One from last night

Today's dysfunction actually happened last night, however, I am still feeling the effects of it today so it counts.  Last night I hurt my wrist.  How did I do this?  By getting up off the couch. 

Yeah, I know you're jealous.  It takes a special kind of talent to hurt your arm in the process of standing up...and I?  Am so totally that talented!

It was a very strange series of events that I'm still not exactly sure how it all happened.  I went to stand up and put my hand on the arm of the couch.  For some reason I had my hand fist down instead of palm down.  As I was about halfway up my wrist suddenly gave out bending under and forcing a good portion of my weight onto it.  About a split second after that, I have no idea why, my right knee gave out, thus forcing almost all of my weight onto my bent under wrist.  I almost fell to the floor on my ass at that point, but somehow managed to catch myself enough on my injured arm to allow my working left leg to get under me so I could stand up.  It was one of those really fast, but happening in slow motion, couldn't do it again if you tried kind of things.

So now I have strained muscles from pretty much my knuckles to my elbow...all from standing up.

Reverse ingestion of the canine variety

I apologize to those of you with sensitive stomachs, if you're eating you may want to come back later.  My dysfunction of the day has to do with dog puke.  It totally skeeves me out.  Why is this a dysfunction?  Well, because I'm a mother of 3, I worked with toddlers and preschoolers as a career, and I spent a majority of my young years doing some sort of babysitting or other childcare.  I'm not a germophobe in the least.  Dirt, blood, snot, and other things coming from small human bodies really don't phase me much.  I've changed a lot of diapers in my life...A LOT.  I used cloth diapers on my daughter where you have no choice but to get rid of the poo instead of wrapping it up and forgetting about it like most do.  I have a son who projectile vomitted entire feedings, several times a day, for months.  Not that I enjoy cleaning any of these things up, quite the opposite, however they don't gross me out beyond belief.  And don't forget I am a doula, birth is quite messy and that doesn't bother me in the least. 

But the dog is another story.  I know it's kinda the same thing, but yet, it is totally not the same thing.  I hate finding dog puke...because that means I have to clean it up.  Sometimes (just a few times, really) I've pretended I didn't see it and hope that my husband notices soon enough so that HE can clean it up.  (And when he doesn't it really irritates me because then I have to.)  When I'm forced to clean it myself I have to use 5 times the amount of paper towels necessary because I don't want any chance of it touching my skin.  And even if none does I have to scrub my hands like I'm preparing for surgery.  About 2 weeks ago I threw away a kids book that she had puked on because there was just no way to get it clean enough that it would be ok for anyone to ever touch it again.

This morning I was laid down on my bed after suddenly feeling overwhelmingly tired.  K played in my room while I lay there in and out of sleep for about a half hour.  Then I moved my foot and felt something wet.  Um, WHAT IS THAT?  I hoped as much as one can hope that someone left a wet towel on the bed, even though I had just been staring at the bed for a while folding clothes and putting them away and knew there was no chance of that.  Grudgingly I get up and find under the blanket a wonderful gift from the dog.  She refuses to jump on the bed by herself, so she must have done it sometime this morning after I got out of bed but before C got up.  So now not only am I grossed out because my foot touched dog puke and I have to clean it up, but now I have even more laundry to do and I'm cursing my husband's ability to sleep like the dead.

For the record, I'm not a fan of what comes out the other end either.  When I take her for a walk and have to clean THAT up, I feel dirty until I can get home and scrub my hands.  If there is no trash nearby and I have to carry the bag for a long time, it really grosses me out.  I should start carrying hand sanitizer.

I promise to try and make the next one something less disgusting.

I haven't disappeared

Despite the fact that I haven't posted in over 4 months, I am still around.  What have I been up to?  Taking the boys back and forth to school, keeping up with their homework, walking the dog, making dinner (or lunch, breakfast, whatever), laundry...just the usual stuff.  I also decided to delve back into the doula world and re-took a training class and did a bunch of stuff to get my business back up and running.  Although my initial excitement and forward momentum is pretty much gone.  Last time I had some client contacts right away and it was easier to get started.  This time I don't have that, and I have more work (and children) at home and less energy in me to get out of the house to do anything to help promote myself.  So I'm struggling with myself over feeling like I finally know what I'd like to do with my life, but not having the self-confidence to actually do it.

Anyway...

I've been wanting to get back into blogging for a while now, but it just seems like any time I sit down to write a post I am so bored by myself I fall asleep get halfway through and think "this is just stupid, nobody will want to read that"...and so I hit delete.

Last week, though, I did have some inspiration that came to me via the Pioneer Woman, in this post of hers.  It's about some products from a company called Knock, Knock.  They have a journal that I LOVED the cover of, it's funny stuff.  If you don't want to click on the link this is what it says ...

"A journal for chronicling my immeasurably fascinating dysfunctions, neuroses, emotions, inner children, moments of shame and doubt, projection, self-loathing, misanthropy, and completely normal insanity, because the only difference between me and the rest of the population is that I acknowledge how crazy I am and they're all in mind-numbing denial." 

I decided that their cover description was so perfect I'm going to attempt to post a "Daily Dysfuntion".  I may even order the journal to get some more inspiration from the quotes and whatnot.  I'll start tomorrow, because my daily dysfuntion for pretty much everyday today is - procrastination!  I may not be good at many things, but I am an expert at procrastinating!

Happy 2010! It's that time again...

You know what time...when I sit here and write out a long, rambling post about goals (but not resolutions, gave up on that a few years ago) for the new year. What I want to accomplish and in which ways it's not likely to happen.

But, I'm not gonna do it this year. Not because I utterly fail every year. In fact, I did accomplish some of the things on my list last year, to some extent. Then again, I purposely set my expectations low so that if I did anything at all I would have met my resolution. (So technically I was a total non-resolution rock star last year.)


This year I'm not doing it because frankly I'm not feeling inspired. At all. Its always the same thing, ya know, every. dang. year. Lose weight, keep my house cleaner, ignore my kids less, blah, blah, blah. It's never anything new and I'm totally bored with the same old thing.

So next January I can sit back and see that I've accomplished nothing....and I won't have to care, not one little bit!!!

It smells like Christmas!

It can be hard to get into the spirit of the holidays here in southern California, especially after having lived the majority of my life in places where it gets cold and snows. You know the chance that the snowball has in...well, you know where. Its got about the same amount of chance here in "Sunny San Diego". We can dream of a rainy Christmas, although that is nearly as unlikely, but there certainly will be no WHITE Christmas. (Yeah we could drive out to the mountains, but its not the same.)

BUT...Mrs. Meyer is helping make that seem like no big deal this year. No, not THAT Mrs. Meyer...the one that makes these super yummy smelling aromatherapeutic cleaning products.

I discovered the Lemon Verbena dish soap a while back and I fell in love. Now you all KNOW it has got to be good if I am in love with a cleaning product. I loved how much it smelled so much that I ran right out and bought the Lemon Verbena countertop spray.

I didn't even know they made other smells, I'd only seen the one, until on a trip to Target several weeks ago I came across this lovely little wonder...the Iowa Pine fragrance!!!!! Being an Iowa native, of course I loved that it was their pine trees that inspired this and not somewhere like, I dunno, Vermont or something (that's state name #4 in this post, in case anyone was keeping track). But what totally sold me was the heavenly pine scent, so...so...Christmas tree-ish! Its like being in a forest surrounded by snow-tipped pine trees.

I have saved it for this time of the year and finally broke it out this week. So now even it if doesn't look like Christmas outside, it definitely smells like it inside!!!

Bob Harper is an evil man

I doubt its a big surprise to anyone that, despite good intentions, I never went back to the 30 Day Shred. The thought of Jillian Michaels making me want to die was just too much and I haven't been brave enough to tough it out again. That and I've had way too many flare-ups with my back this year.

A fellow 30 Day Shred dropout (any others of you out there, its ok to admit it, we can form a support group) mentioned that she had done one of Bob's workouts and liked it much better. I searched through my Exercise TV On Demand and found Bob's CardioMax, a level 1 (whatever that means), 20 minute cardio workout. I watched it through and it didn't seem too bad. Bob seemed nice, saying things like 'If you can't do it all don't worry, just keep moving, you'll get there." The people were Biggest Loser contestants and not skinny people who you want to hate. Awesome I thought, something motivating instead of intimidating.

So yesterday I decide to go for it and do the workout. It definitely got my heart rate up and I was sweating. I felt like I had definitely worked, but not so much so that I was begging for my life before it was over. "I'm liking Bob," I was thinking.

Today...not so much. Behind the smiles and words of encouragement lies an instrument of torture. He tries to make you feel good, all the while stabbing a knife in your muscles and twisting it, over and over again. I am SORE. After only 20 minutes and thinking like it wasn't the hardest workout I'd ever done, I HURT. My gluteus has pain to the maximus. The outside of my hips from my waist to the tops of my thighs are tender. Every time I have to sit down I cringe. Climbing the stairs is near agony.

I wonder if all the Biggest Loser contestants leave the show addicted to prescription pain pills, if I hurt this much after 20 minutes, can you imagine doing it for hours, every day?

What happened to Thanksgiving?

I thought it was the holiday that came in between Halloween and Christmas. The time when decorations changed from pumpkins and bats to turkeys and cornucopias. We all think about the things we are thankful for in our lives. You remember Thanksgiving, don't you?

Go into any retail establishment however, and it seems that Christmas is already upon us. Within days, some places hours, the Halloween adornments completely disappeared. And instead of those turkeys and cornucopias...snowflakes and lighted trees. The only vague reminders of T-day are the endcaps with displays of canned pumpkin and pie crusts. I've looked and looked through several places lately, from Target to grocery stores...and hardly any hint of Thanksgiving can be found. I even saw a Starbuck's yesterday, they are no longer advertising their Pumpkin Spice Latte...its all about the Peppermint Mocha's and Gingerbread Latte's.

Thanksgiving was always one of my favorite holidays, still is even though its just our lonely little family. It doesn't get much better than great food and spending time with the people you love, even if they may drive you insane. But the whole buy, buy, buy, more, more, more mindset seems to be edging Thanksgiving out sooner and sooner each year. Its bad enough the stores start stocking Christmas decorations in August and play holiday music the day after Halloween, do they really need to abandon an entire holiday?