Fat and Jiggly... Like I'm Apparently Supposed to Be

This morning the girls went to Grandma’s house with Daddy. This way I could attend a local gardening class put on by a woman from the mommy group.

I had dreams of sleeping late. (In fact, I was dreaming about lost panties and planting seeds, but you know what I mean. Right?)

Tom brought Fynnie in to nurse around 3:30 this morning. He brought Madelyn in half an hour later to gather up the Fynn girl and get going.

Getting going takes about half an hour, even with my considerable help, and even with the girls heading out in their jams with a bag of clothes for the day.

Only the bag of clothes got left here. And Margaret and I had recently weeded through what she had to remove things the girls have outgrown. They have outgrown a lot. I haven’t replaced those things yet, so I couldn’t tell Tom to just keep going when he called seven minutes after leaving to say he was coming back.

By the time they were on the road again (do do doo do dooo), it was quarter to 5:00 and I was up. Thoughts of what I might do to fill the next four and half hours floated through my head.

I can exercise!

I could use some of those very ripe bananas and learn how to make banana bread!

I could…

The reality was messing around on Facebook, catching up on some banking and an earlier shower than I’d initially planned. Oh, and I used the face file to get rid of reduce the stray eyebrows on my chin. Exciting, I know.

The gardening class was awesome. And by awesome I mean it was freaking fantastic. We have almost 100 starters going already, and it was nice to know that everything but the winter squash mix (doh!) should do well. I am sitting here with a seed catalog that is, as the instructor said, full of gorgeous wall art.

And, because I am admittedly weird about things like this, I will tell you that the catalog smells great, too. There are a lot of modern printings that smell horrible. Nothing smells as good as old books, but this is a very nice alternative to the nastiness that is the modern paper. In case you were wondering.

On the way home, I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things. (And to curse my stupid phone that will only hold a charge for about six minutes if I, you know, use it. But that’s another story.)

Came home and reconsidered the list of things I could do. The first one, again, was exercising.

It’s a sad state of affairs, this body of mine. I had started using Jillian Michaels’ 30 Day Shred a few months back. By started using, I mean I used it two days in a row. It was definitely painful effective. But it was hard. One hundred times worse than hard, it was boring. So a few weeks ago I bought a Zumba-like DVD called Rhythmica.

Where Jillian Michaels’ DVD is physically challenging because I’m rather weak and out of shape, Rhythmica is freaking impossible because… as it just so happens… I’m not a hip hop dancer. How did I not know this?!

I realized pretty quickly the Rhythmica DVD is beyond my capacity. (Seriously, I wasn’t even close to keeping up when he was doing what was apparently just the “let me slow it down and show you how we’re going to do this” segments. And then he’d take to triple time.)

Fortunately, one of the moms on my group recently posted a link to a series of free exercise videos on YouTube. And I saved the link in a new Favorites folder entitled Exercise. Because I am going to conquer this fat, jiggly ass. Right?! I stopped the DVD and clicked on the YouTube link.

Started exercising. Thirty seconds in or so, I was feeling confident that this was much more my speed.

And was thwarted by a loading error on AOL.

Switched to Google Chrome and can’t get it to load. (I’ve even tried a few times while writing this post into a Word doc since I can only post on here through Google.

I am beginning to wonder if it’s just the universe saying, “Sure, your ass is fat and jiggly. Keep it that way. I like it! It’s fun watching you stress over which pair of pants will make you least resemble a certain desert animal or TSA worker!”

That's my new story, I look this way for entertainment purposes.

What the Hey?!

For the past day and a half I have not been able to stay signed in long enough to comment on anyone's blogs.  And let me say that I have typed out some brilliant and witty comments.

So if you have posted something but haven't heard from me, it's not for not trying.

Anyone else having the same problem? 

I guess I'll know if you don't answer.

My Word

Ever suddenly face a new difficulty while doing something you've done hundreds of times in the past with no problems?  If you're like me (the me of these days when sleep is a rare treat and caffeine even rarer), you have a couple of standard responses.

First, you continue attempting to do things the old way.  Why will it only upload one photo at a time?  It's probably just a glitch.  If I keep trying this, maybe the glitch will go away.

Second, walk away and figure you'll come back to it later.  Ugh!

Third, come back and try the old way again.  Five more times.  Begin thinking in symbols.  Maybe I'll just take this piece of %#$&@ and throw it out the %^&##% window!

Fourth, find a new way of doing the old job.  Only this way is incredibly time consuming and, therefore, extra frustrating.  %^#^#%^%*  $%*$&%*$&*  @$@#$^!!!

Fifth and finally, you might try posting a question about how to resolve the problem.  Anyone know of an easier way to post photos on my blog?  The old way isn't working.  #@$$$%!  If anyone knows the answer, you can be my new BFF.

Someone wonderful and full of the knowledge of Blogger and Picasa might. come along and give a simple suggestion.  Have you tried uploading directly to Picasa?

Well I'm here to say, Step aside Nance!  There's a new BFF in town and her name is Heather (no, not Luke Skywalker's mama Heather).  This Heather is mama to Baby J and Bean.  Baby J is older than Bean, which is just confusing enough to make me like her even more.

When one acquires a new BFF, it's a good idea to learn a little about them.  I mean, I'm used to awkward silences and uncomfortable glances, but keeping those to a minimum whenever possible doesn't hurt either.  So I dashed over to Heather's blog, conveniently named Mama to Baby J and Bean.

I already was aware that Bean is cute as a button and has Williams Syndrome and that Baby J is adorable, even without any "and has"'es.  And I remember watching a news program (20 or so years ago) on the happy, smiling, musical, elfin people with Williams Syndrome.  So I felt like I already had a handle on all of that.

Yeah, no.  Yet again I discover that there's a whole other dimension to life than what I'd heard.  You can check out some of that by reading this post.

Above all else, Heather is a mama and as many mamas do, has a couple of birth stories to share.  She's not as wordy as some of *ahem* and managed to get both stories in one post about her relationship with pain management.

If you're over there, feel free to drop her a comment, letting her know how happy you are to see pictures on my blog again.  And to help you feel happier about photos on my blog, here are a few from Madelyn's first Easter, which also happened to be her first birthday.  I'll post photos from yesterday and today another time.

Feeding herself.

First time directly in the bath.  She loved it!

Daddy will do anything to make it better.