R.I.P. Speedo Man

Before we came to Southern California we lived in Grand Junction, CO. There lived a man who the whole town knew as "Speedo Man", he is truly a town legend. We moved away from G.J. 8 years ago, but I've still thought of Speedo Man from time to time, he really is unforgettable.

I'll save you the story of how we found this out...but last night we discovered that Speedo Man has died (not recently, but a little while back). Apparently first he moved to Oregon, and then he died. It makes me kind of sad. A Grand Junction with no Speedo Man is hard to imagine.

Why did they call him "Speedo Man" you ask? This guy would walk and bike around town wearning nothing but a Speedo in the warm months, and a Speedo over top of some other clothing (at best) or with some spandex or one of those half shirt things in the cold months. When you first come to town and you learn of Speedo Man you're like WTH??? After awhile you come to just accept him as part of life. I don't know if anyone will ever know why he started it, but he kept it up because it got him so much attention. I only lived in G.J. a few short years, but I had the pleasure of several Speedo Man sightings. I worked in a daycare that had a playground in the front of it. This playground was where my class of 3 year olds played. Speedo Man would walk past there on occasion, and I'd hold my breath hoping that none of them would ask me why a guy was walking around naked. Although I bet even a few of them already knew Speedo Man's legend. A couple times I got to witness him bending over and pulling weeds from the sidewalk...in nothing but his Speedo. That was...really an image that I'll never be able to erase from my mind.

So long Speedo Man...

Changing things up

I thought it needed a bit of color around here...if you even noticed. The green is nice, but it needed a bit of a pick me up, a little splash of something. We definitely need to keep things fresh once in a while.

Lots of change is/may be happening actually, and not just in my blog color selection!

The boys start school on Tuesday. New teachers, a new year...change.

There's a very good chance we will be moving back to San Diego in the next month or two...change in house, job, schools, scenery.

Too much to do to get ready to pack for me to sit around on my butt on the computer all day long...change. Uh, is that good or bad change?? I guess I'll have to let you know.

Mmmmm....banana bread!

I made this today. It smells REALLY good, and it looks even better. So good I had to take a picture and show *someone*, LOL! (Ignore the messy stove in the background!) Too bad C isn't here, I made it for him, so I feel bad about eating it before he gets any, plus I'm going to have to fight E off from it. *sigh*

I do have self-control, I do, I do, I do have self-control...



UPDATE: Sadly, while it looked glorious and smelled wonderful...it didn't turn out so good. Our oven is a piece of crap, and that's putting it nicely. Things always end up burnt on the outside and not fully baked on the inside. Such was the fate of the poor banana bread, a big part right in the middle was total dough still, ugh. Let's take a moment of silence for the banana bread........

I forgot to do my pushups yesterday...

Well "forgot" is maybe a little inaccurate. I did think about doing them a couple times but decided to "do it later". And well, later turned into not at all.

So shuffling days a bit this week, doing them today and then on Saturday instead of Friday.

Today was a killer, btw. Monday was a breeze compared to this. Who made up this training??? Its so not fair to give you a tease day and then BAM, turn your arm/chest/back muscles into blobs of quiverring goo halfway through the next.

And to think, I'm willingly doing this to myself. *shakes head*

66 pushups, done. O. M. G.

A pic of the new yellow belts

As promised...aren't they cute?

100 pushups check in week 2

Week 2 Day 1 of the training now complete. Only 50 pushups on the schedule today, so that was nice and I didn't feel like I wanted to die afterwards. The rest of the week's not gonna be so lucky. Ah well, what doesn't kill you...yadda, yadda, yadda.

100 push-ups check in

Week 1 Day 3 of the 100 pushups challenge is complete! UGH. Yeah, that about sums it up, I'm not sure how I'm even able to type. Let's see 15 + 13 + 10 + 10 + 15 = 63 total. This was by far the toughest day yet, I didn't make it through even one set without having to stop for a few moments before finishing. Again I feel kinda crappy afterwards. Not as bad as Wednesday, but my head is hurting.

Random babblings...

I saw this quote the other day, I honestly have no idea who Douglas Porter is. I tried googling him, but pretty much only found some books on Amazon that seemed so boring my eyes would probably roll back in my head reading the table of contents. Nevertheless...I think this sums up the life of my family pretty darn well. You are a smart man Mr. Porter.

"The only thing standing between me and total happiness is reality."Douglas Porter


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In other news...E & R had a very good day today. They went to karate and unexpectedly were given their yellow belt test. Both passed and received their new belts. They were walking on the moon with excitement! Haven't seen that many smiles out of them in ages, maybe ever! Pics to come later in the week.

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Yet another incident at the park today where my daughter is scaling up the highest parts of the playground like a monkey while other small children near her age have 3 adults hovering around them like they are going to break and staring at K & me like we're some sort of circus side show, asking how old she is, and marveling at the amazement of it all. Non-coincidentally all these instances the other child in question has been a first born to the parents. K being my 3rd I'm certainly a lot more relaxed about things than the newbie parents, and I'm used to boys, and frankly my girl's been on the go from conception... But geez, its not like she's doing triple flips on a trapeeze, she's climbing up a rope ladder for pete's sake, is that so abnormal?

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So I've been all excited at the prospect of my kids going back to school. They need to be around people other than me, I need them to be around people other than me, too much togetherness is not good for our kind. I know a lot of mom's who homeschool, I am certain these women are saints. It would be under great duress that I would ever attempt such a thing, for so many, many, many reasons (my post about "this can't be my life" may begin to explain some of those reasons)...but the main one being I think we would kill each other if we had to spend all day every day together for more than 2 months at a time.

Anyway...as the day draws near for them to scurry off to their classrooms I'm realizing I'm SO NOT READY for school to start!! I'm not ready to require an alarm clock to wake me up early enough EVERY day. I'm not ready to deal with the fighting/waking/dressing/eating/lunch readying/backpack readying that goes along with every morning BECAUSE I don't want to get out of bed that early, nor do I want to roust the natives that early. I'm not ready for homework, ugh. Not that I mind helping my children learn, its just the homework is the same thing week after week and it just gets to be drudgery after awhile. Plus with 2 of them it can take up a big chunk of time. I'm not ready to have to get my butt in gear to get dinner made and them fed and ready for bed at a decent time.

I think school is more work for parents than the kids, sheeesh. Heck, I already put in my 17 years of school, I'm done!!

I know, I know...SUCK. IT. UP. There's no changing it, might as well get used to it.

100 pushups challenge check-in

Week 1 Day 2 of training complete! 5 sets at 12, 12, 10, 10, and 11 reps for a total of 55 pushups! Oh boy...

I love this picture...

I just had to post this because she was looking so sweet and cute that day. Her hair was curling just right. *sigh* (I'm a bit obsessed with her curls if you didn't know, I love them, they should be mine damnit! Sorry...just had to get that out.) People are always telling me that she looks just like me, but I only wish I was a fraction as beautiful as she is.

Can I do 100 pushups?

This is not a question I thought I would ever ponder, let alone consider trying...but I am! Along with some other mama's I am challenging myself to do the 6 weeks, 100 pushups training program. No I can't do the "normal" kind on the floor, to much stomach in the way for that kind...but I'm ok with having to do an "alternative" method. 100 pushups is pretty darn impressive no matter how you do them, right?

Today was my first day of the training program. In all I did 44 pushups (a set of 10, another set of 10, then 8, then 6, then 10 - that's 44 right? LOL My brain isn't up for math right now.)...and I definitely feel like those muscles were WORKED!! The most pushups I've ever done before in one day is 30 and I thought THAT was hard, LOL!

Its bad when your kids are smarter than you

E was reading some book about planets this morning. Then he started talking about who knows what. I didn't even realize he was talking to me, he was in the other room facing toward the tv and just going on and on and on. I didn't know if he was just liking the sound of his voice or what. Being that I had other things on my mind I wasn't paying too much attention to him.

Then I hear him say, "If we all lived on the moon we wouldn't be able to draw pictures anymore, right mommy?"

Uhhh, if you say so. I don't get that, but ok.

"Cuz paper is made out of trees and there aren't any trees on the moon."

Ok kid, you got me. That actually makes sense.

Its one of THOSE days...

Good 'ol AF is due to arrive any day now, and I'm definitely feeling the PMS. Not sure if its what I'll normally experience now that the Mirena is gone, or if I'm just especially noticing it because I've been less moody throughout the month. Anyway...basically, I'm in a totally pissy mood today.

C asked R to please help mommy clean up when he was on his way out the door this morning. So, R, being such a helpful child, comes over to me and says "Can you get me a piece of paper? I want to draw a picture."

So I say, "Why is it everytime daddy asks you to help me you immediately find something else to do?"

Thus starts the whining...buuuut, I was only going to draw ooooone picture, etc, etc, etc.

My moodiness beat out the logical parent part of my mind and I started whining and throwing my own mini-tantrum. I said fine, I'll just clean everything up all by myself, don't worry about me.

Then both of them start in "defending" themselves...and I continue with my little tantrum explaining to them how its always just this thing first, or that thing first, or some sort of complaint. They hardly even do anything WHEN I ask them.

Then cuz I'm pissed that they aren't helping, pissed that I even bothered to waste my breath saying all this to them, pissed that the house is such a wreck in the first place, and just totally irritated in general about everything...I started crying.

Well, my boys, bless their hearts, will be good husbands some day. They have the whole "oh crap, I made her cry...uhhh, what can I do to make it stop???" routine down. R brought me a paper towel to dry my tears and they both promised profusely that they were ready to help now.

Of course, this all lasted about 3 minutes. Then all was back to regularly scheduled programming. (Which means running around, tackling each other, chasing the dog, dancing to the music that E swore would help him clean, screaming and laughing, and in no way possible listening to anything I had to say.

Except my sweet baby girl, she actually LIKES to help. And she's SO good at it! No really, she is...well except for when she was taking clean clothes out of the laundry basket, then putting dirty clothes in the basket on top of the clean ones, and unfolding the towels I had JUST folded. Ah, gotta love toddlers!!

Is this the difference between boys and girls? Did we go wrong with the boys? Did we totally miss the boat when it came to instilling in them the benefits of cleanliness and orderliness? Or is it genetic, are their Y chromosomes working in overdrive? Is it in their DNA to avoid housework when at all possible? Or to at least only do WHAT they want WHEN they want to do it?

If that's the case, can I have a refund? No...ah well. At least I can be comforted in the knowledge that they'll annoy their wives some day just as much as they do me now.