes ... (this was the first pictures I took with my new Nikon Digital SLR)!

Happy Thanksgiving - Crap, I have to cook...

The anxiety is setting in. Tomorrow I have to go to the grocery store ... of course I'll forget something (I always do) and I'll have to go back on Tuesday or Wednesday which will totally piss me off. All the REALLY stupid people will be at the store then and all the stuff I need will likely be gone. Oh - that's right, I'll actually BE one of the the stupid people - we will all be there together ... we'll ALL be stupid because we'll all be the ones who forgot the crap we needed when we were at the store two days ago. Self loathing - great. I did already buy a turkey. Well, not really ... I bought a turkey breast. Does that count? It's frozen - I don't know what to do with it. Right now it's at my parents house in their freezer because it didn't fit in the freezer at our house. It will still have to go in the oven and be baked and all - not sure when to defrost it or how. I guess I need to look into that, huh? The kids want corn casserole. That's fairly easy ... I've made it before and managed to NOT screw it up. I'll also make mashed potatoes (I don't really know how but I guess I'll figure it out) and probably some kind of biscuits or rolls. No stuffing, or dressing. I just can't deal with that. I'll buy a can of cranberry sauce though - I like that with the turkey. No gravy either. I thought about making a sweet potatoe casserole but that might be one too many dishes for this cooking impaired woman to handle. I considered making a cheesecake but that's kind of expensive and the kids won't eat it and I certainly don't need to eat it and Scott loves it but doesn't want to eat it. So I will probably just make brownies ... in my super cool Baker's Edge pan (where EVERY piece is a corner piece)! I think Scott will probably help me a lot - he usually does. I get pretty angry when it comes to cooking. I just really don't like it at all. I don't know why - I wish I could find a way to enjoy it. Somehow the joy of cooking eludes me much like the joy of exercising does. Pass the Zanax please ...

Mikey's New Hats

My Aunt Gloria (Mikey and Matthew's GREAT Aunt Gloria) sent Mikey TWO awesome hats for his birthday. One is a Marine hat, the other a Camo hat. Mikey and Matthew love to play "Army" and these two hats were the perfect addition to their "uniforms" ... oh, and in the picture of the two of them you can kinda see Mikey's missing front tooth! He JUST lost it ... a couple of days after his 6th birthday. Here are my two little soldiers ...

Matthew = Baseball

Here are a few pictures of Matthew from this past fall baseball season...

Happy Birthday Mikey!

Mikey turned 6 this year! We did not have a big birthday party but we did go out to dinner on his birthday and have a small party (with a cookie cake of course) at home. Saturday we took Mikey to see Madagascar 2. Going to the movies is a REAL treat because we never do that - so it's super special. He told me he loved his birthday which made ME happy because I was upset at not being able to give him a "real" birthday party. So here are photos from his birthday ...

Mikey LOVES Cookie Cake - it was a specific request for his birthday!

Super embarassed at everybody singing him "Happy Birthday"!

Mikey only asked for two things for his Birthday ... the Star Wars movies was one of them ... he only asked for one but he got THREE! Thanks Nana & Poppy!

He didn't ask for a new Light Saber but this is what Scott and I got for him. It's cool ... you just press a button and the "blade" comes flying out. Very cool ... he loves it!

The other thing he really wanted was an Indiana Jones Action Figure. He got one! See how happy he is?!?!? Thanks Aunt Laurie, Uncle David, Hannah and Gracie!

Mikey also got ANOTHER present for his Great Aunt Gloria! I need to get him to sit still long enough to take a picture of him. It's an AWESOME US Marine Corp baseball style hat. I promise, promise, promise I'll get a picture soon. He LOVES the hat ... and, Aunt G, he DID share - he says Matthew can wear the Army one! :)

Halloween Camo

I can't believe I don't have ANY pictures of Mikey! He was Annakin Skywalker for Halloween. Matthew was "an Army guy". Our neighbor Greg was once "an Army guy" and he has REAL camo face paint and agreed to paint up Matthew's face for Halloween!

Matthew thought this was VERY cool ... and yes, I did manage to wash it all off. At first Scott was just scrubbing his face while he howled. Then I had a light bulb moment (happens on occassion) that I use baby oil to remove waterproof mascara. So off I went to find the baby oil ... and voila! The camo face paint came right off - no howling involved.

Legos from Justin

We have the best neighbors! Robyn & Greg live across the street from us. They have a son, Justin (he's a great kid ... well not so much a kid anymore I s'pose). Anyhow, Justin is in the Navy now and when he was home on leave recently he cleaned out his old room. He had a TON of awesome Lego sets and he GAVE them to Matthew and Mikey! They are TOTALLY into Legos and this was like the mother lode of Legos! There were three huge boxes ... a police one, a NASCAR one and I'm not sure if the other huge box was a "theme" or not. They are having so much fun playing with them. THANK YOU JUSTIN!

Mikey & Scott

A coaches wife on Mikey's team took this picture of Mikey & Scott...cute, huh?

Fall Baseball Season has begun ...

We officially have NO life outside of baseball! Scott is coaching both Matthew and Mikey's teams again ... he loves it. We joke and say if we're not at the baseball fields we are at home getting ready to go to the baseball fields and if you can't find us in either place - call the hospital - we're probably there!

Matthew and Mikey are in different leagues due to their age difference BUT they are on the same team in their respective leagues. This is REALLY nice for Scott .... he doesn't have to worry about changing jerseys when he goes from game to game! :O)

I am keeping score for Mikey's team. You would think this would be easy, right? No ... it's fairly complicated. Lots of symbols and abbreviations to remember and I'm here to tell you - if you are keeping score you can do NOTHING else! It's so easy to miss something! We don't use the light up scoreboard in Mikey's league ... it tends to distract and/or discourage the little kids so we just keep it all in the scorebook. I like it, it defintely keeps me involved in the game!

It has been brutally hot at the fields lately. What the hell is up with that? It's mid-September for Pete's sake! I'm ready for some nice, cool and crisp fall weather. That's MY kind of weather. I don't know how these kids play in this heat. They have got to be SUPER hot in their little uniforms and hats. I guess kids are more resilient than adults, huh?

I'll try to get some pictures and post them this weekend. Hopefully we won't get rained out ... lots of hurricanes a'brewin south of us.

Scott did it ...

Last night was awful ... I got ZERO sleep. I just tossed and turned, could not get comfortable and no matter what, sleep just would not come. Normally I would take an Ambien but I knew Scott would need help in the morning so I didn't (I sleep like a ROCK when I take one). Around 6:45AM I finally started to doze off after Scott and the boys went downstairs for breakfast. I had decided at that point to NOT be a help ... I know, stupid but I was in a sleep deprived haze! Well, a few short minutes later I was JOLTED out of my sleep to the sound of the gazillion decibel alarm of our new home security system. I jumped out of bed and ran to the keypad to shut it off (I'll be feeling THAT later I'm sure). Yep, Scott gets the award for setting off the very first false alarm. Dork! He literally opened a door with the system still armed! Grrrr.... I had thought for a split second the night before to put a sticky note on the door to the garage (that's the door we always use) and decided not to at the last minute. Today I'm going to Target and I will be purchasing some of those "SUPER" Sticky Notes and will be utilizing them going forward.

At least we know the alarm is REALLLLLLLY loud and it works! Sheesh!

I HATE Comcast!

Just had to get that off my chest. I would like to fire them ... but we're kind of stuck. I hate, hate, HATE Comcast. But I would really like to work for them because apparently, Comcast employees don't really have to do anything!

My Olympic Hero

Ok, ok ... I know EVERYbody is talking about Michael Phelps ... and I agree, quite an accomplishment and very impressive. BUT, my Olympic Hero is Dara Torres. She is 41 years young and a mother to her two year old daughter, Tessa. Her list of accomplishments is HUGE and she really comes across as a very gracious and kind person. Also, she is RIPPED! Have you seen her body??? Amazing ... GO DARA!