Livin’ Life On The Lamb

M I L K

Milk. That’s the word of the day. Gila Man has said it about 600 times in the past 2 days because I forgot to buy it and then WE forgot to buy it and we had to tell Mr. B that we were out of milk.

M I L K

Except that Gila Man doesn’t say “milk”. He says “melk”. Like “melt” but with a “k” on the end. It’s ok that he ldrinks out of the carton, that he puts the dishes in the sink without rinsing them, that he wears his clothes for DAYS on end before he feels that those clothes have earned a spot in the dirty clothes hamper. Actually, these things bug me too, though I can deal with them. I do deal with them. But the “melk” thing, man, that’s just going TOO far!

Just thought I’d vent a little. Thanks.

What’s up with the crack-head snowflakes on my blog? Where did they come from? I shore didn’t pick them…this is a conspiricy…I’ll get to the bottom of this…but first I’m gonna go to bed.

Well, it happened. The tell-tale sign of the beginning of summer: I got burnt. BAD. For some reason, I can’t just gradually tan throughout the summer. I’ve got to get that really bad, miserable, I-totally-just-want-to-die-please-find-some-way-to-sleep-without-laying-on-my-back burn, and then I might, MIGHT, get some color by the end of October. Highly unlikely, but everyone has their dreams, right?

During the week when I work out, Mr. B has to go see the babysitter in the gym for an hour or two. We’ve had our good days and our bad days with him going to see the sitter, but he has been a golden child since I started bribing him with “Swim Fridays”. If he’s good all week and uses his manners and shares the toys and uses nice words and does other nearly impossible things for a three-year-old, we bring our swimmies and our snacks and splash away for an hour or two. Thing is, I go to work out at 8 a.m., so we are in the pool by 9:15 and out by 10:30 or so.

Today, we (girls from the mom’s group and I) were supposed to meet at 10 a.m. to swim and have a picnic lunch - fun, huh? But I was late. 45 minutes late to be exact. What?!? I HAD to stop and get a Dr. Pepper at the gas station because, hello? Swimming and soda pop? It’s like, you know…it’s just like those other things that go together…like…ok, fine. Like peas and carrots, all right? Then they are re-paving the freeway and I was stuck in traffic also. Blah, blah, blah, huh?

Soooo…10:45 until we ate at 12:00. Then a little break and back in the pool we went. Mr. B had two layers of SPF 60 on, but I just quickly sprayed some SPF 15 on and away I went. You can actually see where the sunscreen hit and where it didn’t. I have two white patches on my shoulders where the sunscreen was, a white line where my suit went, and a HUGE patch of red accross my back.

I feel like I’ve been cooked. Just thought I’d let you know that I might not be able to sit up to post for a few days. Besides, there sure isn’t much going on in my life right now anyway. Except for the stimulus check. That was an exciting way to start the day. But that’s all for now. Hope everyone else’s summer is off to a wicked good start like mine!!

Thirteen Things I Have Learned Since I Started Working Out:

1. Monday mornings may be hard, but they sure do set the pace for the week.

2. It’s worth getting up 15 minutes earlier in order to get the nice step, the non-grimy weights, the inflated ball, and the good spot on the floor (under the fan, of course).

3. Singing while working out is frowned upon, especially in the weight room, ESPECIALLY when there are guys around. Even if the song ROCKS, and it takes all your effort to keep from bursting into song…keep the love to yourself.

4. Wearing less clothes doesn’t mean you are in good shape.

5. Exhaling very loudly while pressing any amount of weights does not make you look stonger. It reminds everyone in the room that we should all brush our teeth before going to the gym.

6. Perfume stinks when you sweat. Really. Don’t wear perfume before coming to the gym. You will smell like a dirty hooker by the time you leave, and people will shy away from you in step aerobics class.

7. Nobody wipes down the machines or mats when they are done using and sweating all over them.

8. Soooo, wipe down all the machines before and after you use them. Especially before.

9. Working out is one of the only ways that I can be happy all the time. Even if I don’t want to be there, I leave feeling like the most gorgeous woman in the gym and I’m pumped for the rest of the day.

10. You must keep working out. No stopping. No breaks. Especially not for two months, even if you’re sick, because when you go back, you WILL feel as though you’ve been hit by a truck. A big one. Like Mac from Cars.

11. Lunges suck. I hate them. They were created by Satan and that’s what bad people will be doing in Hell if they don’t eat their vegetables and say their prayers. I have been doing lots of both so I don’t go to Hell. I hate lunges.

12. My face gets so red during aerobics that I look like I’ve just spent 43 or so hours in the Sahara Desert without a hat or water or any shade. But I’ve lost 30 pound since I started in October, and I feel great, so I can deal with the red face!

13. It’s bad manners to stand next to the machine I happen to be using in the weight room and sigh heavily and tap your foot and act like I’m in your way and ruining your workout. Especially when I rest between sets. Give me a break! Oh, and the no singing during your workout? Really don’t do it while resting between sets when the aforemention goon is standing and tapping his foot and sighing loudly and waiting for “his” machine. He will get mad. Then he’ll go talk to the manager. But by the time they come back together, you’re on the next machine, pumping iron as if your life depended on that last press and the guy looks like a giant dork.

Well, when we bought this house and went to turn on the utilities, we found out that the whole house it entirely electric. This gave us a great discount on our electric bill and makes for really fast heating, cooling and cooking also.

We have been doing really well with keeping the bill down, but last month it jumped up to $145.00. That is the very highest bill we’ve had. Granted last month was a COLD month, but we knew we had to change a few things. We turn off lights, fans, the stove, and just be very aware of what electronics we have on. We’ve also opened the windows during the day to keep the house nice and cool.

I have changed a few habits as well; because we have those really great LED nightlights in every room, I rarely have to turn on any lights when I, say, go into our bathroom to brush my teeth. I have been doing this for a month now and never had a mishap.

Ahem, all I have to say is that I yelled at Gila Man to never, EVER put his tube of hydrocortisone cream on the same shelf as MY toothpaste ever again.

What a price to pay to keep the freakin’ bill down. YUK!!!

Maybe I’m a lucky Mom. Maybe I was just careful enough to avoid it. Maybe…oh I don’t know, I think I was just lucky. Then I went and ruined it. Typical of me, naturally. What happened is that I posted on someone else’s blog that I had never had to clean up puke before, only a little baby spit-up and some pee once in awhile. I did it to myself really.

Last night I had to go to The Church and put a few things on the bulletin board for Primary because the pictures of the kids didn’t take up nearly as much space as I thought they would. Mr. B asked me very nicely if we could please go home yet. I told him we would head home as soon we went to w.a.l.m.a.r.t and I picked up cat food, lysol, and PAM. While in said store, Mr. B sat calmly and quietly in the cart, occasionally asking if I got “the list stuff” yet so we could go home.

“Let’s PLEASE be Homies, Momma.” he said softly.

I relented (because that place is just a disaster and a mess and was super crowded!) and we checked out with our stuff and made our way to the car.

“Are you hungry?” I asked.

“Yes, Momma.” he replied. “I would like cereal for dinner please.”

“Sorry, buddy” I said, “Daddy said we aren’t allowed to eat cereal for dinner anymore. It’s not healthy. How about a bean burrito?”

“Ok,” he said.

I ran to Taco Bell, grabbed two bean burritos without onions, drove home, unloaded the bags and we sat down to eat.

“My beans are yucky, Momma.” Mr. B informed me.

Thinking he just wanted to eat mine, I let him take a bite to see they were the same.

“Yours is yummy, Momma. May I please eat more?”

“Eat two more bites of yours and then you can have more of mine.” I told him.

He obeyed. I shared the rest of mine and we got ready for bed. All he wanted to do was sit on my lap, so we went into my bedroom and sat in the rocking chair for a little bit. Anyone who knows my son knows that he doesn’t just want to sit on anyone’s lap for long, so I suspected that he wasn’t feeling well. That feeling was confirmed when he fell asleep on my lap a few moments later.

Not wanting this rare and tender moment to pass, I just sat there and held him for a few minutes. My baby. My big boy. My son.

Mr. B coughed. The coughed again. Then he started to choke a little. I lifted up his head and out spewed half of the dinner he ate. And let me tell ya, bean burritos don’t smell so great after they’ve been ruminating around in a young boy’s stomach for a few minutes.

Still half asleep, I tried to stand Mr. B up to keep us from stepping in the PUKE, and he came to enough to stand there and look around and say, “What is all that stuff, Momma? It’s stinky.”

Then he started to cough again. And then he started to PUKE so more. I lifted him up by the arms in an attempt to swing him into our bathroom, which only ended in PUKE being spewed on the door, cabinet, floor, and around the bottom of the toilet. Mr. B stood looking down into the toilet water and managed to spit ONE BEAN into the water. ONE BEAN when my whole room looked as though someone had exploded in it.

Now, I have never, NEVER, cleaned up PUKE before. Spit-up, bird poop, stinky diapers, dog throw up, lots of other gross things I have dealt with. But not PUKE. It stinks! It’s nasty! It’s just gross!!!

I had to strip Mr. B down to his chonies and get clean jammies on him. Then he rinsed his mouth out, brushed his teeth, and climbed into his own bed with his very own PUKE bowl resting next to him. And then came the hard part. If it wasn’t for her, I don’t know what I would have done to get the smell out of the carpet.

It took me 8 teakettles of water and 16 towels to clean up the entire mess so my room didn’t smell like PUKE anymore. I looked kinda like this girl, but I was stepping on towels and sopping up boiling hot water.

I did discover something, though. If I used a dry, dark towel and put it on the boiling water right after I poured it, I could step on it and write my initials and other shapes on the towel (until I had to keep stepping to keep soaking up the PUKE water).

When Gila Man called from work to see what I was up to, he got quite an earfull. We finally just laughed about it and reminded each other about how there’s a first time for EVERYTHING. Even PUKE.

But you can bet your bottom we’re having cereal for dinner tonight.

Yep, that’s right. Rice Crispy Treats are my very, VERY favorite dessert. I know it’s silly and even ridiculous next to all the tasty desserts that are out there, but it’s these tried and true treats that are my fav.

I love them so much that I even attempted to make them WITHOUT PAM. You know, the cooking spray that keeps things from sticking to the pot? I buy mine at Costco, but the last time I made a Costco run I was in such a hurry that I forgot to pick up the 8-can case (ok, it’s a three can case, but they are huge cans and they last us forever).

Without Pam, I feel lost. It’s a pain to make spaghetti, or soup, or eggs, or chicken or ANYTHING!! But I was feeling desperate. I’m at the end of my pack of pills, I’ve switched medications, my husband was playing with Mr. B in the garage, and I knew it was now or never. So I rushed around the kitchen gathering marshmallows, butter, Rice Crispies, and a pot. In went the butter, then went the marshmallows. I stirred and stirred and stirred, but the marshmellows still stuck to the bottom. Slowly, at first, but then more and more and more started to stick. I started to scrape. Stick and scrape, stick and scrape. I just wanted the marshmallows to melt so I could mix them with the crunchy crispies and eat them, for cryin’ out loud!! Stick and scrape, stick and scrape.

As the stench of scorched marshmellows wafted through our little home, Hele came in to find me frantically trying to mix the few cups of marshmallows that were’nt burnt with the little bit of crispies that could be mixed in.

Hovering over the gooey concoction, I looked at him and said, “Hey, these are MINE!”

“No problem!” he replied, “Doesn’t smell like anything I’d wanna eat anyway.”

So I ate the three or four bites of what I could salvage, but for some reason, when there’s nobody there to compete with, it kinda takes all the glory out of the triumph.