Birthday Parties

     So my baby is turning 7 next Monday, don't get me started on that. I could go on a long time about how that makes me feel. Part of being a mom is birthday parties. I have now thrown 7 of them. Here is how the pattern goes: About two months before the party I start planning. What kind of theme do we want this year? Then I start thinking about decorations and food. About a month before said party I go shopping. Turns out my son is never obsessed with things when they are the "it" thing. When he was obsessed with Thomas and we had a Thomas party, I couldn't find anything. Turns out Thomas is big now, I could have thrown a pretty rocking Thomas party.

      This year's obsession is Star Wars. I don't like star wars, I hate the theme song, get my drift? But I love my boy so star wars it is. The only thing he asked for with his party was a star wars piñata. Turns out star wars isn't in right now and you can't find a piñata. So I went to my pal pinterest and I found out how to make one. And I made one.....THEN I BLEW IT UP!!! Yup, when I went to pop the inside I stabbed it and the whole damn thing blew apart......so I said it's ok I know what went wrong I can make a new one. But Parker said no, let's just buy a different one that walmart has, you will just blow up another one. On the bright side, I have learned that the death star is on the bad side, so  I guess I helped the good guys win...right? We ended up using the piñata I bought for his party two years ago that showed up 3 days after his party....Luigi totally fits into a star wars party it's all good.

      This was the first year that Parker had friends from school at his party. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Kids are not kids, there are categories. There are your kids, your siblings kids, and other people's kids. One of Parker's friends told me I was mean because I used my "serious" voice to tell the dog to go upstairs.
                                                     

This is my dog right this second, seriously took this picture less than a minute ago. Yep, looks like I am real mean to her, she clearly runs the show around here and she know it.

 

My siblings kids I can be real with, they do something they shouldn't I treat them just like I would my own kid. My siblings are the same way with my kid. But, when it's someone else's kid, you don't know the rules they have. You don't know how things are in their home, etc etc....So it was interesting. But it was ok and they were good. There was a lot of arm farts going on at the table which I typically wouldn't allow, but they were at least sitting at the table to eat so I let it slide.

 

The last couple of years I have been making Parker's cakes. I'm not sure why, it's just something I decided to do.  Perhaps it was the incident where my niece's cake came from walmart and there was a cloud that looked pretty much exactly like an inappropriate male body part...I'm sure it was an accident, but I don't know.... anywhoo, I really like making cakes. I do not claim to be a professional and I'm not all that artsy, but I still have fun doing it and will probably keep doing it.

 

So let's talk about this years cake...I made a three tier cake, but when I filled the pan for the bottom layer I forgot to spray it...and it didn't come out of the pan nicely at all. So the day of the party I had to remake the bottom layer. Then about three hours before the party I realized I had never gotten the frosting for the cake. I've tried making my own frosting and I've tried froting from a can, but nothing compares to the bettercreme whipped frosting that the real folks use. So, I had to drive to the next town over and buy the frosting. The people at  piggly wiggly are awesome enough to sell theirs in deli containers. Don't ask the walmart people to do that, they are not that nice. And they tried to sell me the star ship enterprise as a star wars fighter ship...some of the people that work there are SPECIAL!. Not all of them, don't get me wrong, there are some nice people there and I'm not hating on all of walmart. There are people that drive me nuts at a lot of places. I had a vision in my head of the cake, but the night before the party I decided we needed to get out of the house so instead of cleaning and making this masterpiece cake, we went out to eat and went skating with my family. It was worth it. The cake still tasted good and the kids didn't care if it wasn't a masterpiece. They are boys, they don't care.

 

Brian helped me with food, and when my sister arrived I put her to work too. I always do, even when we have card night or something, I always put her to work in the kitchen in some way. I love cooking but I'm not all that fast at prep. I blame it on being left handed. Brian says next year we are going to chuck e cheese or something and letting someone else do all the work. By the way, we did chuck e cheese once I think for Parker's 3rd birthday, he yelled at Chuck E when he was singing happy birthday to him.

 

 These are wookie cookies, my attempt to look like Chewbacca....not even close Parker tells me I should have done my research.

 Here is what the cake ended up looking like.

My attempt at a little dark side humor, who wouldn't go to the dark side for cake? Heck yeah, I'm there.

 

In the end, I blew up the death star, I wrecked part of the cake, there weren't many decorations because party city was lame and star wars isn't "in", but after everyone left and Parker and I settled in to watch a movie, he told me it was his best birthday yet. Lesson learned, I shouldn't put so much stress on throwing a perfect party. Kids just want to know they are special to you and that they are loved. It wasn't at all the vision I had when I started planning, but I would call it a success.

Hurricane in my head

         Things have been busy lately, but I feel too much like a zombie to even notice it sometimes. I am just trying to keep up and not trampled. I'm not sure what would trample me because it seems like I am the one at the center of all this craziness. Yesterday I finished another class, a few credits closer to that fancy piece of paper with my name on it! I enjoyed the class its self, however it has been exhausting. The class was accelerated, 4 hours in one night for 6 weeks. So on Tuesdays I don't sleep. I get home from work, nap for about two hours then get up to have lunch with Brian. He leaves for work shortly before 2pm. Between 2 and 4:30 I get everything done that I need to for the day and try to sneak in a quick workout if I can. Then it's time to shower and get ready for class. From 5:30 to 9:30pm I have class. When that ends I drop my stuff off at home, change clothes, and head right to work....on two hours of sleep...then work all night....on two hours of sleep. Hence the reason I feel like a zombie most days. But this week was a little different, class got out early so I actually had time to eat some real food and take an hour nap before work. So I got 3 hours of sleep! That's pretty exciting for me. I'd love to say that I get to take a break now, but that's not the case. Next Tuesday my next class starts. The nice part about this is that it allows me to take full time credits instead of only half time credits for the semester. Make the sacrifice now to get the pay off in the end. Read: Fancy piece of paper with my name on it FASTER!  Lesson here, stay in school!!! It sounds cliché I know, but it's true. Had I not quit school then quit again, then took about 7 years off, I would have been done by now. Lesson learned, can't change the past, moving on and getting it done. Guess that's just what was in store for me though, if it hadn't gone down like that then I wouldn't have Parker and I wouldn't change that for anything.

     Speaking of Parker, his 7th birthday is coming up real fast. I go through this every year now, I get all sad that he is getting older and I wish I could just keep him the way he is now. He is such an incredible kid and I'm so proud of the person he is becoming. He is a purple belt in Tae Kwon Do, he reads well above his grade level, he excels in math and other scholastic areas, and he has this love of exploring and curiosity that I love! He is always up for a new adventure. His personality is so much like mine, he may not look like me but he sure does act like me. (Look out people this could be interesting)
   
       So in the midst of school work and work work I have been working on his birthday party plans. For some reason, he is always totally into things that aren't popular right now. His new obsession is Star Wars. (FYI I have never seen any of the Star Wars except one and literally all I remember about it is Jar Jar has long ears. Can't even tell you what it was about it was like 15 years ago) So this has been totally interesting for me. He wanted a Star Wars piñata.... like I said, into things that aren't popular....try to find a Star Wars piñata in a store, not going to happen. So, I've spent the last few days making one. (thank you pinterest!!!)

     Totally looks just like the death star right? ( Don't have any idea what the death star actually is, but that's what he said he wanted and pinterest seems to know what it looks like so I can totally pull this off)

       We went to Walmart to buy cake toppers. I make his cakes myself, but I want some toppers for it, anyway that was FUN! and by fun I mean they hire the most special people that make me want to start shouting obscenities. We spent half an hour trying to acquire said cake toppers. We managed to get two characters, then the lady tried to give us the starship enterprise and tell us that it was a star wars fighter plane. Ok, I don't know star wars, but I do know that the star ship enterprise is STAR TREK. Apparently so does Parker. I didn't even have to say anything, he let her have it. He told her there was no way he was putting a star trek ship on his cake and they weren't even close to the same thing and he does not like star trek. He was polite about it until the lady told him he was wrong and the ship was from star wars. Then he let her have it. I stood back and giggled a little bit but I let him handle it as long as he wasn't being rude. It was funny to watch her argue with him. Lady, this boy knows his star wars. She ended up looking more and found the pieces we had asked for, apparently what we got was an x wing fighter and that death star thing again. neither of  which look anything  like the enterprise by the way.

        So we have school, work, a birthday party, and somewhere in there I make a point of spending quality time with Parker. It may not be anything amazing, we will play a game or read a book together, something just me and him and no technology interruptions everyday. I don't ever want him to feel anything less than number one in my life. After all, it's all about him anyway. Sure I want to finish school to better myself, but most importantly I want to set the example for him and show him that it is important to go to college. I can't tell him how important it is if I stayed a quitter.

     I've also tried to make time for myself. I've learned that investing the time into working out is well worth it. Not only does it give me more energy to make it through my day, but it improves my mood and battles the winter blues, and the investment in my health is worth it. And I have to be awake anyway. Also, if Parker sees me working out it makes him want to be active too so it's a total win win here.
 
   Most of my thoughts are jumbled and swirling all over the place lately like a hurricane,  I just go one day at a time. I'm big on lists. They keep me sane. List of things to do, to buy, what needs to be done on a specific day, what needs to be done at some point, things that I will get to eventually, things I plan on getting Brian to do, lists for everything...

     As a reward for surviving my first accelerated class, I bought myself a new Jillian Michaels work out dvd. (Totally love me some Jillian, huge girl crush...got to see her in person with my bestie, AWESOMESAUCE!!!!) Anywhoo, wipe the drool off my chin and continue.....I bought her new yoga inferno dvd and I plan on trying that out in just a few minutes here so I will let you know how much I love it soon!

So simple

So, sitting here tonight thinking about all of the things I need to do and need to get done, I felt overwhelmed. It was a tough weekend. It was one of those weekends where I realized how big I am. You see, I don't look in the mirror much and when I do it's only my head. All of the mirrors in my house were put up by my brother when he owned the house and he is much taller than I am, so they all just show my head and that's ok with me. I think that's how I have let myself get so out of control. I don't see it. I know that I am fat, however, in my head I still see that 128 pound girl that I used to be.  But this weekend was one of those times that it just hit me. Usually it's right before we have somewhere to go that I am getting dressed up for that it hits me, but not this weekend. This weekend it was because I was having people over and I wanted to get some things done, but I was so tired I just sat on the couch watching cartoons with Parker for an hour.

I got the things done that I wanted to, but there is always about 100 things on my to do list. I am always tired, I guess that makes sense since I only get about 4-5 hours of sleep a day and that is broken up into 2 hour increments. So, what am I doing with the rest of my time? If I have to be awake anyway, why am I wasting so much time? I also know that working out makes me feel good. Well, that's not true, it makes me feel like crap. I'm fat, when  I make my body do these things it hates me and it lets me know it. But then I feel great, and awake, and energized.

I get very sidetracked on the weekends. I can't workout if Brian is home. It's just one of those things I haven't gotten over yet. We have been together long enough you would think it wouldn't bother me for him to see me in workout clothes working out, but for some reason it does. Also on the weekends we eat more meals together. So, I eat worse, I don't work out, this is a vicious cycle that undoes all the work I do all week long. I gotta find a way to change this. I need to get over the fact that I can't workout if Brian is home. There has to be a way. I know once it is nice out he will spend a lot of time outside so that helps, but just that fact that he is home makes me slack. This is unacceptable because I need to start training in cycling soon. Time is flying, it's already mid February!

Tonight was an epiphany. Nothing new, just something that finally clicked for me. If I have to be awake anyway, I may as well take advantage of it. I can work out in front of Parker, so I have no reason not to during the week. The time is going to pass anyway, so why not make the most of it? I can either sit here thinking about the things I need to do, or I can do them. One thing that I have been struggling with is results. It takes a long time to see results when you work out. I am not patient, I want to see results now! But, I can either do nothing and 6 months from now see no changes or I can put in the time and effort and 6 months from now hopefully fit into that dress I bought knowing there is no way I can wear it unless I lose some weight. Either way the 6 months will pass.

What outcome do I want in 6 months?

What besties are for

 Pretty much anyone that has read my blog even once or knows me in real life knows that Ashley is my bestie. I can't even tell you how awesome she is. Recently I was doing some scanning in a facebook group that I am part of and I came across a post where a girl was ranting about the fact that since she had started running a few of her friends/coworkers had decided to start running. This girl was extremely annoyed by this fact. So much so that she was debating telling those people how annoyed she was in hopes that they would stop. She felt that running was "her thing" and she didn't want to share it.

This got me to thinking. Ashley is 100% to thank (blame/curse depending on the day lol) for me starting to run. She started running and when she discovered how much she enjoyed it she invited me to join her. If she hadn't, I most likely never would have started. Before I started my journey to becoming healthy I had thought about working out, but running had never crossed my mind. The only time I have ever run was when I was in the Army and I hated it with a passion. That is an entirely different kind of running people, way different!  Ashley and I sometimes ran together, sometimes not. And by run together I mean we start at the same time and then take off and do our thing and meet at the end. But that makes all the difference in the world.

After reading this girl's post about how mad it made her that she had inspired people, I really thought about what it meant to me that Ashley had shared "her thing" and made it "our thing". I love the fact that we can get together and do things that are fitness related. I have so many awesome memories of the runs we have done together. I'm so fortunate to have a bestie that isn't annoyed by the fact that she is an inspiration to me.

I know that not being able to run through her pregnancy has been tough for her. I know she is very much itching to get back to it. I keep her updated on my progress so that she stays motivated and so that she knows when she gets back to it I will be right there and hopefully a little better at keeping up with her. That girl is fast people, she ran her  half marathon in 2 hours 17 minutes! That's less than a 10 minute mile for over 13 miles!!! She is amazeballs!!! I think it's important for me to recognize this and let her know how much I appreciate her for sharing "her thing".

Have a fantastic day!

Also, you must check out my newest medal. This one is by far my favorite yet. Seeing some summery things is the middle of our super cold "polar vortex" laden winter was totally worth logging some miles to get this baby!