A New Workout Class

Because I've been in such a good emotional state lately I decided that now would be a good time in my life to try a workout class.

I've heard plenty of talk lately about certain workout classes and looked and found a Barre3 class here in our town that offers childcare for $5.

Sold.

Well almost. First I had to convince myself to actually sign up for the class. I get so nervous in public settings where I'm doing movements and making faces that should only be seen by no one. Not even my own self.

So my inner 6th grader came out and I asked a friend to go with me. It's goes back to that whole "no female can go to the public restroom alone" I can't explain it, it's just something that's engrained in us. Or at least me.

And I now realize it makes no sense. If I don't want strangers to see me looking all crazy and weak why would I want someone I actually know to see me this way?

The unexplainable cannot be explained.

I woke up this morning pumped for my class. Apparently I love a good beating of my body, or I had no idea what was really in store.

I pulled up to the building and suddenly got so nervous. This is probably where anxiety meds would come in handy in my life. I saw two girls talking at the front desk and wondered if they would judge me, how I looked and how I had NO IDEA what I was doing.

Which in retrospect was just silly cause the girls that I saw as peers were probably 21 and saw me as nothing more than an old mom trying desperately to get her pre-baby body back. It's hard getting old.

I have to say that I fully enjoyed the class. It went by faster than Jillian Michaels yelling at me in my kitchen usually does. Plus the girl leading the class had the sweetest, soothing voice and it was the first time in a week when someone told me to focus on all the parts of my body, instead of throwing their grilled cheese at me yelling  "NOOOO EAT".

There was only one time when I thought I was going to die. Well actually two. The first was when my whole body started shaking so much I thought I was either going to die or break my position, and I couldn't figure out which would be more embarrassing. I didn't want to be a complete failure on my first day and break one of the workout positions which I can only explain as a mix between yoga and hell.

The second time I got embarrassed was when I was pretty sure the instructor laughed at me. I did this thing where I just laughed with her in case she was laughing at me. That way I turned the situation around and we were laughing together instead of her laughing at me. See what I did there?

And then there was the moment when I realized my pants were on inside out. It was during a time of "feeling every vertebrae in our back touch the mat" and then coming back up, I realized that for some reason I could see the seams on my pants that are usually on the inside.

And suddenly all my concerns of perfecting the right position didn't seem so big when I just hoped nobody noticed the TAG OF MY PANTS hanging out.

There was also a moment, during a peaceful-focus-on-yourself-stretching-moment when I could hear Eli yelling at another kid in the childcare area that reminded me of my true position in life.

It interrupted my thoughts of a stack of pancakes with melted butter and hot maple syrup that flooded my brain throughout the entire workout.

Does anybody else only think of food when working out?

The class ended just when I was sure my legs were going to turn to noodles and I was surprised to see that I was not long and lean like my precious instructor, nor was my mom-pooch gone.

What the heck?

Obviously I signed up for more classes. An hour session of focusing on my body and somebody in a soothing voice telling me to focus on myself? Sounds good. Even if it involves my muscles cramping up so much I want to scream out in pain.

However if it doesn't work I could always take up prancercise. I'm sure it would have the same affect:

Transition Time

I guess every day when I blog I don't need to update that we are still living in the cabin in the country, because at this point we aren't sure how long it will be.

I feel like I was doing good and handling our temporary "who the H knows what is happening now" situation until last night.

Luke suddenly got some virus that came out of nowhere. I mean one minute he was fine, and the next minute he was in bed shaking with chills and body aches and a 102 degree fever. It was just dandy.

At 8:00 Eli went to sleep and then Luke went to sleep. 

Normally this would be like a little slice of mama heaven. A whole night to myself to do everything that I need to do.

But we are not living under the roof of anything remotely "normal" right now. 

I sat down on the couch to watch one of the few channels we have that aren't a preacher yelling at me to repent or a spanish speaking channel. (did you know there is a spanish version of The Voice? I won't tell you how long we sat and watched it the other day).

And as I sat down to watch TV I realized that none of the channels were working. There was a bad storm outside (hello Oklahoma Spring) and apparently antennas don't work well when there is a storm.

So then I opened up my laptop to take care of a few things on the internet. 

Do you see where this is going?

It wasn't working either. I really wanted to type that in all caps but refrained cause I don't want to look completely crazy. 

So I did what any normal 29 year old woman would do in this situation. I sat and cried. and cried. and cried. 

There, now I sound completely crazy. 

I know this sounds like a very superficial thing to cry about but I have not stopped to cry once in the past two weeks. 

So I cried about a lot of things. We were in such a rush to get out of our home last week that I never really cried about leaving our first home and the place where I brought home my baby. I decided it was a good time to cry about that. I just used the moment to cry about lots of things.

(the last pic of our house I took as we drove away)

And then I quit crying and I ate junk food. I'm going to come out of this cabin 15 pounds heavier. 

Later, Luke suggested maybe the Lord is wanting me to take a time out from all of life and relax here. I suggested maybe the Lord wants him to shut up.

It was a healthy and marriage growing conversation.

However, today I have been on the up and up. We will just consider Wednesday the "low-point" of our temporary "who in the H knows what is happening now" situation. 

Sometimes we just need a good cry. 

And a coke.

And several chocolate chip cookies. 

Just in case you feel the need to never check my blog again due to my excessive whining I can tell you that the next few days will not be that way. I have several products (my Nike Fuel Band, my favorite planner, makeup ) that people have asked me about so I'm going to do a post about all my favorite products. No endorsements included or giveaways. I'm not that cool. 

Oh yeah sorry, debbie downer moment. 

One good thing that has come out of our living situation is Eli is no longer scared of animals. The five kittens spent the night with us last night and he cried when I took them back to their home (i.e. outside). 

At the risk of sounding like a mean mom I was so happy to see him cry cause it meant his little heart has been softened towards animals.

I tried all day to get a picture of him with a kitten but he never cooperated. Clearly he has not learned to be a poster blog child yet.

I really am so thankful to have a place to stay during our transition time and for the most part it has been wonderful.

We will just need to forget that Wednesday ever happened. And hopefully I will never again cry about not having the internet or cable. 

Country Cabin Living

Well so far we have survived almost a full week in a cabin in the country with no cable and sketchy internet.

The internet has actually been working more often than not. Which is good because one night Eli was watching Curious George on the iPad and it kept pausing and starting trying to find an internet connection and he got mad and threw my iPad.

Clearly we take our TV seriously.

My iPad is now cracked in the corner. The first casualty of country living.

I've felt a bit like Laura Ingalls Wilder as I've tried to navigate my life living way out in the country.

There is no Starbucks nearby so I can now say that Sonic has VERY good coffee. I never would have tried it if it wasn't for it being the ONLY"restaurant" in town.

I'm sure Laura had that same problem in her pioneer days.

Speaking of pioneer days, I now know why they all died so young.

Allergies.

We spent about 85% of our time outside because basically it's the only thing to do. And I can tell you that if I don't get inside an air conditioned house with cable soon I could very well die of allergies.

I just solved all the problems of the pioneer world.

In other country news, we seem to have a little problem here in our cabin.

A little problem called a mouse.

We have tried numerous traps in numerous places and we can't catch the creature.

It's like we got the one mouse with street smarts who knows how to avoid every trap set before him.

So, being that we are out here in the country we have a wide assortment of animals to choose from to keep us company, so we invited several cats into our house to stay for the night to kill the mouse.

I mean, are we brilliant or what?

Around 11:30 Luke said "umm I'm not so sure this is going to work"

I looked over and saw this:

A kitty cat slumber.

I felt that maybe they were resting up for their night of catching a mouse with street cred.

Time will only tell if it worked having 5 outdoor kittens run rampant in the cabin.

If you remember Eli was scared of animals prior to our {temporary) move to the country. Well he isn't exactly an animal loving boy now but he also isn't so scared.

He actually touched a cat today which is leaps and bounds in his animal hating world.

And he constantly wants to go see the "sheep" also known as goats:

But then when they look at him he screams and runs.

And the wah-wahs also known as dogs don't bother him so much anymore.

I'm not sure how long we will be staying out here in the country but until then I become a little more pioneer everyday.

Just give me some allergy meds and I'll be good. For a little bit at least.

New York City Day Two

Day One Recap

Before we left for our trip I was a little worried about what kind of clothes/shoes to pack.

And by "a little" I mean a lot. So much so that I almost considered not going because I had no idea what I would wear.

So naturally I packed a little of everything, and just like usual my bag hit right at 50 lbs, not to go over that pesky weight limit. I've gotten good at that.

Well when we woke up Tuesday morning in NYC it was COLD. I was not expecting that, but I was glad I had overpacked because I had boots, scarves and sweaters ready to go. Sometimes it pays to overpack. Well you usually have to pay somebody else when you overpack, but still it works out.

We got dressed in our warm clothes and hit the streets of New York City.

And then we walked. And walked. And walked.

We first set out towards the Empire State Building. We knew that was something we wanted to do for sure.

It was something we could have taken the subway to, but we knew we wanted to see the city so we walked there, and saw lots of sites along the way.

It is so crazy to be in a town where there are so many sites that you recognize from both TV and movies. Plus it was just neat to see the city and how different it is than back home.

We made it to the Empire State building, this is what you see when you walk in:

I recognized it from several movies.

Being at the top of the Empire State Building was so neat, just looking out over the city and into the neighboring towns.

This view is looking towards the new World Trade Center (that tall building with the large point)

After we left the Empire State Building we started walking. We wanted to see the city and knew walking would be the best way to do it.

Actually one of those buses with the seats on top probably would have been the best way to do it but Luke thought it would be good to just walk.

So walk we did. And we walked a lot. We walked from 49th street to 5th street. Which if you are bad with numbers let me help you. THAT IS A LOT. Then we turned around and walked all of those again to get back to our hotel.

Frye boots are cute, but are not made for long distance walking. Ouch.

But we were able to see SO much. We went to Washington Park and hung out there. It was so pretty and neat to just watch everyday life around us.

We walked around Greenwich village were I told myself all the celebrities lived (I think I read that in US weekly) and hoped to see somebody cool but didn't see anyone. I saw a bunch of nannies with kids and I tried to peek at their kids but then I didn't want to look like a creeper.

We went to Bleeker street and ate some pizza at a little hole in the wall $2 a slice pizza place and it was delicious.

Even though we walked so much this might have been our favorite day. We were able to see so much of the city and we were on our time. Just stopping and going as we pleased (I stopped and shopped every time I saw an H&M).

We had tickets to see Cinderella that night so we got back to the hotel changed clothes and headed out for the show.

I earned the tickets to the show for free through Scentsy so I'm not sure we would have chosen to see Cinderella on our own but we loved it. Even Luke really liked it. It was a fun, cute show.

We were starving and didn't get a chance to eat before the show so during the 15 minute intermission we ran down the street grabbed a slice of pizza and ate it on the way back to the theater.

Clearly the food of the day on Tuesday was pizza.

After the show we took the Scentsy charter bus back to the hotel and crashed. Hoping our feet rested and got ready for the next day!

A Tree Life Update

Oh my goodness.

What a whirlwind this past week has been.

Last week we were completely focused on getting all moved out of our house. We had already moved most of our big stuff to storage and had a lot of stuff left in our house to move to our apartment.

We were scheduled to sign the contract for our apartment on Tuesday at 9:30. Well Tuesday morning I woke up with some cramps but didn't think much of it. I had to get ready to take Eli to the babysitters and then meet Luke to sign the contract so I didn't have time to focus on cramping. After about 20 minutes of cramping I had the worst stabbing pain in my side/abdomen.

I kept thinking it would go away but soon I was lying on the bed crying and Eli was looking at me all worried saying "mama ok?" "mama huwt?" So I called Luke and told him he needed to come home.

We spent the morning in the hospital were it was decided that I had a ruptured cyst on my ovary. They gave me pain meds (praise the Lord) and sent me home and told me to "take it easy" which was obviously a joke since I'm the mom of a toddler in the middle of a move. The nurse did give me a note to give my boss that excused me from work for the day. Hmm.

We had a mattress in the middle of the living room so I spent most of the day there. At one point Eli came and laid on me and said "mama tickle back pwease" I gave him my doctors note that I was off duty for the day but it did no good.

Later that day I asked Luke if he ever took a pic of me and Eli together in my hospital bed. He thought I was crazy. I thought HE was crazy for not getting a pic. What good is a hospital visit if I have NO DOCUMENTATION?? Clearly he's not a blogger. Or instagrammer. PRIORITIES Luke!

Also, we don't have to talk about it now cause this will be a long post anyways, but it needs to be said that I developed a weird obsession with my nurse. AGAIN. (I developed weird obsessions with my labor and delivery nurses when I had Eli) By the end of my visit I was hoping she wanted to be my BFF. Luke was concerned about my mental stability. Something about sweet nurses taking care of me just melts my heart and makes me think we are besties. Bless my heart.

Because we were in the ER we missed signing the contract for our apartment. I told Luke he needed to call and reschedule our appointment. Later in the day I asked him if he had rescheduled and he said "well I've been thinking......."

It's never good when Luke has been thinking. Short story we decided not to get an apartment and decided to move into a rent house.  A rent house that is being remodeled and won't be done until sometime in June. And we had to be out of our house on May 23rd.

After a lot of stress, and a lot of me wanting to cuss at Luke we came up with a plan.

My grandparents were gracious enough to offer their 2nd home cabin to us where we will stay until our rent house is completed.

So on Thursday we moved out of our home of three years and are now we are living in the woods amongst lots of dogs, cows, horses, a litter of kittens, goats, and chickens.

Because obviously farm/ranch life is right up my alley. Except not.

So that's our life lately. A bit crazy and chaotic but so blessed.

Goodbye home:

Hello cabin:

I feel like I have so much more to talk about; my hospital visit and my sweet nurse, getting an entire house boxed up and moved and all the INSANITY that went with it,  the moving experience as a whole, the memory foam mattress on my grandparents bed and how I may never be able to sleep without one again, how there is no cable and sketchy wifi at the cabin and I may have cried over not being able to watch my shows on cable, and SO MUCH MORE.

And I still really want to write about our NYC trip before I forgot it all. Except it's probably too late. Did I even go to New York? I don't remember.

OH yeah and I almost forgot! We got a new car today. I've wanted an SUV for awhile so since we are homeless now it made sense to go get an SUV.

We've been talking about it for a looooong time. I'm sooo happy to have a new {to me} car and feel so blessed. And just thanking the good Lord that my husband actually pulled the plug. The man is not good at big decisions.

It was like we were buying a million dollar yacht. I told him he reminded me of one of those skittish raccoons, I felt like at any moment he was going to look up, realize where he was and run out.

I'm now using analogies involving raccoons. I've already been in the country for too long.

I'll be back with exciting stories involving goats eating my shirt and life without cable. Get excited.

Praying for Oklahoma

This is really all that needs to be said today.

We are safe and ok. We live about 30 miles from Moore, OK where the devastation from a F4 tornado occurred.

We have been watching continuous news coverage of all that is going on. I have been brought to tears numerous times, not only from stories of tragedy but from stories of hope.

In the midst of destruction there is still goodness around us.

Still so many unaccounted for, still so much destruction to work through. Please pray for the city of Moore and all that were affected by the tornado. Thank you friends.

New York City Day One

Luke and I got in late Saturday night from a wonderful week in New York City.

We have always wanted to go to NYC, we even played around with the idea of going there for our honeymoon five years ago but decided against it. After whirlwind wedding planning the best thing to do is to just go to the beach and sit. So our NYC trip got put on hold.

Then last summer when I saw that I could earn a FREE trip to NYC through Scentsy I knew I had to earn it. And so I did.

I know I say it all the time and at this point it's just redundant but I'm just so thankful for Scentsy and what it has done in my life. I've formed some awesome relationships, I'm able to do "extra" things because of my income, and it has now provided me with 2 free trips. I have never for a minute regretted joining this company.

Time for my trip recap....which will probably last several days. If you sent me an email or comment about your trip to NYC I read it like 15 times. I didn't get a chance to respond to everyone but I appreciate you taking the time to comment or email. I referenced them a lot while we were there.

And like everyone said there was SO MUCH to do there. We went into our trip with the idea that we wanted to relax some and see some of the "touristy" things. We didn't want to kill ourselves trying to see every single thing there was to see.

Ok...here we go.

Day One: Monday:

Our Monday started very early, a little too early. I had my alarm set for 4:00 am to get ready for our 7am flight, but Eli woke up around midnight with a fever.

PERFECT. I was already stressing out about leaving him, and feeling all those stupid mom guilt feelings and had finally convinced myself all was ok and then HE WOKE UP WITH A FEVER.

He was burning up and restless so I brought him to our bed and gave him some fever reducer. Between the swift kicks to my ribs by Eli in his sleep and worrying about where I ranked on the WORST MOM EVER scale for leaving my child with a fever to go to NYC I got about an hour and a half of sleep.

Luke's parents spent the night with us so they could take us to the airport and then take Eli home with them. From the moment we got in the car to go to the airport I wanted to cry. I know it's normal to leave your baby and every couple needs time alone together and BLAH BLAH, but all I could think about was leaving my precious baby boy.

By the time we got to the airport I was a bawling mess. I'm sure Luke's parents were just ready for me to get out of the car because of ALL THE INCESSANT CRYING. You never would have thought I was going on a free trip. I was acting like someone was shipping me off to boot camp.

After about my 10th time of kissing Eli and telling him "mama and dad WILL BE BACK"  Luke practically peeled me away from him and told me it was enough. Then we made our way into the airport.

Does anybody else get incredibly stressed when flying? I looked it up and there is actually a condition known as "travelers anxiety". It's probably just a term that WebMD came up with to appease all the hypochondriacs like me, so when we are traveling we can say "well I have travelers anxiety" and sound all sophisticated rather than screaming "OUR PLANE IS GOING TO CRASH AND I LEFT MY BABY BOY" and sounding all crazy.

Several other Scentsy friends were at the airport headed to NYC with us so it was fun to see them, and it helped ease a little bit of my travelers anxiety.

The plan ride wasn't too awful, although it was on one of those smaller planes ( I hate those). This girl looks so calm and cool. Unlike the real life girl who was fighting symptoms of travelers anxiety (it's real I promise).

We landed in Chicago around 9am and we were supposed to get on our flight to NYC at 11:00. Well we did get on our plane and took a picture all excited about going to the city....

Then they came on the speaker and said a "part" of the plane was broken and we needed to get off. Then an hour later they announced that our light was cancelled. Cue running across the airport to book another flight.

I was shocked that an airline can just CANCEL A FLIGHT. How is that even possible? Anyways we got on a later flight and ended up spending a lot of time in the airport. Which means my travelers anxiety lasted all day long. I was able to get some of that famous Garrett's Popcorn that I always hear so much about. As a popcorn lover I can say that it was very yummy.

We finally made it into New York City around 6pm and were whisked off in our shuttle to our hotel.

We stayed at the Waldorf Astoria which was amazing. I've always heard that the hotel rooms in NYC are very small but these weren't bad at all. I have absolutely no complaints about our hotel, it was fabulous.

President Obama was at our hotel the first night we were there so security was everywhere along with protesters. It was fun to see people protesting in NYC and I might add it looked a little fun. They were all chanting together and seemed to be having fun, although I have NO idea what they were chanting about.

Luke and I unloaded our stuff in our room and hit the town. We walked to Times Square to see it all lit up at night. That place is AMAZING. Oh gosh I just love it there. All the people, and the hustle and bustle, and the lights, and the giant poster ads. It's just SO COOl.

We found a nice little Italian restaurant (of course) to eat at and enjoyed our first dinner in the city.

Then we went back to the hotel and crashed since we had been up all stinking day long. Before we went to bed we made a little game plan of what we wanted to do the next day. And then we went to sleep to get ready for Day two!

Boxes in my Attic

Well I knew it would happen. I knew May would come and with all that we have going on this month that blogging would take a backseat.

Unfortunately working out has taken a bigger back seat, although eating all the junk in the world has NOT taken a back seat, so you can imagine how well that's going.

Reminder to my self: do not back those jeans that are a bit too big, mama is gonna need them after May.

Today during Eli's nap-time I conquered all the boxes that have been sitting in our attic for the past 3 years. And there were A LOT of boxes in there.

I knew some could be condensed and I could get rid of some stuff that didn't need to be moved.

I'm the type of person who likes to save things. I have a sentimental story for every single item in our house. I can tell you where I was when I got it, what kind of mood I was in etc. etc.

This is not a good trait to have when wanting to get rid of "stuff". I found a ROCK that I saved because Luke picked it up and handed it to me one time.

Nothing special. He was just joking around and picked up a rock and said here is a gift, it was a joke. AND I KEPT THE FREAKING ROCK.

Something is wrong with me. We were dating at the time which at this point was forever ago, so when I came across the rock I asked Luke if he remembered it. He of course didn't and gave me his blessing to get rid of it.

I put it back in the box. I've kept that rock too long to get rid of it now.

I also found a stack of blank envelopes that I saved for all these years.

Because THAT'S NOT A SIGN OF A HOARDER. Blank envelopes? Just weird.

Going through old boxes is an adventure. Finding lots of things you can part with, old clothes you are glad you don't wear anymore, tons of tiny baby clothes that make your mama heart hurt and smile all at the same time, and lots of pictures and notes from friendships of the past - ones that you know will never be the same but you smile at all the memories. And then stick the notes back in the box because you might want to read them again in three years.

Obviously going through boxes makes me an emotional mess.

And I've decided I would rather have the label "emotional" than "hoarder" I save tons of cards, notes, dried up flowers, MOVIE STUB TICKETS, napkins, journals, various rocks because I am an emotional being. NOT because I'm a hoarder.

This is another reason why I haven't been blogging, because nobody cares about the contents of the boxes in my attic.

But it's all I've got to share for now.

Maybe tomorrow I will have some riveting details of what I find in my kitchen cabinets.

Stay tuned.