Reluctantly Healthy~

This week I had dinner with Charlotte, who is one of my steady girl dinner date partners. We share a love of red meat, wine, and have a shared intolerance of stupidity. It gives us lots to talk about.

Anyway, during the course of conversation we were talking about the ridiculousness of weight loss and gain. She, being pregant, has an excuse for weight gain. I am simply gestating a twenty pound pizza. And simply writing that sentence makes me want a pepperoni. What on earth is the matter with me???

Absolutely nothing.

Here is my view on weight. Would I like to be 150 pounds and toned and smoking hot and never have to worry about thunder thighs ever again? Of course. Would I like that at the expense of pizza and pop and ice cream and M&M's and all the other completely awful-for-me things that I like? Not a chance.

Genetically, I am not meant to be skinny. Seriously, I researched this and some people's genetic code makes their fat cells more likely to absorb and hang on to fat than other people. It also genetically picks what places on your body that fat clings to. When I told Lola this she didn't feel better. I thought it was reassuring - like....'Hey! Its not us! Its our jeans! Errr....genes!' But she was not reassured. As a matter of fact she went crazy and declared war on our genes, getting all skinny and toned and reinforcing all my bottled up shame from eating more than two doughnuts in one sitting. Ugh.

BUT...

I saw how much Lola had to do to get skinny and toned - and I watch her beat herself up for gaining a few pounds back or losing tone and getting soft or squishy a bit. And I think about all that work sometimes when I sit on my couch and eat my doughnuts. Poor Lola, missing all this sugary goodness and eating her little portions of low fat, low carb, (blasphemy!) mini meals and snacks.

This is not to say that I just sit around and eat and work on producing fat rolls. I occaisionally declare war on my genes from time to time as well. About two years ago I got on a scale just out of curiosity and almost passed out when it said two hundred pounds. Two hundred pounds? How on earth had I got there? If you are two hundred pounds, this is not an insult to you by the way - but for me, that was the line. I knew where I had been my whole life and for me to cluelessly just climb the scale and hit that point was ridiculous. I was completely motivated to get healthy and wage war on my super-soaking fat cells.

So Lola and I and Leah and Olive and a few others all joined a local body challenge and vowed to be in bikinis by summer. Lola kicked all our asses and still today makes me look like her chunky version, but I lost thirty pounds and I felt better than I had in years. At 170, I went out and bought bikinis and lived in them all summer long. I was happy. I was healthy. And I was shameless. And according to medical professionals...I was still twenty pounds overweight.

I am never going to be at my doctor recommended weight. I haven't seen 150 pounds on a scale since I was in high school and I have zero plans that involve ever seeing it again. I know that Americans are overweight and that we all should be health conscious, but at what point do we say enough? People are made in all shapes and sizes and we should embrace that. Especially us women. Let's stop beating ourselves up and find that things that are beautiful about us - whether they jiggle or not. Because let's be real here....do you really want to live a long healthy life....without donuts?

Pre-birthday~

This year my family is unwittingly helping me extend my birthday celebration even longer. Just when I thought I had gotten as much mileage as possible out of my birth, I was once again shown that more is possible. The universe WANTS to celebrate my birthday in a spectacular way! Who am I to refuse?

Actually, the blame for my super early pre-birthday celebration falls on Lola's mother-in-law. We will affectionately dub her 'Stewie' in this blog for two reasons. One, she is a kick ass Martha Stewart kinda mom. Two, the character Stewie is the exact opposite of everything about her - which makes it a hilarious alias. I am going to laugh every time I see it. And that is what the blog is mainly about....amusing me.

Ok, I am slightly off topic....

So Stewie's family has a monthly family dinner where they celebrate everything for that month - and Lola loved the idea so much that we stole it. (Thievery runs in my family apparently) Because we decided to do ours the second Sunday of the month, my Jan 18 birthday began yesterday on the 10th....a full eight days early. Genius.

As if the eight day pre-birthday were not enough, I have guilted several of my sisters and friends into a girls night out on the 22nd....four days after my birthday. In between those twelve days I plan on talking Jack into drinking with me one night this weekend and having pizza and cake and drinks on my actual birthday. So I am getting in lots of celebration as well as gifting myself with a Nook, a pedicure, and a massage. I love January.

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Pretty Feet On The Horizon~

I love to win. I mean I really, really, really love to win. Anything. Everything. The hardest part of my day is fighting the urge to beat the kids in Candyland every day. Ok...maybe I am not that bad, but it is a close call.

Anyway- I won round one of the weight loss challenge with my sisters. (Feel free to applaud here) I lost seven pounds and earned myself a free pedicure, courtesy of Lola and Leah...aka 'The Losers'. I am going to bask in my glory through Christmas and then it is back on....they should prepare for a January defeat as well~

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Watch Me Win A Pedicure~

It. Is. On.

Lola has challenged me to a weight loss contest. I, in turn, extended the challenge to Leah. And now there is a three way sister battle for calorie counting dominance. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

It all began because Lola was whining about her stomach. Here is what you need to know about that - Lola is the thinnest sister by about thirty pounds. She whines like she is overweight when in reality she routinely rocks her bikini. (I am hoping that she is so happy that I said that about her bikini that she doesn't whine about me calling her a whiner.) When I said that I really wanted to lose some, too, she issued the challenge. Here are the rules - from now until Dec. 20 whoever loses the most pounds wins. Super easy rules, huh? And then we are doing a second round from Dec. 20th to Jan. 20th. So there are two chances to win! The first round prize is a pedicure and the second round prize is dinner. Both prizes will be awarded at the end of January when we go out for a spa day and dinner to celebrate our birthdays.

I am going to win - at least the first one. Not because I am super strong willed or a great exerciser....but because I have the most to lose. So it will be much easier for me to lose than it will be for the other two. I also have an elliptical machine right in my house staring at me, making me feel guilty if I don't use it. And I work out of my house. So it would seem that this contest is made for me. However, I have awful, terrible willpower when it comes to things like pizza, chocolate, and...mmmmm yummmy..... bread. So keep your fingers crossed for me and I will let you know periodically how much I am rocking it!

Illness and Other Items~

I have been a bad blogger. You are all out there probably starving for news of my ultra exciting thirtysomething life….and I have failed you for the last two weeks straight. Here is what you missed:

I have been sick. In multiple, varied ways. Every time I thought I couldn’t possibly be sick another day – I was. Nausea, phlegm, sore throat, dizziness, headaches, and now….now I am left with this crazy cough that lingers like an unwelcome guest. None of it was so awful that I couldn’t function, but it was all just enough to make me consistently miserable. So for two weeks I have done the bare minimum. No extra cleaning, no extra socializing, no shopping or dinner dates or mosh pits. Every time I go to Jack’s house I fall asleep on the couch after whining that my head hurts. He probably is thinking in his head that he picked a defective girlfriend and is wondering if he should trade me in or if this is just a random one-time event. (For the record I am actually always whiny when I am sick – see? Aren’t you glad I didn’t blog through it? I saved you from myself.) However, I haven’t caught him rolling his eyes at my whining once yet – and he continues to feed me chocolate and pets my hair while I doze and he channel surfs, so I am thinking that I am going to have to keep him.

I bought a new phone even though there was absolutely nothing wrong with my old phone. However, Lucy needed a new phone so it did serve a purpose. (Lucy killed her phone when she jumped into the lake with it in her pocket – who knew you couldn’t do that?) So Lola, Lucy, and I did some switcheroo-ing and now everyone has a new phone….and I got my Droid X. I love everything about it – except texting on a touch screen keyboard which is taking a little bit of adjustment. I love it so much that I was staring at it happily as I rear-ended a mini SUV last week. Whoops.

Daylight savings time has motivated me to be healthier. This is simply because it gets dark so freaking early that I am likely to spend more evenings at home now than when there was pretty sunshine to run around in. So now my elliptical machine and I will become closer frenemies than we have been in a while. The goal is to let it abuse me six days a week. Stop laughing. You are supposed to be encouraging in the beginning. You can laugh at me later when I whine about my second stomach because I continue to ignore exercise and embrace all the Halloween candy I can find.

So that pretty much sums up the last two weeks: I have been sick, ate a lot of Halloween candy, hit some guy while mooning over my new phone, and continued to get cozy with Jack on his couch and watch a lot of TV. Consider yourself caught up and I will be back soon….right after I go find my hidden stash of Snicker bars.

My Life Playlist~

"Music takes us out of the actual and whispers to us dim secrets that startle our wonder as to who we are, and for what, whence, and whereto.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson


Some nights, music knocks me on my ass. It is usually not a planned event, mostly it sneaks up on me. Sometimes it is in a good way, sometimes a not so good way. I haven't really talked about it in my blog so much, but my life is run on playlists. I love music. I am kind of a jack of all trades music lover - I know a little bit about a lot of stuff, but am an expert in none. All I really know is what moves me personally. I spend hours trolling through my music program online searching for new artists I haven't met yet or haunting acoustic versions hiding in some obscure playlist somewhere - waiting for something to grab me by the throat and make my heart break. I have playlists for working out, playlists for roadtrips, playlists for wine drinking and rainy nights and hot date preparation. I sing in the shower, in the car, and in lullabies to my kids every day. Music just hits a part of me that nothing else does, that is the best way to explain it.

Because of this, there are songs for every major life event I have had. Songs that I associate with different time periods or different relationships. And those songs can pull emotions out of me and throw me back ten years in time within the first few measures of intro music. Great eighties songs that they played at the pool in the summer when I was a kid or old Bangles ballads they played for couple skates at Metro Skate. Old country love songs that were sang at my wedding. "Don't Stop Believing" is always Lola and I dancing somewhere. Counting Crows songs from my days with John Black. Alicia Keys and Pink party songs whenever Lola and I would be getting ready to go out on the town. Singing "Groovy Kind of Love" in the car with Chet on the way home from the casino one night. These are all memories that are always going to stay stuck in my memory and instantly throw me down memory lane when they come on. With that said - if I had to make a playlist of twenty songs that illustrate my life so far....here is the result.

Papa Don't Preach - Madonna
Out of the Blue - Debbie Gibson
Toy Soldier - Markita
Once Bitten, Twice Shy - Great White
Cross My Heart - George Strait
Secret Garden - Bruce Springsteen
Come Away With Me - Norah Jones
Brown Eyed Girl - Jim Morrison
Don't Stop Believing - Journey
Suck My Kiss - RHCP
This Year's Love - David Gray
Open My Eyes - Buck Cherry
Hazy - Counting Crows
Like Red On A Rose - Alan Jackson
Trouble - Pink
Groovy Kind of Love - Phil Collins
Untitled - Domestic Problems
Can't Help Falling in Love - Elvis Presley
Sideways - Sheryl Crow
A Moment Changes Everything - David Gray

**Quick Disclaimer - these are not by any means my twenty favorite songs or even my favorite artists. I have no control over how stuck they are in my brain and am well aware that they form the most crazy, chaotic, non-cohesive playlist ever. Thus my life.

Meet Jack~

I completely want to act like an emotional, dramatic teenager right now and gush about my hot date. However, I am going to restrain myself (a little bit) and just gush like the emotional, dramatic thirtysomething that I am.

Technically, I suppose this wasn't really a 'hot date'. I had allergy symptoms all day so my voice sounded like sandpaper. We had zero plans to go out that night, so I had less than an hour to get ready and meet him - which meant no primping and no fussing - jeans and flipflops. We met at a local hole in the wall bar for a few drinks and then adjourned to his house to watch a movie. All very casual, very spur of the moment. But I had a great time. So great of a time that we are going to give this guy an alias. He is blogworthy. And I believe that he will be sticking around for a while at least. We are going to call him....Jack.

A little background....as blog readers, you first heard of Jack in the last blog from Lola's wedding. Jack would be the guy I met at the bar with Stella after all the wedding festivities were over. We all went back to his house that night after last call and stayed up until probably five in the morning, getting into mild mischief. However, I have known him pretty much my entire life. He was the boy across the street the whole time I was growing up. We ran the neighborhood together for the first ten years of our life. Then we turned into teenagers, he tormented me for a few years as teenage boys are wont to do, and we just fell out of touch until now.

And now....I don't really know. I have zero expectations other than enjoying myself at this point in time. I have fun with him, we have chemistry, things are easy and we have plans for next weekend. Good enough for the moment.

Wedding Day...and Night~

So Lola's wedding was amazing, awesome, fantastic, and a bunch of other synonyms for 'great'. After all the insanity, everything wasn't perfect, but no one cared. We all let go of the stress and the worry the night before. I can tell you the exact moment it happened. After rehearsal dinner, my Mom and Lola and myself were driving home and Lucy called. My mom told her to hurry up and take a shower before bed. Lucy paused a moment and then said, "ok, but it IS my third shower today." We all busted out laughing like idiots and maybe just realized how crazy we were trying to manage everything - that Lucy was going to just take a third shower to avoid arguing with us. From that moment on, the weekend just rocked on forward with no real insanity.

My family is all truly happy to welcome The Cowboy officially to our family - and it was wonderful to see him and Lola exchange vows while trying not to cry. I like to see tears at weddings. Call me strange, but it makes me happy to see someone so in love that they can't physically hold it all in. I can't possibly tell the story of them, but when she gets back from her honeymoon, I will cajole Lola into telling her side of how she met The Cowboy and their wedding day fun.

For now, I will tell you my stories. I spent the majority of the evening dancing and socializing, with a healthy dose of drinking and cake eating thrown in. I did not trip once on my dress or over my heels, even after the drinking. I have fantastic pictures of all my family and friends. I hid behind the wedding cake because I did not want to be one of like three single adult females amidst a gaggle of children. (Lola thankfully only screamed my name a few times before giving up.) I had a drink spilled on me by someone that I didn't know who was so drunk that she was caught in the bathroom later washing an article of clothing in the sink. I slow danced with babies, did the polka with my mom and my aunts, and line danced to "Boot Scoot Boogie" with the bride. All in all a lovely, lovely evening. So lovely that when it was over I was too geared up to go home....thus beginning the second half of my story.

After the band said goodnight and Leah and I took care of our bridesmaid duties, we went to the pub with our dates and Stella. We both had zero shame in wearing our floor length gowns into the bar and a very happy DJ actually dedicated the song "Crazy Bitch" to the crazy dancing bridesmaid - in a good way of course. Leah decided to take the guys home after a short while because they were pretty drunk. Stella and I decided to stay and party on for a while. In the bar was a man that I have known almost my entire life. We had seen him when we were out on the sidewalk earlier in the evening and at some point in the evening, Stella and I ended up at the bar drinking and chatting with him and his friend. Now I have known him forever, but we were friends when we were kids. And by kids, I mean little kids. I haven't had a serious conversation with him in over a decade. It is a little surreal to have a heart to heart with someone that knows all your background, but none of your recent history. And I think I told him that about fifty times that night. So Stella starts chatting up his friend and we eventually hit up another bar with them and then go back to his house for munchies and rum. We were up until five in the morning- which I am sure contributed to my next day hangover. I think it likely that I will see him again, but have learned over time to never have expectations in this department, so time will tell. However it works out, I had an amazing, amazing wedding weekend with everyone. I have the best friends and family in the world and it was fantastic to be able to cut loose with all of them and to see Lola so freaking happy. Congratulations Lola baby! I love you and am so happy you snagged your Cowboy.

Lola and The Cowboy: Prelude

Congratulations to Lola and The Cowboy! They are officially hitched and happy! Yesterday was the wedding and subsequent bash and it was a seriously amazing day for all of us involved. I have a TON of stories that will not nearly fit into one blog. Also, I am honestly hungover today which makes me want to make this short and save the heavy lifting for a day when my eyes aren't crossed. Wedding hangovers sneak up on you because they are all day events. You don't keep track quite as well of what number you are on and all you have to do is walk past the bar and grab a new one. My problem was mixing. There was bubbly to toast with, lemonade drinks on the bus, shots when we entered the hall, wine with dinner, and whiskey....well, because it's whiskey. When I mix, I get sick. So today is recovery day. Which means you get just a few teases to keep you checking for the real thing. Tune in a few days from now for details of how someone was doing laundry in the bathroom, how Lucy ended up super clean, and how I ended up getting out of my bridesmaid dress....

Lola's Last Night~

It is here. The big, tell-all bachelorette blog. Are you ready????

First things first. The ladies all need aliases. It is mandatory. Also, it is fun. Last night at dinner my blog was brought up and apparently aliases are crowd pleasers. We had some discussions about possible aliases, but no hard decisions were made. Probably because the alcohol was messing with our ability to stay on topic for very long. With that in mind, all my ladies have a few days to request an alias change from what I am about to give them if they so choose.

So this is our cast for the evening....myself, my sisters Lola (the bachelorette) and Leah, my sisters-in-law Fiona and Olive, my friends Sasha and Stella, and four new blog characters. Actually, I am lying. One of the 'new' characters is actually my friend Cindy, who has been mentioned in this blog many times - but always as 'my friend Cindy'. I repeatedly think of aliases for her and then forget what I picked. Starting today, she gets to be....Charlotte. Our three new blog inductees are Lola's best friend that lives out of state and is pretty much an honorary sister at this point, and two sisters that Lola and I know from high school. Lola's best friend gets to be...Hot Mama...and one of our sister friends really wanted to be known as MacGruber - so by default her sister gets to be MacKenzie. One brief note before moving on to our tale. We seriously have the best girl group ever. There is nothing that makes you feel better than a night out with a group of women that just get you. There is major power in a group of strong, fearless females - and ladies, I am proud to call you all members of my wolf pack.

So we kick off the night at a local restaurant that we all know and love. Partly because they have good food, but mostly because we like to go drink wine there. Hot Mama made us all adorable wine glasses - leaving us no choice but to fill them. We had a brand spanking new server who told us it was his first night on his own. And the poor kid gets a group of eleven shameless, noisy, wine drinking ladies looking for mischief. He held his own fairly well and we kept our harassment to a minimal level. We ate, we drank, we made Lola open lingerie in the dining room, and we had a man at the next table start unbuttoning his shirt for us. (We tried to talk him up onto a chair, but he demurred.) We took a gazillion pictures, laughed like idiots, had Lola pretend to be a waitress at a nearby table, and pretty much probably annoyed anyone that was looking for a quiet dinner out. Thankfully, the waitstaff is mostly familiar with us and fairly tolerant.

Having done our damage there, we migrated out into the neighborhood on foot, wine glasses in hand. We hit a handful of downtown bars for fill-ups and continue making Lola earn pretty thongs by doing things that would have been embarrassing when we were younger, but as mentioned before- we are all pretty much shameless now. Here are a few highlights from our walk:

• Olive and Fiona trapping a man in the bar on his way out so that we could get a picture of them holding onto his suspender straps. This was really funny in person and he was a good sport.


• Lola using the waitress to get a condom. This is only hysterical because she got it off the kid working the bar, but he made the waitress promise to keep it hush hush because his dad was in the bar and he didn't want him to know he gave her a condom. hahaha


• We went to an outdoor bar on the river and there was some Jamaican music being played....so naturally Lola and Olive went to the dance area and Lola played the bongo on Olive's pregnant belly for the bar. I laughed so hard I cried, but that may have been the whiskey leaking out my eyeballs.

And this was the tame part of the evening....

We all found our vehicles and the designated drivers herded us all together and we headed over the bridge into our city's little bar district. We started out at the martini bar, where Lola was supposed to find a guy that would give her his underwear. Instead she found a man that ripped off his underwear TAG for her. (He wears Tommy boxers if you were wondering) Then she had to sing a song to someone - so naturally we picked one of the band members that was on break for maximum embarrassment. She did good, although I still have no idea what song she was singing. We danced there for a bit to the decent cover band and then progressed to the pub up the street. I am going to admit that at this point my detail recollection is going to get fuzzy. By this time we have had wine, whiskey, martinis, and are back to whiskey. No one got messy drunk, but we were definitely all feeling good. I remember lots of dancing, lots of singing back at the band, searching for a bald head to kiss, (which never happened because the one guy we found was too sweaty - Lola refused) and at some point Lola opened up her last pair of panties - which Hot Mama thoughtfully made granny panties.

Right around then, we decide to go to the bar across the street where, let's be honest, we are considered the old people. It is the bar where you are most likely to be propositioned in disgusting ways or have drinks spilled on you. It is the bar with the biggest dance floor - which worked well for our party. It is also the bar that Lola and I used to frequent during the infamous summer of sinning. We lose Stella to a guy at the bar and head to the dance floor, periodically sending someone to check on her and make sure she didn't want to be saved. By the end of the evening the guy started saying profanity every time one of us came over, proving our theories about this bar, but Stella enjoyed him for the moment. We closed the bar down there, spending the last part of the night with a trio of wet behind the ears 21 year old kids who thought we were the coolest thing since sliced bread. One of them was so cute I wanted to stick him in my pocket and make him my pet - in a completely non-sexual way. He was adorable. He was completely agreeable to the plan, but I don't think I have the energy for caring for an overgrown boy laced up with hormones and beer. When we left him he was dancing around proudly wearing Lola's bright pink bachelorette sash. Stand up kid.

All in all, a fantastic evening. And most of us even stayed awake long enough to have last call. Although I wouldn't be lying if I said that we spent most of the last hour complaining about our heeled boots and trying to hold back yawns. Everyone had a great time, got home safe, and the story almost ends there. However, my phone rings off the hook at nine the next morning. Five minutes late my mom pulls in my driveway frantic that I need to go pick up my Jeep before they tow it. Apparently 911 dispatch called her to let her know my Jeep was parked in a parking lot that was scheduled to be re-paved that morning. What are the odds? Apparently, I should have answered my phone. So at 9:30 the morning after, I get dropped off in front of an group of construction workers in my pajama shorts and a tank top. Not the best way to heal a hangover. Just in case you were wondering.

Birth Control and the Catholic Church~

This one may annoy some people - namely my mother who is probably rolling her eyes back into her head as she reads this. Not because she thinks I am going to hell, but more that I am talking about birth control for everyone to see. It could be worse, Mom, I promise.

So Lola is getting married next week. (YEAH!!) We are very excited, happy, and honestly...somewhat strung out over this. The more and more weddings I am around, the more and more appealing the idea of eloping to the tropics becomes. Weddings turn otherwise normal brains spastic. Remember how I told you that Lola is my opposite half? The more practical, realistic, even-tempered half? The wedding planning has completely shifted that and turned my world on its axis. It is still mostly funny, rather than annoying, but I will happy when I get my pragmatic Lola back in two weeks.

However....the point of this blog post is that Lola and her hubby to be (from here on out to be known as The Cowboy) had to take marriage classes through the Catholic Church leading up to their ceremony. (For the sake of time and space, I will keep my opinions of marriage classes to myself.) They were given lessons on CD to listen to, and one of them was on Natural Family Planning (NFP) and the evils of birth control. For those of you unfamiliar with NFP - here is a brief explanation. The big picture is that if you are having sex, be prepared for God to zap you with a fertilized egg. However, if you wish to have some control over the timing of this, it is acceptable for a couple to plan out when they should have sex around the certain stages of a woman's menstrual cycle. (If you are unfamiliar with a woman's menstrual cycle and how this helps with birth control, I am not going to explain...go talk to your mom. Or google it.) The Church's big beef with birth control is that you are not giving yourself 100% to your partner, so you are withholding. And also that you are actively preventing life. For the record, I am seriously pro-life. If you tried to have a debate about it with me, you would find me one of those annoyingly, unbudging people that wouldn't care what kind of argument you threw at me - I would still hold fast to my view. Life is sacred, no matter what. That is not what this is about. This is about word play.

Look at the two main objections of the Catholic Church to birth control. One is you are withholding all of yourself from your partner, denying them true intimacy. If you are using NFP, then you are still denying and withholding from your partner - probably more often than if you were using a pill - because you deny them intimacy whenever it is a day in your cycle that is likely to result in pregnancy. So if you have a big fight and want to have make-up sex....sorry, no can do. Ovulating. Of course that is a simplified version, but as easily as we toss the phrase make-up sex around - there are days that intimacy really helps strengthen our relationships. It is important. And to deny yourself and your partner that based on the day of the month is not bringing you closer to God or to each other.

It is semantics as well when you look at trying to avoid creating life, which is big reason number two to avoid birth control. In NFP, you are actively NOT trying to get pregnant by only being intimate on certain days. That is the EXACT same motivation you have when you take a birth control pill. Purposely denying yourself intimacy with your partner on certain days is impeding conception just as much as swallowing a pill once a day. Both are conscious choices that you are making to avoid having a child. They both carry the same responsibility. Just because one is a pill and one is timing doesn't make you any closer to heaven. God obviously knows what you are up to. For those that say NFP is more natural because they aren't using alternative methods based on lab work....how do you think you know how to count days every month? No where in the Bible do I remember God handing down a tablet with a menstrual cycle diagram. You have this information through science, the exact same kind of science that figured out how to create a birth control pill.

Now, if you choose to use NFP for your own reasons....more power to you. I am not saying everyone should be on birth control. But for the Church to judge people and try and dictate what goes on behind their bedroom door? I am not buying it. Holding on to outdated dogma does us no favors. There should be no shame in admitting that you are responsible about sex and know what is right for you as a couple - no matter how you choose to go about it. God knows what is in your heart and what is motivating you - no matter what method you choose to use.

Now, a quick disclaimer. I have a fifteen year old sister....Lucy....and Lucy recently told my Mom that she is getting lots of good life lessons from reading my blog. (Which I was unaware she was doing...) So Lucy - here is the life lesson from this. Don't have sex. Ever. And then you will never need to worry about any of this at all.

It Is Good To Be Home~

So this week, I went on vacation. And here is what I learned about myself. I am becoming more of a control freak and more set in my ways every single day. What was once a quirky self-defense method against the insanity that was my life is now a full fledged character flaw that I need to examine and possibly try and change. OR....maybe this is just crazy talk after a long, three day vacation with many, many people - none of whom appreciated my superb organizational skills.

I went camping with my parents, my younger teenage sister and cousin, my brother and his wife and their toddler, Lola, and my two tween cousins. To be fair, they were not all there at exactly the same time...but the end result was that I was in a tent with five other people for three nights in a row. On the same lot as my parents in the camper directly next to the tent. Sharing coolers, food, towels, bug spray, fire, and breathing space with anyone that wanted - including sharing my immediate fresh air with a strange gospel singing family in the next site over that screamed at their children about how they would rip off their faces if they didn't behave. (I don't claim to be sinless and am certainly not casting stones, but there was some serious contradiction in their lifestyle and their harmonies)

Anyone, well any mainly self sufficient adult, would have had some stressful moments in this situation. To a control freak like me, this was like a abnormally nimble group of spider monkeys invaded my house and rearranged everything and by the time I fixed it, they had moved it all again and again. I tried hard to not be crazy and bitchy, but was told repeatedly that I was failing in the attempt. When I woke up Saturday with a headache, I was told in about five seconds flat that it was ok if I went home early and that they could pack up without me. Go home. Feel better. We don't want you to be here and be miserable. The speed at which my normal suck-it-up Polack family was wishing me into my own bed makes me doubt their goodwill and think they were just ready to not have to listen to me reiterate what was allowed in each cooler any more than they already had. (How hard is it to keep condiments, meat, and pop separated? Is it a crime to not want to grab a jar of pickles every time I want a Diet Coke?) They were probably toasting my departure with marshmallows and root beer before I even left the campground. But that is okay. Interestingly enough, by the time I was back on the highway heading for home I felt good enough to open the sunroof, crank up the tunes and sing along to Counting Crows all the way home.

Congrats to Wallace and Fiona~

Today, a little after midnight, our heroine's baby brother Wallace and his pretty new wife Fiona had their own baby boy. He is not even twenty four hours old and I am here to report that he is going to be a serious heartbreaker. He is, in a word, spectacular.

New babies always make me incredibly happy and incredibly jaded at the very same time. I have a niece through my marriage to Brad and two of my brothers have each given me a nephew. There is one more gender-fuzzy child in utero, to be making his/her debut in December. (I was not lying when I said my crazy, circus family was in expansion mode.) During all my time with said children and during all the fun baby events and hoopla - I am, for the most part, thrilled to be in that moment. Going home to a child free house at the end of all such hoopla - I am, about half of the time, frustrated at my own lack of prodigy.

I am not a career-minded individual. I have never dreamed of advancement and fulfillment through a job. I worked hard at whatever I did, believing that it would help get me to the point in my life where I could focus on what I thought was most important - starting and raising a family of my own. At the hospital last night while we waited for the appearance of our newest nephew, Lola and I were talking with a few other people about how it takes all kinds to make up the world; about how perfect it is that there are some people that feel a calling for working with the eldery or teaching or management or whatever - because then everyone that follows their passion plays a vital role in our world. I have always felt like my passions in life are all secondary to having the kind of family that I was raised in. I want to create that kind of enviroment for myself and my future kids.

The issue with this is that it is not something I can make happen on my own. Which frustrates me to no end. In life, for the most part, I have been able to achieve whatever I want. I am not afraid of working hard, I learn quickly, and I am willing to put in the effort to get where I want to go. Over the years this has earned me success in my career and in my lifestyle. If something is firmly in my control, then I can make it happen. Families and relationships are not like that. It was a hard lesson to learn when I was with Brad. It didn't matter how hard I worked, how much effort I put in - my marriage couldn't be fixed by myself alone. Having kids is a very similar kind of adventure.

Could I raise a family on my own? Probably. Do I want to? Not really. But the older I get the less I am willing to wait for someone that I think is worth building a family with. I feel like every birthday that passes I stop and evaluate the delicate balance of my life and whether I am ready to risk doing it all along and forever changing the course of my life- or if I should just be patient.

Time shall tell....

The Demise of Chet

Ok - so not like his literal demise. I have zero plans to have him whacked by silent men in ill-fitting suits just because he was idiotic enough to not see the exceptional value of yours truly. But the demise of his relevance in our heroine's story.

As this unfolded, my circle of family and friends had such supportive - and strange- reactions. Lola wanted to write Chet a letter explaining the reasons why he and I were logically a good fit - God bless her little brainy heart. My mom called to talk to me and find out how I was doing and, after offering up appropriate heartfelt sentiments, informed me that it was the collective opinion of her household that Chet would see the error of his ways and that I should be nice to him if he came back - everyone makes mistakes. The offerings of wine poured in (haha "poured"? Get it? I crack me up!) from so many people that if I accepted them all then I would spend the next week and a half with the smell of grapes oozing out my pores. I love it all, of course, but have learned a thing or two about breakups and booze.

I am not really going to tell you much dirt about the unraveling of us, sadly. As comforting as it may be to lay out all Chet's flaws and immature behavior in front of you - I had to take a blood oath when I began blogging to use my gift for the betterment of humankind, not evil. (I had to sneak the word 'immature' in there -even though it technically breaks my oath - I am merely human) Also, many of you know Chet's actual identity at this point and that would be mean. Contrary to semi-popular thought (among my ex's and pizza men that take more than 30 minutes to deliver) I am not mean. So here is what I will say....

At this point in time, Chet and I are just not looking for the same thing in a relationship. I learned a ton, about myself and about relationships, from my past. It has left me knowing what I want, knowing what works and what doesn't, knowing what is important to fight for and what is just not worth arguing over...and as much as I wish I could inject those lessons into another human being so he will see my point - that is not possible at this point in science. Chet's past is nothing like mine and has different events that color his view in a completely opposite way - A way that I just feel is unrealistic in the long term.

At the end of the day, a relationship is about building your future. I am not looking to date someone that isn't prepared to build a future with me. I have been there before. I would rather be alone than be with someone that doesn't share my dreams and plans. Especially at this point in my life. I am not saying that what I want is for everyone - there is nothing wrong with Chet's relationship view if you are in your early twenties or if you aren't looking for something more. But that isn't me. So although I am way less than thrilled with the circumstances surrounding our conclusion - waaaaaayyyy less thrilled, I had much higher expectations of behavior for Chet - I think it may be what needed to be done. Everything happens for a reason. Time will tell what this one is~

From the Desk of the Ringleader~

Hello dear readers! I know I promised blogging adventures last week, but life is seriously kind of insane lately. For those of you that would not recognize me walking around Meijers at one in the morning (which I do frequently - it is a compulsion - I love Meijers) I have a fairly large immediate family. As the oldest, sometimes this makes me feel like the ringmaster of a very noisy, very entertaining, but very busy circus.

Currently, our circus is in earnest expansion mode. Lola is getting married in August. Wallace just got married in Vegas. Wallace is also expecting a baby with his new wife in June. We are planning a July shindig to introduce all our various connections, including a total of six families. My other brother is expecting - well his wife is expecting. All of these connections mean a slew of showers, weddings, receptions, parties....all in addition to the normal challenge of making sure to get family time. Life is just crazy. So I promise to be back soon. Keep the faith!