Four

As much as I hate to admit it (rather, I hate the need for the admission), I have made the decision to do something about my current state of health. This week I re-joined Weight Watchers. Something needed to be done and since it worked for me a number of years ago, I decided to try it again.

You know how it goes; all foods/beverages have a point value and you are allowed to consume a certain number of points per day. It's nice in that you can have whatever you want, but the points really do disappear quickly.

This brings me to my problem with the number four.

Four is the number of points that my morning latte from Starbucks contains. FOUR. That doesn't seem fair at all! I don't get that many points in a day and it seems completely insane that I should have to spend four of them right off the get-go with my coffee.

I know what you're thinking: Skip the latte. But that's just silliness. Of course I'm going to have the latte. I'm just going to gripe about it every day. Four is a ridiculous amount of points for my non-fat, decaf vanilla latte!

'Nuff said. (For now!) :-)

My Fairy Tale Life

Today I feel like Goldilocks.

I'm not having a problem with porridge, chairs or beds. The issue is with my pillow.

We were way overdue for new pillows; I'm pretty sure that my hubby's pillow was as flat as it could be and mine wasn't far behind. I got an ad in the mail the other day that Penny's was having a killer sale, so I went and purchased new pillows for the whole family. Unfortunately, I just can't seem to get mine right.

The first one that I got home was too small. I accidentally got a standard one instead of a queen. I promptly took that one back and purchased the appropriate size.

I then realized that the one I'd brought home was too hard. Now I know it said "firm" on the label, but I really did want some support so I thought that was the one to go with. It isn't. It is way too hard! There's no give in it at all; it holds my neck at a very awkward angle and makes my back hurt.

What next? Well, if "firm" isn't right, the next logical choice is "medium", right? Nope. I can't use that one...that one is way too soft and gives me no support whatsoever. My head just sinks!

Seriously, getting the right pillow shouldn't be this much work. I could take the Goldilocks approach; she ran down the stairs, opened the door, ran away into the woods and never returned. Somehow that doesn't seem like the best option though. I guess I'll keep looking for a pillow that works for me.

We Are of Peace. Always.

While I'm definitely selective, I can be a bit of a SciFi geek from time to time. With that in mind, last night was huge.

I can't tell you how excited I was when I found out that they were remaking "V". I loved the Original Miniseries, the Final Battle and even the terribly campy series. My dad and I never missed an episode and we had the VHS recordings of many of them. I should also mention that for two Halloweens in a row, I went out as "V" characters.

So last night, we sent the kids upstairs at around 10:30pm, I settled under my cozy blanket on the couch, we found "V" on our dvr list and hit play.

And.....

I loved it! Sure, it's campy, just like the old ones were, but it was awesome!

Morena Baccarin totally worked as Anna. I was a bit worried because Jane Badler was such a perfect Diana, but they did a good job with the new character. Erica and Jack did well (presumably) representing Julie and Donovan. We have an alien traitor, a resistance forming and a teenage human/alien love story budding...all good stuff. And who doesn't love Alan Tudyk?

The only thing that bugged me slightly was that they kept calling them "the V's". I would have preferred referring to them as "the visitors" as they did back in the day, but that's minor and I'm willing to overlook it.

All in all, I give it two thumbs up (I'd award more if I had more thumbs) and I'm hooked. I will no longer be taking phone calls, texts or emails on Tuesday nights from 8pm - 9pm. I'll be channeling my preteen/teenage self and watching a ridiculously-awful-yet-terribly-fabulous TV series. :-)

I Love Surprises

Today I had a coffee related blog prepared. It's kind of a grumpy blog, I was in a mood. My plan was to drop John off at school, stop for a cup of coffee and then come home and vent to all of you.

All of that changed, however, when I walked in to Starbucks to get my coffee.

I had no idea that today is Red Cup Day! I celebrate this day every year but somehow I missed that today is the oh-so-glorious return of my dear friend, the Red Cup. What a needed surprise this morning!

Tomorrow you still may get the grumpy blog, but for today, I am going to celebrate the joining of two of my favorite things: Fall and Red Cups.

Uncharacteristically Me

If you've been around me very much, you know that I hate to be late. In fact, I usually consider myself late if I'm not where I need to be at least 10 minutes early. I've never been late to church. My kids have never been late to school. We're not late to sports, lessons, appointments... I'm not late!

That is (insert BIG sigh here), until now.

Being November 1st, yesterday was beginning of NaBloPoMo and since it's now 11:30am on November 2nd, clearly I'm running behind. I participated last year, I even did it in 2006 back when I was blogging on MySpace (do you even remember MySpace?).

Several times yesterday I thought about it and was kicking around the idea of trying it again this year. I even read posts of some of my buddies who are participating. I just figured that I'd do it later.

What's that? You ask what was so occupying of my time yesterday that I never got around to blogging? Well, there was Matt's 7:15am baseball game. Then church. Then lunch. Then, well, then came the important stuff: watching football, snoozing on the couch, farming, whipping up food in Cafe World, making (real) dinner, watching the World Series, watching a movie with the kids, taking down Halloween decorations and putting up Thanksgiving decorations. See? My day was just packed! :-)

All that to say, this year NaBloPoMo for me begins on November 2nd. I have no idea what you're going to get from me; life is flying by at an alarming speed and my brain feels quite mushy most of the time. I was promised a few visits by the Starbucks Fairy if I do this though, so that alone will make it worth the effort of trying to think of something to write about every day.

Anyhow, here's to trying! See you tomorrow.

Nicknames

I've had many nicknames over the years; I don't think any have made me giggle quite so much as one that I just received this week.

There's a boy on John's All Star team that John has never played with before so he really doesn't know our family. All he knows is that for the All Star season, I'm the lady that's his "team mom". For paperwork, certifications, uniforms, jackets, etc. he has to go through me.

To get the proper mental picture, you should know that this 14 year old is about the same size as my husband, if not a bit taller, and he has a visible mustache going.

Every time he calls for my attention, I snicker a bit inside. In the most polite voice that a 14 year old can muster, he kindly calls out...

"Mrs. Team Mom?"

I love it.

Return of the Jedi

Well, it's more like Return of the Blog.
Okay, and the quote that I'm about to share is actually from A New Hope.
But still, you get my drift...

My oldest son, John, is starting high school this fall and he's trying out for the football team. (How it all came about is kind of a neat story, but I'll save that for another day.) Football camp started this week, and the coach had said that Wednesdays would be "light days" to give the muscles a break. So yesterday was Yoga day.

While I'm reasonably certain that no weird, yoga voodoo took place, John thought that the instructor's quiet voice and all of the "breathe in and out" stuff was goofy. This is what he had to say about it on the way home:

"During Yoga today, I wanted to shout out 'Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.' "


I'm glad that he didn't. I'm also glad that he knows his Star Wars so well.