Hater

I'm a hater. I shouldn't feel guilty because everyone does it, right? My cousin just posted a blog, 'hating' on her husband. My sister commented, "I hear ya". I know it's all in good fun, but I want to stop being a hater, and start being a lover. It's not as funny and entertaining for others to read about the things that I am grateful for, but I still feel that I need to share them to make it seem like I really do appreciate my husband, my kids, my family, and my life in general. Recently it has seemed to me that most people are quick to share the things that are frustrating them (including me), and they leave out the things that please them, like those things are just a given, expected, and not a gift every day of our lives!

A couple days ago, I was walking with a friend, listening to her rant about her husband. This rant was completely warranted and appropriate (we should be allowed to complain sometimes). The thing that really got to me was that the things she was mad at her husband for, were things that I have done to Brad. She was fed up, and didn't want to take it anymore. This scared the crap out of me, as I imagined Brad walking with a friend saying the exact same things about me. I almost started crying right there on the track.

I can be mean to my husband. It is so easy because he doesn't anger easily...and I do! This just makes me want to be meaner because I want to see him react. He lets everything just roll right off of his back, which I should be thankful for, but it just angers me even more. I REALLY need to work on this. I should spend the majority of my time praising him and telling people how much I appreciate him for putting up with me, instead of criticizing the couple of things he does (or doesn't do) that bug me. I need to stop hating on my husband and start loving on him (in more than one sense of the word).

Brad has been working horrible hours, sleeping all day and then working some more horrible hours. I complain about this, like I have it bad, when he is the one who sits in a windowless building collecting data and writing briefings on boring top secret stuff from 5 pm to 5 am every day, without even a lunch break. He's the one who has to try to sleep all day while there is a loud wife and two loud kids downstairs. He gets home around 5:30 every morning and crawls into bed with me and I don't even notice. I tell him all the time, "You couldn't do my job, I wish we could switch places so you could see how hard it is to be me." Ha. The truth is that he could do my job. I have the best, easiest job in the world! And, if I had his job, I would complain WAY more than he does.

Yesterday, I didn't leave the house. I stayed in my pajamas all day, just because I could. I didn't clean anything. There were toys and bits of snacks all over the living room when I went to bed last night. It was not a pretty sight, but I didn't pick up one thing. You know, I was just way too tired from my busy, busy day of doing absolutely nothing, to pick up at all.

When I woke up this morning and came downstairs, the living room was all picked up. Brad got home after an all night, 12 hour shift, and cleaned the living room. He vacuumed and everything. I feel so guilty for being such a bad housewife, but I am overwhelmed by the amount of appreciation that I have for that man right now.

It's a little thing, but if I can get worked up and mad over little things, I should try to be grateful and appreciative of little things too!

I love Brad, I love our kids, and my life is so easy. I don't know how I can allow it get to me sometimes, when I have so much to be thankful for.

I told Jocelyn she was going to get potty trained a couple of weeks ago. I put her in some panties, and boom, she was potty trained with like two or three accidents. She doesn't even need a diaper at nap time, and she woke up dry this morning. I know mothers who have a super hard time trying to potty train their kids. It takes some people like a year, and lots of frustration. I didn't do anything special, I just got really lucky! I am thankful for that!

Sam goes to sleep at midnight and wakes up at noon every day. When he wakes up, he eats and gets a new diaper, then just hangs out on his tummy for a couple hours until it is time to eat and get a new diaper again. This kid is super easy. Jocelyn was the same way. I have never had trouble getting lots and lots of sleep with either of my kids. They are adorable and healthy and well behaved, for the most part (Jocelyn is about to be two, after all).

Now, I'm not vowing to never complain again, about the kids or about Brad. I just wanted to make it clear that I love them and am thankful for every moment I have with them...even the moments that spur a complaint.

If you ever hear me being unappreciative, tell me to stop being such a hater!

I posted a blog eerily similar to this one in April of 2008. Maybe one of these days I'll actually start practicing what I'm preaching! Seriouslsy though, watch the video in that blog, and you'll gain a whole new appreciation for my husband. :)

Random

The other day when Brad was trying to leave for work, he walked out the front door only to return immediately for something he had forgotten. This happened a couple of times. When he was on his way out, finally convinced that he had everything he needed, he said, "I'm really leaving this time", to which I responded, "Yeah right". The only problem is that before I could actually utter my response, he added, "I love you", so it seemed my response was to the latter of his statements. He then thought that I was mad at him for something, and came back inside for a second. Ha. I knew he wasn't really leaving for good! It's hard being right all the time.

On the other hand....

Today I was washing a glass in the kitchen sink.

Oh my gosh, it is hard to type.



Anyway, I was trying to wash some orange juice off the bottom of the glass, and it cracked as I was turning my hand and I sliced myself down to the bone/tendons.



I spent some time in the E.R., waiting in the waiting room, waiting to get an x-ray to ensure I didn't chip my bone, doing nothing for over an hour during a fire alarm, and finally getting three stitches and a cast.





Thank God for friends like Gabe and Melynda, who watched the kids and picked me up at the hospital (and Stephanie who was on standby to pick me up)! Brad was sleeping when this happened, around 1:30. He drove me to the hospital, but had to go to work at 4:30.



Anyway, I've quickly learned that being left handed is a disability. I cannot do any of the following things very well, or at all, with my left hand:

* brush my teeth
* drive
* use chopsticks (good night for Mongolian, huh?)
* fasten a diaper
* wipe Sam's butt (or my own butt, for that matter)
* use a computer mouse (especially ours because it is a trackball)
* text message
* dress myself
* sign a credit card receipt
* open a can of soda (I should be drinking water anyway, right?)
* and so much more, these are just things that I have unsuccessfully attempted in the last 6 hours.

Luckily, the cast is only for 24 hours, and the stitches will come out in about a week. Unfortunately, I can't swim until it is ALL the way healed, in approximately two weeks. What's the deal? I finally get dead set on working out and getting in shape, then I hurt my knee. So, I start swimming, and now I can't do that now either? Hmpf. I tried to do a Pilates DVD tonight and the stupid cast made it quite difficult. Fail.

Since, Brad and I are not using birth control, and I don't get a period (due to breastfeeding), we have agreed to take a pregnancy test on the first of every month. If some higher power is dead set against me getting in shape, I bet I will have some exciting news come Monday! Ha! I'd be happy and excited, but dang it! I just want to do that half marathon in June!

Okay, it has taken me forever to type this all left handed. So, I will stop here and leave you with the following PSA:

Please remember to wash carefully, and NEVER drink and do dishes. :)

Pow Pa

Jocelyn just came up to me with a picture of me and my dad from my high school graduation. She was pointing to him, saying, "Pow-pa, mommy, Pow-pa", over and over. Then she put the picture in her little purse and closed it up. She put the purse over her shoulder and headed for the front door, saying, "Bye, bye. Love you", and blowing kisses to me. I asked her where she was going, and she said, "See Pow-pa, bye". How am I supposed to stop crying? She is so freaking cute. I don't know why that makes it harder to deal with the fact that he's gone. He's never going to get to see how she is changing or be proud of her for learning something new. It hurts. I am so jealous of my sister, Kylie, for being able to experience our dad as a Grandpa for so many years, with her son, Joseph. I never imagined my kids not knowing him. I always assumed that they'd visit him and go up for helicopter rides with him. I imagined him correcting their grammar as they got older, and peeling oranges for them like he used to always do for me. Almost a year after his death, I still cannot believe that these things are never going to happen and that this is how it has to be forever. It's just not fair, for any of us.

Short and Sweet

I realized recently that my blogs can get pretty long. I'm going to try to keep this one short. There is no real purpose to this one. I just have a little rant and a little rave to share.

RANT
My knee is causing me lots of pain. I don't know exactly what happened to it, but when I was running on the treadmill on Monday night it just started hurting. I was going to quit at three miles, then at four miles, but ended up doing the whole five through the pain because I didn't want to be a quitter. Now I'm realizing that that was probably a really stupid idea, and that continuing to run after the pain started just made it worse. Now, I'm not supposed to run, dance, zumba, kickbox, drive too much, or use the stairs in my house excessively for 30 days. The doctor said that in thirty days I could start again, slowly, taking a month to get back up to five miles. Grrr! That means in 60 days I will be right back where I started last week, only leaving myself 2 1/2 months to work up to 13.1 miles. HOPEFULLY, the Xray will show that there was no fracture, and I can just start back up again as soon as the pain goes away. Rant complete.

RAVE
Jocelyn has been wearing big girl panties since Saturday (except for nap time and bedtime -- we still need to buy a waterproof sheet for her bed), almost a whole week now. Over the weekend she had a couple pee accidents because she didn't get to the toilet fast enough, but she has had no poop accidents. The past three days, she has kept her panties dry all day, and even awakened from her nap with a dry diaper! Her morning diaper is still wet, but other than that, she is pretty much potty trained. I'm not going to officially declare that as fact until she can go a good two weeks with zero accidents...but I feel that happening soon. I'm so excited about this. The jelly beans and the stickers are super great motivators. However, today she went a few times and was so excited about flushing the toilet and washing her hands that she forgot all about the jelly beans and stickers! She's getting so big. I just cannot believe how easy this has been so far. I'm such a lucky mommy! Rave complete.

:)

Apples and Oranges

The intent of this blog post is supposed to be to document a light-hearted comparison between treadmill running and outside running. But, I can tell you right now, that it will most likely end up being all about how I never want to run outside again.

I started my stringent workout/running regimen this week. It consists of alternating nights between running and "fun cardio" for six nights, then taking Sunday off for Yoga or Pilates. I decided that since I am training for a half marathon I needed to run outside at least once a week. This is what my week looked like so far:

Tuesday - 5 miles on the treadmill - one hour - 12 minute pace
Wednesday - Zumba class
Thursday - 5 miles on the treadmill in one hour - 12 minute pace
Friday - Zumba class
Saturday - need to run outside!!!

My plan was to wake up at 7:00 and get those five miles out of the way. Yeah, that didn't work. Jocelyn and I both woke up right at 7:00. Brad slept in. I was going to go as soon as Brad woke up, then I figured that I might as well wait for Sam to wake up, so I could feed him before I left. Then I got hungry and didn't want to run right after eating. Long story, short: my 7 a.m run didn't happen until 3 p.m. Running in the afternoon instead of the morning pretty much doubled the amount of misery that I had to endure to survive this run. Time of day was not the only thing that I forgot to consider. There were many things that I didn't think about while planning my route. Here are some examples:

Bladder and Bowels
When I run on a treadmill in a fitness facility, and nature calls, I can usually push the pause button and walk down the hall or around the corner to answer. Unfortunately, bathrooms are not so conveniently located when you run outside. This might be TMI, but instead of being grossed out, choose to get a laugh out of my misfortune, or at least take a moment to be happy that this did not happen to you. All I had to eat before my run was oatmeal for breakfast and a PB&J for lunch. I only drank water and OJ. Somehow, these things really upset my bowels. I set out for my run and about five minutes into it, my tummy started to get really mad at me. I headed straight back to the house. I made it, yay! I spent a little bit of quality time with myself in the bathroom, then thought I was good to go. Off I went. Almost two miles away from the house, it hit me again. Ack! I was running down a path between a golf course and a highway and was searching for friendly bushes with serious consideration. I took off in a sprint to make it to the shopping center at the end of the golf course. The first place I could spot, that I knew would have a bathroom, was KFC. You should have seen those people's faces as I sprinted to the door of KFC like I was going to die if I didn't get some Colonel's crispy strips and a biscuit RIGHT NOW! :) I spent a few minutes at KFC, then felt like I was okay to continue my run. The person behind the counter had the nerve to ask me if I was going to buy anything. Uh, hello what does it look like? No! I responded with, "I've purchased enough food at the drive thru to have earned a turn at the toilet. Thank you." I headed back to my planned route, and got a twinkle in my eye when I finally saw the street sign to turn back into my neighborhood. I was no more than half a mile from my house and, crap! Well, almost crap. I ended up having to make another pit stop at the bathroom in the fitness facility (where I should have been running), only two blocks from the house. The good news is I made it home with no accidents, thinking of how ironic it would be for me to mess my pants after counseling Jocelyn on not peeing in her panties all day today. :)

Weather
There is no hot sun or nine MPH wind inside the comforting walls of the fitness center. Though the first half of my run was completely in the shade of the H-1 highway, and blocked from all wind by tons and tons of concrete, the second half was in direct sunlight with the wind blowing HARD in my face. It was brutal. At least it didn't rain.

Food
When on a treadmill at the gym, I cannot usually smell yumminess everywhere! Though I wasn't too focused on the smell of KFC when I got there, it seemed as though everything after that was just trying to lure me away from my run with very pleasant aromas. Passing a Jack-in-the-box, a McDonalds, a Taco Bell, a Ruby Tuesday's, two Korean BBQ places (have you smelled those places? Yum!), and at least fourteen back yard cookouts is NOT conducive to my running motivation factor. At least the drool wasn't too obvious with all the sweat on my face.

HILLS!!!
How did I overlook this? On the treadmill you can adjust the incline to what you can handle, if you desire to handle any incline at all. When I mapped out the route I was going to follow, I completely forgot that the world was not flat. OUCH!! There was even a part of the run that involved such a steep incline that there were stairs on the other side to get back down to street level. I thought the uphill part was hard until I almost died trying to go down the stairs with jello legs!

Stop lights and traffic
On a treadmill, I never have to break my pace for a DON'T WALK sign or because a driver doesn't know how to yield to a pedestrian at a crosswalk. I mapped out a five mile route, thinking it was going to take me about an hour, as I have been easily maintaining a twelve minute mile pace on the treadmill. After the first couple of intersections slowed me down, I started to get frustrated with what this would do to my final time. Brad started the stop watch on his phone as I stepped out the front door. I just knew he was going to laugh at me for thinking I could run outside in the same amount of time that I could run on the treadmill.

Lonely, Boring, and Quiet
I didn't stop to think for a minute how boring this would be. It's hard to find someone who is comfortable with the same pace, so I will almost always have to run alone when I run outside. On the treadmill, a friend can be on the treadmill next to me, going as fast or slow as they wish...and we can still chat. And, even if nobody wants to go with me, the treadmills have TVs on them. I don't even have a cable at home, so the treadmill actually encourages me to run for longer if I am in the middle of a show that I like. I actually considered talking to myself or singing as I was running down the street today.

There are so many horrible things about running outside that I am going to have to adjust to over these next couple months, unless they decided to conduct the Waikiki Hibiscus Half Marathon on treadmills this year. Still, I shouldn't overlook the good things. Wait, I have to think of some good things. Give me a minute.

..........

Oh, okay. This doesn't really even count as a good thing because hardly anyone reads this blog, but running by myself and being bored will most likely result in more blogs! All that time with random thoughts flowing through my head is really conducive to blogging. I pretty much had this blog written before I got back home. In fact, I was in such a hurry to get this stuff written down that I reminded Brad, whilst perched on the porcelain pedestal once again upon my return, that I needed a new laptop (you know, so I could multitask).

Another good thing, for me anyway, is that I passed four other people who were also dumb enough to be out running at 3:30 in the afternoon on Saturday. I was greeted by each one of them with a wave and a smile (one guy even gave me a high five as I passed. It was awesome! I felt like I was part of an elite group of runners who communicated secret messages though waves and high fives, that non-runners would not be able to decrypt. It was seriously an amazing and motivating feeling.

Okay, this blog is turning into a novel, so I am going to end on a really good note! Guess how long my five mile run/walk/climb (with two pit stops)actually took? ONE HOUR, ON THE DOT! One hour, with bathroom breaks, sun and wind, alluring smells, hills, and stairs. This means that without the treadmill pacing me, my actual running was much faster than a twelve minute mile pace. This is good news because I felt like I was running slow the whole time! I couldn't believe it when Brad told me the time. I was sure that it was going to be closer to two hours. Anyway, go me! I'm a totally motivated to keep up with this torture. I can do it (as long as I don't have an IBS attack on June 13th)! :)

Four Weddings and a Funeral

Okay, actually five weddings. I have been in five weddings. I am only referring to the last one as a funeral because my good looking body has died and I wanted to pay my respects.

February 2002: Stacey's Wedding
This was less than a week after I graduated field survival/POW training. If only they hadn't taken my right eye, I'd look great in this picture.


January 2004: Amanda's Wedding
I dyed my hair red and wore six inch heels, and still managed to look pretty good.


December 2004: Jodi's Wedding
I dyed my hair bright orange and forgot to wear a bra...but it could have been worse!


December 2005: My Wedding
I didn't lose as much weight as I wanted to, but still managed some lovely photos.


{In the mean time I had two babies}

January 2010: Kylie's Wedding
Ack!


I know I have been pregnant twice, but it is still sad to undergo the transformation from pre-baby body to post-baby body. I'm not looking for sympathy, but motivation. I want to look like I did at Stacey's wedding! I know that is impossible, but I'm going to work my butt off (I'm speaking figuratively here, people, I know I don't have a butt) trying to get as close as I can! Until then, I'm going to make sad faces at all of these old photos.