Metabolism anyone?

Tonight for dinner we had some yummy oven baked mesquite chicken with wild rice and roasted asparagus. It is one of those healthy meals that my family loves. I also had made two beautiful loves of whole wheat cinnamon-raisin bread which I was looking forward to enjoying this evening. Then I went to my metabolism class. And courtesy of my lovely friend and slave-driver Angela, I found out I have to stay away from sugar this week. *sob sob* I will miss you my cinnamony-raisiny yummy lump of deliciousness. I will forever remember you but will not retain you on my butt!!!

Seriously, I never had to think much about metabolism before in my life. My weight fluctuated naturally through high school sports (skinny), college (plump), falling in love (skinny), marriage (skinnier) and eventually loads of babies (fat, fat, fat and fat). I always put on lots of weight during my pregnancies but never considered it might one day be a permanent condition. Today, it feels like it will never go away!!!!!!!! So I am taking a metabolism class from my dear friend who is a darn good personal trainer. This class is helping me remember that my choices matter. This fourth baby has changed my body and not in the I want to wear a bikini kinda way. (It's more like the I'd like to hide in a mu mu kinda way.) I now have to choose to not stay like this. I have to choose to exercise when I don't want to. I have to choose to put redeeming things in my body and not the crap I think I want. I have to choose to turn to the Lord for my comfort when I am stressed instead of feeling like I have earned a pigday.(thanks Erin Lunn for that word!) It's hard but it is a choice.

On the bright side, I have discovered again how good it feels to be active and to use my muscles for good and not evil :). I am not the skinny size 2 kind of girl but I sure am the I can open a can of whoop-it on you if I need to kind of girl. I like to be strong. Heck, I come from good German stock. Obviously, I birthed 4 children in a combined time of 15 hours. (insert wide-hip jokes here please.) What I am trying to say is, I will never have the perfect bod but I can be a kick-butt mom who can keep up with her kids and can keep her husband happy! Woo hoo!

Now excuse me while I go sniff my cinnamon-raisin bread and then drink a big ol' glass of water.

Beans and Cornbread finally!

And it was gooooood! I am really trying to lose the post baby pounds. It is a slow and tedious process(the 10 pounds of homemade toffee I ate at Christmas did not help my cause.) But beans and cornbread hit the spot and are very good for you! Well, mine was good for me. Matt put a half cup of butter on his cornbread. It looked like icing on a cake. Plus he put cheese in his beans. I put onions in mine. It is just not fair. He stays fit and trim while I remain (only slightly really) rounded. He gets to eat those yummy Reeces trees from Christmas and I have to grin over a cup of coffee. (For those who are not familiar with my coffee replacement diet, it is really very self-explanatory. Replace everything tempting, snacky and delish with a cup of coffee. It is very effective.) Enough about my miraculously svelte hubby.

Okay, I just have to say:


If that doesn't make your reproductive system go pitter patter I just don't know what will. Anyhow...

Today was an "I'm leaving as soon as Matt gets home" kind of day. Not that the kids were naughty or stressful, I just get that urge from time to time. I begin to feel caged. Winter is just so hard. The kids get ornery (I had to look that one up) and I get grumpy.

To fend off the crazies, I did a craft with the kids. We painted and stickered little cardboard trinket boxes. It was time-consuming and the kids really got into it. Now we have these sweet hand-painted boxes that will probably end up crushed or under the bed. How many things have we lost to crushings or the under-the-bed, time space continuum? One can only imagine. At least they had fun making them. Tomorrow we have a play date for the boys and cousins coming over. Then in the evening we have our annual Mullins/Emmitt crud we don't want anymore exchange, oh, I mean white elephant gift exchange. What should we cook for dinner? Any ideas? Post a comment with dinner or munchies we could have for our New Year bash. I want something easy. See you all in 2010!

So much laundry!!!!!!!!!

So from under a pile of laundry I write. At least it smells good and keeps me warm. There are worse things than having a huge pile of unfolded laundry slowly taking over the couch. Like discovering last minute that you forgot to get milk therefore could not make the cornbread to go with the beans. Yep, that was my doing. I discovered this as my husband called to say he would be very late getting home. So no hope for a run to the store. He suggested Schlotzsky's(because he is a doll and he loves me and he hates to see me cry.) I accepted. So much for nice cold-weather beans. We will have them tomorrow because I went to Braum's tonight for milk. And would't you know it, I found other things to buy! (I really wanted ice cream but thanks to P90X I have mucho motivation for not eating sweets. It's called PAIN! And I will not waste my physical suffering on goodies.) Braum's sells fancy cheeses. I got a Spanish sheep's milk cheese and a Havarti. I think I might try the Pioneer Woman's Fancy Mac this week.

Our day was a regular one. Oh, except for writing the biggest check I have ever written. We had to pay our property taxes, out of our own account. *Gulp!* It was sad. It doesn't seem as painful when it comes out of your escrow. But as we (the kids and I) went about running small errands this evening I realized how sick I was of being in the house. So I made a quick turn to the coffee shop for a dark roast (no cream or sugar like a real man!)and proceeded to drive around town with our minivan's DVD player on for the kids. The baby was quiet and I was happily sipping my coffee. I must thank coffee for making me a better mother. Okay...maybe not better...just more tolerable.
My daughter really broke my heart today. She has such a soft spot for animals. She saw the abused animal commercial on TV. You know the one with Sarah Mclachlan singing sadly in the background? That one. And that little dolly just started weeping. She couldn't stop. She then got her kitty shirt that has the word AMERICA on it. She took a marker and wrote above: Help the animals in...So now she has a homemade shirt that says Help the animals in America. And at the bottom it says PLEASE. So stinkin' cute. So for my daughter's sake, petition to have that awful commercial removed!!!! Just kidding, be kind to animals, or at least help the American ones.

Fancy Mac: