Little Things

Sometimes he surprises me.

Not with big things. He isn’t good with big things usually.

He always gets me with the little things.

Do you hear that guys? It’s not necessarily the big things you do, but the little ones that remind us why we are still allowing you to share our precious space with us.

After laying in bed for a couple of hours, tossing and turning until my stomach felt sick, I debated with myself on getting up. To add to it, Rambo was restless…picking up his leg and dropping it on the bed. No, really. He does that sometimes. It’s freaking weird. He also punches, kicks and talks in his sleep. I read it as “get the hell out of bed and let ME sleep”. He does have passive aggressive tendencies. So I grabbed my tablet and moved to the couch.

You might have caught my ramblings on Twitter during my little bout of insomnia Thursday night. Yes, I did mention something about not having any candy in the house and the possibility of inhaling sugar. Thanks to @count_pooterman for keeping me company and talking photography.

I decided about 2:30 am to try and sleep. It worked until I heard the shower at 4:30 am.

Yeah. Love the time.

Rambo gets up for work at that ungodly hour. So I trudge into the bedroom and shut the door. I really do not want to listen to him pour his cereal and crunch his way through the fiber. I would probably throat punch him at that moment to get him to stop.

I won’t bore you with the morning…let’s just say I put the warning out to everyone. “Stay the fuck out of my way” may or may not have come out of my mouth this morning. I’ll never tell….

About 9:00, Rambo calls.

“Was I snoring? Why didn’t you kick me? You had me worried when you weren’t in bed. I get worried when you aren’t there when I wake up.”

It’s the little things.

Don’t Take that Tone with Me!

I have been married for almost 25 years.

Over half of my life.

A quarter of a century.

I know! I look wayyyyyy too young to be married that long. Take my word for it…I really look young.

Anyone who has been married as long as I have, have kids, work full-time know that when you look back at where you were to where you are now and the way you deal with things, have changed.

Hopefully change for the better.

In my case?

I have gotten more patient with my kids as they have gotten older, stopped worrying about the small stuff and focused on the big things. I wish I had more patience when they were little. But they don’t remember then. They remember the now.

Don’t get me wrong, I still bitch at them when they don’t help with the dishes…or I just get passive aggressive and make lots of noises in the kitchen. Slamming doors, muttering under my breath…”damn kids don’t do nothin’ ’round here”. Is it too much to ask?

I don’t yell anymore. Ok…that’s a lie. A white lie, but a lie no less.

I only yell when it matters. When I really need to get their attention. It seems to work better when they aren’t hearing me bitch all the time. It took me long enough to figure that out. But once I did, my kids respect me more as a parent. Score!

Rambo?

Still hasn’t figured it out. He is like his dad. He gets this tone. Yes…I said TONE. It’s a louder, asswipeish tone that he has that not only grates on my nerves but makes the kids tune him right out. Or, in MJ’s case gets into a shouting match that ends with me sending them to their corners.

So I talk to him about it. “You can’t do that. You need to listen to yourself in how you talk to the kids. They just tune you out. Don’t be so loud and preacher-ish. TALK to them, don’t yell to them.”

I try not to do it in the middle of it because then I get the “you don’t support me” speech…that sounds awfully womanly, doesn’t it?

His response? “I just get so mad at them. They don’t listen to me, so I yell.”

Um. “Maybe….just saying here…maybe it’s because you start out yelling?”

“NO! I DO NOT START OUT YELLING! THEY MAKE ME YELL!!!”

“Do you hear yourself? You are YELLING at me now.” He doesn’t even hear himself anymore. And it is pissing me off because he is loud all the time and he talks to me like I am a child. He yells when he doesn’t need to yell.

I like quiet. And I like peace.

He tells me, “That’s just the way I am. Accept it. I won’t change.”

In the refrains of Steve Martin…Excuuuuuuuuuuuusssssse meeeeee!

Sorry, dude. I can’t accept it. If I can change my ways for the kids and you…You can can change your ways.

Here…let me show you the way….

It will be slow but I will hold your hand…

BTW…puppy comes home today and we have been instructed by Rambo that we can’t be loud. He doesn’t want a fearful puppy…hmmmm.

I will let you know how THAT works out! Hhahahahahahahahaha!

Forever Sassy!

Lost Post-Weekend to myself

Right before I went on a self inflicted hiatus due to pressures at work, I wrote but did not post this. I wrote it in June…

I had a whole weekend to myself.

Again.

I know, right? How lucky am I? Extremely lucky.

I have friends who ask how in the world I can “let” Rambo go for the weekend so much. I don’t “let” him. I push him to do it. In Spring he has his fishing weekends and in the Fall, he has his hunting weekends. I have been extremely lucky this year. I have had two in the last month and I get one more in two weeks.

Woot!!!

So what did I do with all this me time?

I got to go out for dinner and a movie with 2 of the greatest ladies I know. We spent the night laughing at Hangover 2. Yes, I know…a bunch of 40 year old women laughing our asses off at a man film. I think we laughed more than the younger kids did. And  you know what? We didn’t care. We kept laughing through dinner.

I cleaned. I had to! We were meeting up at my house and taking one car. I can’t have them seeing my house dirty! I also cleaned so when the men-folk come home, the mess won’t be multiplied by 100. Because you know it will!

I ate. What I wanted, when I wanted. Cheetos for breakfast? Yep. Pasta for dinner AND tiramisu for dessert? Absolutely. I made marinated portabella mushrooms for dinner tonight from a wonderful blog friend Carole Frenche. They turned out amazing!

And I walked. I walked a lot this weekend. I was motivated and did 5.11 miles on Saturday. Half way through, I was questioning my sanity. WTF was I thinking? I pushed through it. Like I really had any choice. I couldn’t call anyone to come pick me up. I had to get home by myself. And they were on hills. I live on the top of one big ass hill and have to come up a hill no matter what. I wish I would have seen the pain when we bought this house…

So what did I do today? I pushed myself again. Yeah. I had to best myself. Really, what was I supposed to do all day? So I went for a walk. And I walked. And I walked. I did 6 miles today. I know. NUTS!

I keep saying my ass will love me for it all when it is sitting nice, high and proud at the top of my cottage cheese free legs. Hah! Right. I just hope the cottage cheese goes from large curds down to small curds with all this walking.

That and my lovely lady friends are running half marathon in October and want me to join them. I signed on.

Wait. What? I did what? I spent $80 to kill myself…That my dear readers is the epitome of insanity.

“You can totally walk it.” At least that’s what they tell me. HAH!

I have been having a tough time with the running on my C25k program. So if I am going to do a marathon, even a half one, it will probably have to be done walking. but it could be fun though. Notice I say could. I am worried…

Update on the whole marathon thingy…

I never did finish the C25K program, but I did stop running on my torture machine. I found that running outside was soooo much easier despite the hills around me.

So…the half…I did not walk the whole thing. I ended up running the first 6 miles and then doing a combo run/walk for the last half.

Guess what?!?!?!

I finished! And I finished under my goal of 3 hours. I did it in 2:42:32!!!! According to Runkeeper, I ran about 9 miles of the race which is way more than my goal of just walking the damn thing.

I rock. I totally do.

And then we drank. We drank beer at the beer tent. Tried coffee beer (vomit), honey beer (num) and IPA’s and dark beer. We drank. To kill the pain. That along with lots and lots of ibuprofen. Enough to rot a gut.

So what did I do? I came home and registered for another half. I am hooked.

I am on a hiatus from running until February due to surgery last month…so I can’t wait to start training again! I can’t wait for the achy knees, sore ass and being hungry all the time.

Oh..and the ass-lift? Didn’t happen. All those miles and the but isn’t any higher. It’s firmer…just not higher.

Forever Sassy!