On The Road Again

I'm flying out to Maryland today for a two and a half day meeting hosted by my office.  Friday is a half-day, but I was suckered into invited to attend a meeting following the first meeting.  I'm sooooo popular (ha).  The bright side is I'll land in Atlanta after 8:00 pm so I'll miss (hopefully) rush hour traffic out of downtown.

I am less than excited by the snow/rain forecast for the area I am headed to.  I like cool weather, but not cold.  And definitely not snow.  Snow = ice as far as I am concerned, and I had a bad ice experience the first winter we lived in Virginia.  Atlanta gets a lot less snow, but when we do it is like the Apocalypse. Everything shuts down for days, schools close and people drive even worse than normal.  I have heard there are some nice restaurants around the hotel, so I am looking forward to that.  Plus, sitting in a conference room for three days is like working, but really not.  Sorry, I can't return emails-I'm in a conference.  I hope you have a great week, and I hope I have no icy slip and fall incident to report next week.  : )

The Beauty of Broken- Book Review

"The Beauty of Broken" by Elisa Morgan is her personal story of coming from a broken family of origin and trying to create a perfect family once she was married and had children.  As you might imagine, no family is perfect.  Despite her best intentions and efforts, Elisa's family struggles with unplanned pregnancies, addiction, divorce and death.

I have mentioned in previous book reviews how I am drawn to personal stories that show people's weaknesses and struggles. If you are perfect, I can't relate to you AT ALL.  While I have not been through any of the struggles Elisa writes about specifically, I can relate to the pressure to put on a happy front and hide your problems from the world.

Elisa writes honestly about the difficulties she experienced once her parents divorced.  Elisa, her sister, mother and father all reacted to the divorce in different ways.  Elisa describes these reactions in an emotionally vulnerable way, but without blaming anyone. This description helped me understand why creating a "perfect" marriage and family was so important to her.  It is interesting to note that she was not trying to appear to be a perfect family- she truly wanted to create a perfect life for her husband and children.  

Elisa quite openly shares the struggles her children went through and how it affected Elisa.  While I don't agree with every parenting decision she and her husband made (specifically cutting off a child in an abusive relationship), I appreciate her explanation of how these decisions were made.  As the CEO of MOPS at the time, I would assume having a high profile position like that added more pressure to Elisa to hide any flaws.  I am glad she did not.  This book is a concrete story of what we all know- that no family is perfect- even in the families that look, well, perfect.


This book was provided to me by Booksneeze at no charge in exchange for my review, however all opinions expressed are my own.  

E's Birthday

Earlier this week, we celebrated E's birthday.  My little baby is the big 0-5!  Hubs convinced her of the wisdom of opening some of the more fun toys on Sunday so she would actually have time to play with them. E is going through a "Monster High" phase/obsession right now, so she received a couple of dolls and a movie over the weekend.  (See the obligatory photo proof of her delight.)

It actually was a good idea for her to play with some things on Sunday because she wanted to go out to dinner on her actual birthday.  After work, we loaded everyone up to have dinner at the mall food court. That is seriously where she wanted to eat.  She wanted to eat at the mall and maybe, possibly, probably not get her ears pierced.  The ear piercing place just so happens to be close to Sephora.  By close, I mean within 1000 yards or so- that's close enough, right?  Well, someone decided to mention that McDonalds and Chickfila have play houses and wouldn't that be fun? Guess where we had a birthday dinner.  Yep- golden arches.  Gross.  G and I both despise McDonalds "food" and G is getting too big for the play houses now.  Physically, I mean.  She's about a half-inch shorter than I am.  She will still play the crap out of a play house if we let her.

Anyway, I had already given the obligatory parent (and completely false) assurance that "wherever E wants to go is great- it's her birthday", so I couldn't really justify giving the stink eye to that certain someone with all his great ideas.  I've never been so happy to leave a restaurant in my life. The highlight for me was the delicious chocolate cake from Bill Rhodes Bakery.  If you are ever in the Atlanta/Buford area, I cannot recommend this bakery highly enough.  We've had five or six cakes from them over the last three years and they are so delicious.  Even the cake part is good- and that is saying something for me!

Halloween begins the season of sugar and potential weight gain in our house.  We still had five pounds of Halloween candy before we brought in the birthday cake, then we'll have Thanksgiving and Hubs' birthday this month.  Next month is G's birthday and Christmas, which generally also involve sugar and deliciousness.  It is a good thing I started keeping up with my calories last week or I'd put on another 15 pounds by New Years.  (Fun fact- when I measure out food, I discover that I typically enjoy four servings of salad dressing on my salad or my "normal" diet is 90% carbs!) I did slice a mindfully small sliver of cake, but I savored the heck of it.  : )

Fear Factor

This is from last weekend's fall festival, but the girls will pretty much look like this tonight. Minus the cotton candy (I hope).

How my little angels went from Disney princesses and Tinkerbell to Monster High I'll never know.  I will be glad to go one day without hearing my four year old say, "Mom, can you brush my wig? It's a hot mess." Long sigh.

I really don't enjoy Halloween.  The only memory I have of trick or treating as a child is of being scared crapless of a house that decorated super spooky.  I believe they had a coffin in the front yard one year and the owner liked to dress up scary and terrify children.  Jerk.  I don't enjoy the jump out and scare you kind of scary.  Serial killer TV shows- fine.  "Silence of the Lambs"- awesome.  Haunted hayride- hells no.

It is funny to see the things that scare my kids. G is almost twelve and can handle scarier things than she used to, but she is so funnily calm about getting scared.  She watched part of "The Conjuring" last week with Hubs.  When she hit her tolerance level of scary, she just said, "Okay, I'm out" and went to bed.  Not afraid of going to her room alone or anything.  S is not really afraid of anything that I can tell.  E is a typical (I think) almost five year old.  She claims to like scary things but then gets really freaked out when she sees them. She refuses to go into Halloween stores and had to be carried around Party City to buy a costume.  She gets really scared when Hubs wears fake vampire teeth at Halloween.  It is so odd- she doesn't mind the fangs on the counter, or trying them on herself, but if Hubs puts them in his mouth she flips out.  Guess who didn't get fangs this year?  I'm sure tonight will be interesting since I've scoped out a couple of houses that are pretty guaranteed to make her pee her pants.  Here's hoping we all survive.  The only thing scarier is knowing I am home alone with 300 pieces of candy.

Goodbye Deliciousness

Is there anything you think about, talk about, say "I'm going to", but never actually get around to?  Carrie, meet healthy diet and exercise.  Long sigh.  I've gained a few pounds over the last few years.  Not a huge amount in the grand scheme of things, but a) I don't want to keep gaining every year, and b) it is all in my stomach so I hate all clothing that that isn't loose and baggy.  And yes, I know Stacy London and Clinton Kelly would say baggy clothes just make you look bigger, but I'll take generally bigger over fielding questions about when my baby is due any day.  "Never, I'm just chubby" seems like something I don't want to say to people.

When we moved to D.C., I lost weight with a quickness. I walked to the bus stop, through the metro stations, blocks to my office- so much walking.  Then we moved to Georgia four years ago and I started working from home.  Big shocker- sitting at a desk in your house and driving everywhere you go is not conducive to maintaining a healthy weight.  It might be okay if I didn't love sugar and hate exercise, but I do and I do so here we are.  It also doesn't help when Hubs says things like "we're getting to a certain age" and "slowing metabolism".  I'm only 37!  Take it easy, Grandpa.  

I don't know if I finally got fed up, or because Monday seems like a good starting day, or because I tried on clothes (again) yesterday and hated everything on my tummy (again), but I am starting to watch what I eat today.  I'm counting calories and things on the My Fitness Pal app on my phone, and am planning to start back on some light exercise (shudder).  I seriously hate exercise.  Seriously- I took archery and orienteering as my two required PE courses in college.  That is how much I hate physical exertion.  I'm also going to re-read the book "You on a Diet".  I haven't read it in a couple of years and I need a refresher on what exactly I should and should not be ingesting.  (Did you know some restaurant salads are over 1000 calories?! Shocking to me- and gross.)  I LOVE sugary goodness, so limiting my sugar intake and substituting healthier snacks will probably be the hardest dietary change for me to make.  By the end of the year, I hope to have dropped ten to fifteen pounds.  Anyone else struggling with a little extra weight or have other year end goals?  

Great (Un)Expectations

I've had several reminders in the last week of how a change in plans is sometimes a great thing.  I had an unexpected day off from work earlier this week by way of a sick child.  E woke up with a fever, upset tummy and earache.  Once E had some medicine, she was in good spirits and played or watched TV. Honestly, I was kind of glad to take the day off.    I'm not great at just scheduling a day off so this unexpected free day was pretty good.  It turns out E had nothing serious and headed back to school after a couple of days of milking it, but I certainly didn't mind a day of reading magazines and watching cartoons.

Since I am not able to volunteer at the kids schools very much during the school day, my little ears perk up when they advertise something you can work on at home.  S's school convinced me that I could watch TV while I mindlessly stuffed folders for the big art fundraiser.  I will do almost anything if it allows me to watch TV at the same.  I naively thought I and several other parents would divide up the folders, get them done, easy peasy.  This is what I ended up with:

I was the only parent easily seduced by the lure of multi-tasking during my TV time.  Each kid, first grade through fifth, created an original piece of art, which I stuffed into a green folder along with a letter.  There were probably six hundred or more of them.  I did get them done while watching TV.  For hours.  Over three days.  Sigh.  The upsides are I feel good that I helped the school (and won't feel bad when I pass up the next volunteer opportunity), and I was also able to see what kid's names are popular these days.  There was a Eunice, a Muriel and more than one Leonardo- who knew!

Maybe my best unexpected blessing was when my sister came to visit last weekend.  It is always fun to hang out with my sis, but sometimes she brings clothes.  : )  I guess one woman's trash really is another one's treasure, because more than once I said, "I can't believe she is willing to part with this sweater!  It is awesome!".  I kept (or passed on to G) almost all of her castoffs, including three pairs of jeans.  JEANS, PEOPLE!  I really like buying new clothes, but I really do not like trying them on first.  And of all the clothes to go out and try on, jeans are the absolute worst.  I can (and have) try on ten pairs of jeans and hate them all.  I actually needed jeans and have been putting it off since the trying on part is some traumatic and now I don't have to subject myself to such torture.  I'm wearing my "new" jeans today, as a matter of fact.  And I look awesome.  Thanks, sis!!!

Sweet Olive- Book Review

One benefit of all my recent travel was hours of uninterrupted reading time.  I chose the book Sweet Olive from Booksneeze because a) I have a fondness for books set in the South, b) it sounded like an interesting story, and c) it weighed significantly less than the 600+ page bio of Steve Jobs I was reading.  FYI- books become exponentially heavier the longer you carry them around in your bag.

Sweet Olive centers around Camille Gardner, who works for her uncle and his oil and gas company.  She is typically sent in as the sweet but tough negotiator to persuade hesitant people to sign over their mineral rights. In this case, she is sent to Samford, Louisiana, where she once spent the worst month of her life.  Her job is to convince a group of artists to sign over their mineral rights.  As the story unfolds, we learn more about why she was so hesitant to return to Samford.  Camille has a true love for art, so we also see her struggle with the duties of her job, her want to genuinely help the artists profit by selling their mineral rights, and her growing affection for the artists personally.  There is also a romantic interest thrown in for good measure.

I enjoyed the character of Camille.  She's a strong professional women, but also warm-hearted and sensitive in a very likable way.  The romantic interest angle was (in my opinion) pretty predictable in a standard boy and girl hate each other at first kind of way, and the that plot point was wrapped up very quickly at the end of the book, but I enjoyed reading Sweet Olive from beginning to end.

I received Sweet Olive free from Booksneeze in exchange for my review, but all opinions expressed are my own.